US dictating Saudi religious policy

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Most interesting. Who controls the Sauds?

- - - Updated - - -

Salaam

Wow its already having an effect

Mecca imam slammed for claiming Trump 'steering world to peace'

Abdul Rahman al-Sudais claims Saudi Arabia and US are leading world to peace and security, sparking outcry on social media



We have to raise the question whether the Sauds are worthy of being the Custodians of the two holy sites.

[fschmidt]

America corrupts everything that is corruptible. This will continue until America's own corruption destroys it from the inside.

[Serinity]

:salams

Hell no. I do not want USA or any kafir to dictate what is extreme or not.

I mean, they don't know Arabic, and since they aren't Muslims, they should have no say in our religion. They don't care about our spiritual wellbeing. It is like asking a kafir for a fatwa....

They don't believe in After life, nor in Allah.

I am vehemently against this. Do we see any non jew going around synagouges dictating their religion? Regardless, this is so wrong, and I am against it.

I am all for peace, but not like this! Ever.
And Allah :swt: knows best.

[Simple_Person]

Again we come BACK to the PURE Islamic foundation..THINK FOR YOURSELF!!..EDUCATE YOURSELF!!..DO NOT BE A SHEEP. There was ONLY certain people we follow blindly..which are the Prophets. Those are no more, so start walking on YOUR OWN FEET!!. The more i keep track of the international political situation the more it is heading QUICK..to a different scenario. I am shocked how quick things are going. The whole political international strategy was rather sunken in with a very firm foundation that certain groups only benefited. It was based on the so called international law (UN). Borders were borders, and if somebody would speak against injustice VETO-vote was being used to stop certain party speaking against injustice.

Now from Russia coming back very strong from the former USSR (Communist Russia) to Saudi Arabia king for the FIRST TIME visiting Russia in the history of Saudi Arabia (founded in 1932) while all those years had a firm relationship with US. Besides that whole Qatar problem (coming out of nowhere) and Iran and Turkey are being pushed to being allies (with dissatisfaction of Israel (and US is in their pocket off course) and Saudi Arabia). Kurds are now also using international law in their benefit but using it, the hypocrisy and lies of international law are being revealed. Internet shows also everything and nothing can be hidden anymore. Everything we ever knew that had a firm foundation as groups x, y, z are allies and groups a, b, c are allies are shifting. But the speed of this shifting goes soooo fast that within hours certain members of a group get in to a fight, while being allies for so many years. While if you look around everybody is a sleep..nobody is awake, but even if you try to wake them up by bringing up the subject they brush you off as being conspiracy-freak and being afraid for nothing. The whole Syria situation has shown me a bit of the understanding of how mountains can shift in a super fast pace. Just like the hadith that says the major signs of the last day will follow each other like the pearls following off a necklace when cut one following the other. I didn't knew or understand how such major signs could follow up each other, but just seeing the international political situation, the hadith that major signs follow up each other in a very fast pace also doesn't shock me anymore as i understand it that indeed is possible as i have seen in reality itself. If Allah wills, things will change within seconds. Sub'han'Allah.

North-Korea and allies of US are not really going towards peaceful solution, India and Pakistan (Kashmir) are not really heading towards peaceful solution, India and China (doklam) are not really heading towards peaceful solution (Do not forget South China sea chaos also), NATO and Russia are not really heading towards peaceful solution, EU is crumbling (unity is no more), all the currency's are dropping rapidly in value, Russia and China i believe have already started to dump the petro-dollar (end of the petro-dollar??). A barrel of oil will never go higher than that it is right now, because of US shale-oil. Russia is buying and buying gold (which indicates either step away from US dollar or knowing the fiat currencies are collapsing). Through democratic means the groups that lose just barely with for example being 49% against 51%..look at Brexit, look at Turkey, look at US. The loser-side is creating a lot of trouble because of it but also the more powerful side is creating trouble (look at Spain). The whole LGBT-agenda..or the transgenders came out of NOWHERE..just in like 2-3 years has became already mainstream and has been forced to be accepted and treated as normal through law. Marriage between homosexuality has already almost everywhere being applied as US also have it now. The amount of Christians have rapidly declined and is further more declining fast, the amount of pressure to stop religion has gone up dramatically.

I am not shocked that before 2030 things have changed so much that if you would be living in a forest for like 10 years is as if you have come to a different world. Technology is going with the speed of light. The amount of drugs use has gone up A LOT, Zina is widespread, nobody these days just sits somewhere without music, alcohol is being widespread, the amount of suicide has gone up insanely with every year being a new record. The temperatures are reaching new records. Yet if you say such things, people look at you as a conspiracy nut. I mean DUDE..look at what is going on..i am not speaking out of emotion or feelings, i look at facts...just look around you. I am NOT saying that we will be witnessing dajjal within our life-time, because Allah knows that only, but what i am saying is OPEN YOUR EYES..look at what is important. At least prepare AS IF dajjal is coming tomorrow.

Know that it is even a mercy of Allah that Rasullah(saws) told us about the minor signs especially. Because knowing of the minor signs should rather be a sign of ..stop fooling around..GET SERIOUS!!! The minor signs have never gotten so extreme as these days and as i said earlier since whole Syria issue things have gone in faster not only international political stuff, but also other day to day things (LGBT, value of currencies, dissatisfaction of people etc.)

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[anatolian]

US have been dictating the religious policies of Muslim people for decades. Nothing is new and Saudis are not the single one. This started with the green zone project of Jimmy Carter in the early 80s to terminate Communism. America intentially Islamized the Muslim nations back then. But after the fall of Communism and rise of Islam now they are dictating the moderate Islam on the same people.

America corrupts everything that is corruptible. This will continue until America's own corruption destroys it from the inside.

This applies to entire west. West is powerful today but they just cant see the corruption coming from inside. This will eventually cause the fall of their civilization. Future will be of peoples who keep morals.

[Logikon]

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/13/...te-intolerance

A comprehensive Human Rights Watch review of the Education Ministry-produced school religion books for the 2016-17 school year found that some of the content that first provoked widespread controversy for violent and intolerant teachings in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks remains in the texts today, despite Saudi officials’ promises to eliminate the intolerant language.
“As early as first grade, students in Saudi schools are being taught hatred toward all those perceived to be of a different faith or school of thought,” said Sarah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The lessons in hate are reinforced with each following year.”


.
Comment: If you feel that this is extreme then Muslims are welcome to live in the West.

If you feel this is normal Islam then you are not welcome to live in the West.

[Futuwwa]

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/13/...te-intolerance
Comment: If you feel that this is extreme then Muslims are welcome to live in the West.

If you feel this is normal Islam then you are not welcome to live in the West.

I am a citizen of the West with constitutionally protected freedom of opinion and freedom of religion. Civis occidentus sum. I will not submit to let you dictate whether I'm "welcome", a formulation that implies you are the rightful owner of the West and I'm allowed or not allowed to exist as a sufferance granted by you.

[Simple_Person]

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/13/...te-intolerance

A comprehensive Human Rights Watch review of the Education Ministry-produced school religion books for the 2016-17 school year found that some of the content that first provoked widespread controversy for violent and intolerant teachings in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks remains in the texts today, despite Saudi officials’ promises to eliminate the intolerant language.
“As early as first grade, students in Saudi schools are being taught hatred toward all those perceived to be of a different faith or school of thought,” said Sarah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The lessons in hate are reinforced with each following year.”


.
Comment: If you feel that this is extreme then Muslims are welcome to live in the West.

If you feel this is normal Islam then you are not welcome to live in the West.

I have noticed through out the years everything that is not according to western standards is branded as extreme. Having ones wife to cover herself is seen as extreme..not eating pork or drinking alcohol because of religious reasons is seen as extreme..with each day I understand more that the west and their so called freedom are lies to the atom level. It is just a standard that through media attached to the word freedom. If you have intellectual debate about it it stands absolutely no ground that it is freedom whatsoever. Facts itself is showing that not freedom but rather western standards that are attached to the word freedom are the cause of destruction of their own civilization. No terrorist act has to be done because the west through its standards is destroying itself.

Majority if not all the practicing Muslims would have already left western world if the Middle East was left alone. If no dictators would have been placed. The world other than the western world doesn't need the western world believe me. Based on a bit of Google searching one can see that it is the western world that needs the rest of the world. If the rest of the world from south America to Africa to Asia (Middle East is included) they all would prosper very much. Trade of goods, selling of fossil fuels, trade of knowledge..culture..everything that is of any benefit can be found in all those countries. So logically speaking the western world if one CRITICALLY analyzes what they have to offer of anything is almost nothing. The US for some years now have taken a step to gather people with knowledge to be the center point of science. Look at scientist of nazi Germany. They were given place in US in order to work for US.

So these days all the western world even with having knowledge is offering nothing but corrupt mindset. (LGBT, hypocrisy, degenerate mentality, greed, individualism, materialism, YOLO-mentality, paper and digital money, usury, etc etc..)

So nobody has to "hate" the west..the west itself hates it's self if you see the level of depression rising ..unhappiness. .suicide rate..drug use raise..alcohol abuse..rape ..etc. PLEASE do not believe me, go look up the statistics yourself.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

The globalists snap their fingers the Sauds obey.

I will return Saudi Arabia to moderate Islam, says crown prince

Mohammed bin Salman tells the Guardian that ultra-conservative state has been ‘not normal’ for past 30 years


Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has vowed to return the country to “moderate Islam” and asked for global support to transform the hardline kingdom into an open society that empowers citizens and lures investors.

In an interview with the Guardian, the powerful heir to the Saudi throne said the ultra-conservative state had been “not normal” for the past 30 years, blaming rigid doctrines that have governed society in a reaction to the Iranian revolution, which successive leaders “didn’t know how to deal with”.

Expanding on comments he made at an investment conference at which he announced the launch of an ambitious $500bn (£381bn) independent economic zone straddling Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, Prince Mohammed said: “We are a G20 country. One of the biggest world economies. We’re in the middle of three continents. Changing Saudi Arabia for the better means helping the region and changing the world. So this is what we are trying to do here. And we hope we get support from everyone.

“What happened in the last 30 years is not Saudi Arabia. What happened in the region in the last 30 years is not the Middle East. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, people wanted to copy this model in different countries, one of them is Saudi Arabia. We didn’t know how to deal with it. And the problem spread all over the world. Now is the time to get rid of it.

Earlier Prince Mohammed had said: “We are simply reverting to what we followed – a moderate Islam open to the world and all religions. 70% of the Saudis are younger than 30, honestly we won’t waste 30 years of our life combating extremist thoughts, we will destroy them now and immediately.”

The crown prince’s comments are the most emphatic he has made during a six-month reform programme that has tabled cultural reforms and economic incentives unimaginable during recent decades, during which the kingdom has been accused of promoting a brand of Islam that underwrote extremism.

The comments were made as the heir of the incumbent monarch moves to consolidate his authority, sidelining clerics whom he believes have failed to support him and demanding unquestioning loyalty from senior officials whom he has entrusted to drive a 15-year reform programme that aims to overhaul most aspects of life in Saudi Arabia.

Central to the reforms has been the breaking of an alliance between hardline clerics who have long defined the national character and the House of Saud, which has run affairs of state. The changes have tackled head-on societal taboos such as the recently rescinded ban on women driving, as well as scaling back guardianship laws that restrict women’s roles and establishing an Islamic centre tasked with certifying the sayings of the prophet Muhammed.

The scale and scope of the reforms has been unprecedented in the country’s modern history and concerns remain that a deeply conservative base will oppose what is effectively a cultural revolution – and that the kingdom lacks the capacity to follow through on its economic ambitions.

The new economic zone is to be established on 470km of the Red Sea coast, in a tourist area that has already been earmarked as a liberal hub akin to Dubai, where male and female bathers are free to mingle.

It has been unveiled as the centrepiece of efforts to turn the kingdom away from a near total dependence on oil and into a diverse open economy. Obstacles remain: an entrenched poor work ethic, a crippling regulatory environment and a general reluctance to change.

“Economic transformation is important but equally essential is social transformation,” said one of the country’s leading businessmen. “You cannot achieve one without the other. The speed of social transformation is key. It has to be manageable.”

Alcohol, cinemas and theatres are still banned in the kingdom and mingling between unrelated men and women remains frowned upon. However Saudi Arabia – an absolute monarchy – has clipped the wings of the once-feared religious police, who no longer have powers to arrest and are seen to be falling in line with the new regime.

Economically Saudi Arabia will need huge resources if it is to succeed in putting its economy on a new footing and its leadership believes it will fail to generate strategic investments if it does not also table broad social reforms.

Prince Mohammed had repeatedly insisted that without establishing a new social contract between citizen and state, economic rehabilitation would fail. “This is about giving kids a social life,” said a senior Saudi royal figure. “Entertainment needs to be an option for them. They are bored and resentful. A woman needs to be able to drive herself to work. Without that we are all doomed. Everyone knows that – except the people in small towns. But they will learn.”

In the next 10 years, at least five million Saudis are likely to enter the country’s workforce, posing a huge problem for officials who currently do not have jobs to offer them or tangible plans to generate employment.

The economic zone is due to be completed by 2025 – five years before the current cap on the reform programme – and is to be powered by wind and solar energy, according to its founders.

The country’s enormous sovereign wealth fund is intended to be a key backer of the independent zone. It currently has $230bn under management. The sale of 5% of the world’s largest company, Aramco, is expected to raise several hundred billion dollars more.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/24/i-will-return-saudi-arabia-moderate-islam-crown-prince

[سيف الله]

Salaam

This applies to entire west. West is powerful today but they just cant see the corruption coming from inside. This will eventually cause the fall of their civilization. Future will be of peoples who keep morals.

Yes, its in decline or at least its elite culture, not a new phenoma of course.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Saudi crown prince rattles Turkish Islamists

Suporters of Turkeys Islamist government claim Mohammed bin Salmand aim to push for moderate Islam in Saudi Arabia is motivated by US imperial designs against Muslims

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s vow to turn Saudi Arabia into a moderate Islamic country may have been welcomed by the West, but it did not go down well in Turkey — especially among Islamists — and fueled long-standing suspicions about "imperial US designs against the Islamic world."

Ever since former US Secretary of State Colin Powell declared Turkey to be a “moderate Islamic republic” in 2004, the concept of moderate Islam has raised the hackles of Turkish secularists and Islamists alike.

Still smarting over 9/11, Washington was searching at the time for a model against radical Islam that reflected the kind of modernity it wanted to see in the Islamic world. Turkey — with its secular parliamentary system that had still not been tampered with by its Islamist government — was the only country that appeared to fit the bill.

Powell’s remark, however, coincided with the rise of political Islam in Turkey, with its clear antipathy toward secularism under the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which won a landslide electoral victory in November 2002.

With growing tensions between secularists and Islamists, that was hardly the right time for Powell to bring up his idea regarding Turkey. Doing so only reflected a serious lack of awareness in Washington about what was going on in this country.

Secularists objected to his designation of “moderate Islamic republic,” arguing that Washington was trying to “Islamize Turkey” to serve its security interests. Many secular Turks are still convinced that the AKP was a US project imposed on Turkey by Washington to turn it into a moderate Islamic republic.

Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Turkey’s staunchly secularist president at the time, reacted angrily, declaring, “Turkey is neither an Islamic republic nor an example of moderate Islam.”

Turkish Islamists, for their part, argued that Powell was attempting — with support from Israel — to undermine true Islam by imposing alien ideas on genuine Muslims to keep them at bay.

Mohammed unfolded his Vision 2023 for turning Saudi Arabia into a moderate Islamic state when he announced a massive project to invest $500 billion in a megacity along the Jordanian and Egyptian borders, which will be transformed into an economic hub aimed at reviving the country’s economy.

There were secularist columnists who gloated over the crown prince’s remarks in order to hit at the AKP and its Islamist supporters.

Ertugrul Ozkok, a popular columnist for the daily Hurriyet, for example, argued that “every reasonable Muslim carries Ataturk in his heart.” He was referring to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secular Turkish Republic.

“The true spring in the Arab world will come when the bright path shown by Ataturk to the whole Islamic world is understood,” Ozkok wrote in his commentary on Mohammed’s remark.

The extreme Islamist view on Mohammed’s remarks, on the other hand, came from Ibrahim Karagul, the acerbic editor-in-chief of the government mouthpiece Yeni Safak.

“Saudi Arabia’s ‘We are switching to moderate Islam’ announcement contains a dangerous game. The US-Israel axis is forming a new regional front line,” Karagul contended in his column. He maintained that the aim was to “doom” the Sunni Arab world to this axis.

Claiming that a similar project involving Turkey had failed, Karagul said, “Saudi Arabia is being burdened with the same mission now” and warned that this would mean “suicide” for that country.

Burhanettin Duran, the general coordinator of the government-sponsored Political, Economic and Social Research Foundation in Ankara, also believes that Mohammed’s statement reflects a wider project for the Gulf region.

“The United States, Israel and Egypt are preparing the ideological groundwork for combating Shiite militias, who are the effective element of Iranian expansionism,” Duran argued in an article for government mouthpiece Sabah.

Duran added that Saudi Arabia would henceforth propagandize for an Islam that is in harmony with the world and the West, but underlined that Mohammed’s vision did not amount to “democratization.”

He said this was merely an attempt at social liberalization to the extent that the Saudi system would permit and pointed to the lifting of the ban on women driving as an example of what should be expected.

Maintaining that Mohammed was merely trying to blame the radicalization of Wahhabism — an extreme interpretation of Islam — in Saudi Arabia on Iran, Duran said, “Talk about ‘moderate Islam’ is only an ideological apparatus for containing Iran.”

Assistant professor Mehmet Ali Buyukkara, from the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Istanbul City University, also believes that the notion of “moderate Islam” is part of the United States' “Greater Middle East Project.”

He argued in an article for the semi-official Anatolia News Agency that the object was to serve Washington’s politically and economically motivated imperial aims in central and southern Asia as well as the Middle East.

Buyukkara added that Mohammed’s Vision 2023 aimed to establish a new Dubai or Abu Dhabi, which would require vast amounts of direct foreign investment.

“This investment will not come to a country whose religion and ideology is not normal. This is probably why Mohammed brought up the topic of moderate Islam during an economic congress,” Buyukkara said.

He went on to declare that the notion of moderate Islam is meaningless for Saudi Arabia, which, he underlined, has been guided by Wahhabism since 1744. Buyukkara said that it was the ideology of Wahhabism and not the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran that spawned radicalism in Saudi Arabia, contrary to what Mohammed was claiming.

Secularist historian and columnist Murat Bardakci also believes that the concept of moderate Islam for Saudi Arabia is a misnomer, and he derides those who argue that Arabs will one day reach out for their own Ataturk.

In an article for daily Haberturk, Bardakci said there was no love for either Ataturk or Turkey’s secular system in the Middle East, where Islam is an inseparable part of daily life. He said it was a joke to think that Saudi Arabia — the seat of Wahhabism and Salafism — could come in line with Ataturk’s thinking.

“Even a moderate version of Saudi Arabia whose society is Salafist will be harsher than the most extreme religious currents we have [in Turkey],” he added.

The government in Ankara remained silent on Mohammed’s remarks, but the ruling AKP’s view was expressed by Ravza Kavakci, a member of the parliamentary commission on foreign affairs.

Kavakci welcomed Mohammed’s statement if this meant Saudi Arabia, which she described as “Turkey’s ally,” will be more democratic and respectful of human rights, including women’s rights. “But I will never accept the term ‘moderate Islam’ because Islam does not need to be moderate,” Kavakci told reporters in parliament.

Clearly attempting to vilify the notion further in the eyes of her party’s supporters, she said that "moderate Islam” was a term also used by Fethullah Gulen and his supporters.

Gulen, who is in self-imposed exile in the United States, is accused by Ankara of masterminding last year’s failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Whatever the merits of these arguments, Turkish reactions to Mohammed — and the implication that he is only serving US and Israeli interests — show again that developments in the Middle East are still not likely to move in the simple and linear manner desired by Turkey’s predominantly Islamist administration.

Mohammed is not just anyone: He is the person slated to be Saudi Arabia’s new ruler soon. His remarks indicate that Ankara is likely to face more situations in the region it never expected.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/10/turkey-saudi-arabia-crown-prince-rattles-turkish-islamists.html#ixzz4xJUq7ZY3

[DanEdge]

<
<
<
"I'm afraid of Americans! The West is the devil!" Yadda yadda yadda. Take responsibility for the Muslim world yourself.

--Dan Edge

[Futuwwa]

An Arab Ataturk, eh?

The modern history of the Middle East is full of self-proclaimed wannabe Ataturks. They invariably turned out to either be corrupt dictators, murderous dictators or both.

[anatolian]

Moderate Islam is a pure Illuminati project. It is the easiest and most powerful way to stop real Islam and control the Muslim people. I think AKP was just the Turkish foot of the project. The first party program of AKP was written in America but Erdoğan changed his mind in the early 2010s and started to think that he doesnt need America and her agent Gülen anymore and he can be the new "sultan". Thats the reason behind the last years failed coup attempt and current crisis between Turkey and America.

Now America is playing on the gulf again and only Allah knows what they plan.

[Futuwwa]

Illuminati? Tu quoque, Anatolius?

[anatolian]

Illuminati? Tu quoque, Anatolius?

Tbh, I like your sarcasm, unless it is towards me ;) Do you know whats the proof of existance of illuminati? You cant disprove all those independent allegations which people relate and correlate to Illuminati. Its like believing in the existance of God. If everything leads to God, there must be God. If all those corruption, confusion and terror leads to a hiden, centrally organized and un-Islamic organization, it must exist. Name it illuminati or fluorescent fraternity or anything, it doesnt matter.

You dont have to believe in it either. You just have to see the results. AKP was used by America for ten years. Erdoğan was given the mission of coordinating GOP ( great orrient project) . He even boasted over it. He became the first Muslim given the jewish courage medal from the American jewish society. Gülen jamaat has been used by America for 20 years. Gülen was given the mission of coordinating the interfaith dialog in the Muslim world which is a christian project. There are countless other examples.

[Singularity]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...ings-son?sc=tw


11 Saudi Princes Among Dozens Arrested In Apparent Move To Boost King's Son
November 4, 201710:26 PM ET
EMMA BOWMAN


King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud at the Grand Kremlin Palace last month, on a visit to Moscow, Russia.
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
Saudi authorities arrested at least 11 princes, several current ministers and dozens of former ministers in a sweeping move reportedly designed to consolidate power for the son of King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.


According to media reports citing Saudi-owned television network Al Arabiya, an anti-corruption committee ordered the arrests hours after King Salman directed the creation of the committee, headed by his favorite son and adviser, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.


The committee was established by the royal decree, The Associated Press reports, "due to the propensity of some people for abuse, putting their personal interest above public interest, and stealing public funds."


Billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is among those detained, The Wall Street Journal reports. Alwaleed holds stakes in some of the world's major companies, including Apple and Twitter.


The royal purge was foreshadowed by Saturday's evacuation of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, where the detainees are now housed, according to The New York Times.


The Times adds that Prince Alwaleed has made recent appearances in Western news, to weigh in on topics like cryptocurrencies and to discuss Saudi Arabia's plans to offer public shares of its lucrative oil company, Aramco. As recent as early Saturday, that impending decision sparked President Trump's interest. Hours before landing in Japan, the first stop of his 12-day Asia trip, the president tweeted his support for a U.S. stock listing for the world's largest oil company: "Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange. Important to the United States!"


