Yahya al-Bahrumi
| Yahya al-Bahrumi | |
|---|---|
| Born |
John Thomas Georgelas December 1983 |
| Other names | Yahya Abu Hassan |
| Nationality | United States |
| Ethnicity | Greek |
| Occupation | Islamic scholar |
| Religion | Islam |
| Denomination | Sunni Islam |
| Movement | Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant |
| Main interest(s) | Jihad, Caliphate |
| Spouse(s) | Joya "Tania" Choudhury (divorced) |
| Children | (3) |
Yahya al-Bahrumi born John Georgelas, (born 1983, he has also called himself Ioannis Georgilakis and used the kunya Yahya Abu Hassan) is an American-born convert to Islam, jihadist, Islamic scholar, and supporter of the Islamic State (ISIL). He has impressed Arab Muslims with his "mastery of Islamic law and classical Arabic language and literature", and was close to Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the ISIL spokesman, chief strategist, and director of foreign terror operations (before his death in 2016).
A supporter of the re-establishment of a Caliphate, al-Bahrumi had sufficient connections and support among Iraqi and Syrian Sunni extremists to plan to threaten Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with war if al-Baghdadi failed to declare a caliphate.
Bahrumi is a member of the small, ultra-literalist Islamic legal school known as Ẓāhirī, and according to author Graeme Wood, the Islamic State's "leading producer of high-end English-language propaganda". In mid-2015, al-Bahrumi made his way to ISIL capital of Raqqah, and works as a propagandist for the group.
Like many jihadists, Bahrumi constructed a new name from his first name ("Yahya" from John) and his national origin ("Bahrumi", means Roman Sea, from the Arabic for sea (bahr ) and Roman (rumi )). "Bahrumi" is not Arabic for Greece, his ancestral land, but at the time of Muhammad, the Mediterranean would have been a "Roman sea".
Born to a conservative Texas family of Greek ancestry—his father a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and physician—as a child al-Bahrumi suffered from benign tumors and brittle bones. As a teenager, he eschewed discipline and academic achievement in favor of recreational drugs, but did extremely well on standardized tests.
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