The following post is my translation of the audio message “And among them are those who have fulfilled and died,” released today by the Islamic State’s al-Furqan Media, featuring a speech by the group’s new spokesman ‘Abu Omar al-Muhajir,’ who confirms not only the death of the previous leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi but also the death of the previous spokesman Abu Hamza al-Qurashi. In a speech that very much recalls 2019, he adds that the Majlis Shura did not delay to implement Abu Ibrahim’s counsel and appoint a new leader as caliph: Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi (whose name circulated among some Islamic State supporters in the aftermath of Abu Ibrahim’s death). He urges the Muslims and mujahideen to pledge allegiance to the new caliph.
Below is my initial rough translation of the full speech.
Praise be to God the powerful and strong, who gives might to His monotheist servants and lowers His disbelieving enemies, and prayers and peace be upon the one sent with the sword as a mercy to the worlds, and his family, companions, and those who have followed them with ihsan to the Day of Judgement.
The Almighty has said: “Among the believers are men who have been true to what they have pledged to God, and among them are those who have fulfilled and died, and among them are those who await and they have not made any replacement.”
We announce to the Muslims in the east and west of the earth and the mujahideen of the Islamic State the death of the mujahid, knowledgeable, working, worshipping Caliph, Amir al-Mu’mineen, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, and the official spokesman for the Islamic State, the muhajir sheikh Abu Hamza al-Qurashi (may God accept them both), who were killed boldly going forth, not turning back, during the past days, and we ask God to accept them both with the prophets, siddiqs and martyrs, and the just ones (how good they are as companions), and to God we belong and to Him do we return.
Oh my eye, well and water with tears from heavy clouds on the lions of the clash. The sheikh and great leader was killed, after two decades of attaining excellence, a knight of war who was heroic in it, under the shade of bullets and shocks, oh Amir al-Mu’mineen, indeed he sufficed for us. Truly you are the people of lesson and fighting, a ruler who implemented the rule of the Shari’a among us, so we were blessed with the bounty of it through the best shade, a knowledgeable, worshipping true mujahid, the one of beneficial precedence and good qualities. Indeed there is glory in the killing of men, and they are bridges to the best of excellence, and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir was a lion, true in words and true in deeds, who struck through statement every coward, through arrows that were without arrowheads, the kindling of war as every sword was unsheathed from the soldiers of Islam and its heroes. May God have mercy on our sheikh as we have hoped that in killing is the conclusion of deeds.