The arrests follow the king's dismissal of top ministers and a crackdown on dissidents. While many of the suspects were not named, Reuters reports, Prince Miteb bin Abdullah was ousted as minister of the National Guard and replaced by a lower-level prince who held a position with the guard, Khalid bin Ayyaf al-Muqrin. In addition, Economy Minister Adel Fakieh was unseated by his subordinate, Mohammed al-Tuwaijri, the wire service says, according to state-run media.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Related

Secular despots - coming soon to an Arab state near you

From a recent article in the all mighty and wise Economist, we learn that a new crop of "secular" Arab despots are seizing on what it calls our "zeitgeist". They are pushing forward with a robust secularising agenda that will outmanoeuvre and bypass their Islamist opposition, appease their boisterous middle-class constituencies, and in the process solidify their iron fist of tyranny while allowing women without a veil to enjoy their shisha in public or any other such happy amenities.

"The region's authoritarians, who once tried to co-opt Islamists," we are told, "now view them as the biggest threat to their rule. By curbing the influence of clerics, they are also weakening checks on their own power. Still, many Arab leaders seem genuinely interested in moulding more secular and tolerant societies, even if their reforms do not extend to the political sphere."

The good tidings the Economist brings to its readers eager to exploit the economic opportunities such secular despotism promises to deliver to Europe and co., echo equally auspicious news that the Guardian had brought to its readers about a week earlier. The newspaper reported that "Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has vowed to return the country to "moderate Islam" and asked for global support to transform the hardline kingdom into an open society that empowers citizens and lures investors."

In a spirit of good brotherly love among Muslims, the Saudi prince, of course, blames Iran for the turn to the nasty old "radical Islam".

"What happened in the last 30 years is not Saudi Arabia," the prince declared, "What happened in the region in the last 30 years is not the Middle East. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, people wanted to copy this model in different countries, one of them is Saudi Arabia. We didn't know how to deal with it. And the problem spread all over the world. Now is the time to get rid of it."

This blaming of Iran and Iranians for all the ills of the world is, of course, an old cliche among many Arab princes and emirs and even some scholars too. There are scholars of gender and sexuality in Islam who blame polygamy on Iranians, while some thinkers have blamed Iranians for the rise of homosexuality among the Arabs.

Left to their own devices Arabs, according to this xenophobic fantasy, would have been happily monogamous, heterosexual, and above all moderate Muslims, bordering with the top choice of being "secular" too. These nasty old "Persians" have been an old plague to these puritanical princes and their learned advisors.

'Secular despots' and their 'moderate Islam'

Back to earth and among us mortals, however, we see a link between what our Saudi prince calls and considers "moderate Islam" and the "secular tyrants" of whom the Economist reports. As Madawi Al-Rasheed recently wrote: "The crown prince's understanding of moderate Islam is a project in which dissenting voices are silenced, activists are locked behind bars, and critics are forced into submission."

What is now being trumpeted as "moderate Islam" is an ideology of submission to the overpowering domination of neoliberal economics without any moral or imaginative resistance.

Accepting the Zionist theft of Palestine and competing to establish open diplomatic relations with Israel, systematic oppression of civil liberties at home, mobilisation of transnational Arab armies to bomb civilian targets in Yemen, turning ancient and historic cities to wet dreams of predatory capitalism, massive waste of national resources on advanced military equipment are some of the vintage doctrinal dimensions of this "moderate Islam" now being promoted by these "secular despots".

But under the smokescreen of these "secular despots" and hidden beneath their "moderate Islam," between the degenerate ideologies of fanaticism and ignorance that has informed the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the tribal despotism ruling supreme from one end of the Arab and Muslim world to another, stand tall masses of millions of people whose ancestral faith and political agency are not at the mercy of either Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his gang of murderers or General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi commanding a reactionary junta subverting the Egyptian revolution.

A fine example of such benevolent dictatorship that the Economist describes is the United Arab Emirates whose leaders have evidently "led the way in relaxing religious and social restrictions. While leading a regional campaign against Islamist movements, Muhammad bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the UAE's de facto leader, has financed the construction of Western university branches and art galleries."

What this kind of outdated Orientalism betrays is the simple proposition that the more the world looks like a fictional Europe, the more it is "secular" and "moderate", the more they are to be trusted and welcomed. Left to their own non-western devices, these Muslims become nasty, brutish, and fanatical. If they cannot become secular and moderate Muslims by themselves, then (damn it, why not) let a tyrant do it for them.

Nations negating their states

Entirely outside the purview of such banal Eurocentric imagination, the fate of nations in the Arab and Muslim world is determined by the internal logic and rhetoric of an entirely different dynamic.

The beautiful struggles of Arabs and Muslims for justice and civil liberties can no longer be divided into the bogus, flawed, and outdated "secular" versus "religious" division or "moderate" versus "radical" Islam. These are US and European think tank mantras categorically irrelevant to the inner working of Muslim moral and historical imagination, of which neither the Economist nor the Saudi prince have a blasted clue.

European colonialism and American imperialism (both now gathered at the root of the Zionist theft of Palestine) framing the rise and persistence of nativist tyranny, are the chief catalysts of critical thinking in the Arab and Muslim world and thus map out the future of its collective national destinies. Without a simultaneous attention to these historical forces, any fly-by-night concept like "secular despots" or "moderate Islam" is highfalutin hogwash.

Ours is as much an age of post-Islamism, in the elegant phrasing of Asef Bayat, as it is of post-secularism, as Jurgen Habermas has theorised. The binary of secular/religious was of a European (Christian) vintage and had nothing to do with Islam, Judaism, or any other religion. "Secularism," as Gil Anidjar has persuasively argued, was and remains Western Christianity thinly disguised.

The inner dynamics of Islam in its encounter with Europeans colonial modernity and the effervescence of Muslim communities in their renewed global and cosmopolitan contexts are mapping out the contours of a vastly different world than the one imagined by the Saudi prince or the prognostications of the Economist.

Tribal monarchies, fake republics, military juntas, secular tyrants, and the militant fanaticism they have created, branded, and now fight are all made of the same cloth. The fate of 1.6 billion human beings who call and consider themselves, in one way or another, 'Muslim' is not and will never be determined by the juvenal delusions of any Arab prince or "secular tyrant" - nor indeed by their common nemesis in the frightful apparition of ISIL and its ilk.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." The Saudi prince must get his clues from the prince of Denmark, stop listening to his American and Israeli advisors and cease wasting his nation's resources on useless billion-dollar projects.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/secular-despots-coming-arab-state-171105142851556.html

- - - Updated - - -

Salaam

Heed the Warning.

"Great art can be made out of love for religion as well as rebellion against it. But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy."

Camille Paglia

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Salaam

Another perspective.

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Salaam

Another update

Responding to Countries Accusing IUMS of Terrorism, Al Qaradawy: You Fight Moderation and Support Terrorism

Dr. Yusuf Al Qaradawy, the IUMS president, criticized the inclusion of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) and the World Muslim Council in the banned terror lists by UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt.


Al-Qaradawy questioned on his Twitter account: "For decades, IUMS had taken on the responsibility to resist the tendency towards extremism that comes from their region, spreading chaos in the Muslim world, and today they accused us of terrorism!”

The four countries announced in a statement that they’re listing the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) and the World Muslim Council as terrorist organization, accusing the two institutions of "working to promote terrorism through the exploitation of Islamic discourse.” However, as in Qatar case, none of the countries has provided any evidence to support their terrorism claims.

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=32857

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Salaam

Another comment piece

Mohammed bin Salman's reforms can't disguise the grim Saudi reality

The current wave of arrests in Saudi Arabia is part of a larger pattern setting the stage for Mohammed Bin Salman to assume power under a new social contract. The consequences for the kingdom could be huge

While the world - and global media - have been very taken by Saudi Arabia's announcement of lifting the ban on women driving, other more important developments taking place in the kingdom have not made global headlines. A fresh round of illegal detentions that has taken place recently included judges, preachers and media pundits as well as 21 Saudis for posting dissenting material on social media.

This is not the first time that Saudi public figures have been arrested and detained in undisclosed prisons without committing any crime. In mid-September Amnesty International issued a statement concerning a "wave of arrests" that included more than 20 figures, among them notable preachers well known and respected beyond Saudi Arabia.

Any specialist who follows Saudi policies will understand that the current crackdown is part of a larger pattern, whereby the new king to be, Mohammed Bin Salman, is setting the stage for himself to rule on a different platform from his predecessors who used religion as their primary legitimating paradigm.

International and local distractions

Last month, calls on social media for protests on 15 September, that were mainly against the economic austerity policies and corruption in the kingdom, were hardly surprising. In the second quarter of this year, the unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia jumped to 12.8 percent, while joblessness is more than 28 percent among Saudis aged between 20 and 29 years old.

This is a contrast to the optimistic economic plans laid out in "Vision 2030".

Saudi authorities did not only use the lifting of the ban on women driving as a local and international distraction, but also the commemoration of the 87th National Day of Saudi Arabia on 23 September served a similar purpose. The day, celebrated differently this year than in previous years, was marked by public raves, mixing of genders, dancing and singing. Such scenes were previously unthinkable for Saudi Arabia.

While lifting the ban on women driving would have been unimaginable a decade ago, Saudi authorities have gone much further by announcing in August its Sharia-free Red Sea resorts, an obvious contradiction to the nature of the political legitimacy in the kingdom.

Giving in to US pressure

Saudi Arabia is indeed witnessing a trend of eroding religious influence that manifests itself in many ways. One such example is the curbing of the powers of the Committee for Propagating Good and Forbidding Evil, more popularly known as the "religious police", while at the same time boosting the newly formed General Authority for Entertainment.

After all, Saudi Arabia has just managed to dodge the American Justice Against Sponsored Terrorism Act (JASTA), and has been fervently trying to prove its moderation to US President Donald Trump and his administration. Trump, who demonised Islam and was the Saudis' least favoured candidate in the US presidential elections, was later appeased at the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh.

Trump considerably changed his tone on Islam on his return to the US with Saudi deals worth billions. Whether this materialises or not is another issue, but Trump promised the Americans many jobs and economic benefits.

One could speak more on Saudi compliance with American pressures to change its educational system, curb its charity work and Islamic education abroad. However it would be suffice to quote US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaking about Saudi Arabia in his confirmation hearing:

"These are centuries long differences that doesn't mean that we can’t affect them to change…the pace has been slow, slower than any of us wish. There is a change underway in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia… What I do believe is, it is moving in the direction we want it to move."

Recently, the handing over of the two Egyptian islands, Tiran and Sanafir, to Saudi Arabia, was in fact a highly significant move by Saudi Arabia (and Egypt) toward Israel. The two islands have no strategic value for Saudi Arabia. In fact, the biggest geostrategic winner of the deal is Israel, as the Gulf of Aqaba will become an international water way where it can sail through freely.

Additionally, as reported last May by the Wall Street Journal, the GCC countries have offered better relations with Israel in addition to talks about possible secret economic negotiations. There have also been recent rumours that a Saudi prince has visited Israel. Not to mention Bahrain’s rather bold move towards normalisation with Israel that must have had a Saudi seal of approval.

Consequences

Saudi Arabia has clearly yielded to American pressure and is publicly beating around the bush when it comes to Israel. It has chosen to give in to pressure from abroad and face down any domestic backlash.

While the current crackdown recalls a similar wave of arrests in the 1990s, the present situation is rather different: the religious establishment is not remotely as respected as it was under the former Saudi Mufti Bin Baz, who was esteemed by regime opponents although he promoted the state's legitimacy.

Back then there was no social media to express dissent and generally the region was much more stable. Furthermore the House of Saud was not fundamentally altering the social contract that the kingdom was built upon.

As the regime continues to erode its Islamic legitimacy, impose austerity policies and silences dissent, the future of Saudi Arabia looks grim.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/how-saudi-arabia-shooting-itself-foot-378177986

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

Saudi scholar: Women need not wear abaya robes

A senior religious scholar in Saudi Arabia has said women should not have to wear the loose-fitting abaya robe to cover up their bodies in public. Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars - the highest religious body in the country - made the remark in an interview with a local broadcaster on Friday.

"More than 90 percent of pious Muslim women in the Muslim world do not wear abayas. So we should not force people to wear abayas," he said.

The call was received with mixed reaction on social media.

Translation: "Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq must appear on television to fully clarify his remark and take back this peculiar fatwa (religious decree)."

Some users agreed with the fatwa.

Translation: "He is right, the abaya is only [mandatory] here, but, in every other Islamic country, veiled women only wear loose clothing rather than an abaya."

Currently, the robe is mandatory for women in Saudi Arabia, and there is no indication that the custom might change.

Saudi Arabia has some of the world's tightest restrictions on women, despite ambitious government reforms aimed at boosting female employment. Last month, women were allowed to watch football in stadiums in some cities, and a driving ban was lifted last year, but women are still unable to do many things without their male guardian's permission. Some of the restrictions include applying for a passport, travelling abroad, enrolling in university and getting married, as well as opening a bank account, starting certain businesses and getting optional surgeries. According to the law, they must also be accompanied by a guardian at all times when in public.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/saudi-scholar-women-wear-abaya-robes-180211070022064.html

[فصيح الياسين]

Salaam

Another update.

Saudi scholar: Women need not wear abaya robes

A senior religious scholar in Saudi Arabia has said women should not have to wear the loose-fitting abaya robe to cover up their bodies in public. Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars - the highest religious body in the country - made the remark in an interview with a local broadcaster on Friday.

"More than 90 percent of pious Muslim women in the Muslim world do not wear abayas. So we should not force people to wear abayas," he said.

The call was received with mixed reaction on social media.

Translation: "Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq must appear on television to fully clarify his remark and take back this peculiar fatwa (religious decree)."

Some users agreed with the fatwa.

Translation: "He is right, the abaya is only [mandatory] here, but, in every other Islamic country, veiled women only wear loose clothing rather than an abaya."

Currently, the robe is mandatory for women in Saudi Arabia, and there is no indication that the custom might change.

Saudi Arabia has some of the world's tightest restrictions on women, despite ambitious government reforms aimed at boosting female employment. Last month, women were allowed to watch football in stadiums in some cities, and a driving ban was lifted last year, but women are still unable to do many things without their male guardian's permission. Some of the restrictions include applying for a passport, travelling abroad, enrolling in university and getting married, as well as opening a bank account, starting certain businesses and getting optional surgeries. According to the law, they must also be accompanied by a guardian at all times when in public.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/0...070022064.html

What ever this news is. We would not confirm this came from scholars of islam through news except any Saudi person confirm this... and also enlighten us that scholar character. Or else this is nothing but division between ummah

[azc]

What ever this news is. We would not confirm this came from scholars of islam through news except any Saudi person confirm this... and also enlighten us that scholar character. Or else this is nothing but division between ummah

some scholars can say anything...

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Saudi cleric endorses Valentine's Day

Roses on sale in kingdom as Ahmad Qassim Al Ghamdi describes celebration as 'positive social event'

Riyadh: A prominent Saudi cleric on Wednesday endorsed Valentine’s Day, long forbidden in the kingdom, calling it a “positive social event” that was not linked to religion. The comment from Ahmad Qassim Al Ghamdi, former chief of the Makkah religious police, comes as 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman pursues a far-reaching liberalisation drive that has upended years of conservative tradition.

“It is a positive social event and congratulating people for it is not against sharia (law),” Al Ghamdi told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television.

“It is an act of kindness to share greetings on Western national and social holidays, including Valentine’s Day, exchange red roses with others, as long as it is towards peaceful people who do not share animosity or are being at war with Muslims.”

Such comments from the Saudi clerical establishment would be inconceivable around two years ago, when the religious police wielded unbridled powers and were notorious for enforcing sex segregation. In recent years, Saudi Arabia launched a series of reforms, including gradually diminishing the their powers to arrest. Prince Mohammad, who has vowed to return the country to “moderate Islam”, has further cut back the political role of hardline clerics in a historic reordering of the Saudi state.

Florists openly sold red roses and Valentine’s Day memorabilia in cities such as Jeddah on Wednesday without any trouble from the religious police, previously notorious for disrupting celebrations. The declining presence of the religious police has been met with relief from many of the country’s young, but it has also sparked concern over a possible backlash from arch-conservatives.

http://m.gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/saudi-cleric-endorses-valentine-s-day-1.2173978

Comment

A prominent Saudi cleric Ahmed Qassim al-Ghamdi, endorsed 'Valentine's Day' a 'positive social event' that is not linked to religion and does not go against sharia law.

The government 'Clerics' who obey regimes that make their political & ideological qibla the US, UK or France and who may never have heard of Valentine's Day until this year - suddenly make it permissible just after Trump visited their masters, Tillerson said he's gonna rewrite the syllabus, MBS launches his liberal drive and one of his mates vetoes abayas.

Prince Mohammed, who has vowed to return the country to a disease calls "moderate Islam," has further cut back the political role of hardline clerics in a historic reordering of the Saudi state. This so called social reform liberalising Muslim men and women to openly socialise in the public and emulate the western lifestyle, will create future social problem as seen happening in the west.

Bayhaqi reported that Adiyy ibn Hatim, said: “I came to the Prophet wearing a cross of gold in my neck. And I heard him read from Surah Baraa’ah,

اتَّخَذُوا أَحْبَارَهُمْ وَرُهْبَانَهُمْ أَرْبَابًا مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ
“They took the rabbis and monks as lords beside Allah” - (TMQ: Surah At-Tawba 9:31)

I said, “O RasulAllah, they do not worship them. He said:

أجل ولكن يحلون لهم ما حرم الله فيستحلونه ويحرمون عليهم ما أحل الله فيحرمونه فتلك عبادتهم لهم»
“Yes, but they made Halal for them what Allah forbade and they took it as Halal and they made Haram for them what Allah made Halal and they took it as Haraam and that is how they worshiped them.”

Today, when our sons and daughters have collectively rejected this kufr sholiday, why is it that the government is insisting on projecting a very small westernized minority as an ideal for the youth to follow?

Whether one looks at the history of ‘Valentine’s Day’ or ignores it, this is aptly clear that it has nothing to do with the Islamic civilization. Islam organizes the relationship of man and women through the institution of marriage; after this clear injunction of Islam, what the excuse does the government have for celebrating such an immoral festival on state television, radio and universities?

In the West on Valentine’s Day, students unions distribute free contraceptives, alcohol prices are reduced and a wave of sexual promiscuity erupts. This is the society which our rulers, blind followers of the west, wish to create in this country.

The fruits of this sexual perversion are spread everywhere in the west; where the fatherless children are involved in drugs, gangs and criminal activities. AIDS is destroying the society from within and a woman is dishonored every few minutes. Whilst the torment of the last day that awaits these followers of Satan is even worse. Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in the Qur’an:

وَلاَ تَقْرَبُواْ الزِّنَى إِنَّهُ كَانَ فَاحِشَةً وَسَاء سَبِيلاً
“Nor come near to adultery: for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to other evils).” [TMQ: Sura Isra’a:32]

Thus by virtue of this ayah, not only adultery rather any action that leads towards this wicked act also becomes Haraam. ‘Valentine’s day’ and similar festivities are created for the sake of depravation and degradation of the society. We call upon all Muslims especially the youth to boycott this government backed kufr holiday and raise their voice against it.

https://www.facebook.com/AlKhilafahGlobal/posts/1230627407072255

[azc]

Did this shaykh himself participate in valentine's day celebration...?

[فصيح الياسين]

Did this shaykh himself participate in valentine's day celebration...?

Hahahaaha

Sent from my GT-I9301I using IslamicBoard mobile app

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

All that jazz: Saudis attend country’s first jazz festival

While some showed up out of a love for jazz, many came to enjoy the chance to hear music at an outdoor event, with food trucks, a vintage car display and a relaxed atmosphere

Men and women swayed to music at Saudi Arabia’s first-ever jazz festival on Friday, the second of a three-day outdoor event that showcases the Kingdom’s recent efforts of shedding its conservative image.

Locals and foreigners flocked to the festival to watch bands from Riyadh, Beirut and New Orleans. The crowd sang along when Lebanon’s Chady Nashef performed the Eagles’ “Hotel California” – an unusual moment in the Islamic country after the religious police last year condemned concerts that feature singing as harmful and corrupting.

On Thursday, the General Entertainment Authority announced it will stage more than 5,000 shows, festivals and concerts in 2018, double the number of last year.

The entertainment plans are largely motivated by economics, part of a reform programme to diversify the economy away from oil and create jobs for young Saudis.

They also mark a change in social Saudi life and the gradual relaxing of gender segregation, although restrictions persist. At the festival, the area in front of the stage was divided into two sections – one for men and one for women – but people mixed in family seating areas on the side and in the back.

“I am so so happy I got up from bed this morning and went to a jazz festival and performed in front of a crowd like me, my countrymen,” said Saleh Zaid, a Saudi musician from the local band Min Riyadh.

While some showed up out of a love for jazz, many came to enjoy the chance to hear music at an outdoor event, with food trucks, a vintage car display and a relaxed atmosphere.

While reforms have taken place in the Kingdom, with a 35-year cinema ban lifted and women set to drive later this year, the majority of the country is conservative, which is reflected in government decisions.

Earlier this month, authorities detained a man after a video of him dancing with a woman in the street went viral.

But on Friday, women in abayas, loose-fitting robes, moved with the music, unconcerned with the possible backlash.

“This festival shows that the leadership here wants to let the people open up, to see more things, more cultures,” said Salem al-Ahmed, who with his stylish young friends jumped at the opportunity to attend his city’s first-of-a-kind festival.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180224-all-that-jazz-saudis-attend-countrys-first-jazz-festival/

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

The secret sounds of Saudi Arabia — from rock and rap to black metal

Musicians are cautiously optimistic about the gradual cultural liberalisation of their country

“Should we or shouldn’t we?” asks Hasan Hatrash. The frontman of Saudi Arabian band Most of Us is recalling the discussions he and his bandmates had about a song they recorded last year — a comic version of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild”, celebrating the new edict permitting Saudi women to drive.

Hatrash and his bandmates, bassist Khalid Sharani, drummer Amro Hawari and keyboardist Amer Abbas, were worried that the Saudi authorities — not noted for their appreciation of rock parodies — would fail to see the funny side. “But we have reached a state of mind that we are so f***ing bored and are getting too old, man,” he tells me. “You know, who dares wins! We saw it as a wave that we can ride. There could be risks but so what?”

The song’s video was a hit in Saudi Arabia. To Hatrash’s surprise, there was no hint of official disapproval. Duly encouraged, Most of Us have now released a song welcoming a new law permitting the reopening of cinemas. “Don’t travel to Bahrain to see a couple of movies,” Hatrash sings in Arabic. “Cinema is here!”

Saudi society is undergoing a dizzying period of change. The repressive kingdom of religious police and strict prohibitions is being rebooted. Instigated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, there are plans to spend $64bn turning the kingdom into an entertainment hub. If the scheme succeeds, Saudis will no longer have to travel to neighbouring Gulf states for trips to the cinema or concerts.

Music is at the vanguard of the new policy. Last year American country musician Toby Keith — Stetson-wearing maker of songs such as “She’s a Hottie” and “Drunk Americans” — played a gig in Riyadh for an all-male audience. In December, Lebanese singer Hiba Tawaji played the first female-only concert in the Saudi capital. Last month it staged its inaugural jazz festival.

