Salvation from Hell (Arabic: Al Najun Min Al Nar, also translated as Saved from the Inferno) was a militant Islamic organization which operated in Egypt in the 1980s.
During a 1989 trial in Egypt, 26 defendants were charged with forming Salvation from Hell, an illegal paramilitary organization, in addition to other charges. [1] [2] The Egyptian government broke off ties with Iran following allegations that Iran funded the group. [3] Yasser Borhamy was detained for a month in 1987 due to his alleged connection with the assassination attempt against interior minister Hassan Abu Basha. [4] Hussein al-Zawahiri, the brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri and Muhammad al-Zawahiri, was convicted for his alleged role in the assassination attempt. [5]
Al-Qaeda is a Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization led by Salafi jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic state known as the Caliphate. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countries, including the 1998 United States embassy bombings, the 2001 September 11 attacks, and the 2002 Bali bombings; it has been designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries around the world.
Islamism is a religio-political ideology. While there is no consensus definition of Islamism, which has many varieties and alternative names, and whose use is objected to by some as derogatory, and by others as so broad and flexible as to have lost its meaning; at least in its original form, Islamism described an ideology seeking to revive Islam to its past assertiveness and glory, purifying it of foreign elements, reasserting its role into “social and political as well as personal life"; and in particular “reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam". According to at least one observer, Islamist movements have "arguably altered the Middle East more than any trend since the modern states gained independence", redefining "politics and even borders".
The Society of the Muslim Brothers, better known as the Muslim Brotherhood, is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings spread far beyond Egypt, influencing today various Islamist movements from charitable organizations to political parties—not all using the same name.
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri was an Egyptian-born terrorist and physician who served as the second emir of al-Qaeda from June 16, 2011, until his death on July 31, 2022.
Qutbism is an Islamist ideology which was developed by Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966. It has been described as advancing the extremist, jihadist ideology of propagating "offensive jihad" – waging jihad in conquest – "armed jihad in the advance of Islam", and simply "Islamic-based terrorism".
Al-jamāʻah al-islāmīyah (Arabic: الجماعة الإسلامية, "the Islamic Group"; also transliterated El Gama'a El Islamiyya; also called "Islamic Groups" and transliterated Gamaat Islamiya, al Jamaat al Islamiya, is an Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement, and is considered a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom and the European Union. El Gama'a El Islamiyya was removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the United States in May 2022. The group was dedicated to the overthrow of the Egyptian government and replacing it with an Islamic state; the group has committed to peaceful means following the coup that toppled Mohamed Morsi.

Islam is the dominant religion in Egypt, with approximately 90.3% of Egyptians identifying as Muslims. The majority of Egyptian Muslims are adherents of Sunni Islam, while a small minority adhere to Shia Islam. Since 1980, Islam has served as Egypt's state religion. Due to the lack of a religious census, owing to the alleged undercounting of non-Muslim minorities in Egyptian censuses, the actual percentage of Muslims is unknown; the percentage of Egyptian Christians, who are the second-largest religious group in the country, is estimated to be between 5% and 15% of the population.
Religion in Egypt controls many aspects of social life and is endorsed by law. The state religion of Egypt is Islam. Although estimates vary greatly in the absence of official statistics. Since the 2006 census religion has been excluded, and thus available statistics are estimates made by religious and non-governmental agencies. The country is majority Sunni Muslim, with the next largest religious group being Coptic Orthodox Christians. The exact numbers are subject to controversy, with Christians alleging that they have been systemically under-counted in existing censuses.
Terrorism in Egypt in the 20th and 21st centuries has targeted the Egyptian government officials, Egyptian police and Egyptian army members, tourists, Sufi Mosques and the Christian minority. Many attacks have been linked to Islamic extremism, and terrorism increased in the 1990s when the Islamist movement al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya targeted high-level political leaders and killed hundreds – including civilians – in its pursuit of implementing traditional Sharia law in Egypt.
Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif,, aka "Dr. Fadl" and Abd Al-Qader Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz, has been described as a "major" figure "in the global jihad movement." He is said to be "one of Ayman Al-Zawahiri's oldest associates", and his book al-'Umda fi I'dad al-'Udda, was used as a jihad manual in Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Fadl is reported to be one of the first members of Al Qaeda’s top council.
Yasser Borhami is an Egyptian Salafi Muslim activist and preacher. He is one of the founders of the Salafist Call, a movement that created the Salafist Al Nour Party in 2011. He is also the vice president of the Salafist Call. Borhamy was detained for a month in 1987 due to his alleged connection with the assassination attempt against interior minister Hassan Abu Basha by the group Salvation from Hell.
The Vanguards of Conquest is a terrorist organization that was originally founded in 1993 as a branch of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad operating in Somalia, but became a separate faction that eventually folded back into the group under the leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The revived group is currently led by Magdy Salem. The group has intervened to stop jihadis in the Sinai Peninsula from attacking Israel.
Ahmad Salama Mabruk, known as Abu Faraj al-Masri, was a senior leader in the Syrian militant group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and was previously a leader in Jabhat al-Nusra and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant groups. He was present alongside Abu Muhammad al-Julani at the announcement of the creation of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. He was one of 14 people subjected to extraordinary rendition by the CIA before the 2001 declaration of a War on Terror.
Called together in the Sudan by Hassan al-Turabi, the 1991 Popular Arab and Islamic Congress Conference sought to unify Mujahideen and other Islamic elements in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Iraqi defeat in the Gulf War. It sought to provide an alternative to the Saudi-dominated Organization of the Islamic Conference, although it did not have its financial means.
Hassan Abu Basha was a major general and one of the former ministers of interior of Egypt who was in office for two years from January 1982 to July 1984.
The Democratic Jihad Party was an Egyptian political party made up of former members of the group Egyptian Islamic Jihad; it was also made up of members of other "former jihadist groups". The party is also known as the Islamic Democratic Jihad Party, as well as the Islamist Jihadi Party. A member of the party has stated that the party has "failed". The party has stated that it supported Ahmed Shafiq in the 2012 presidential election; Sabra Ibrahim, a deputy founder in the party, stated that the party gave its support to Shafiq in order to prevent the establishment of a theocratic state ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood. The party condemned the attack in August 2012 that killed 16 soldiers, saying that it was committed by “sinful terrorist[s].” Yasser Saad is now a member of an umbrella coalition of former jihadis, ex-members of the Muslim Brotherhood and ex-al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya members called the Moderate Front.
The Anti-Coup Alliance is a coalition in Egypt formed to reverse the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi. The coalition is made up of approximately 40 Islamist parties and groups.
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, formerly called simply Islamic Jihad and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and then the Jihad Group, or the Jihad Organization, is an Egyptian Islamist group active since the late 1970s. It is under worldwide embargo by the United Nations as an affiliate of Al-Qaeda. It is also banned by several individual governments worldwide. The group is a proscribed terrorist group organization in the United Kingdom under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Ahmed Hussein Harkan is an Egyptian free speech activist. He is a blogger, vlogger and founder of the Free Mind e-channel, and frequently appeared on several Egyptian talk shows to discuss the rights of nonbelievers during his 10 years as an atheist and activist from 2010 until 2020. On March 30, 2020, four months after completing a 57-day hunger strike protesting for his right to leave Egypt and marry his fiancée in Tunisia, Harkan said he had returned to Islam. After he managed to leave Egypt to Tunisia in January 2021, Harkan returned to his activities again as an atheist activist. And after a few months he spent in Tunisia he moved to Italy and continued his activities.
Al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, or AQSP, is an Egyptian militant jihadist organization possibly formed by a merger between al-Qaeda operatives in Sinai and Ansar al Jihad. It is Al-Qaeda's branch in the Sinai peninsula, and is composed of many Al-Qaeda factions in the area. Despite sharing similar ideology and possibly some resources, AQSP and the Islamic State have never formally affiliated with one another.