I will talk to you about some of my memories from middle and high school.
You should take into consideration my age at that time because you will find some reckless actions that I did at that time
My love for reading began in middle school, when I was about 13 years old, when I used to read Al-Ahram newspaper daily, which my father used to buy for us every day. My love for reading developed when I used to save my personal allowance and buy books from bookstores or from the Cairo International Book Fair, which I used to visit annually. My readings covered various fields: religious, political, historical, geographical, scientific, and others, and this is what helped me later in writing my books when I grew up.
My knowledge of jihad began with my readings, especially with my following of the Arab and Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan. I was impressed by them, even though they were fewer in number and less powerful. How could they stand up to the great powers of that time and inflict heavy losses on the Russians? I had hoped to be with them at that young age, and I had dreamed of jihad with them when I grew up. However, this occupation ended in 1989, after I had finished middle school, when I was about fifteen years old. After that, I felt disappointed because of the internal fighting between the mujahideen. At that time, I did not wish to be with them, because I considered fighting among them to be nothing but a trial that we should avoid.
I finished middle school and my commitment to prayer and thinking about God and how to support His religion increased. During breaks at school, I would regularly perform the noon prayer in congregation in the school mosque and listen to religious lessons after the prayer.
I used to buy Al-Muslimun newspaper, a weekly newspaper published from Saudi Arabia, with my pocket money. It covered the conditions of Muslims all over the world. Through this newspaper, I learned about the conditions of Muslims in the Philippines, Kashmir, East Turkestan in China, the Islamic republics of the Soviet Union, Chechnya, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. I even wrote to the newspaper asking how I could go to Bosnia and Herzegovina to wage jihad there, but I didn't receive a response. I also called the Pakistani embassy during that time to ask them to allow me to travel to Kashmir to wage jihad against the Indian occupation, but I was surprised by an Egyptian employee who told me that they didn't have what I was requesting. I also thought about traveling to Chechnya.

The Bosnian War that started in March 1992 was a turning point in my life. I felt that I could do nothing to help these Muslims. I felt sad when I read about the mass massacres, rapes of Muslim women, and other tragedies. I became more sad and frustrated when I did not find the expected response from the Muslim governments and peoples to stop this tragedy. I used to save my pocket money and donate it to the Islamic Relief Committee. I used to go to Dar Al-Hikma after school to donate to the Bosnian Muslims, but despite that, I felt that I was falling short of them.
I planned to travel to Aswan, then to Sudan and then to Bosnia. At that time, my mind did not comprehend that I could easily be arrested because I had not planned this adventure with anyone else. This was an individual act, as I did not know of any group or organization in Egypt that sent mujahideen to Bosnia. Therefore, my decision was spontaneous and not well thought out due to my young age, as I was not more than nineteen years old at the time, and I did not even have a passport to travel with.
After this decision, I wrote a letter to my family and left it on my desk. I took my bag of clothes and left the house without any of my family knowing. I went to the train station and booked a second-class ticket to Aswan. It was the first time I rode the train. When I boarded the train, I was surprised by the severe crowding and there was no place for me to board. I noticed some passengers sitting in the place designated for placing luggage on top of the passenger seats, so I climbed the seats and sat with them. After suffering for hours and after my ticket was checked several times, one of the ticket inspectors told me before arriving in Aswan that I was with the third-class passengers and that I had my own seat in the second-class air-conditioned seat. He was surprised that I was in the third class, but I remained in the third class until I arrived in Aswan.
I considered my trip to Aswan as a kind of migration to Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him). I felt that I was being rewarded for this trip, so I was not sad. After arriving in Aswan, I booked a bed in a youth hostel. A day later, I said to myself that I must speak to my family to reassure them about my health. When I called them, I was surprised to find them collapsing and crying over my separation. I felt sad and asked, "How did I do this to my father and mother?" After they insisted on knowing my whereabouts, I told them that I was in Aswan and they begged me to return home again. I returned to them and realized that I would not be able to engage in jihad until I entered one of the military colleges so that I would have the opportunity to engage in jihad against Israel. I believed that peace with Israel would not last long, but in the end, I did not have the opportunity to engage in jihad.
At this stage of my life, I never thought of joining the Brotherhood, the Salafis, or any other group. All I thought about was fighting in any country where Muslims were being persecuted, and that's it. I wasn't thinking about fighting Muslims who were fighting other Muslims, and my reading of politics at that time was for this reason only, and until now my thinking hasn't changed much.
Of course, after I joined the military, everything I did was kept secret and no one knew about it because I knew that if the thoughts that were going on in my mind were known, I would either be expelled from the army or arrested.
My middle and high school years were a gloomy period in my life because I was worried about many persecuted Muslims, and the only thing that made this stage of my life easier for me was the visions in which I saw the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, and our Master Jesus, peace be upon him, and some other visions.
Of course, some people will say, “What was this nonsense you were thinking about and doing?” But this was part of my life when I was young, and I am not ashamed of it. If I could go back in time, I would still try to fight in jihad. I might not have joined the military, and I would have waited until I grew up so that I could travel and fight in any country where Muslims were being persecuted, instead of wasting my life in vain until now without achieving my dream of fighting in jihad and attaining martyrdom.
And whoever comments and tells me why don’t you go travel and fight and not give us money, I will tell him to send me the ticket and make it easy for me to travel to Burma, for example, so I can fight there.