Yet the general western impression of an artless wasteland being transformed by large sums of money and imported talent is not quite correct. Musicians already exist in the kingdom, not just making Arabic music but western forms as well: rock, pop, rap, heavy metal, even black metal.

“I want to show the world that we have a lot of art here, that we have been misrepresented,” Hatrash tells me over Skype from Most of Us’s studio in Jeddah. Now 43, the former journalist — described by American author Dave Eggers as a “poet, troublemaker and friend” — founded Most of Us in 1998. His classic rock-influenced outfit is a rare survivor of the first wave of Saudi rock bands.

Raised abroad until he was nine in a diplomatic family, Hatrash was part of a fledgling music scene that emerged in the 1990s. It was oriented around heavier styles of rock such as thrash metal. “That harsh music gave a sense of rebellion, a sense of screaming against the society,” he says. He learnt guitar by laboriously practising Metallica riffs by ear (“That was really hellish”).

Hatrash was among hundreds of young men interrogated after a police raid on an event featuring a rock band in Jeddah in 1995, set up “supposedly legally” by a local record label. “It created a kind of phobia. We got inward, we started playing at home, in private places,” he says.

There was no overt law against playing rock music. “It was more an un-spoken prohibition, driven by the culture.” Private shows, in residential compounds or consulates, were semi-tolerated, although there were periodic crackdowns. “The government didn’t want to create a clash with society. They didn’t want to create a fuss.”

Sound of Ruby, a fierce noise-rock band, were founded in 1996. Their leader, Al-Hajjaj, 38, based in Dammam City, cites Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” as drawing him to guitars and drums in the 1980s. “Electric guitars were also part of 1960s Arabic music, particularly the work of [pioneering Egyptian guitarist] Omar Khorshid,” he says by email.

At the start of their career, Sound of Ruby played gigs in a tent in the desert. “We needed to be far away so as to not disturb anybody with our loud sound,” Al-Hajjaj says. The arrival of the internet was transformative, “to connect with other local bands and musicians and to organise small gigs”.

“Suddenly rock, metal, hip-hop, everything started coming up,” Hatrash says of the spread of the web in the 2000s. Appetite for music was fuelled by petrol-dollar affluence and demographics: more than 60 per cent of Saudis are under 30. Official attitudes to the popularity of western music have fluctuated between pragmatism and suppression. The coastal city of Jeddah has traditionally been more liberal than Riyadh, the desert-locked capital.

Last year hip-hop was recognised as an official art form by the Saudi Arabian Society for Culture and Arts. It came after a campaign by the country’s most celebrated rapper, Qusai Kheder, aka Don Legend the Kamelion, who raps in Arabic and English. He released his first album in 2002, while his 2012 song “Yalla” notched up 11m YouTube views. (He was not available for comment.)

The pseudonymous members of Al-Namrood play black metal from an unknown location. Founded in 2008, the band, named after the Babylonian king Nimrod, make an uncompromising racket with lyrics attacking all religions. “Throughout the years, we have achieved a lot”, they say in a Facebook post about their 10th anniversary: “Most importantly we managed to keep our heads attached to our bodies!” They will not speak to the FT because “the top leadership” reads this newspaper, their Canadian record label states.

Loulwa Alsharif, 30 and from Jeddah, sings soul, blues and jazz. “There are many beautiful female musicians, from pianists to guitarists to oud and singers too,” she tells me by email. “When I started singing live, I told myself, Loulwa, you should have courage and be strong and start the first step!”

She began performing in a band led by blues guitarist and singer Moiz Rahman four years ago. Her first show was in a private compound “because it’s the safest place to do events in for a mixed [sex] audience”. A “very few people” warned her to be careful.

“But I wasn’t afraid at all. As long as I’m doing what I love in a respectable way, then no one has the right to stop me,” she says. “Fear either will stop us, or push us to be better, all we need is courage and belief in our self so we can move on, that is how Saudi women are becoming more successful.”

The human rights organisation Amnesty International cautions that women drivers and reopened cinemas “barely scratch the surface of the reform needed within the country”. Since becoming Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman has intensified a crackdown on activists and journalists and escalated a vicious war in Yemen. Only last year Saudi singer Abdallah Al Shahani was arrested for doing a “dabbing” dance move during a concert in the city of Taif.

However, the musicians I speak to are optimistic. “Each week, we’re seeing local bands and artists playing in public,” says Sound of Ruby’s Al-Hajjaj. “Saudi Arabia has become so liberal in a blink of an eye,” says Loulwa Alsharif, who plans a record with Hatrash’s band Most of US. As Hatrash himself says: “After 20 years now I can say we are starting to establish ourselves, like a new beginning. It’s a unique situ-ation. A very closed society suddenly becomes open. You can’t predict what will happen. Fingers crossed, man.”

https://www.ft.com/content/2cc2fb5e-2066-11e8-a895-1ba1f72c2c11

[سيف الله]

Salaam

This is concerning does anybody here knows whats going on?

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Saudi Arabia closes twitter account of Makkah Imam

The Saud Arabian authorities closed the twitter account on Friday morning of Sheikh Saud Al-Shuraim, one of the Imams in the Grand Mosque in Makkah, AlKhaleejonline.com has reported.

Al-Shuraim had posted comments about political and social issues in the Kingdom and criticised what he believes are violations of Islamic teachings.

The Imam was born in Riyadh in 1964. He has held several senior academic positions, including the Dean and Specialist Professor at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah. He is also a judge at the High Court in the Holy City.

His fellow Imam at the Grand Mosque, which houses the Sacred Kaaba, is Sheikh Abdul Rahman As-Sudais, who is loyal to the policies of the Saudi royal family. While Al-Shuraim has been praised by Muslims within and beyond the Kingdom over his courageous stances, Al-Sudais has been criticised for his “blind” support for the ruling House of Saud, which is regarded by many as irreligious.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180407-saudi-arabia-closes-twitter-account-of-makkah-imam/

[Misbah-Abd]

May Allah reward him for speaking the truth in the face of an unjust ruler. There have been too many appeasement concessions of late by the Prince on his tour of Darul Kufr.

[Zafran]

Horrible behavior from the Saudis. Allah swt preserve the scholars.

[azc]

Salaam

Another update

Saudi Arabia closes twitter account of Makkah Imam

The Saud Arabian authorities closed the twitter account on Friday morning of Sheikh Saud Al-Shuraim, one of the Imams in the Grand Mosque in Makkah, AlKhaleejonline.com has reported.

Al-Shuraim had posted comments about political and social issues in the Kingdom and criticised what he believes are violations of Islamic teachings.

The Imam was born in Riyadh in 1964. He has held several senior academic positions, including the Dean and Specialist Professor at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah. He is also a judge at the High Court in the Holy City.

His fellow Imam at the Grand Mosque, which houses the Sacred Kaaba, is Sheikh Abdul Rahman As-Sudais, who is loyal to the policies of the Saudi royal family. While Al-Shuraim has been praised by Muslims within and beyond the Kingdom over his courageous stances, Al-Sudais has been criticised for his “blind” support for the ruling House of Saud, which is regarded by many as irreligious.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20...f-makkah-imam/

Kudos to sh al Suraim for his courageous stance.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Saudi officials apologise for 'indecent women' images at pro-wrestling show

Saudi sports officials have apologised after images of scantily clad women appeared on big screens during a pro-wrestling event held in the kingdom.

The Saudi General Sports Authority apologised in an online statement on Saturday. Viewers said the broadcast of the WWE's "Greatest Royal Rumble" was cut off for a few moments as the images played.

The sports authority said there were shots of woman who were "indecent."

It also said it will not show matches involving female wrestlers. Organisers only allowed women to watch the show at King Abdullah Sports City if they were accompanied by male guardians. Friday night's event got political when Iranian-US wrestlers entered the stage waving the Iranian flag and confronted four amateur Saudi wrestlers in the ring.

The stunt provoked jeers and boos from the crowd.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in an bitter rivalry with both countries competing for influence in the region.

The event comes as the ultra-conservative kingdom is gradually loosening restrictions on public entertainment.

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/4/28/saudi-officials-apologise-for-indecent-images-at-pro-wrestling-show

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Embedded Tweet

['Abd-al Latif]

Salaam

This is concerning does anybody here knows whats going on?

This person isn't an imam. He's not even part of the masjid. He forced his way on the pulpit just before Friday prayers and refused to cooperate with security. They had to force him off.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Top cleric 'detained by Saudi authorities'

Sheikh Safar al-Hawali had been a prominent critic of American influence in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has detained a prominent Islamic scholar, activists said Thursday, in a widening crackdown on dissent in the ultra-conservative kingdom, which is undergoing sweeping economic and social reforms.

Rights campaigners and online activists said Sheikh Safar al-Hawali, a Sunni Islamist scholar and leading figure in Saudi Arabia's Islamic Sahwa reformist movement, had been taken into custody.

They did not give further details about the case of the scholar, who has pushed a line of anti-Americanism and Islamic rule.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, named heir to the throne in June 2017, has spearheaded a string of reforms over the past year aimed at improving his country's image and economy.

The changes have coincided with a widening crackdown on all forms of opposition.

Authorities last month arrested a number of prominent women's rights campaigners, just days before the kingdom ended a decades-long ban on women driving.

Hawali was jailed in the 1990s for opposing his country's ties to US troops leading a military operation to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

In 1993, he was banned from public speaking and dismissed from his academic posts along with prominent cleric Sheikh Salman al-Awda.

While no charges were pressed, the two were accused of aiming to incite civil disobedience. They were arrested again in 1994 but soon released.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/top-islamist-cleric-detained-saudi-authorities-1156314858

A debate

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Embedded Tweet

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Sh Safar al-Hawali and Salman al-Awda face deteriorating health in Saudi prison

Reports have emerged suggesting that the medical condition of Sheikh Safar al-Hawali and Sheikh Salman al-Awda is deteriorating due to medical negligence according to the advocacy group ‘Mu’taqilī al-Ra’ī‘ or ‘Prisoners of Conscious’. [1]

In a tweet the group claimed that Sheikh Safar al-Hawali and his children have been pressured to disavow themselves from his book “Muslims and Western civilization”, and to claim that the book was not written by the Sheikh, in return for their release.[2]

Sheikh Safar al-Hawali and three of his sons were arrested on July 12th, a few days after the publication of his book, attributed to the Sheikh, in which he imparts on advice to the ruling family and the Council of Senior Scholars close to the monarchy.

In his book, the Sheikh criticises the ruling family in Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed. [3] The prominent Sheikh criticises the ruling family’s over-sized expenditure, saying it: “has been wasting funds on fake projects” and calling the Crown Prince’s cosy relationship with Israel a “betrayal”.

Human Rights activists have stressed that this form of blackmail is a “humanitarian crime and a blatant exploitation of the Sheikh’s deteriorating health.”

“The Saudi authorities want to silence everyone,” Saudi lawyer and Human Rights activist Sultan al-Abdali said.

A previous report by Al Jazeera suggested that the arrest of Sheikh Safar al-Hawali was because of what was contained of advice directed at the Saudi Arabian ruling family, scholars and activists.

The ‘Prisoners of Conscious’ also reported that a number of scholars have been transferred from al-Zahaban prison to al-Ha’ir prison in preparation for their ‘trials’. [4] Many have expressed concern and fear that such trials may be conducted in secret and in accordance with the Saudi authorities Terrorism Act, inevitably resulting in hefty prison sentences.

The Saudi authorities have arrested scores of scholars and activists in what is seen as a significant shift in internal policy led by Crown-Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The measures have been dubbed by some as a precursor to introducing more secular-leaning laws. [5]

According to various news agencies, Saudi authorities have arrested dozens of scholars, activists and academics, including Sheikh Salman al-Awda, Sheikh Awad al-Qarni, Sheikh Mohammad Musa al-Sharif, Sheikh Muhammad Saleh al-Munajjid and Sheikh Abdul Aziz at-Tarefe.

Sheikh Salman al-Awda was arrested in September 2017, because of what was allegedly a gleeful remark in which he invoked Allah to bring together the hearts of Muslims after the news of a telephone call between the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Saudi Crown-Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Sheikh believed that the call would trigger reconciliation, only for the crisis to deepen further. [6]

https://www.islam21c.com/news-views/safar-al-hawali-and-salman-al-awda-face-deteriorating-health-in-saudi-prison/

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Saudi cleric Abdelaziz al-Fawzan arrested over 'war on religion' tweets

Fawzan had criticised imprisonment of other imams by Saudi authorities as part of Mohammed bin Salman's crackdown on dissent

Saudi Arabian authorities are reported to have arrested influential cleric Abdelaziz al-Fawzan after he spoke out against the arrests of other religious leaders in the country.

Fawzan’s arrest was highlighted by Prisoners of Conscience, a Twitter account run by activists campaigning against the wave of arrests targeting opponents of the Saudi government.

Prisoners of Conscience said it had received confirmation that Fawzan, a professor of comparative religious law at the Saudi Higher Institute of Justice, had been arrested over a tweet in which he had “expressed his opinion against the suppression of sheikhs and preachers”.

Embedded Tweet

Translation: It was confirmed to us that that the Saudi authorities arrested Dr. Abdelaziz Fawzan, professor of comparative religious law at the Higher Institute of Justice, against the background of the tweet in which he expressed his opinion against the suppression of sheikhs and preachers. He warned people against being sycophants.

Fawzan has been banned from leaving Saudi territory and barred from using social media networks, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

The cleric, who has more than two million followers on Twitter, criticised the arrests of other imams and religious leaders in tweets posted on 15 and 16 July, in which he accused Saudi authorities of waging a “war on religion and values”.

"With this heinous war on religion and values, you should not back the criminals, and your love for money and status should not lead you to try to please them or portray their wrongful actions positively, otherwise you would lose this life and the afterlife," one of the tweets said.

Several prominent clerics were arrested as part of a wider purge instigated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in September, which also targeted Saudi princes and high-profile business tycoons.

Those detained include Salman al-Odah and Awad al-Qarni, two of the country’s most prominent scholars, who were arrested in September in what was seen as a crackdown on some of the country’s most influential religious figures.

Odah, who was arrested after offering to mediate in the dispute between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, was reportedly taken to a hospital in January after spending five months in solitary confinement.

Earlier this month, Sheikh Safar al-Hawali, a veteran Salafi scholar and leading figure in Saudi Arabia's Islamic Sahwa (Awakening) reformist movement, was also arrested.

Bin Salman is currently overseeing a programme of economic and social reforms. But he has been criticised by human rights groups for cracking down on opposition activists, with Human Rights Watch reporting in April that “state repression against human rights defenders and any form of dissent has only increased under the crown prince”.

Authorities last month arrested a number of prominent women's rights campaigners, just days before the kingdom ended a decades-long ban on women driving.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-cleric-abdelaziz-fawzan-arrested-over-war-religion-tweets-1915905016

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Caution loooonngggg article.

Interesting narrative the (globalists) Guardian is trying to paint. Still good article.

My son, Osama: the al-Qaida leader’s mother speaks for the first time

Nearly 17 years since 9/11, Osama bin Laden’s family remains an influential part of Saudi society – as well as a reminder of the darkest moment in the kingdom’s history. Can they escape his legacy?

On the corner couch of a spacious room, a woman wearing a brightly patterned robe sits expectantly. The red hijab that covers her hair is reflected in a glass-fronted cabinet; inside, a framed photograph of her firstborn son takes pride of place between family heirlooms and valuables. A smiling, bearded figure wearing a military jacket, he features in photographs around the room: propped against the wall at her feet, resting on a mantlepiece. A supper of Saudi meze and a lemon cheesecake has been spread out on a large wooden dining table.

Alia Ghanem is Osama bin Laden’s mother, and she commands the attention of everyone in the room. On chairs nearby sit two of her surviving sons, Ahmad and Hassan, and her second husband, Mohammed al-Attas, the man who raised all three brothers. Everyone in the family has their own story to tell about the man linked to the rise of global terrorism; but it is Ghanem who holds court today, describing a man who is, to her, still a beloved son who somehow lost his way. “My life was very difficult because he was so far away from me,” she says, speaking confidently. “He was a very good kid and he loved me so much.” Now in her mid-70s and in variable health, Ghanem points at al-Attas – a lean, fit man dressed, like his two sons, in an immaculately pressed white thobe, a gown worn by men across the Arabian peninsula. “He raised Osama from the age of three. He was a good man, and he was good to Osama.”

The family have gathered in a corner of the mansion they now share in Jeddah, the Saudi Arabian city that has been home to the Bin Laden clan for generations. They remain one of the kingdom’s wealthiest families: their dynastic construction empire built much of modern Saudi Arabia, and is deeply woven into the country’s establishment. The Bin Laden home reflects their fortune and influence, a large spiral staircase at its centre leading to cavernous rooms. Ramadan has come and gone, and the bowls of dates and chocolates that mark the three-day festival that follows it sit on tabletops throughout the house. Large manors line the rest of the street; this is well-to-do Jeddah, and while no guard stands watch outside, the Bin Ladens are the neighbourhood’s best-known residents.

For years, Ghanem has refused to talk about Osama, as has his wider family – throughout his two-decade reign as al-Qaida leader, a period that saw the strikes on New York and Washington DC, and ended more than nine years later with his death in Pakistan.

Now, Saudi Arabia’s new leadership – spearheaded by the ambitious 32-year-old heir to the throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – has agreed to my request to speak to the family. (As one of the country’s most influential families, their movements and engagements remain closely monitored.) Osama’s legacy is as grave a blight on the kingdom as it is on his family, and senior officials believe that, by allowing the Bin Ladens to tell their story, they can demonstrate that an outcast – not an agent – was responsible for 9/11. Saudi Arabia’s critics have long alleged that Osama had state support, and the families of a number of 9/11 victims have launched (so far unsuccessful) legal actions against the kingdom. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.

Unsurprisingly, Osama bin Laden’s family are cautious in our initial negotiations; they are not sure whether opening old wounds will prove cathartic or harmful. But after several days of discussion, they are willing to talk. When we meet on a hot day in early June, a minder from the Saudi government sits in the room, though she makes no attempt to influence the conversation. (We are also joined by a translator.)

Sitting between Osama’s half-brothers, Ghanem recalls her firstborn as a shy boy who was academically capable. He became a strong, driven, pious figure in his early 20s, she says, while studying economics at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, where he was also radicalised. “The people at university changed him,” Ghanem says. “He became a different man.” One of the men he met there was Abdullah Azzam, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was later exiled from Saudi Arabia and became Osama’s spiritual adviser. “He was a very good child until he met some people who pretty much brainwashed him in his early 20s. You can call it a cult. They got money for their cause. I would always tell him to stay away from them, and he would never admit to me what he was doing, because he loved me so much.”

In the early 1980s, Osama travelled to Afghanistan to fight the Russian occupation. “Everyone who met him in the early days respected him,” says Hassan, picking up the story. “At the start, we were very proud of him. Even the Saudi government would treat him in a very noble, respectful way. And then came Osama the mujahid.”

A long uncomfortable silence follows, as Hassan struggles to explain the transformation from zealot to global jihadist. “I am very proud of him in the sense that he was my oldest brother,” he eventually continues. “He taught me a lot. But I don’t think I’m very proud of him as a man. He reached superstardom on a global stage, and it was all for nothing.”

Ghanem listens intently, becoming more animated when the conversation returns to Osama’s formative years. “He was very straight. Very good at school. He really liked to study. He spent all his money on Afghanistan – he would sneak off under the guise of family business.” Did she ever suspect he might become a jihadist? “It never crossed my mind.” How did it feel when she realised he had? “We were extremely upset. I did not want any of this to happen. Why would he throw it all away like that?”

The family say they last saw Osama in Afghanistan in 1999, a year in which they visited him twice at his base just outside Kandahar. “It was a place near the airport that they had captured from the Russians,” Ghanem says. “He was very happy to receive us. He was showing us around every day we were there. He killed an animal and we had a feast, and he invited everyone.”

Ghanem begins to relax, and talks about her childhood in the coastal Syrian city of Latakia, where she grew up in a family of Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam. Syrian cuisine is superior to Saudi, she says, and so is the weather by the Mediterranean, where the warm, wet summer air was a stark contrast to the acetylene heat of Jeddah in June. Ghanem moved to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1950s, and Osama was born in Riyadh in 1957. She divorced his father three years later, and married al-Attas, then an administrator in the fledgling Bin Laden empire, in the early 1960s. Osama’s father went on to have 54 children with at least 11 wives.

When Ghanem leaves to rest in a nearby room, Osama’s half-brothers continue the conversation. It’s important, they say, to remember that a mother is rarely an objective witness. “It has been 17 years now [since 9/11] and she remains in denial about Osama,” Ahmad says. “She loved him so much and refuses to blame him. Instead, she blames those around him. She only knows the good boy side, the side we all saw. She never got to know the jihadist side.

“I was shocked, stunned,” he says now of the early reports from New York. “It was a very strange feeling. We knew from the beginning [that it was Osama], within the first 48 hours. From the youngest to the eldest, we all felt ashamed of him. We knew all of us were going to face horrible consequences. Our family abroad all came back to Saudi.” They had been scattered across Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Europe. “In Saudi, there was a travel ban. They tried as much as they could to maintain control over the family.” The family say they were all questioned by the authorities and, for a time, prevented from leaving the country. Nearly two decades on, the Bin Ladens can move relatively freely within and outside the kingdom.

Osama bin Laden’s formative years in Jeddah came in the relatively freewheeling 1970s, before the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which aimed to export Shia zeal into the Sunni Arab world. From then on, Saudi’s rulers enforced a rigid interpretation of Sunni Islam – one that had been widely practised across the Arabian peninsula since the 18th century, the era of cleric Muhammed ibn Abdul Wahhab. In 1744, Abdul Wahhab had made a pact with the then ruler Mohammed bin Saud, allowing his family to run affairs of state while hardline clerics defined the national character.

The modern day kingdom, proclaimed in 1932, left both sides – the clerics and the rulers – too powerful to take the other on, locking the state and its citizens into a society defined by arch-conservative views: the strict segregation of non-related men and women; uncompromising gender roles; an intolerance of other faiths; and an unfailing adherence to doctrinal teachings, all rubber-stamped by the House of Saud.

Many believe this alliance directly contributed to the rise of global terrorism. Al-Qaida’s worldview – and that of its offshoot, Islamic State (Isis) – were largely shaped by Wahhabi scriptures; and Saudi clerics were widely accused of encouraging a jihadist movement that grew throughout the 1990s, with Osama bin Laden at its centre.

In 2018, Saudi’s new leadership wants to draw a line under this era and introduce what bin Salman calls “moderate Islam”. This he sees as essential to the survival of a state where a large, restless and often disaffected young population has, for nearly four decades, had little access to entertainment, a social life or individual freedoms. Saudi’s new rulers believe such rigid societal norms, enforced by clerics, could prove fodder for extremists who tap into such feelings of frustration.

Reform is beginning to creep through many aspects of Saudi society; among the most visible was June’s lifting of the ban on women drivers. There have been changes to the labour markets and a bloated public sector; cinemas have opened, and an anti-corruption drive launched across the private sector and some quarters of government. The government also claims to have stopped all funding to Wahhabi institutions outside the kingdom, which had been supported with missionary zeal for nearly four decades.

Such radical shock therapy is slowly being absorbed across the country, where communities conditioned to decades of uncompromising doctrine don’t always know what to make of it. Contradictions abound: some officials and institutions eschew conservatism, while others wholeheartedly embrace it. Meanwhile, political freedoms remain off-limits; power has become more centralised and dissent is routinely crushed.

