The Most Famous
EXTREMISTS from Egypt
This page contains a list of the greatest Egyptian Extremists. The pantheon dataset contains 209 Extremists, 4 of which were born in Egypt. This makes Egypt the birth place of the 13th most number of Extremists behind Poland and Japan.
Top 4
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Egyptian Extremists of all time. This list of famous Egyptian Extremists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951 - 2022)
With an HPI of 67.34, Ayman al-Zawahiri is the most famous Egyptian Extremist. His biography has been translated into 69 different languages on wikipedia.
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (Arabic: أيمن محمد ربيع الظواهري, romanized: ʾAyman Muḥammad Rabīʿ aẓ-Ẓawāhirī; 19 June 1951 – 31 July 2022) was an Egyptian-born militant and physician who served as the second general emir of al-Qaeda from June 2011 until his death in July 2022. Al-Zawahiri graduated from Cairo University with a degree in medicine and a master's degree in surgery and was a surgeon by profession. He became a leading figure in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an Egyptian Islamist organization, and eventually attained the rank of emir. He was imprisoned from 1981 to 1984 for his role in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. His actions against the Egyptian government, including his planning of the 1995 attack on the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan, resulted in him being sentenced to death in absentia during the 1999 "Returnees from Albania" trial. A close associate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri held significant sway over the group's operations. He was wanted by the United States and the United Nations, respectively, for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and in the 2002 Bali bombings. He merged the Egyptian Islamic Jihad with al-Qaeda in 2001 and formally became bin Laden's deputy in 2004. He succeeded bin Laden as al-Qaeda's leader after bin Laden's death in 2011. In May 2011, the U.S. announced a $25 million bounty for information leading to his capture. On July 31, 2022, al-Zawahiri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan.
2. Mohamed Atta (1968 - 2001)
With an HPI of 54.95, Mohamed Atta is the 2nd most famous Egyptian Extremist. His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.
Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta (Arabic: محمد محمد الأمير عوض السيد عطا; 1 September 1968 – 11 September 2001) was an Egyptian terrorist hijacker from al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he was the ringleader of the September 11 attacks and served as the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which he crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the coordinated suicide attacks. Aged 33, he was the oldest of the 19 hijackers who took part in the mission. Born and raised in Egypt, Mohamed Atta studied architecture at Cairo University, graduating in 1990, and pursued postgraduate studies in Germany at the Hamburg University of Technology. In Hamburg, Atta became involved with the al-Quds Mosque where he met Marwan al-Shehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ziad Jarrah, together forming the Hamburg cell. Atta disappeared from Germany for periods of time, embarking on the hajj in 1995 but also meeting Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan from late 1999 to early 2000. Atta and the other Hamburg cell members were recruited by bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a "planes operation" in the United States. Atta returned to Hamburg in February 2000 and began inquiring about flight training in the United States, where he, Jarrah, and al-Shehhi arrived in June to learn how to pilot planes, obtaining instrument ratings in November. Beginning in May 2001, Atta assisted with the arrival of the "muscle" hijackers whose role was to subdue passengers and crew to enable the hijacker-pilots to take over. In July, Atta traveled to Spain to meet with bin al-Shibh to finalize the plot, then in August traveled as a passenger on "surveillance" flights to establish in detail how the attacks could be carried out. On the morning of 11 September 2001, Atta and his team boarded and hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which Atta crashed into 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower). More than 1,600 people died as a result of the crash, ensuing fire, and subsequent collapse of the tower, making him responsible for the single deadliest air crash of all time, as well as the single deadliest terrorist attack of all time.
3. Omar Abdel-Rahman (1938 - 2017)
With an HPI of 54.90, Omar Abdel-Rahman is the 3rd most famous Egyptian Extremist. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (Arabic: عمر عبد الرحمن), (ʾUmar ʾAbd ar-Raḥmān; 3 May 1938 – 18 February 2017), commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", was a blind Egyptian Islamist militant who served a life sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Butner near Butner, North Carolina, United States. Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1995. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Abdel-Rahman was the leader of Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya (also known as "The Islamic Group"), a militant Islamist movement in Egypt that is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Egyptian governments. The group was responsible for many acts of violence, including the November 1997 Luxor massacre, in which 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians were killed.
4. Abu Ayyub al-Masri (1968 - 2010)
With an HPI of 49.05, Abu Ayyub al-Masri is the 4th most famous Egyptian Extremist. His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.
Abu Ayyub al-Masri ( AH-boo ah-YOOB ahl MAHSS-ree; أَبُو أَيُّوبَ ٱلْمَصْرِيُّ, ʾAbū ʾAyyūb al-Maṣrī, translation: "Father of Ayyub the Egyptian"; 1967 – 18 April 2010), also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (; أَبُو حَمْزَةَ ٱلْمُهَاجِرِ ʾAbū Ḥamzah al-Muhāǧir, translation: "Father of Hamza the immigrant"), born Abdel Moneim Ezz El-Din Ali Al-Badawi (Arabic: عبد المنعم عز الدين علي البدوي), was the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq during the Iraqi insurgency, following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006. He was war minister of the Islamic State of Iraq from 2006 to 2010 and prime minister of the Islamic State of Iraq from 2009 to 2010. He was killed during a raid on his safehouse on 18 April 2010.
Pantheon has 4 people classified as extremists born between 1938 and 1968. Of these 4, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased extremists include Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohamed Atta, and Omar Abdel-Rahman.
Deceased Extremists
Go to all Rankings
Ayman al-Zawahiri
1951 - 2022
HPI: 67.34
Mohamed Atta
1968 - 2001
HPI: 54.95
Omar Abdel-Rahman
1938 - 2017
HPI: 54.90
Abu Ayyub al-Masri
1968 - 2010
HPI: 49.05
Which Extremists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Extremists since 1700.