Bin Laden’s legacy remains one of the kingdom’s most pressing issues. I meet Prince Turki al-Faisal, who was the head of Saudi intelligence for 24 years, between 1977 and 1 September 2001 (10 days before the 9/11 attacks), at his villa in Jeddah. An erudite man now in his mid-70s, Turki wears green cufflinks bearing the Saudi flag on the sleeves of his thobe. “There are two Osama bin Ladens,” he tells me. “One before the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and one after it. Before, he was very much an idealistic mujahid. He was not a fighter. By his own admission, he fainted during a battle, and when he woke up, the Soviet assault on his position had been defeated.”

As Bin Laden moved from Afghanistan to Sudan, and as his links to Saudi Arabia soured, it was Turki who spoke with him on behalf of the kingdom. In the wake of 9/11, these direct dealings came under intense scrutiny. Then – and 17 years later – relatives of some of the 2,976 killed and more than 6,000 wounded in New York and Washington DC refuse to believe that a country that had exported such an arch-conservative form of the faith could have nothing to do with the consequences.

Certainly, Bin Laden travelled to Afghanistan with the knowledge and backing of the Saudi state, which opposed the Soviet occupation; along with America, the Saudis armed and supported those groups who fought it. The young mujahid had taken a small part of the family fortune with him, which he used to buy influence. When he returned to Jeddah, emboldened by battle and the Soviet defeat, he was a different man, Turki says. “He developed a more political attitude from 1990. He wanted to evict the communists and South Yemeni Marxists from Yemen. I received him, and told him it was better that he did not get involved. The mosques of Jeddah were using the Afghan example.” By this, Turki means the narrowly defined reading of the faith espoused by the Taliban. “He was inciting them [Saudi worshippers]. He was told to stop.”

“He had a poker face,” Turki continues. “He never grimaced, or smiled. In 1992, 1993, there was a huge meeting in Peshawar organised by Nawaz Sharif’s government.” Bin Laden had by this point been given refuge by Afghan tribal leaders. “There was a call for Muslim solidarity, to coerce those leaders of the Muslim world to stop going at each other’s throats. I also saw him there. Our eyes met, but we didn’t talk. He didn’t go back to the kingdom. He went to Sudan, where he built a honey business and financed a road.”

Bin Laden’s advocacy increased in exile. “He used to fax statements to everybody. He was very critical. There were efforts by the family to dissuade him – emissaries and such – but they were unsuccessful. It was probably his feeling that he was not taken seriously by the government.”

By 1996, Bin Laden was back in Afghanistan. Turki says the kingdom knew it had a problem and wanted him returned. He flew to Kandahar to meet with the then head of the Taliban, Mullah Omar. “He said, ‘I am not averse to handing him over, but he was very helpful to the Afghan people.’ He said Bin Laden was granted refuge according to Islamic dictates.” Two years later, in September 1998, Turki flew again to Afghanistan, this time to be robustly rebuffed. “At that meeting, he was a changed man,” he says of Omar. “Much more reserved, sweating profusely. Instead of taking a reasonable tone, he said, ‘How can you persecute this worthy man who dedicated his life to helping Muslims?’” Turki says he warned Omar that what he was doing would harm the people of Afghanistan, and left.

The family visit to Kandahar took place the following year, and came after a US missile strike on one of Bin Laden’s compounds – a response to al-Qaida attacks on US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. It seems an entourage of immediate family had little trouble finding their man, where the Saudi and western intelligence networks could not.

According to officials in Riyadh, London and Washington DC, Bin Laden had by then become the world’s number one counter-terrorism target, a man who was bent on using Saudi citizens to drive a wedge between eastern and western civilisations. “There is no doubt that he deliberately chose Saudi citizens for the 9/11 plot,” a British intelligence officer tells me. “He was convinced that was going to turn the west against his ... home country. He did indeed succeed in inciting a war, but not the one he expected.”

Turki claims that in the months before 9/11, his intelligence agency knew that something troubling was being planned. “In the summer of 2001, I took one of the warnings about something spectacular about to happen to the Americans, British, French and Arabs. We didn’t know where, but we knew that something was being brewed.”

Bin Laden remains a popular figure in some parts of the country, lauded by those who believe he did God’s work. The depth of support, however, is difficult to gauge. What remains of his immediate family, meanwhile, has been allowed back into the kingdom: at least two of Osama’s wives (one of whom was with him in Abbottabad when he was killed by US special forces) and their children now live in Jeddah.

“We had a very good relationship with Mohammed bin Nayef [the former crown prince],” Osama’s half-brother Ahmad tells me as a maid sets the nearby dinner table. “He let the wives and children return.” But while they have freedom of movement inside the city, they cannot leave the kingdom.

Osama’s mother rejoins the conversation. “I speak to his harem most weeks,” she says. “They live nearby.”

Osama’s half-sister, and the two men’s sister, Fatima al-Attas, was not at our meeting. From her home in Paris, she later emailed to say she strongly objected to her mother being interviewed, asking that it be rearranged through her. Despite the blessing of her brothers and stepfather, she felt her mother had been pressured into talking. Ghanem, however, insisted she was happy to talk and could have talked longer. It is, perhaps, a sign of the extended family’s complicated status in the kingdom that such tensions exist.

I ask the family about Bin Laden’s youngest son, 29-year-old Hamza, who is thought to be in Afghanistan. Last year, he was officially designated a “global terrorist” by the US and appears to have taken up the mantle of his father, under the auspices of al-Qaida’s new leader, and Osama’s former deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

His uncles shake their heads. “We thought everyone was over this,” Hassan says. “Then the next thing I knew, Hamza was saying, ‘I am going to avenge my father.’ I don’t want to go through that again. If Hamza was in front of me now, I would tell him, ‘God guide you. Think twice about what you are doing. Don’t retake the steps of your father. You are entering horrible parts of your soul.’”

Hamza bin Laden’s continued rise may well cloud the family’s attempts to shake off their past. It may also hinder the crown prince’s efforts to shape a new era in which Bin Laden is cast as a generational aberration, and in which the hardline doctrines once sanctioned by the kingdom no longer offer legitimacy to extremism. While change has been attempted in Saudi Arabia before, it has been nowhere near as extensive as the current reforms. How hard Mohammed bin Salman can push against a society indoctrinated in such an uncompromising worldview remains an open question.

Saudia Arabia’s allies are optimistic, but offer a note of caution. The British intelligence officer I spoke to told me, “If Salman doesn’t break through, there will be many more Osamas. And I’m not sure they’ll be able to shake the curse.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/03/osama-bin-laden-mother-speaks-out-family-interview

[magok]

americans: saudis are controlling our gov and are taking over

others: america is controlling ksa and are taking over

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Arabic press review: Well-known cleric latest arrest in Saudi Arabia

Sheikh Nasser al-Omar joins a list of prisoners of conscience, including religious leaders, writers and thinkers, behind bars in the kingdom

Renowned cleric arrested in Saudi Arabia

Saudi authorities have arrested a university professor and well-known Islamic cleric, adding another person to the list of prisoners of conscience in the kingdom which has witnessed a widescale campaign of arrests for months, according to al-Quds al-Arabi.

The London-based newspaper confirmed the arrest last Tuesday of Sheikh Nasser al-Omar, a former professor at Imam Mohammed bin Saud University, and pointed out that he had stopped tweeting since his arrest.

Omar’s arrest comes as part of an ongoing wave of detentions of prominent Saudi clerics, writers, thinkers and activists.

Last September, the Saudi authorities interrogated Omar, and he has pledged not to interfere in political issues or allude to them.

Abdullah al-Odah, the son of Sheikh Salman al-Odah, one of the most prominent detainees in Saudi Arabia, told the paper that Omar was arrested in Mecca on Tuesday.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/arabic-press-review-245844928

[سيف الله]

Salaam

America corrupts everything that is corruptible. This will continue until America's own corruption destroys it from the inside.

Yes



Or perhaps more accurately American/globalist elites.

I'm just speculating, its the seems the globalists want to accelerate their take over Saudi Arabia to remake the society in their own image, replacing Islam with a new Saudi nationalism. Its probably take them several decades.

If you want to see an example of a society remade in the image of the globalists you only have to look at Ireland. 40 - 50 years ago it was staunchly Catholic in morals and attitudes, the globalists moved in and have campaigned to remake the society and you can see the results.

Blurb

On May 25th 2018 Ireland voted by referendum to remove from its constitution the right to life of unborn children, an event which signifies Irish society's compete abandonment of traditional moral values and its embrace of the liberal death cult. E.Michael Jones is the editor of Culture Wars magazine.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgaEzBoQJGY&t=17s

Some comments

Lost Hobo

We sold out. Every other Irish person I know became obsessed with money. Everything else followed. Career self absorbed materialistic people. It went the way of the rest of the Western world. Faith becomes an uncomfortable obstacle to selfishness. I have tried to speak out against abortion on social media and most people just blanked me after that.

Sharon Mortimore

It’s amazing just how powerful brainwashing has proven to be. How the minds and hearts of the masses can be controlled so readily within a generation of educational programming, necessarily starting in early childhood. The deconstructionists have brainwashing and social engineering down to a fine art, after many decades of researching and testing it. We are now seeing the rotten fruits of their labour. The deconstruction phase is pretty much complete, as we see the construction phase of their New World Order in full swing. The good news is, their own tactics and measures can be harnessed by traditionalists to recover what has been lost, (ie, morality, traditional values, social cohesion and functionality, strong families and communities) by employing similar measures in the reverse. We’ve seen for ourselves how easily cultures, value systems, societies can be dismantled and decimated... the same can be done now with the sick immorality that controls our world. This New World Order can be deconstructed and replaced too.

Conservative society in the past was too confident... they didn’t seem to fully understand that all could be lost if they didn’t defend the minds of their children against those who sought to corrupt and control them for their own nefarious purposes. But all is not not lost yet. There are still enough of us left to fight this drawn out psychological war. Enough of us to win back what has been destroyed and protect what little is left. We can still turn this ship around.

Thank you for leading the charge where you can, Dr E. Michael Jones.

fantom58

"Cultural Marxism" is actually symptomatic of late-stage capitalism, where nothing matters but mammon and pleasure, and if such impediments as morality and honor are in the way, they're swept aside. When the whole rotten economic edifice finally collapses of its own internal contradictions, that's when this depravity some call cultural Marxism (and its enablers) will be dealt with.

Moira Forest

France, as the "Eldest daughter of the church" is being completely destroyed by Cultural Marxism and financial Libéralism. The process has begun 50 years ago with a spectacular revolution ("spectacular" here means that it was only a show to deceive people) and since then, we are getting more and more apathetic and deluded by false discourses and meaningless pleasure. Ireland, that I consider as a "little sister" as Catholicism is concerned, seems to get through an even more radical process as if a kind of Cromwellian campaign, more than 300 years after the actual Cromwell was taking place, a Cromwellian campaign without bloodshed, with a "cool" attitude, with credit cards and condoms... That's the very proof that Liberal Left and Capitalism plot together against the people. The weapons are television, corporate medias and of course unbound sexuality...

hoplite23 345

Successive Irish governments have since the 1960s depended on their ability to attract Foreign Direct Investment from transnational corporations as their prime economic policy to the point of actually standing up to the EU Commission's attempt to recoup €13bn tax from the Apple Corp in Ireland in 2016. That dependency has turned Ireland like a street addict in thrall to his supplier.

Onto that the Irish have been successively brainwashed by mainstream culture to see the past as nothing but bad and therefore anything "progressive" as positive. As a result it has become not only one of the most globalized countries anywhere but one which on the whole has maybe most wholeheartedly embraced globalization. Most opposition to such policies comes from the hard Left in the main which are still not anyway attractive of a prospect to the vast majority. Therefore the mainstream discourse is between two "Center Right" ardently pro-Globalist and Pro-EU parties and a "Center Left" third party which has more or less abandoned its Trade Unionist roots for a Post-Modernist variety of "progressive" ideology. Along with a socially liberal dominated pro-EU media it has the feel of near single party state despite the very obvious rapid changes being brought about by such polices.

Central California Bipedal Trails

To be honest with you, in my opinion, the Irish wrote their epitaph when they joined, and decided to stay with the EU. The EU, is about as secular as you can get. Even the English were smart enough to shout out " we've had enough!" So, the Irish have put their faith in a Catholic church that is embracing diversity and Echumenism, so now the Irish adopt a liberal platform fine tuned by Soros, the Rothschilds and the Bilderberg G7 and G20, then the U.N. Agenda 21 and 30? Well, I was in Ireland in 1993, when Ireland still had it's more traditional Catholism, and it's almost end of IRA Northern Ireland strife. My observation is that indeed the devil is doing his will and the strength of the Irish conviction is in the past. The large families are a thing of the past. The EU is being driven by Ashkenazi domination and a class warfare. The whole notion of NWO comes from the Talmudic synsgogue of satan. The movement of population control and so called " diversity" is a way for the youth rebellion , the acceptance of socialism and the tendency for the progressives to eat their own. Only a change of attitude and an admission of guilt, can save Ireland and the rest of Europe now....

Chris Adams

Most Irish people are a lost cause now, the anti-Catholic propaganda in Ireland is monstrous. Ireland barely has a population of 5 million, compare that to the 50 million of England and over 300 million in the US. Ireland has been bullied relentlessly into becoming another liberal American town, another anglo-jewish colony. Ireland without its glorious Catholic history is totally defenseless. Brian O'Higgins' poem is as revelant today as the first time it was published>

This doesn't detract from the fact that the Catholic Church brought a lot of its problems on itself.

The Pope recently visited Ireland and was told in no uncertain terms that Catholicism is to be relegated to bystander status by the new liberal elite.

Take heed.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Saudi 'seeks death penalty' for Muslim scholar Salman al-Awdah

Scholar, 61, charged with 37 counts, including incitement against the ruler and spreading discord, his family says.

Public prosecutors in Saudi Arabia are seeking the death penalty against prominent Muslim scholar Salman al-Awdah, local media, activists and his family members have said.

Awdah, who UN experts have described as a "reformist," was imprisoned a year ago, shortly after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a crackdown on dissent and imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the kingdom's Gulf neighbour, Qatar.

Awdah, who has 14 million followers on Twitter, posted a tweet on September 9, saying: "May God harmonise between their hearts for the good of their people" - an apparent call for reconciliation between the Gulf countries.

Local daily Okaz reported that the public prosecution, which represents the Saudi government, had levelled 37 counts against Awdah and called for the death penalty.

According to London-based Saudi rights group ALQST and other activists, some of the charges included incitement against the ruler and spreading discord.

Awdah's son, Abdullah, wrote on Twitter that the charges against his father included critical tweets and establishing an organisation which worked to defend the honour of the Prophet Muhammad.

"Today, at a court hearing for my father Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, the prosecution requested the death penalty against him, and submitted 37 charges, one of which was establishing the al-Nusra organisation in Kuwait to defend the Prophet (PBUH), and being a member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research and the International Union of Muslim scholars, with other charges related to his tweets on Twitter."

Amnesty International's Saudi Arabia campaigner Dana Ahmed called the reports "a disturbing trend in the Kingdom [that] sends a horrifying message that peaceful dissent and expression may be met with the death penalty".

Crackdown on dissent

The ruling Al Saud family has long regarded Islamist groups as the biggest internal threat to its rule.

In the 1990s, the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired Sahwa (Awakening) movement demanded political reforms that posed a challenge to the ruling family.

Al-Awdah, a Sahwa leader, was imprisoned from 1994-99 for agitating for political change, an act which would earn him praise from Saudi-born late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

In 2011, al-Awdah called for elections and separation of powers, demands considered dangerous provocations in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy where public protests and political parties are banned, has witnessed a massive crackdown on dissent, with dozens of religious leaders, intellectuals and women's rights activists arrested in the past year.

Among those arrested were prominent Islamic preachers Awad al-Qarni, Farhan al-Malki, Mostafa Hassan and Safar al-Hawali.

Al-Hawali, 68, was detained after he published a 3,000-page book attacking bin Salman and the ruling family over their ties to Israel, calling it a "betrayal".

Earlier this year, bin Salman softened the kingdom's stance on Israel, telling the US-based Atlantic magazine that Israelis "have the right to their own land" and "there are a lot of interests we [Saudi Arabia] share with Israel".

Last month, authorities recommended the death penalty for five human rights activists from the kingdom's Eastern Province, including Israa al-Ghomgham, the first woman to possibly face that punishment for rights-related work.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/...055754018.html

Embedded Tweet

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

CAGE calls for the release of Sheikh Salman al-Oudah and other scholars imprisoned in Saudi Arabia

CAGE is deeply concerned about reports that prosecutors in Saudi Arabia are seeking the death penalty against prominent Islamic scholar, Sheikh Dr Salman al-Oudah.

Dr. Al-Oudah, is widely known throughout the Arab world and beyond for seeking positive reform in the Kingdom as well as engagement and understanding of other communities and beliefs.

In 1994, Al-Oudah was imprisoned for five years alongside Dr. Safar al-Hawali for seeking reforms in Saudi Arabia – following the First Gulf war and the establishment of US military bases on Saudi soil.

Since then, Dr. al-Oudah’s views on various subjects have been sought and praised by millions in the Muslim world. He currently has a twitter following of 14.3 million.

However, despite his positive influence, Dr al-Oudah was imprisoned again in September 2017 for failing to tweet in support of the Saudi blockade of Qatar. Instead, he advocated in favour of reconciliation.

CAGE Outreach Director, Moazzam Begg said:

“Sheikh Salman al-Oudah is a breath of fresh air in a country like Saudi Arabia. He is an independent thinker, a social reformer and he is unafraid to speak words of sense and compassion.”

“It has now emerged that Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Dr al-Oudah despite the fact he has been imprisoned without charge or trial in solitary confinement. They have cited his membership of the International Union of Muslim Scholars as the justification for this and designated it a terrorist entity.”

“Saudi Arabia, like many other countries, has adapted the language of the war on terror to challenge dissent or silence calls for positive reform. In this regard it is no different to many Western nations but also countries like Myanmar, China or Syria.

“To seek the death penalty against a man because he sought reform at home and reconciliation with neighbours can only end with upheaval in Saudi society. We call for his immediate release, and the release of other scholars who have been imprisoned for their views – one of which has already died, allegedly due to torture.”

https://www.cage.ngo/cage-calls-for-the-release-of-sheikh-salman-al-oudah-and-other-scholars-and-activists-imprisoned-in-saudi-arabia

[anatolian]

Oh I missed this..We need more like this Algerian hero..

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

The International Union of Muslims Scholars categorically denounced and rejected its characterisation of terrorism by some countries, but it is the one who debunked the terrorism that came out of the cloak of some countries. The Union warns that the hostility towards its members and imprisonment of Muslim clerics for telling the truth is a harbinger of shame and punitive. In this regard, the Muslim world, therefore, appealed to its faithful leaders and clerics, thinkers/intellectuals, to intervene given securing the release of all the prisoners of conscience, such as Sheikh Salman Al-Awda, Dr.Musa. Al-Sharif, Dr.Nasser Al-Omar and others.

The International Union of Muslim Scholars has received with high anxiety and agony the initiation of the secret trial of prisoners of conscience, advice and supplication, of the Divine scholars, thinkers and reformers and so on. Such as Sheikh Salman Al-Awda, Dr Musa al-Sharif, Dr.Nasser Al-Omar, Dr Safar Hawaali, Dr Awad Qarni, Dr.Khaled al Ajami, Dr Ali al-Omari, Dr Ali Badhaddah, Sheikh Saleh al-Taleb, Sheikh Dr Abdul-Aziz Al-Fawzan, and others.

These divine Muslim scholars did anything neither revolt against the state, by threaten and undermining the national of the nation. Their only crime was to direct the most honest and sincere advice without a smidgeon of hypocrisy or favouritism to the government and the leadership of that country, this government and the entirety of its leadership. Instead of being appreciative for receiving such a generous and honest advice they reward these clerics and slap them with hefty forfeit of imprisonment and castigation in a country founded by the terms of reference and the unitary doctrine of Islam.

There is no doubt that this religion based on the truth and patience, and on the other hand’s good advice and guidance of wisdom. Even the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) asserted this when he said “Religion is advice (he said it three times) we said, “For Who?” He said “for God and his book, and his messenger the feasting of Muslims and their public” a true famous hadeeth. Every human being, even he is a leader of Muslims, he should be advised and equally can encourage others as well. Therefore, we in the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which includes tens of thousands of scientists from all over the world and dozens of societies and institutions of the community, express our opinion and affirm the following

First, we categorically denounced and rejected the accusation of terrorism in the strongest against the Union and its respected members. This categorical rejection by the Union constituted the choice of clerics, which builds the moderate middle path. Which strongly against terrorism of its all kind and form whereby exposing terrorist groups created and funded by some of these countries who labelled this excellent Union terrorist group, while some were adopting the methods of great violence against innocent human race through the Takfiri groups around the world. The Union retain its right to defend is a name, its integrity and above all the of its members and their integrity by all legal and lawful means available. It is worth mentioning that the Union had specific information pertinent to some Saudi scholars when they wanted to join the union, they excused by one of the ministries of the royal court under the reign of King Abdullah may God have mercy on him. Second. The Union calls upon the Islamic world, led by the faithful and the Divine scholars, and its civil institutions to intervene given securing the release of all the prisoners of conscience in Saudi Arabia and another part of the world. Since they have been in imprisoned for a long time without trial, and now they are secretly tried on false charges. Third. The union denounces the secret trials, and the bad jails terms that led to the death of some prisoners, this is a condemnable and legally unacceptable act.

Fourthly. The union warns against the dangers of anti-religious scholars and their imprisonment because they told the truth by wisdom and proper preaching methods. Alternatively, they called for the mutual understanding and reconciliation between siblings, or they cried to panic what they saw as legitimate irregularities in the countries of the two Holy Mosques, or they warned about the dire consequences of the evil of sin.

The legal texts in the book and the Sunnah indicate that this act, condemned against the scholars' right, it is a sign of shame and punishment from Allah Almighty. “Consider not that Allah is unaware of that which the Zalimun (polytheists, wrong-doers, etc.) do, but He gives them respite up to a Day when the eyes will stare in horror (Quran Surat Ibrahim verse 42).

We ask Allaah the Almighty to fix by improving the condition of the country and its people, and on the other hand, protect them from the wrath of God and his punishment amen.

Dr Ali al-Qaradawi Prof. Yousef Al-Qaradawi AND

http://iumsonline.org/en/ContentDetails.aspx?ID=8761

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Prison, Torture, Death… Enter Paradise

With the current global trends of imprisonment, torture, exile and sentences of death being imposed upon the scholars who refuse to sway on issues of Islām and moral justice; it would serve as an appropriate time to re-align ourselves with some of the messages and promises found within the Qur’ān. We can likewise revisit and study History as a source of practical evidence of the promised outcomes of such situations.

The Qur’ān provides a trajectory of outcomes based upon the courses traversed; and history provides evidence and a formula of results achieved when particular components and ingredients come together.

Allāh (subḥānahu wa taʿālā) says:

And there came a man rushing from the farthest part of the city. He said, “O my people, follow the messengers. Follow those who do not claim any reward from you, and who are on the right path. What excuse do I have if I do not worship the One who has created me and to whom you will be returned? Shall I adopt those gods besides Him whose intercession, if Rahman (the All-Merciful) intends to do harm to me, cannot help me in the least, nor can they come to my rescue? In that case, I will be in open error indeed. Undoubtedly I have believed in your Lord; so listen to me.” (Thereafter when his people killed him,) it was said to him, “Enter the Paradise”. He said, “Would that my people knew how my Lord has forgiven me and placed me among the honoured ones!”[1]

Allāh (subḥānahu wa taʿālā) presents us here with a scenario not too unfamiliar from our current context. A man simply proclaiming his belief in Allāh and calling his fellow townsmen to belief is put to the sword.

The famous Andalusian scholar of tafsīr and fiqh Imām al-Qurtubi (raḥimahu Allāhu) discusses the events cited in these verses.[2] As regards what is meant by “it was said to him enter paradise”,[3] he quotes the statement of Qatadah, deemed an authority in Qur’anic interpretation by the earlier generations and scholars of tafsīr,[4] as saying: “Allāh entered him into paradise and he is therein receiving provisions.” Al-Qurtubi continues, “[Qatadah is] referring to the āyah “and think not of those killed in Allāh’s way as dead, for they are indeed alive with their Lord receiving provisions”.”[5] Al-Qurtubi is informing us of the promise made clear by Allāh, those who are murdered or killed for their belief in Allāh (subḥānahu wa taʿālā) will not be at loss, they will be entered into paradise.

The Prophet (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) also indicated the station of such a man when asked what the greatest of struggles for Allāh’s sake was. His response was “a word of truth in the presence of a tyrannical ruler”.[6] When explaining the ḥadīth, some scholars mentioned the reason for it is that when a person confronts a tyrannical ruler with a word of truth, they do so in a state of complete nakedness, he has no ability nor might in comparison to that of the tyrant and yet he stands up and speaks the truth, subjecting himself to the grave consequences.

Going back to the aforementioned verse, al-Qurtubi mentions another great benefit we often forget: not to be reactionary in nature. He (raḥimahu Allāhu) states regarding the hope of this murdered believer when he said “if only my people knew, how Allāh has forgiven me and honoured me [for my belief]”:

“In this verse there is a great lesson and an evidence that one must subdue his anger and not be reactionary, rather he must have patience with the people of ignorance, be merciful towards the one who has placed himself within the midst of evil and surrounded himself with the people of sin and temptations. He must work hard in trying to save him, and be soft in trying to free him, he must busy himself with this (i.e trying to save him) instead of cursing him and supplicating against him. Do you not see how this man wished good even for those that killed him and transgressed against him!”[7]

This was a methodology encompassed within the manner and approach of the Prophet (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) himself, some examples being his treatment of the hypocrites in Medina, his mercy towards the people of Makkah and Taif, the forgiveness he gave to those who murdered and tortured his own family members and followers. This is a methodology that would bring about great change if adopted, standing firm upon the principles of good character as taught to us by our master and leader Muhammad ibn Abdillāh (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam saw) regardless of those that stand in front of us.

Regarding this verse a contemporary thinker of Islām noted that the silent sacrifice of one individual may be more beneficial than thousands of sermons.[8] Such is the case with this unnamed man; he stood up for belief and called his people to follow. Though neither his name, town nor time of living were mentioned, Allāh raised his rank and station and made him known as a sign for the generations to come until the Day of Judgement. How many words on the pulpits go in vain, yet the sincere actions of one or perhaps a few inspire masses. Again, this was also something encompassed within the actions of our Prophet (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam), as he was a man of action, a man who spoke with his actions and led by his own example.

Likewise, due to the sacrifice of Hājar, the mother of Ismāʿīl (ʿalayhi al-Salām), as well as her submission to the will of Allāh in the barren valley of Makkah, Allāh raised her rank and status, and made her a sign of sincerity and submission. All of the believers are commanded to emulate her actions during the rites of pilgrimage. We can take from this a great practical lesson, relevant to all; the sacrifices we make, although seen by none or perhaps few, may be the reason we are honoured by Allāh in the dunya and ākhira. We do not know where the beneficial action lies and so we should not belittle any sacrifice made for Allāh’s pleasure, regardless of the perceived toll at the time.

This brings us to a point which we often overlook: success is not defined by results. We often identify success by the tangible results seen but this is not the case, guidance itself is a success granted from Allāh (subḥānahu wa taʿālā), and stability upon guidance is another success. Sticking to the principles of guidance regardless of the outcome can be seen as one of the ultimate forms of success. We are taught this lesson in the story of Mūsā (ʿalayhi al-Salām). The magicians of Pharaoh were threatened with a severe punishment of death and torture due to their new-found belief in Allāh, they respond:

“We will never prefer you over the clear signs that have come to us, and over Him who has created us. So, decide whatever you have to decide [of punishment]. You will decide only for this worldly life.”[9]

Allāh (subḥānahu wa taʿālā) then informs us that the believers will be honoured and granted high places in paradise and bountiful rewards.

When we turn to the pages of history we find those imprisoned, murdered, tortured or harmed for standing firm to the truth they lived for were given life through the words, pages and movements they left behind. From the likes of the companions imprisoned and tortured in Makkah to the scholars such as Imām Abu Hanifa, Imām Malik and Imām Aḥmad; anti-colonial freedom fighters such as Omar al-Mukhtar, AbdulKarim al-Khattabi or Saeed Nursi; revivalists and educators such as the founders of the Deobandiyah movement Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi, and the thinkers and movers such as Malcolm X. Their bodies were placed into the ground, but their words were preserved within the hearts and souls of those that came after them. Muslims and non-Muslims alike who struggled and sacrificed are the ones remembered by history and those who subjected them to oppression are simply forgotten. Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela are examples in our modern times.

The “palace scholars”; opposers of truth and justice; the seekers of luxuries, status and fame who once stood so haughtily lost their pedestals, their hypocrisy was revealed, and time preserved the truth and its people.

In this time in which those who stand up for truth are persecuted and the world remains silent, we remind ourselves that the end result will be for the pious, who remain true to the covenant of Allāh.

It is also important to remind ourselves that terms and labels of description are only as valuable as the evidences that prove their worth. Pharaoh justified his tyranny and oppression by labelling Mūsā (ʿalayhi al-Salām) as a man of corruption and accused him of what we hear similarly repeated about those unjustly imprisoned today. Without evidence of their inference, they asked: “Shall you leave Mūsā and his people free to spread disorder in the land?”[10]

Yet in the same chapter, Allāh reminds us of the outcome of such struggles and events:

“We caused those people who were deemed to be weak to inherit the East and West of the land that We had blessed. And the sublime word of your Lord was fulfilled for the children of Isrā’īl, because they stood patient; and We destroyed what Pharaoh and his people used to build and what they used to raise high.”[11]

https://www.islam21c.com/islamic-thought/prison-torture-death-enter-paradise/

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Push to Execute Saudi Clerics Rattles Kingdom’s Power Structure

Prosecutors seek death sentences for influential imams, challenging alliance behind monarchy

Saudi authorities are seeking the death penalty for three prominent clerics, rights activists and a government official said, testing the unwritten code that has kept the kingdom’s rulers in power.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his father, King Salman, have jailed activists, businessmen and government officials as part of their efforts to reshape Saudi society and economics. But Saudi clerics have long been a power unto themselves, with fame and influence beyond that of others caught up in recent crackdowns.

The jailed clerics are among Saudi Arabia’s best-known and most popular Sunni Muslim religious figures: Salman Al-Odah, who has more than 14 million Twitter followers; Awad al-Qarni, a popular and outspoken cleric; and Ali Alomari, a TV preacher.

They were arrested a year ago in a roundup of imams with large followings for not openly supporting the government’s pressure campaign against Qatar, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing rights activists.

They are now facing trials in a national-security court on charges that include conspiring against the monarchy and supporting terrorism, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, said relatives, activists and the government official.

A senior Saudi official said the clerics are “under investigation for constituting a danger to society because they belong to terrorist organizations.” The senior official said Saudi prosecutors and judges were independent and that the crown prince would play no role in a verdict or punishment, if any.

“Nobody in Saudi Arabia is being investigated because of their political views,” the senior official said. “The arrests of these individuals and others is in line with the kingdom’s keenness with the international community to exert efforts to combat the extremism that the world suffers from and to combat terrorism in all its forms,” the official said.

The senior official denied the men were originally arrested over their views on Qatar. The men have access to attorneys and the right to appeal any sentence, the official said.

The prosecutions are among the riskiest pieces of 33-year-old Prince Mohammed’s efforts to consolidate power since June 2017, when he pushed aside another royal to become crown prince.

Moving against clerics could turn public opinion against the kingdom’s rulers and strengthen elements of the royal family who oppose them.

The House of Saud has remained the country’s ruling family for over eight decades through an alliance with imams who adhere to a strain of Islam known as Wahabbism. The partnership has provided largely stable leadership and resulted in one of the world’s most religiously conservative societies—one in which clerics have significant influence over public opinion.

With the trials, Prince Mohammad is putting the clerics “on notice that the rules have now changed,” said Ali Shihabi, founder of the Arabia Foundation, a Washington think tank that often supports the Saudi government.

Mr. Shihabi said he doubted the government would follow through and execute clerics. “This is messaging more than substance,” he said.

Mr. Odah faces 37 charges for alleged crimes including spreading discord, incitement against the ruler, and being active in the Muslim Brotherhood, his son said. The senior Saudi official cited Mr. Odah’s position in the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which he said has ties to al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

His son, Abdullah Odah, a senior fellow at Georgetown University, called the charges absurd. “They don’t have any rules, they broke all traditions of authority, religion, politics, culture and everything in the country so we really don’t know what is next,” he said.

Clerics haven’t always supported Prince Mohammed as he pursued a series of changes that include allowing women to drive, fashioned a more muscular foreign policy, and moved to diversify the oil-dependent economy by making Saudi Arabia more attractive to foreign investment and tourism.

He has also sought to turn Saudi Arabia—home to Islam’s holiest cities of Mecca and Medina—into a center of a more moderate form of Islam.

Saudi authorities have sought in part to remake the country through prosecutions. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for several activists who campaigned for minority Shia Muslim rights; activists who campaigned for women’s right to drive and other freedoms have been jailed; and dozens of businessmen and government officials remain detained on undisclosed charges 10 months after the start of the corruption crackdown.

“Since MBS could well be in power for 50 years, there is a strong case for pushing through with the most controversial changes now, before MBS assumes the throne and must accept full blame,” said Jim Krane, a Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, using a common nickname for the crown prince.

Mr. Odah, 61 years old, was once a hard-core Islamist who led the antimonarchy “Islamic Awakening” movement in the 1990s, which criticized Saudi Arabia’s decision to allow the U.S. military into the country to protect it from a potential Iraqi invasion. He went to prison for five years and embraced more moderate views after his release, becoming an advocate for social and political reform.

Rights activists and relatives said the clerics have been charged retroactively for belonging to organizations that weren’t banned at the time of their arrests.

Abdullah Odah said his father is accused of belonging to the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which wasn’t named as a terrorist organization by Saudi authorities until November, two months after his arrest.

Mr. Alomari faces 30 charges related to terrorism, including allegedly forming a terrorist youth organization, according to rights activists. Mr. Alomari’s family or legal representatives couldn’t be reached for comment.

According to rights activists, Mr. Qarni is charged with supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups in Saudi Arabia designated as terrorist organizations. He is also accused of the crimes of stirring public discord, conspiring against the kingdom’s leaders, and sympathizing with those arrested in security cases.

Rights groups have protested the treatment of the imams. “Saudi’s alleged efforts to tackle extremism are all for show if all the government does is jail people for their political views,” said Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch.

At least 15 other Saudi figures arrested in the same roundup that caught up the three imams last year are also being tried in nonpublic cases at the Specialized Criminal Court, which hears national security and terrorism cases. Prosecutors are asking for 20-year sentences and over $100 million in fines, according to rights activists and the Saudi official.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/push-to-execute-saudi-clerics-rattles-kingdoms-power-structure-1537097475

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Arabic press review: Saudi opposition movement launched from Paris

New Saudi opposition movement established

A Saudi academic and writer has publicly opposed the Saudi government and announced the formation of an opposition movement from abroad, according to an Arabi21 report.

Marzouk Mashan al-Otaibi declared the establishment of the National Mobilisation Movement from his new home in Paris, and it has reportedly already attracted several Saudis who are unhappy with the current government.

Al-Otaibi is a former writer for local Saudi newspapers Makkah and Al-Sharq, and was also a lecturer at King Saud University's chemistry department.

In a statement addressed to Saudi citizens, Al-Otaibi said: "Al-Saud’s regime is humiliating you, impoverishing you, enslaving you and scorning you."

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he added, continues "to underestimate you by ignoring all the taboos and violating Arab and Islamic sanctities. He breached the sanctity of homes and arrested women, the elderly and children. Bin Salman also tortured detainees to death".

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/arabic-press-review-2020124217

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

US officials meet with Saudi Arabia's religious police

Saudi Arabia's liberalisation policies have allowed women to drive, but some activists remain silenced behind bars

For the first time, a United States delegation met with Saudi Arabia’s religious police, the US said on Thursday.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom met with Saudi's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, commonly known as the religious police, about the decision to allow women to drive and open some public spaces to women.

“I am encouraged by the opening that is being seen in the capital of Riyadh. I saw women driving, some guardianship rules being rolled back, and women and men increasingly mixing in public venues, including at a Cirque du Soleil concert in Riyadh,” said commissioner Nadine Maenza.

"The question we continue to assess is whether this opening is extending to other parts of the country and the degree to which these reforms are impacting freedom of religion or belief in a country that still - for instance - officially bans public worship unless it is the state-sanctioned practice of Islam,” Maenza added.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has vowed to return the country to "moderate Islam," has cut back the political role of hardline clerics in a historic reordering of the Saudi state.

Saudi Arabia is implementing a far-reaching liberalisation drive that has upended years of conservative tradition, launching a series of reforms, including gradually diminishing religious police powers to arrest citizens and allowing women to drive.

Still, the crown prince has also pursued an aggressive crackdown on activists, royal family members and critics of the government, jailing a number of the leading voices for women's rights who first championed the right to drive.

Under his watch, scores of people have been imprisoned, tortured and stripped of their assets, according to Human Rights Watch.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-meets-saudi-arabias-religious-police-227821434

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Brotherhood our enemy

It is not strange that they do not believe in a modern state because their culture is very much similar to that of bandits.

I CAN find excuses for those who make me an enemy for personal reasons. I understand the position of a country that is viewed as enemy to my country. The same can be said for a devilish party that inherited hatred from the past and is using it for the future as an excuse to settle accounts.

But it is very difficult for me to understand the position of a group that grew within us and benefitted from our wealth and managed to thrive with our support at a time when their closest people betrayed them.

I always believed that the dangers of political Islam were greater than its benefits. No one ever used the religion of Islam as a card to push their political agenda as much as the Muslim Brotherhood. No one ever instigated the public and society as much as they did. No other group played with ideology, putting Islam as a religion in a narrow frame, to control the minds of people and turn them against their countries as the Muslim Brotherhood did. It is not strange that they do not believe in a modern state because their culture is very much similar to that of bandits. The verse in the Holy Qur’an, “They know the favor of Allah and then deny it”, applies to them.

Arab countries throughout their history were obvious victims of their devilish and violent practices. If we look back in history and searched for the truth, we will discover that they had killed many innocent people and branded many philosophers infidels. It is because of their weak understanding and hatred, the Muslim nation that they are crying for now has almost lost everything.

We lived through the Sahwa (Awakening) Movement with all its implications. We have seen the Muslim Brotherhood icons loving worldly life and amassing wealth. This makes us ask the real question: Are they really calling people to return to Islam? Do they really care about following the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)? The answer is definitely a big “no”.

For many years, we listened to them and saw them recruiting members, rehabilitating and reinforcing their lines, and we did not ask what was this preparation for. They were recruiting and mobilizing people against their own countries and instigating their members against own families.

In the past three decades, I am asking myself, what did this Sahwa Movement achieve? Are there any local, Arab or Islamic achievements? Was Palestine liberated through their hands?

http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/546607/Opinion/Local-Viewpoint/Brotherhood-our-enemy

[BeTheChange]

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Breaking: Family confirms Sh Safar al-Hawali is still alive

Contrary to reports of the death of prominent Saudi scholar Sheikh Safar al-Hawali in the prisons of the Kingdom, a close source familiar with the case has informed Islam21c that the Sheikh is alive and may even be released soon.

The source which has direct contact with the Sheikh’s family said that the family were officially informed on Tuesday 30th October that the Sheikh was alive and they were then permitted to visit him on Wednesday 31st October.

As well as being informed of the condition of the Sheikh, the family were permitted to visit his sons who are arrested including Abdur Rahman, Abdullah, Abdur Raheem and Ibrahim.

The source stated:

“I can confirm that the Sheikh is alive and his wife saw him. He gave his Salams to everyone. InshāAllāh we are hopeful that some of the many prisoners in Saudi Arabia will be released in the coming days.”

The source however added that:

“This is not due to any compassion on the part of the government but rather because of the pressure they are under.”

In July, reports emerged suggesting that the medical condition of Sheikh Safar al-Hawali and Sheikh Salman al-Ouda was deteriorating due to medical negligence according to the advocacy group ‘Mu’taqilī al-Ra’ī‘ or ‘Prisoners of Conscious’. [1]

In a tweet the group claimed that Sheikh Safar al-Hawali and his children had been pressured to disavow themselves from his book “Muslims and Western civilization”, and to claim that the book was not written by the Sheikh, in return for their release. [2]

Sheikh Safar al-Hawali and his sons were arrested on July 12th, a few days after the publication of the book attributed to the Sheikh, in which he imparts advice to the ruling family and the Council of Senior Scholars close to the monarchy.

In his book, the prominent Sheikh criticises the ruling family in Saudi Arabia and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed for their over-sized expenditure, saying it: “has been wasting funds on fake projects” and calling the Crown Prince’s cosy relationship with Israel a “betrayal”. [3]

A previous report by Al Jazeera suggested that the arrest of Sheikh Safar al-Hawali was because of what was contained of advice directed at the Saudi Arabian ruling family, scholars and activists.

This is the first time that the family has seen Sheikh al-Hawali since his arrest. The source stated that:

“The funny thing is that the first they heard about him after his arrest in July was on the same day that Sheikh Salman al-Ouda’s trial was adjourned.”

Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia recently sought the death penalty for some prominent scholars including, Sheikh Salman al-Ouda, following an apparent secret trial. [4] Amongst the dozens of prominent scholars, activists and academics arrested by the Saudi authorities, are Sheikh Salman al-Ouda, Sheikh Awad al-Qarni, Sheikh Mohammad Musa al-Sharif, Sheikh Muhammad Saleh al-Munajjid and Sheikh Abdul Aziz at-Tarefe. [5]

The source further added that:

“People expected him [Sheikh al-Hawali] to be sentenced to death but instead they adjourned the trial to December. The same public prosecutor (Saud al-Mojeb) who recommended the death sentence was in Istanbul trying to save the neck of MBS.”

“The authorities here told Sheikh al-Hawali’s family that he was alive and the next day his wife was allowed to see him. Before that they did not know if he was dead or alive. In fact, there were rumours just after Hajj that he had died in prison.”

The source informed Islam21c that the condition of the Sheikh remains the same as when he was taken prisoner. He walks with assistance and is unable to pray in the Mosque. The 68-year-old Sheikh has also suffered a stroke, a failed kidney and a broken pelvis.

The family has suggested that the imprisoned scholars in Saudi could be released soon according to sources inside the prisons as well as “government advisors”. However, the family stressed that Sheikh al-Hawali may be the last to be released as a result of the book which he published.

The Saudi authorities have arrested scores of scholars and activists in what is seen as a significant shift in internal policy led by Crown-Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The measures have been dubbed by some as a precursor to introducing more secular-leaning laws. [6]

The disappearance and evident brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi continues to dominate headlines around the globe as pressure continues to grow on the Saudi authorities surrounding the case. Some suggest that one result of the pressure faced is to review some of the repressive policies put in place by the Crown Prince.

https://www.islam21c.com/news-views/breaking-family-confirms-sh-safar-al-hawali-is-still-alive/

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Its has subtitles so you can turn the volume down.

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[anatolian]

;D

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

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Traitors in Our Midst: The Scholars of Colonization

What’s wrong with scholars like Hamza Yusuf, Abdallah bin Bayyah, Habib Ali Jifri, et al., supporting Arab dictators and legitimating their regimes? There has been lots of analysis on the 2018 UAE forum for “promoting peace,” but some of this analysis misses the mark.

For example, what I keep reading over and over again is that Saudi and the UAE are not truly tolerant and they are not truly democracies, therefore it is a major violation for scholars to support them. This is silly. When did democratic secularism and liberal tolerance become the standard for determining legitimate vs. illegitimate governments as far as Islamic morality is concerned? This makes no sense.

Another criticism is that these are brutal regimes that have shed the blood of many innocent Muslims and oppressed many more. This is a good criticism. It boggles the mind how any informed person could excuse, much less defend, a scholar who has made a career out of praising clear oppressors and their regimes. (And to be fair, there are uninformed individuals who need to be shown the exact implications of their excuses and defenses of such scholars.)

It doesn’t matter if you think the scholar is a wali. What about the hundreds of thousands of people being killed and oppressed by the tyrants your “wali” is praising? You don’t think there were any awliya buried in the rubble or gunned down in Yemen, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, etc.? Only your favorite scholar is a wali, but not any of the hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed and oppressed by these dictators? What about the scholars that these tyrants have jailed or executed? Is it not possible that those scholars were awliya? This whole “wali card” is ludicrously incoherent and, when you think about it, quite despicable.

Now the further point here is that these scholars are the successors of a long line of co-opted ulama who, historically, would use religious arguments to support the colonizers. Since the beginning of the colonization of the Muslim world over 200 years ago, the colonizers figured out that the best way to avoid backlash from the native Muslim population was to get traditional scholars on the payroll. These scholars would then go around teaching about the virtues of loyalty to the new colonial masters and the values of peace and co-existence with them, the “wisdom” of their culture and religious traditions, etc. These scholars would teach the community to disavow Islamic governance, to disavow khilafa, to disavow jihad, to disavow the Sharia, to eschew religious exclusivism, etc.

They would emphasize this idea of الإنسانية قبل التدين (humanity before religiosity), essentially promoting the central tenet of liberal humanism. In the end, anything that could possibly threaten colonial power was denounced as “backwards” and, ultimately, “un-Islamic.” This was to ensure that the Muslim community would not violently resist the new political order that had been brutally imposed upon them and would, instead, become docile, accepting subjects of the invading colonial force and its systematic domination.

Prominent scholars who played this role for colonizers over the past 150 years include figures like Muhammad Abduh, Uthman bin Yahya, Mohammad al-Hajwi, Mustafa al-Maraghi, Syed Ahmad Khan, and many more. Of course, there were other scholars who fought the colonizers and considered resisting colonial invasion necessary jihad in defense of the Umma. These included figures like Omar Mukhtar, Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi, Imam Shamil, Imam Bonjol, and Muhammad `Abd Allah al-Hasan. These brave Muslim leaders were denounced as barbarians (what would be called “extremists” or “Islamists” in today’s nomenclature) by those religious scholars who had been bought by the colonizers. Thankfully, most of our ulama today are in the mold of these brave figures who fought on behalf of the Umma instead of the minority who betrayed it.

So, in a nutshell, that is what is so wrong with scholars legitimating secular Arab tyrants. They are endorsing the current day neocolonial project of secularizing and subduing the Muslim world via brutal Western-backed puppet tyrants, who are themselves agents of Western imperialism. This is precisely how these scholars are contributing to bringing the Umma under the control of Western (and Israeli) powers economically, politically, socially, culturally, and, of course, religiously. (And notice how these “peace” initiatives always have Zionist representatives and representatives from Western security and anti-extremism agencies.) This is the “peace” that they are promoting: Be peaceful while the West continues to rape you. Be peaceful while the oppressors continue to slaughter you. Be peaceful while the missionaries and the Zionists indoctrinate you and turn you away from your deen.

This is a huge betrayal of the Umma and should be denounced in the strongest terms, lest this behavior become normalized in and acceptable to the community at large.

But let’s not forget the social justice imams in the West who are also legitimating tyranny. Instead of praising MBS, MBZ, et al., they praised Hillary Clinton, campaigned for her, endorsed her, etc. They went far beyond merely picking Clinton over Trump as the “lesser of two evils,” but instead expressed enthusiastic support and even giddy joy at the thought of electing her as president, and told the Muslim community that it is a religious obligation (fard) to vote for her, even though she was directly responsible for the destruction of at least one Muslim country and had threatened war against others. So, what makes these scholars for Hillary any different from the tyrant endorsers?

Abu Dharr related, “I was walking with the Prophet ﷺ and I heard him saying: “There is something I fear for my Umma more than the Dajjal.” He repeated it three times. So I said: “O Messenger of Allah, what is it other than the Dajjal which you fear most for your Umma?” He said: “Misguided Imams.” [Musnad Ahmad]

And as far as advancing the secularizing, liberalizing colonial project, a scholar doesn’t have to attend a UAE sponsored peace forum to do that. There are some imams who are doing that without even leaving the country. They simply endorse liberal political platforms and, in effect, if not intent, promote perennialism (the view that all “sacred” religions are acceptable to Allah), LGBT, radical feminism, abortion rights, dissolution of family, dissolution of marriage, etc., etc. Their vocal support of these left-wing political factions and policies colonizes the Muslim minds in the West and furthers the colonial project in the Muslim world as well.

They are providing the veneer of religious legitimacy to views that are deeply antithetical to Islam and are harmful to the interests of the Umma writ large. Furthermore, they are benefiting financially from these liberal connections and are granted access to many circles of power and influence within governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as think tanks, media, “charitable” funds and foundations, and billion-dollar companies. So, there is nothing more hypocritical than such social justice imams and activists acting indignant and holier-than-thou with respect to Hamza Yusuf, et al. They’re just the other side of the same coin.

Of course, the vast majority of imams and scholars in the West and the East have nothing to do with such evil alhamdulillah. We need to support these ulama for their bravery and principled stance against the tide. These are the Omar Mukhtar’s of our times. May Allah bless these scholars of haqq and us with them, and protect the Umma from every evil tyrant and every traitorous scholar.

https://muslimskeptic.com/2018/12/13...-colonization/

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

A sincere letter to Shaykh Hamza Yusuf from a concerned Muslim layman

Dear Shaykh Hamza Yusuf,

As salaamu alaikum.

It can be very daunting for a layperson to account a scholar of prolific credentials. What is unfortunate however is the erroneous assumption that lacking such a profile precludes any criticism of those more erudite amongst us. Seeing as accounting those in positions of power has a precedent in our Islamic tradition, I feel obliged to express my concern following your recent comments at the fifth annual Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies.

Your attendance at this conference, where you praised the UAE as a tolerant nation has caused much consternation among Muslims, especially in light of the country’s flagrant violation of human rights both domestically and abroad as documented by leading NGOs and the international community at large.

Since the Arab Spring, Gulf monarchies have been scrambling to preserve their despotic regimes and the spectre of political Islam has emerged as the greatest existential threat to its power structure. This explains why the UAE and its partner in crime KSA sponsored the coups in Egypt and Turkey and continue to mount an unprecedented clampdown on dissidents, activists and journalists. As part of a concerted campaign to preserve its hegemony, the repression of any grassroots movement seeking a reformation of the authoritarian order forms the basis of the UAE’s geopolitical strategy.

Against this backdrop, I believe your role as the Forum’s Vice-President serves an expedient purpose, seeing as your framing of the caliphate as a modern Islamist fantasy and maligning of the Muslim Brotherhood sits neatly with the political absolutism of your hosts who seek to obstruct such trends from taking root on their soil. The fact that you were feted by the UAE’s ambassador to the US, Yousef Al-Otaiba, at an inter-faith event one week after the Qatar blockade makes no pretence to impartiality and suggests you have aligned yourself with the UAE against calls for altering the political landscape of the Muslim world.

Regrettably, your ill-conceived comments are treason of your scholarly vocation. With much of your public witness premised on advocating law and justice, it beggars belief why you choose to remain silent on the infringement of civil liberties which the UAE is notoriously renowned for. Equally distasteful is how you identify so intimately with Islam’s humanist traditions, yet fail to account this so called champion of civil society for its merciless treatment of Yemen’s men, women and children.

It smacks of hypocrisy when someone can brace the pulpit at these events and equivocate on matters of public policy, willingly choosing to ignore the elephant in the room. By granting the Emirati status quo a respectable face, you are guilty of not only deflecting criticism of its panoply of human rights abuses but also for sabotaging hopes for the freedom of Yemenis who are being pulverised into oblivion. Dressing your fawning adoration as a well-intentioned ijtihad rings hollow as the government which sponsored this peace initiative is the most culpable in violating its laudable objectives.

To add insult to injury, the conference was moderated by Ed Husain, a co-founder of the Quilliam foundation, an anti-extremism think tank which thrives on a neo-McCarthyite blacklisting of mainstream Muslim organisations and figureheads. Sara Khan, a divisive counter extremism commissioner and longstanding advocate of the discredited Prevent programme which is widely criticised for disproportionately targeting British Muslims, was another attendee.

While sharing a platform with such personalities does not amount to a wholesale endorsement of their views, there is nothing in their public engagement which justifies an invitation to make proposals for world peace, except that they are mouthpieces for received opinion acting at the behest of the powers that be. As much as I’m inclined to invoking the excuse of ignorance when making sense of your political judgements, it seems inconceivable that you are totally oblivious to the UAE’s regional ambitions and the nefarious associations of your fellow panellists.

The maslaha (public interest) you cite as justification for fraternising in these conventions casts a cloud of suspicion for those perceptive enough to see through the benevolent guise. Invoking the interfaith card is dubious as these initiatives appear to be instrumentalised for a conniving agenda which seeks to whitewash the brutality of the Gulf States and sell the genocide of Muslims as a tribulation to be passively endured. Your insistence on forming strategic alliances to benefit the Ummah as a judicious demonstration of Muslim outreach is proving highly counterproductive and disingenuous.

If anything, the conference was a savvy PR ploy which sought to exploit the supine apologetics of scholars like Abdullah Bin Bayyah- someone you extol as a master of Islamic jurisprudence and rank among the awliyah of Allah-to legitimate the neo-colonial project of secularising the Muslim world through tyrannical despots. Is it so implausible that as the head of a newly formed Emirates Fatwa Council, Bin Bayyah’s role makes him a vital asset in the UAE’s propaganda drive to push the narrative on religious moderation and censor any calls for transparent governance? Perhaps this is why the topic of unwavering allegiance to rulers featured in his keynote address at the conference’s inaugural forum.

When the balance of justice is so unfairly weighted against the Ummah, I believe your participation at this event was a monstrous betrayal of our collective fight against state sponsored terrorism. By conferring legitimacy to the UAE status quo, you do not become a positive catalyst for top-down change. Rather, you succumb to the insidious PR machine of a nation desperate to export a progressive global image, thereby enabling the institutions actively undermining and criminalising movements demanding greater accountability from their rulers.

Spurning such invitations, even at the risk of ostracism would have been a greater measure of your commitment to Muslim solidarity. Instead, you have plunged the dagger deeper into the emaciated children of Hodeidah, who must bear the misfortune of an esteemed scholar pandering to their murderers by allowing a culture of brown nosing to infiltrate his public discourse.

With Bin Bayyah’s recent endorsement of Saudi Arabia’s efforts in combating radicalisation and epitomising moderation, it is only so long one can maintain the façade. Beholden to state affiliations, one could easily infer that neither of you are any longer on guard against manipulative influences and are complicit in a culture of newspeak as apologists of tyranny, fatally compromising your abilities to publicly associate with the Ummah’s struggle against injustice.

Admittedly, I have benefited from your scholarship. In fact, the inspiration for some of my writing on contemporary Muslim affairs derived to an extent from your enlightening ruminations into the Islamic tradition. Your ability to explore interrelated religious and social topics with astuteness satiated an intellectual curiosity for which I remain indebted. It’s painful that I now find myself in a position where questioning your motives becomes a matter of religious necessity.

Speaking truth to power is a prophetic practice in urgent need of restoration. At the very least, you owe a full retraction and apology to the voiceless victims of the UAE’s unspeakable crimes against humanity.

One can no longer afford the luxury of claiming to feel the Ummah’s pain while deeming the cost of non-conformism too great a price to pay.

Your brother in Islam,

Hasten Lais

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

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[Nitro Zeus]

Salaam

Another update

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Traitors in Our Midst: The Scholars of Colonization

What’s wrong with scholars like Hamza Yusuf, Abdallah bin Bayyah, Habib Ali Jifri, et al., supporting Arab dictators and legitimating their regimes? There has been lots of analysis on the 2018 UAE forum for “promoting peace,” but some of this analysis misses the mark.

For example, what I keep reading over and over again is that Saudi and the UAE are not truly tolerant and they are not truly democracies, therefore it is a major violation for scholars to support them. This is silly. When did democratic secularism and liberal tolerance become the standard for determining legitimate vs. illegitimate governments as far as Islamic morality is concerned? This makes no sense.

Another criticism is that these are brutal regimes that have shed the blood of many innocent Muslims and oppressed many more. This is a good criticism. It boggles the mind how any informed person could excuse, much less defend, a scholar who has made a career out of praising clear oppressors and their regimes. (And to be fair, there are uninformed individuals who need to be shown the exact implications of their excuses and defenses of such scholars.)

It doesn’t matter if you think the scholar is a wali. What about the hundreds of thousands of people being killed and oppressed by the tyrants your “wali” is praising? You don’t think there were any awliya buried in the rubble or gunned down in Yemen, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, etc.? Only your favorite scholar is a wali, but not any of the hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed and oppressed by these dictators? What about the scholars that these tyrants have jailed or executed? Is it not possible that those scholars were awliya? This whole “wali card” is ludicrously incoherent and, when you think about it, quite despicable.

Now the further point here is that these scholars are the successors of a long line of co-opted ulama who, historically, would use religious arguments to support the colonizers. Since the beginning of the colonization of the Muslim world over 200 years ago, the colonizers figured out that the best way to avoid backlash from the native Muslim population was to get traditional scholars on the payroll. These scholars would then go around teaching about the virtues of loyalty to the new colonial masters and the values of peace and co-existence with them, the “wisdom” of their culture and religious traditions, etc. These scholars would teach the community to disavow Islamic governance, to disavow khilafa, to disavow jihad, to disavow the Sharia, to eschew religious exclusivism, etc.

They would emphasize this idea of الإنسانية قبل التدين (humanity before religiosity), essentially promoting the central tenet of liberal humanism. In the end, anything that could possibly threaten colonial power was denounced as “backwards” and, ultimately, “un-Islamic.” This was to ensure that the Muslim community would not violently resist the new political order that had been brutally imposed upon them and would, instead, become docile, accepting subjects of the invading colonial force and its systematic domination.

Prominent scholars who played this role for colonizers over the past 150 years include figures like Muhammad Abduh, Uthman bin Yahya, Mohammad al-Hajwi, Mustafa al-Maraghi, Syed Ahmad Khan, and many more. Of course, there were other scholars who fought the colonizers and considered resisting colonial invasion necessary jihad in defense of the Umma. These included figures like Omar Mukhtar, Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi, Imam Shamil, Imam Bonjol, and Muhammad `Abd Allah al-Hasan. These brave Muslim leaders were denounced as barbarians (what would be called “extremists” or “Islamists” in today’s nomenclature) by those religious scholars who had been bought by the colonizers. Thankfully, most of our ulama today are in the mold of these brave figures who fought on behalf of the Umma instead of the minority who betrayed it.

So, in a nutshell, that is what is so wrong with scholars legitimating secular Arab tyrants. They are endorsing the current day neocolonial project of secularizing and subduing the Muslim world via brutal Western-backed puppet tyrants, who are themselves agents of Western imperialism. This is precisely how these scholars are contributing to bringing the Umma under the control of Western (and Israeli) powers economically, politically, socially, culturally, and, of course, religiously. (And notice how these “peace” initiatives always have Zionist representatives and representatives from Western security and anti-extremism agencies.) This is the “peace” that they are promoting: Be peaceful while the West continues to rape you. Be peaceful while the oppressors continue to slaughter you. Be peaceful while the missionaries and the Zionists indoctrinate you and turn you away from your deen.

This is a huge betrayal of the Umma and should be denounced in the strongest terms, lest this behavior become normalized in and acceptable to the community at large.

But let’s not forget the social justice imams in the West who are also legitimating tyranny. Instead of praising MBS, MBZ, et al., they praised Hillary Clinton, campaigned for her, endorsed her, etc. They went far beyond merely picking Clinton over Trump as the “lesser of two evils,” but instead expressed enthusiastic support and even giddy joy at the thought of electing her as president, and told the Muslim community that it is a religious obligation (fard) to vote for her, even though she was directly responsible for the destruction of at least one Muslim country and had threatened war against others. So, what makes these scholars for Hillary any different from the tyrant endorsers?

Abu Dharr related, “I was walking with the Prophet ﷺ and I heard him saying: “There is something I fear for my Umma more than the Dajjal.” He repeated it three times. So I said: “O Messenger of Allah, what is it other than the Dajjal which you fear most for your Umma?” He said: “Misguided Imams.” [Musnad Ahmad]

And as far as advancing the secularizing, liberalizing colonial project, a scholar doesn’t have to attend a UAE sponsored peace forum to do that. There are some imams who are doing that without even leaving the country. They simply endorse liberal political platforms and, in effect, if not intent, promote perennialism (the view that all “sacred” religions are acceptable to Allah), LGBT, radical feminism, abortion rights, dissolution of family, dissolution of marriage, etc., etc. Their vocal support of these left-wing political factions and policies colonizes the Muslim minds in the West and furthers the colonial project in the Muslim world as well.

They are providing the veneer of religious legitimacy to views that are deeply antithetical to Islam and are harmful to the interests of the Umma writ large. Furthermore, they are benefiting financially from these liberal connections and are granted access to many circles of power and influence within governmental and non-governmental organizations as well as think tanks, media, “charitable” funds and foundations, and billion-dollar companies. So, there is nothing more hypocritical than such social justice imams and activists acting indignant and holier-than-thou with respect to Hamza Yusuf, et al. They’re just the other side of the same coin.

Of course, the vast majority of imams and scholars in the West and the East have nothing to do with such evil alhamdulillah. We need to support these ulama for their bravery and principled stance against the tide. These are the Omar Mukhtar’s of our times. May Allah bless these scholars of haqq and us with them, and protect the Umma from every evil tyrant and every traitorous scholar.

https://muslimskeptic.com/2018/12/13...-colonization/

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Huh? Misguided scholars?? Is that one of the signs that the Sun will rise from west is approaching? I'm really really freaked out. Please tell me it is not a sign for the Last Day.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Guess whats happening in Saudi Arabia.

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E Michael Jones makes a similar point from a very different perspectives calling it the 'gay disco'.

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Now Putins getting in on the act. Seem he wants to remake Islam in his own image.

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Moscow's Little-Noticed Islamic Outreach Effort

Russia is promoting Islamic moderation in unison with Arab powers—and further cementing its position in the Middle East.

Russia’s growing presence in the Middle East is generally discussed in military and economic terms. Moscow’s 2015 intervention in Syria to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad increased its influence with Iran and enabled it to draw a wedge between Turkey and the United States. In the last few years, Moscow has also drawn closer to Washington’s traditional allies in the Persian Gulf, in the form of arms sales and investments.

A little noticed trend, however, is Moscow’s focus on promoting politically pacifist Islam, which has coincided with an aggressive push by certain Arab countries to combat Islamism.

The Russian emissary for this effort is Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen republic. For Kadyrov, opposition to Islamic extremism is an extension of the war in Chechnya, in which he fought on behalf of Moscow against the separatist Chechen movement. An early example of the Russian-Arab religious alliance was an international conference of Islamic scholars held in the Chechen capital, Grozny, by Kadyrov in September 2016. The conference was co-organized by religious leaders with close ties to the governments in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates—two countries widely perceived to be particularly hostile to political Islam—and played host to clerics from Syria. Attendants were dismissive of the fundamentalist strand of Islam known as Salafism, officially practiced in Saudi Arabia. For that reason, the event was perceived as an effort to isolate Saudi Arabia. But Moscow has since established warmer ties with the Saudi leadership.

In October 2017, during a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz reportedly discussed Islamic proselytization in Russia. Saudi and Russian officials told Theodore Karasik, a Russia expert in Washington, that the king agreed to pull the plug on mosque funding and proselytization. (Last February, Riyadh made a similar move when it gave up control of Belgium’s largest mosque, notorious as a breeding ground for extremism.)

Over the summer, Kadyrov was welcomed like royalty in Saudi Arabia. Saudi authorities let him inside Prophet Mohammed’s room, which is closed to all but special guests. And even though Kadyrov is a follower of Sufism, which Saudi Salafis consider a deviant religious sect, he was allowed to perform and record Sufi rituals in the room. The episode shows that, while theological schisms remain vast between the views of Kadyrov and his Saudi hosts, the Russian-Saudi relationship is strong. Kadyrov has become a personal friend of many Arab leaders, including close American allies Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.

Russia’s Islamic outreach is driven by several factors, first among them domestic worries. Muslims constitute nearly 15 percent of the Russian population, and Moscow fought two religious and nationalist insurrections in the Muslim-majority North Caucasus region. The rise of Islamic State and al-Qaeda in Syria increased Moscow’s concerns about an extremist threat, especially given the sizable role of jihadis from North Caucasus within the two groups.

Three weeks after the Russians first intervened in Syria, in September 2015, Putin urged Russian Islamic leaders to stand against extremism. “Their ideology is built on lies, on open perversion of Islam,” he said. “They are trying to recruit followers in our country as well.”

Russia may also be attempting to counter the widespread perception that Moscow is hostile to Islam (because of the lingering legacy of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) or to Sunni Islam in particular (because the country is associated with Iran and its proxies). “Internationally, Moscow is utilizing the Chechen factor to offset criticism that Russia is part of the Shiite alliance,” said Yury Barmin, a political analyst specializing in Russia’s Middle East policy. “The Chechen military police in Syria is case in point. The Chechens are rebuilding the Grand Mosque in Aleppo as well, which may be seen as an attempt to be more appealing to Syria’s Sunni population.”

Yet another motivating factor is Moscow’s desire to distinguish itself from the U.S. Russia’s Islamic outreach became more visible, at least in the Middle East, in 2016, precisely when anti-Muslim sentiments in Western countries appeared on the rise and Russian trolls and bots were spewing anti-Muslim rhetoric on American political forums.

“Russia is generally investing in the idea that it is not America, it is not against Islam, it is offering a moderate alternative, and their tool in this is Ramzan Kadyrov and the Chechen model,” said a political analyst of Chechen origins. “Chechnya is known … to people in the region.”

On the Arab side, governments are willing to partner with Russia in part because they see value in Kadyrov.

“Ramzan Kadyrov has made it one of his top priorities in recent years to build friendships throughout the Middle East, in particular the Gulf. Kadyrov portrays Chechnya as essentially an independent Islamic state,” said Neil Hauer, a Georgia-based political analyst on Syria, Russia, and the Caucasus. “Kadyrov also offers Arab and Gulf leaders … his experience in crushing a domestic Islamist insurgency.”

The scale of the push against political and Salafi Islam is unprecedented in the Arab world. Several countries in the Middle East and North Africa are working together more closely than ever to suppress extremism and steer local populations to a new understanding of streets protests as a tool of Jihadists and an obstacle to social peace.

Even Syria, a close Russia ally that was until recently isolated by most of its neighbors, could become part of this effort. Damascus recently introduced a law that would require authorities to “systematically” counter political Islam and “Wahhabism,” as the Salafi brand in Saudi Arabia is widely known, across the various sectors of state and society.

The U.S. and other Western countries may not accept the principle that Islamists and Salafis are as dangerous as militant jihadis. Russia, by promoting a particular brand of Islamic moderation in unison with Arab powers, could cement its position in the region more deeply than through economic and military means alone.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-islam/579394/

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Oh dear, MSM media promoting 'liberal' Islam, again.

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Forced secularization might be a 'bad' idea? how long did it take you to figure this out?

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

I see MBS 'modernisation' programme is proceeding.




Mariah Carey defies activists to perform in Saudi Arabia

Singer’s publicists claim the show is ‘a positive step towards the dissolution of gender segregation’ in the kingdom

The singer Mariah Carey has been criticised by women’s rights campaigners, who have accused her of helping to airbrush Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record by agreeing to perform there.

Carey appeared with DJ Tiesto, Sean Paul and the Yemen-born singer Balqees Fathi on Thursday in what she has claimed was an opportunity to work towards gender desegregation in the kingdom.

Activists, however, have rejected that. “The Saudi government is using entertainment to distract the people from human rights abuses because it can sense the anger among the public,” said Omaima al-Najjar, a Saudi woman who sought political refuge abroad and co-founded Women for Rights in Saudi Arabia (WARSA).

Najjar said the kingdom uses concerts as a diversion from the Saudi-led war in neighbouring Yemen, human rights abuses committed under the crown prince and repressive male guardianship laws that restrict women’s freedoms.

WARSA launched a petition calling on the singer to boycott the country. It said it was focused on Carey because “she has power to stand for women … as an artist and as a female”.

Other campaigners had urged Carey to take notice of fellow Saudi women’s rights activists who have been imprisoned in recent months, and Najjar said artists such as Carey should make their performances in Saudi Arabia conditional on the release of such people. She said a boycott would not impact ordinary Saudis because many could not afford concert tickets, which started at about £60, with VIP seats costing about £400.

Carey’s publicists told the Associated Press that, when “presented with the offer to perform for an international and mixed gender audience in Saudi Arabia, Mariah accepted the opportunity as a positive step towards the dissolution of gender segregation”.

They added: “As the first female international artist to perform in Saudi Arabia, Mariah recognises the cultural significance of this event and will continue to support global efforts towards equality for all.” The statement said that Carey “looks forward to bringing inspiration and encouragement to all audiences.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...n-saudi-arabia

[azc]

@Junon :
Does this news has any weight...?

''Saudi Arabia will be divided into four regions; Mecca and Medina will be run as a structure similar to the Vatican.

The second Riyadh-based region will be the capital of the “moderate Islam” project. The rest of Saudi territories will be annexed for the purpose of establishing a “Great Israel.”

A Shia state will be established in the regions of Al-Qatif and al-Dammam......
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/t...0%2C3666804205

[CuriousonTruth]

@Junon :
Does this news has any weight...?

''Saudi Arabia will be divided into four regions; Mecca and Medina will be run as a structure similar to the Vatican.

The second Riyadh-based region will be the capital of the “moderate Islam” project. The rest of Saudi territories will be annexed for the purpose of establishing a “Great Israel.”

A Shia state will be established in the regions of Al-Qatif and al-Dammam......
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/t...0%2C3666804205

Probably not. Look I love reading Yeni Safak but it is an AKP mouth-piece. So if you are not biased towards Erdogan, you should believe the news.

Could still happen though.

- - - Updated - - -

After what Saudis did in Egypt and Algeria, can't really say I feel remotely sorry. It won't be long now.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

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https://videos.files.wordpress.com/Y...penalty_hd.mp4

[سيف الله]

Salaam

@Junon :
Does this news has any weight...?

''Saudi Arabia will be divided into four regions; Mecca and Medina will be run as a structure similar to the Vatican.

The second Riyadh-based region will be the capital of the “moderate Islam” project. The rest of Saudi territories will be annexed for the purpose of establishing a “Great Israel.”

A Shia state will be established in the regions of Al-Qatif and al-Dammam......
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/t...0%2C3666804205

Hmmm I think some of its plausible for instance the whole 'moderate Islam' project. You have scholars being arrested and jailed for not toeing the line. Then you have the pathetic Blair 'advising' the Saudis about reform.

You can see the 'moderate Islam' project appearing in the UK.

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The purpose of the 'moderate Islam' project. To deform, degrade and eventually destroy.

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Christians in the UK has already gone through the 'moderate Christianity' process and we can see the results



On the 'Greater Israel' project. I dont think they would cede that much and Israel could take it if they wanted to. Israel does have the problem of being crowded.

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Theres no military force apart from (whether you like them or not) Hezbollah who can deter them. Though I think Israel would rather economically and then culturally control the region around them (now that the region has been successfully fragmented) rather than physically expand.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

More on the moderate Islam project.

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Related? The new religion Saudi Arabia is embracing.

Who Are the Enemies of Nationalism? or Patriotism?

” we are not easternizing or westernizing. We are modernizing”

Fatimah Ba’ashan, former Saudi spokesperson in United States.

Enemies of nationalism and patriotism are the enemies of original identity, heritage, culture and enemies of nation’s sovereignty or even national security. The plan to modernize Saudi Arabia is welcomed by general Saudi public as it comes from Saudi people and devoted to Saudi people in first place. Throughout the history of the kingdom, neither Saudi royal family, nor Saudi people were ashamed of their original identity. Saudis have full respect to their tribal culture with strong family bonds and appreciation to the variety of heritage and traditions of the kingdom.

When Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman describes the Saudi people, he says: ” I am one out of 20 million Saudis. I am nothing without them!” or he says: “Saudi people are glorious and great as Tuwaiq mountains. Nothing can put their ambitions down except when Tuwaiq is smashed by the level of the ground!“. His royal highness has been inspiring the Saudis especially the young generation to work hard for Saudi Arabia, to keep their ambitions high and to believe in the future vision 2030 that is mainly made to modernize the country and utilize the existing capabilities. The crown prince is confident that Saudi Arabia’s massive reform plan will succeed and the reason why according to him is” we have all the elements of success to create something great and exceptional and the most important element is the Saudi people!”. He keeps referring to his people to have the most important role.

Is Media the enemy of Saudi People?

As opposed to the Saudi crown prince’s statements and efforts to encourages his people, media and journalists made Saudi people their own enemies by coming up with different accusations as an attempt to demonize the Saudi people or their roles in defending their country throughout the anti-Saudi media campaigns. They accused Saudi Twitter users to be bots, Mongolian attack, traitors، etc. However, the anti-Saudi people accusations reached new low when the Bloomberg reporter Vivian Nereim published an article about: ‘Traitor is the new infidel as nationalism grips Saudi Arabia’.

Bloomberg’s article that criticized nationalism lacks any credibility!

This article has deviated from reality in many ways. first of all, nobody calls anyone as ‘infidels’ in Saudi Arabia except those who are known to belong to muslim brotherhood organization that the crown prince is trying to eradicate from the country. Second, the quoted stories belonged to those people who actually attacked Saudi public and called them ‘traitors’ such as Muna Abu Suliman. Third, criticizing nationalism as an obstacle to Saudi vision is a completely false propaganda. The truth is exactly the opposite!

Nationalism versus Socialism

Over decades and especially over the last years how mass immigration in Europe and globalist agenda resulted in many issues. Yellow vest protests against UN migration pact has spread to many western countries. Yellow vest protestors were also disappointed how mass immigration is destroying the country’s identity, increased fights between different religious groups or even threatened the national security! Protesters were looking for improving their own life conditions rather than bringing foreigners with different ethnic, religious and cultural background, etc

Nationalism is necessary in Saudi Arabia to succeed under vision 2030

Nationalism and patriotism are the necessary elements for any country’s prosperity. In order for Saudi massive reform plans to succeed, the reforms have to come from within the country rather than be dictated by foreigners. All foreign interferences in Saudi internal affairs so far were not welcomed by neither Saudi government nor Saudi people, were baseless and didn’t serve any of the country’s interests. Saudi crown prince’s message to the world was clear in this regards. and as former Saudi spokeswoman is United States, Fatima Ba’ashan stated:” we are not easternizing or westernizing. We are modernizing”. These facts has to be respected by media and journalists as targeting Saudi public was not and will not be successful!

https://opiniononmedia.home.blog/201...or-patriotism/

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Saudi Arabia holds ‘secret trial’ for prominent cleric Al-Ouda

The Saudi authorities have “secretly” held a trial in absentia for the kingdom’s jailed prominent cleric Sheikh Salman Al-Ouda, his family reported yesterday.”

This time, the state authorities did not let my father [Al-Ouda] attend the trial,” his son, Abdullah, said on Twitter, adding that Saudi prosecutor reaffirmed on his previous request of killing Al-Ouda.

Al-Ouda is the assistant secretary-general of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which Riyadh considers a terrorist organization. He was arrested on 10 September 2017 as part of a massive detention campaign, initiated under the order of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, against opponents of the kingdom’s policy regarding the blockade on the Gulf state of Qatar.

The Imprisoned cleric was reported to have been arrested from his home without a warrant a few hours after posting a tweet reacting to the Gulf crisis, in which he said: “May God harmonise between their hearts for what is good for their people.”

In November 2017, the kingdom authorities arrested a group of senior Sheikhs, scholars, businessmen, wealthy people and ministers, in what was said to be a “war against corruption,” which was considered an attempt to obtain full control over the political scene. Dozens of Islamists, writers and academics who criticized Riyadh’s foreign policy were also arrested.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20...leric-al-ouda/

[سيف الله]

Salaam

The gulf shiekhs 'moderate Islam' project is proceeding apace.

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Some comments.

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

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[CuriousonTruth]

As a muslim I have never supported liberalization or secularization of any muslim country. But is it really wrong to feel happy inside to see the collapse of Saudis and their sect? If liberalization of Saudi means they will stop funding their sect, stop funding destabilizing terrorists, stop sectarian war in other countries, then it's a price well paying.

Ideally stopping Saudis from supporting Israel, supporting USA, fudning military coups and supporting secular dictatorships is still a massive problem.

However, it's important to remember even being secularized, UAE keeps funding terror groups in coutnries like Somalia.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

As a muslim I have never supported liberalization or secularization of any muslim country. But is it really wrong to feel happy inside to see the collapse of Saudis and their sect? If liberalization of Saudi means they will stop funding their sect, stop funding destabilizing terrorists, stop sectarian war in other countries, then it's a price well paying.

Nope, the end justfies the means is not good basis of solving problems. Your solution will lead to more problems than it will solve.

[CuriousonTruth]

Salaam



Nope, the end justfies the means is not good basis of solving problems. Your solution will lead to more problems than it will solve.

I wasn't giving any solution, just pondering about the morality of it.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

More on the 'moderate' Islam project

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Whats at stake

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Learn from the Christian experience.

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Ah ha.

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Islam Poses the Last Legitimate Challenge to a Hegemonic Monoculture

On Monoculture

Thanks to globalisation, McDonald’s golden arches are more recognisable universally than state flags or centuries-old iconography. Increasingly, the world consumes the same homogenised culture, in its speech, clothing, cuisine, and media. Countries like the US have created a global brand, and boast of their reputation as a melting pot. This melting pot phenomenon, which sheds exterior differences to maintain one standardised culture, yields the monoculture. The monoculture maintains bland, but universally digestible tokens of culture, typically centred on that which the state can control and/or leverage, for maintaining the docility of the masses.

Perhaps the largest resistance to monoculture today is religion, particularly Islam. While Judaism has rarely publicly guided the state politics of any Western nation, Christianity historically has. However, Christianity has experienced a concerted removal from the public sphere, as holidays become secularised and prayers become banal platitudes. Islam, however, has largely resisted the grip of monoculture.

The beauty of Islam is that throughout its history, its unity has been in its lack of uniformity (the four madhahib, for example, affirm how something can be separate, but equal).As the bland monoculture of the West quickens in its exportation, contention between the West and Islam concurrently escalates. To be clear, Islam has a rich history in the West: Muslim rulers conquered lands as West as Spain and Muslims have been established communities in the US since the time of the slave trade. Regardless, Muslims have rarely been as visible and contested in the past 100 years of the West as today, appearing on the covers of major magazines, holding executive bureaucratic positions, and dominating the evening news, with the latest reports of “Islamic” terrorists.

Rest here

https://www.amaliah.com/post/40487/i...ic-monoculture

[Abz2000]

As a muslim I have never supported liberalization or secularization of any muslim country. But is it really wrong to feel happy inside to see the collapse of Saudis and their sect? If liberalization of Saudi means they will stop funding their sect, stop funding destabilizing terrorists, stop sectarian war in other countries, then it's a price well paying.

Ideally stopping Saudis from supporting Israel, supporting USA, fudning military coups and supporting secular dictatorships is still a massive problem.

However, it's important to remember even being secularized, UAE keeps funding terror groups in coutnries like Somalia.

anyone who thinks that the saudi puppets are a bigger problem requiring elimination than the american, british, and israeli -usury and weapons dealing criminal masterminds - has got their priorities all £#€k&@ up.

There is that statement about satan attempting to get the biggest crimes done, then settling up to just under neutral, then compromising up through neutral and the lesser good deeds, and stopping only at the best, and even then, tampering with the intention if possible........ depends much on circumstances and right now we need to wonder a bit about how the saddam hate and bashar hate and isis hate were used to manipulate Muslims into losing focus of the bigger enemy and slit each others throats as the enemy slowly moved in to fight Islam and Muslims as their financial and human fighter resources, and morale dwindled.


I think it might be wiser to establish a state of Islam in our families and communities especially remote where there is less harassment by the Quraish and their puppet allies (the puppets feel stuck between a rock and a hard place), than to exhaust resources fighting for an israeli engineered destabilisation campaign.

A question of positivity and constructive work in contrast to destabilisation and destruction for the purpose of remolding a vessel that is a little damaged in relation to others which are almost in pieces.
do not help satan against your foolish brother - but rather work with your brother in what is good, then it'll be both of you on one side, and satan on the other.
If you want to destabilize saudi arabia right now, you will have to resort to a nasty sectarian alliance with iran which will decimate the resources of both nations and risk making both of them failed states which are weak enough to be occupied under any stupid excuse, or you will have to accept the terms of the russian, american, amd israeli oligarchs in order to procure weapons and resources whilst enduring during sieges - whereas if you establish Islamic thinking - islam has occupied the land without a shot fired.
It's easier to get by as a Muslim in an Islamic minded community in saudi arabia than it is in france where they try to prevent people from public prayers and try to force people to commit kufr and eat pig. Also bear in mind that It is still possible for people to stand up in saudi arabia and say "God commands such and such:...." whilst being taken seriously.
In france the court will laugh you out the door if they don't get serious and demand a mental stability evaluation, and the common people who are products of deceitful media-conditioning will throw stuff at you even if their conniving leaders haven't already set their corrupt agency dogs and their ten-a-penny loafers and israely lobby-subsidised journalists loose to hound and ridicule you - the focus should be on establishing islam positively with circumstances in mind, whilst keeping satan and his open allies in kufr and deception - outside -to the best extent possible.

All trustworthy records show that the Prophet only went to war after the allegiance to Allah :swt: and His messenger, Allah's rulership and the prophet's leadership and a basic chain of command structure was established which was not subject to Quraishi elder interference and inter-tribal and tribal boycott and blackmail.
Until then - it was exclusively the bigger struggle for hearts and minds, the wars he fought for Allah :swt: s sake were to get obstacles out of the way in the struggle against satan for hearts and minds.

Saudi arabian puppets don't fit the bill just as abdullah ibn ubayy / ibn as-salul didn't fit the bill. The prophet worked with him in good when he had to despite the fact that ibn ubayy was commanding his own army of fighters through tribal allegiance - as long as he professed allegiance to Allah and his messenger with his mouth and thereby confirmed that the word of Allah was highest even though he was a well known liar, and he refused to kill him despite umar's insistance due to the confusion and possible dissent into unnecessary bloodshed it would cause.
If there is a strong islamic presence, the people are powerful in making demands, and they are better able to excercise that power in saudi arabia where the government must submit to the Quran in order to retain legitimacy - than in many other countries where the leaders are unafraid to sign off on and falsely attempt to legalise any unacceptable crime in Allah's sight - no matter how evil - and without fearing any dissent other than from highly opinionated and impressionable tv debates often orchestrated by "friendlies".

The people in secular countries are given the opportunity to stand up and shout because the leaders and their financiers know that they don't know what to demand other than what is popularly perceived as good and fashionable - as the corporate media machine is their gospel according to iblees which regularly tells and untells them what is popularly perceived as good and fashionable.

Muslims have a foundation for making demands, and they can progress better in fixing their government than in helping america and israel destroy them and their progeny from the shadows.



Allah himself confirms the truth of their words whilst pointing them out as lowly liars and frauds in the first verses of surah al munaafiqoon, and in the high and mighty vs lowly statement later in the same surah - whilst subtly pointing out that the truth is not dependent on the words of anyone other than Allah :swt: - and it is only when He confirms it in proper context that their statements have any value, and a possible hint not to go after them for their shady checkerboard statements since satan argues and mirrors with the energy of words if he can give them the wrong meaning and get people to deceive themselves into accepting false arguments as to who is mighty and who is lowly due to the exception taken at words.

Anyways, how many times has america attacked muslim majority lands after showing their ineffective puppets to be tyrants (with perjury and nurse nayira types) - only after those ineffective puppets refused in private to stoop too low in the demand to violate their people? Will you help them again? Is it the next twitter explosion with social media bots going into overdrive again? Or maybe a fox new article claiming that saudi arabia is forcing the pentagon and blackwater/xe to kill yemenis instead of the fact that a threat to the saudi regime was purposefully created by the american and israeli governments during the maneuvers of america, israel, saudi arabia, britan, france, and a few others, during the chaos which was being engineered in syria through senseless killings by mercenaries who worked with america in libya after arguments with israel got heated - especially over the golan heights...... ?

If saudi arabia is a problem, it is because of american meddling and blackmailing, and kufr, therefore look to america which would be the main problem..... just as it was during iran vs iraq, iraq vs saudi and kuwait, and iraq vs america - the people had rarely any say - other than the fact that mujahideen always stood up to establish Islaam when the secularist, paid armies had fled, and the invaders were attempting to establish open kufr and robbery of resources by installing secularist, open islam hating oppressors who only want position and money for themselves, and are willing to sign any deal with any devil to rob the people over whom they hold power.

























.

[CuriousonTruth]

anyone who thinks that the saudi puppets are a bigger problem requiring elimination than the american, british, and israeli -usury and weapons dealing criminal masterminds - has got their priorities all £#€k&@ up.

There is that statement about satan attempting to get the biggest crimes done, then settling up to just under neutral, then compromising up through neutral and the lesser good deeds, and stopping only at the best, and even then, tampering with the intention if possible........ depends much on circumstances and right now we need to wonder a bit about how the saddam hate and bashar hate and isis hate were used to manipulate Muslims into losing focus of the bigger enemy and slit each others throats as the enemy slowly moved in to fight Islam and Muslims as their financial and human fighter resources, and morale dwindled.


I think it might be wiser to establish a state of Islam in our families and communities especially remote where there is less harassment by the Quraish and their puppet allies (the puppets feel stuck between a rock and a hard place), than to exhaust resources fighting for an israeli engineered destabilisation campaign.

A question of positivity and constructive work in contrast to destabilisation and destruction for the purpose of remolding a vessel that is a little damaged in relation to others which are almost in pieces.
do not help satan against your foolish brother - but rather work with your brother in what is good, then it'll be both of you on one side, and satan on the other.
If you want to destabilize saudi arabia right now, you will have to resort to a nasty sectarian alliance with iran which will decimate the resources of both nations and risk making both of them failed states which are weak enough to be occupied under any stupid excuse, or you will have to accept the terms of the russian, american, amd israeli oligarchs in order to procure weapons and resources whilst enduring during sieges - whereas if you establish Islamic thinking - islam has occupied the land without a shot fired.
It's easier to get by as a Muslim in an Islamic minded community in saudi arabia than it is in france where they try to prevent people from public prayers and try to force people to commit kufr and eat pig. Also bear in mind that It is still possible for people to stand up in saudi arabia and say "God commands such and such:...." whilst being taken seriously.
In france the court will laugh you out the door if they don't get serious and demand a mental stability evaluation, and the common people who are products of deceitful media-conditioning will throw stuff at you even if their conniving leaders haven't already set their corrupt agency dogs and their ten-a-penny loafers and israely lobby-subsidised journalists loose to hound and ridicule you - the focus should be on establishing islam positively with circumstances in mind, whilst keeping satan and his open allies in kufr and deception - outside -to the best extent possible.

All trustworthy records show that the Prophet only went to war after the allegiance to Allah :swt: and His messenger, Allah's rulership and the prophet's leadership and a basic chain of command structure was established which was not subject to Quraishi elder interference and inter-tribal and tribal boycott and blackmail.
Until then - it was exclusively the bigger struggle for hearts and minds, the wars he fought for Allah :swt: s sake were to get obstacles out of the way in the struggle against satan for hearts and minds.

Saudi arabian puppets don't fit the bill just as abdullah ibn ubayy / ibn as-salul didn't fit the bill. The prophet worked with him in good when he had to despite the fact that ibn ubayy was commanding his own army of fighters through tribal allegiance - as long as he professed allegiance to Allah and his messenger with his mouth and thereby confirmed that the word of Allah was highest even though he was a well known liar, and he refused to kill him despite umar's insistance due to the confusion and possible dissent into unnecessary bloodshed it would cause.
If there is a strong islamic presence, the people are powerful in making demands, and they are better able to excercise that power in saudi arabia where the government must submit to the Quran in order to retain legitimacy - than in many other countries where the leaders are unafraid to sign off on and falsely attempt to legalise any unacceptable crime in Allah's sight - no matter how evil - and without fearing any dissent other than from highly opinionated and impressionable tv debates often orchestrated by "friendlies".

The people in secular countries are given the opportunity to stand up and shout because the leaders and their financiers know that they don't know what to demand other than what is popularly perceived as good and fashionable - as the corporate media machine is their gospel according to iblees which regularly tells and untells them what is popularly perceived as good and fashionable.

Muslims have a foundation for making demands, and they can progress better in fixing their government than in helping america and israel destroy them and their progeny from the shadows.



Allah himself confirms the truth of their words whilst pointing them out as lowly liars and frauds in the first verses of surah al munaafiqoon, and in the high and mighty vs lowly statement later in the same surah - whilst subtly pointing out that the truth is not dependent on the words of anyone other than Allah :swt: - and it is only when He confirms it in proper context that their statements have any value, and a possible hint not to go after them for their shady checkerboard statements since satan argues and mirrors with the energy of words if he can give them the wrong meaning and get people to deceive themselves into accepting false arguments as to who is mighty and who is lowly due to the exception taken at words.

Anyways, how many times has america attacked muslim majority lands after showing their ineffective puppets to be tyrants (with perjury and nurse nayira types) - only after those ineffective puppets refused in private to stoop too low in the demand to violate their people? Will you help them again? Is it the next twitter explosion with social media bots going into overdrive again? Or maybe a fox new article claiming that saudi arabia is forcing the pentagon and blackwater/xe to kill yemenis instead of the fact that a threat to the saudi regime was purposefully created by the american and israeli governments during the maneuvers of america, israel, saudi arabia, britan, france, and a few others, during the chaos which was being engineered in syria through senseless killings by mercenaries who worked with america in libya after arguments with israel got heated - especially over the golan heights...... ?

If saudi arabia is a problem, it is because of american meddling and blackmailing, and kufr, therefore look to america which would be the main problem..... just as it was during iran vs iraq, iraq vs saudi and kuwait, and iraq vs america - the people had rarely any say - other than the fact that mujahideen always stood up to establish Islaam when the secularist, paid armies had fled, and the invaders were attempting to establish open kufr and robbery of resources by installing secularist, open islam hating oppressors who only want position and money for themselves, and are willing to sign any deal with any devil to rob the people over whom they hold power.




.

KSA exists solely because of UK, they are maintained by USA, and allied with Israel. KSA monarchy gives away its resources for the sake of USA.

Just like UAE, KSA is cancer for muslims. No different. They fund terrorist organizations like ISIS, Al-Shabab while funding coups against real islamic groups liek FSA, Muslim brotherhood, AKP, etc.

KSA also funds mosques in Pakistan to spread extremism, terrorism. They have completely corrupted and radicalized 20-25% of Pakistan's population and have taught them a completely false and ignorant version of islam.

And while they give big lectures on tawheed, they build buddha statue, temples, they bring McDonalds, KFC, other western companies into Makkah and are destroyign spirituality of Makkah. They have destroyed 96% of all islamic historical and heritage sites on the basis of "shirk" but have no problem opening pre-islamic heritage site in Al-Ula.

Saudi Arabia, along with israel, Egypt, UAE, USA are the axis of evil. The day the kingdom dies, will be a day of joy. Btw all the western structures in Makkah including that satanic clock tower needs to be demolished, insha'Allah.

[Abz2000]

If the ksa government is the cancer caused by the people of the "democratic" uk and maintained by the people of "democratic" america, maybe the cause needs to be the focus of attention, and we should be careful of viruses attacking the cells in the main body by pretending to be a part of the body, certain people were repeating similar stuff before iraq, before libya, and before syria, despite the fact that there were enough illegal corrupt kafir invaders in iraq to legally kill - and when certain other people stood and began to establish Islaam in their own communities after making it a point not to focus on the invaders of iraaq, they were sabotaged and most credit for actions good and bad were given to a group calling itself d.a.i.i sh in arabic and i.s.i.s (osborne's oxford magazine comes to mind) in english - regardless of the group in action and regardless of the fact that there were secularist kaafir british soldiers in syria hoisting shahadah flags and murdering people in the name of i.s.i.s
The same people who were seeking discord before began to protest at the Islamism - thereby proving their kufr and evil intentions.

The utilisation of the yemen crisis to discredit islam in saudi arabia by using the names of secularist puppets as unislamic targets looks more like a distraction and diversion to me than actual heartfelt sympathy for suffering human beings.

Prudence often proves to be a useful resource.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

The 'moderate Islam' project is proceeding apace.

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On the agenda behind it. Christain perspective but the lessons are relevant to us.

Blurb

Is the New Age Movement a front for a one-world religion?

[Al_Ghazali]

Salaam

Most interesting. Who controls the Sauds?

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Salaam

Wow its already having an effect

Mecca imam slammed for claiming Trump 'steering world to peace'

Abdul Rahman al-Sudais claims Saudi Arabia and US are leading world to peace and security, sparking outcry on social media



We have to raise the question whether the Sauds are worthy of being the Custodians of the two holy sites.

The country has been been stable and safe for decades despite a chaotic and violent Middle East, so yeah, they're worthy of being custodians.

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The 'moderate' Islam project continues. No doubt the Clown Princes master Trump and his best friend Jared Kushner will be pleased.

Blurb

A massive conference is taking place right now in Saudi Arabia – one which focuses on moving away from the past and looking towards the future.

Saudi Arabia is on the path to change and is looking to reform the Kingdom into a modern country.

The Muslim World League started on Monday, an international conference focusing on moderate Islam under the patronage of King Salman. It’s an idea introduced by crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and so far, all the scholars of Saudi Arabia back it.

The event is a four-day international conference, titled “Moderation and Indications,” where dignitaries, scholars, senior officials and leading thinkers from the Muslim world have been invited.

Scholars are already changing their stance on a number of issues. We aren’t too sure why Saudi Arabia is moving towards moderation but it does seem the idea originates from Washington.

Quote Originally Posted by Abz2000

anyone who thinks that the saudi puppets are a bigger problem requiring elimination than the american, british, and israeli -usury and weapons dealing criminal masterminds - has got their priorities all £#€k&@ up.

Your wrong, we all like a good conspiracy but you have to call a spade a spade. The Sauds (with honourable exceptions) sold out a long time ago. Now its clear for all to see.

[CuriousonTruth]

https://www.dhakatribune.com/world/m...alal-nightclub

LMAO halal nightclubs this time?

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Its was in the Metro (UK) as well.

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Not sure how reliable this source is, seems they are backtracking.

NO “Halal Disco and Nighclub in Saudi Arabia”, it’s only a “high-end” Café by White brand of Dubai

There are no official reports about the opening of the Halal discos or night clubs in the city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, however Dubai-based White brand were in talks in April to open a “high-end” Café and restaurant in Jeddah.

The news report about the Halal nightclubs was originally written by a UK-based Muslim Brotherhood news-agency Al-Araby.co.uk, which quotes ArabianBusiness.com—but it has no mention of Halal Disco or nightclub in Saudi Arabia whatsoever.

According to Arabian Business, CEO of Addmind Hospitality Group Tony Habre expressed that Dubai and Beirut nightclub brand White will open as a high-end café and lounge in Jeddah.

“Speaking to Arabian Business, Tony Habre said the firm is currently in talks to open White café in the kingdom, but hasn’t signed a partnership yet,” it says.

“We haven’t signed yet. We’re talking to some people… White café will be more high-end… with high end decoration,” Habre said to Arabian Business.

“The Saudi market will be great, because the local community goes out a lot. You have people in the country who go out a lot,” he added.

In the complete report, there is no mention of Halal Disco or nightclub being opened in Jeddah.

In the mean while, a video clip allegedly showing an ongoing disco party in Jeddah has come under the vigilance of General Entertainment Authority (GEA) of Saudi Arabia.

The ministry has ordered immediate probe and denied giving any permission to conduct disco party.

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https://millichronicle.com/2019/06/n...VWNpWKeuaeiQk8

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Another update.

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Is the Nicki Minaj mega music festival really that shocking?

Just a short journey from where the Prophet Muhammad (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) is laid to rest, a festival in which musicians from around the globe, including Nikki Minaj who is known for her profanity laden songs with references to casual sex and drugs, is to take place in Jeddah, the sacred land of the hijāz. The festival is set to run into the days of Dhul Hijjah when Muslims from around the world travel to the sacred lands for Hajj.

The Jeddah Season Festival is part of the Crown Prince, Muhammad b. Salman’s ‘reformation’ program for the Kingdom. It follows hot on the heels of Mariah Carey’s concert in December, or as it was otherwise known, ‘Christmas Concert’.
Saudi Arabia is traditionally a conservative Muslim country and popstars such as Minaj are at odds with the cultural values of the vast majority of the people within it. Indeed, such popstars do not only offend the values of orthodox Muslims, but also the values of people of other faiths, no faith, and those who oppose the objectification of women, the sexualisation of the entertainment industry, and the grotesque use of profanity.

Many have interpreted these developments as being a charm offensive, as the country was outed for the murder and decapitation of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as well as being widely condemned for the war in Yemen. By dropping thousands of bombs on the poorest country in the Middle East, the nation has been reeling in famine, which has already claimed the lives of countless children.

These changes have been pitched to the West as great reform in the Middle East. However, commentators have pointed out that holding pop concerts and even allowing women to drive are superficial distractions from the real problems in the country. For example, the rate of unemployment remains at record levels: almost 13% of the population, in which the majority are under 30. Despite the song and dance with which the authorities have introduced their economic reforms, the economy has been largely unaffected. [1] Rather than investing inwardly and using the country’s vast oil wealth to spearhead research into renewable energy – especially solar energy – the House of Saud has chosen to invest $3.5 billion into Uber and a further several billion into other Silicon Valley companies, such as Slack, We Work, and a dog walking app named Wag. [2]

The Jeddah Music Festival is a pitiful imitation of the worst aspects of Western culture and it betrays the colonised mind-set that still pervades the Middle East and beyond, rather than celebrating the country’s thousands of years of heritage. Many have argued the authorities could have portrayed their country as a confident and dignified Muslim country, comfortable in its Islamic identity and yet ready to become a hub for modern technology and finance.

Is ‘Progress’ the Imitation of Former Colonisers?

To borrow from Karl Marx, these Western style festivals are merely an opium for the masses – something to divert them from the real issues in their country. These include the ability to elect their own leaders, the separation of the executive from the judiciary, a free press which holds the ruler to account, protection of civil liberties, rule of law, an affordable healthcare system, and employment. All of these things, however, had been brought by the Prophet (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) 1400 years ago.

It is likely that the thousands of people who attend the concerts are not representative of the general population, which totals to 33 million. Furthermore, as the son of jailed cleric Sheikh Salman al-Oudah said:

“MBS is not Saudi Arabia. MBS is not the history of Saudi Arabia. MBS is not his own royal family and MBS is not the Saudi public.” [3]

Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia recently sought the death penalty for some prominent scholars including, Sheikh Salman al-Ouda, following an apparent secret trial. Amongst the dozens of prominent scholars, activists and academics imprisoned without trial by the Saudi authorities, are Sheikh Awad al-Qarni, Sheikh Mohammad Musa al-Sharif, Sheikh Muhammad Saleh al-Munajjid and Sheikh Abdul Aziz at-Tarefe.

It was after the incarceration of these scholars that MBS felt sufficiently bold enough to introduce what many in the country would consider to be against the basic tenants of Islām.

As a testament to his father’s upbringing, Sheikh Salman al-Oudah’s son showed empathy for others when he commented:

“My father is the most popular figure in the kingdom and he was treated like that. So just imagine those who are less known or even not known to the public or to the international media, what would they do? How would they treat such people?” [4]

Modernisation is not holding concerts or opening cinemas. Rather, it is establishing civil rights. It is giving people agency to elect their leaders. It is the separation of state from the judiciary. It is having a free or affordable healthcare system. It is not the repression of political dissent, the imprisonment of political activists, or the murdering of journalists.

Some commentators have suggested that the monarchy is living on borrowed time. Its repression of citizens, the pulverisation of one of the poorest countries in the world, and the murdering of orphans and widows. Furthermore, its brazen disrespect of Allāh (subḥānahu wa taʿālā)’s most beloved will have a cost, either in this life or the next. Is this really reform or is it the conflation of reformation with modernising dictatorship?

https://www.islam21c.com/news-views/...that-shocking/

A response.

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Edit - Shes pulled out.

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Harsh judgement, though I dont think she did it out of her 'principles'.

Follow @Khorosani

More Ali Retweeted AJ+

Well done Saudi you sold your religion and got paid in humiliation. Nicki Minaj stuck to her own principles whilst you abandoned your own. Tragic

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Another update

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MBS 'modernisation' proceeds apace.

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What we are witnessing is the beginnings of a re-paganisation of Saudi Arabia.

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Another update.

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As MBS implements much needed reforms, like having 'performers' who wouldn't look out of place in a strip club, building a replica Statue of liberty and inflicting the horrors of K-POP on the population.

Meanwhile.

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Saudi detainee dies after authorities refuse urgent medical care

Dhamiri suffered from heart failure and needed a new heart pump, according to a Saudi source in touch with the family

A Saudi political prisoner has died after authorities refused to provide him with a new mechanical pump for his heart last week, a Saudi source in touch with the family told Middle East Eye.

Saleh Abdelaziz el-Dhamiri, 60, died on Friday at the Tarafeyya prison north of the capital Riyadh, according to the source. He was buried on Saturday at his home town of Sakaka in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

Dhamiri had been held in solitary confinement for four years over his work in support of families of political prisoners, according to the Berlin-based Saudi activist and former political prisoner Sami al-Shadukhi.

Last week, Dhamiri was in urgent need to change his left ventricular assist device, an artificial heart pump, but his request was not met by prison officials, leading to his death, according to Shadukhi.

Middle East Eye could not independently verify allegations of medical negligence against Dhamiri due to restrictions on independent media coverage of human rights violations in the kingdom under the current government. Saudi Arabia had not responded to MEE's request for comment at the time of publication.

Prior to his arrest, Dhamiri was a fundraiser for families of detainees and an official liaison between them and the government, Shadukhi told MEE. He was a supporter of the Saudi opposition and an opponent of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's de facto rule, he added.

"I was a political prisoner, and I know how authorities use medical negligence as a tool against detainees," he said.

News about Dhamiri's death was first reported by the Saudi advocacy Twitter account Prisoners of Conscience.

In January, another Saudi cleric, Ahmed al-Emari, died at a Saudi prison due to torture and ill-treatment.

Since Mohammad bin Salman became crown prince and de facto ruler of the kingdom in June 2017, rights groups have reported dozens of cases of torture and medical negligence involving Saudi political detainees, including women's rights campaigners and religious clerics.

In March, leaked medical reports revealed that a number of prominent Saudi political prisoners have suffered wounds and burns from torture and malnutrition.

Middle East Eye has previously reported that several high-profile prisoners held during the anti-corruption purge in 2017 - including Prince Miteb bin Abdullah and five other princes, and businessman Amr al-Dabbagh - were tortured while in custody.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/s...t-medical-care

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Edit - posted about halaal nightclubs in Saudi but it wasnt properly verified (likely shot in UAE) so I'll withdraw it till its clarified.

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Salaam

Another update

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Saudi scholar 'arrested' for criticising music concerts

Saudi authorities have arrested a religious scholar after he criticised Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's policy of hosting international music concerts in the country.

The Prisoners of Conscience rights group said on Tuesday that Sheikh Omar Al-Muqbil, a professor of Islamic law at Qassim University, was arrested after denouncing the policies of the General Entertainment Authority (GEA) as a threat to the kingdom's culture.

In a video, Al-Muqbil accused the GEA of "erasing the original identity of society".

"This is a continuation of the arbitrary arrests that have taken place in the kingdom for the past two years, which are aimed at leading scholars, sheikhs and other free thinkers," the Prisoners of Conscience group said.

In the past year a number of high-profile Western music stars including Mariah Carey, 50 Cent, Janet Jackson and Sean Paul have performed concerts in Saudi Arabia as part of Mohammed bin Salman's "liberalisation" drive that has led to new cinemas, concerts and sporting extravaganzas.

The reforms, including an end to the decades-long ban on women driving and mixed gender concerts, are part of a sweeping economic plan, dubbed "Vision 2030", to direct the Saudi economy away from oil dependence and to create new jobs for an overwhelmingly young population.

But critics argue that the reforms are a distraction from a sweeping crackdown against critics of Mohammed bin Salman.

In September 2017, more than 20 influential clerics and intellectuals were detained for allegedly acting on behalf of "foreign parties".

Among those detained was reformist cleric Salman Al-Awdah, who was arrested on terrorism charges after posting a tweet calling for "harmony between people", which Saudi authorities claim was a call for reconciliation with neighbouring Qatar, who it had cut ties with.

Months later, shortly after announcing the end of a driving ban on women, bin Salman detained over 200 top Saudi officials and businessmen in a purported anti-corruption drive in the country.

Experts said it was a way of consolidating his grip on power by securing cash from 'shake downs' and eliminating potential rivals.

Riyadh has also faced international criticism over the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/ne...music-concerts

But dont worry, a new identity is being manufactured.

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MBS 'modernisation' programme is proceeding.

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More comment.

MBS’s liberal reforms will destroy any remnant of normative Islam in Saudi Arabia

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s liberal reforms for a “modern” Saudi Arabia bears the hallmarks of a kingdom at the brink of self-implosion, writes Hasnet Lais.

The shifting dynamics of Middle Eastern politics never ceases to amaze as its most distinguished sheikhdom, Saudi Arabia, embarks on a transition that’s poised to change the Kingdom beyond recognition.

Infamous for its repression of political freedoms and human rights abuses, the House of Al Saud is rebranding its global image as an authoritarian fiefdom by converting the country into a crucible for tourism and entertainment. This grand quest for social transformation is the brainchild of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) who’s wasted no time rejuvenating the Kingdom through a curated mix of arts, culture and sports offerings in his pursuit of modernisation.

From earmarking dozens of islands in the Red Sea as a sprawling, luxury beach resort to the much-anticipated overhaul for Qiddiyah, which is billed as the ‘Capital of Entertainment’, MbS is taking momentous strides towards economic regeneration as outlined in the ambitious Vision 2030 manifesto.

Reforms

Plans to develop a multi-billion dollar city to free the Kingdom of dependence on oil exports are accompanied by a raft of contentious reforms paving the Saudi foundations for a Dubai-like makeover. In a country where social liberalisation is outpacing economic development, previously unimaginable freedoms are accelerating at an unprecedented scale, with seismic implications.

There’s far more to the self-vaunted march towards progression than opening cinemas and rescinding the ban on women driving. The weaponisation of women’s rights is now central to renegotiating the social contract, and has exposed a combustible fault line in the Kingdom’s politics.

The General Entertainment Authority has sought to break new grounds and bring the cabaret to the desert by hosting mixed gendered concerts, which have stoked much controversy. From classical Japanese orchestras and trapeze artists to hip-hop and house music bonanzas, Saudi men and women have emerged from their ultra-conservative straight-jacket to share the dance floor under the Kingdom’s pulsating lights.

In June, US rapper Nicki Minaj was invited to headline the Jeddah Season Cultural Festival. Despite cancelling, the invitation of an artist notorious for hyper sexualised performances and profanity-laced lyrics provoked a conservative backlash. In an interview with CBS last year, MbS also claimed that the traditional abaya was not mandatory in Islam, hinting a future where the female dress code will be relaxed and exposing the staunchly liberal direction in which the reforms are heading.

A collapsing kingdom

The timing of these reforms speaks volumes and appears to be a calculated strategy to appease a public reeling from austerity and mask a Kingdom engulfed in turmoil.

Existential threats to KSA are multiplying. Tensions between Emirati and Saudi objectives in Yemen recently surfaced after forces belonging to the Saudi backed government of President Hadi were ousted by the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a coalition of secessionist militia trained by the UAE.

While MbS’s priority is to secure the southern border against the Houthis, the UAE seeks to consolidate economic and military presence in the Horn of Africa and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a vital link in global trade routes.

Unless the divergent Saudi-Emirati strategies in Yemen and Emirati pragmatism vis-à-vis Iran can be amicably negotiated, there are fears of a southern secession which will significantly hinder efforts to maintain a unified opposition to the Houthis and increase the likelihood of an Iranian sponsored insurrection on Saudi borders.

It’s also no secret that officials in the Kingdom are scrambling to reassure oil markets of sustainable production levels following a recent drone attack on Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq processing facility. The past few years has seen oil prices fluctuate leading to a downgrading of credit ratings, prompting speculators to bet on the devaluation of the Riyal.

As the war in Yemen drags and sanctions on Iran bite deeper, Saudi energy assets and vital infrastructure are becoming increasingly vulnerable to attack, threatening to diminish the Kingdom’s output capacity. With the looming uncertainty over future oil prices and the unpredictable trajectory of its ongoing macroeconomic crisis, the days of chequebook diplomacy are slowly fading.

Furthermore, reforms coincide with an increasing level of despotism, widely documented by Human Rights Watch. While claiming to contest the monopolistic control of the clerical class, MbS is entrenching his own political absolutism at a time when vengeful royals are jostling for leadership. It’s been over a year since the murder of exiled journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but the crackdown on peaceful dissidents across the political spectrum and McCarthyist witch-hunt of religious scholars continues unabated.

The Prince’s shock therapy seems to be a smokescreen for the repression of any grassroots initiative seeking a reformation of the authoritarian order. Unable to manage his cultural transition delicately, it will likely morph into a springboard for the public’s demands for more transparent governance.

Secularisation

Like many Muslims, I despise the ossified institutions stemming from the clan-based tradition which have stymied the intellectual progress of ordinary Saudis, contributing towards the Kingdom’s arrested development. Thus, I endorse initiatives for fostering innovation and nurturing a home-grown diversified knowledge economy, even if it means overhauling some traditional bases of power.

However, the suggestion that MbS will upend the suffocating autocracy is illusory. Instead of presaging a political opening, the international pressure to redress an ailing economy combined with the demands for youth empowerment and civic participation is prompting the Crown Prince to pursue a reformist agenda which conflates modernisation with westernisation. In the process, normative Islamic values are being fatally compromised and subordinated to a dangerous brand of liberal authoritarianism. Undeterred in his quest to spearhead an “Arab renaissance”, MbS is riding roughshod over the time-honoured religious heritage of millions of Muslims.

Having absorbed the religious police into the interior ministry, he has vowed to revise the national curriculum by co-opting schools to enforce laissez-faire social values antithetical to the Islamic tradition as the basis for a new Saudi nationalism.

Desperate to see KSA develop into a global hub for commercial investment, he will continue to curry favour with the international community by enabling the propagation of liberal voices to serve as the impetus for shifting the cultural paradigm. This will function as a Trojan horse for the infiltration of feminist and secular influences to ultimately frame the national discourse on gender, education and public policy.

Judging by the pace in which these reforms are being foisted on the masses, the piecemeal assimilation of liberal values will eventually culminate in the desecration of sacred spaces and radical rethinking of core Islamic tenets under the guise of restoring a moderate Islam. For a country long associated with puritanical Salafism, the heir to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques is ripping up the script by opening the floodgates to the liberal zeitgeist, reminiscent of Kemal Ataturk’s aggressive secularisation of Turkey.

I sincerely appeal on the esteemed scholars and students of knowledge to resist this pernicious onslaught and demand for any countercultural endeavour to be anchored in normative Islamic values. Those who identify as “Salafi” must acknowledge that the spiritual foundations of the Arabian Peninsula is now on the edge of a precipice and decry the cost of such conformism. One can no longer maintain the pretence of defending an unadulterated faith tradition while keeping mum as the mores championed by MbS usher the heresification of the Holy Land.

https://5pillarsuk.com/2019/12/01/mb...-saudi-arabia/

[ahmedc123]

well the US is following its Project for New American Century, PNAC, it launched it with the 911 to get the public onside.
Before you can redraw political maps, you first have to stir it up, before giving the solution
Heres a pic of the map, of the general idea. ( i dont know why the pics dont show, you have to click it)
Attachment 6823
Now all the arab proxy puppet states are part of protection racket rape & pillage Muslim lands and resources, and to keep us down and out.
MBS is part of the pnac plan, they want to do a las vegas or dubaii on saudi, they will seperate off the 'holy places' Makkah & Medinah, and export kufr to all of the rest, thats if we let them

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Some Saudis apprehensive over 'blistering' social change

Social changes sweeping Saudi Arabia have been embraced by many but Ibrahim, a middle-aged teacher, frowns as he rejects the "blistering and shocking" reforms that are breaking long-held taboos.

The kingdom's ambitious de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has introduced multiple economic and social innovations in a kingdom where public life was once severely curtailed by uncompromising religious police.

Under the reform drive, women are allowed to take the wheel of cars after a decades-old driving ban was scrapped, and permitted to go to stadiums to watch sports and concerts.

Cinemas were reopened after many years of closures, noisy parties are permitted, and authorities turn a blind eye as shops remain open during prayers times -- a grave offence in the past.

The metamorphosis has been widely welcomed in a country with a large youth population, and endorsed by clerics perceived to be pro-government.

But some conservative Saudis beg to differ, even if they do so quietly for fear of punishment.

"Loud musical parties, mixing of the sexes and easing restrictions on the female dress code -- these were all unthinkable just a few years ago and are not permissible in the home of the two holy mosques," said Ibrahim, a 55-year old Arabic teacher.

"Of course, there was hidden moral degeneration in the country like all other countries. Now it has become public," the bearded father of five told AFP, declining to use his full name due to the sensitivity of the issue.

He shook his head as two women walked past, their billowing traditional abaya cloaks worn unfastened and revealing skinny jeans underneath.

Along the boulevards of Riyadh and on restaurant terraces, men and women can now be seen socialising together, reflecting a quiet end to the ban on the mixing of the genders.

Foreign women are now, in theory, allowed to venture out without the black abaya and some pioneering Saudi women are daring to do the same.

"My problem is not with freedom. My problem is that it is freedom without restrictions and guidelines," Ibrahim said as he walked out of a mosque in central Riyadh.

"I asked religious scholars and they said we have to obey the Almighty, the Prophet and the rulers. Therefore I accept the reality as they -- the rulers -- are responsible for us," he said.

- 'Everything is possible'-

Given the reluctance to speak out against the crown prince's vision for the country, which is aimed at bringing in investment and diversifying the oil-reliant economy, it is hard to know the extent of the pushback among ordinary people.

Even as the kingdom has forged ahead with the reforms, it has earned condemnation for a heavy-handed crackdown on dissidents including intellectuals, clerics and female activists.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to comment publicly, defended the reforms, saying they "are needed by the Saudis to feel they are leading a normal life."

At the end of last year, Riyadh hosted the three-day MDL Beast, billed as the biggest party ever hosted by the conservative kingdom where hardliners have long opposed music shows.

Touted by some as Saudi Arabia's Woodstock, international DJs blasted dance music as thousands partied in the open air for three days, including women -- many of them unveiled and sporting glittery face paint.

"I refuse to allow my children to go to such parties. They asked me and I refused," said one government employee, who declined to be named.

"I am not sure if they went without telling me. Everything has become possible these days," said the father of four, including two girls.

"The problem is not with the change. The problem is that it has not happened gradually. It has taken place so suddenly," said the 47-year old man as he drank coffee at a cafe outside Riyadh.

Two sides collide? -

Even among some young women, the transformation has been head-spinning.

"The openness happened in an unpleasant and shocking way and without preparation," said Manar Sultan, a 21-year-old student dressed in the traditional abaya.

"We have moved from the extreme right to the extreme left in the blink of an eye," she said at an amusement park in Riyadh.

Local media have published reports in the past few months of cars owned by women being set ablaze in several Saudi cities -- some of the victims accused unidentified men of acting in protest over the lifting of the driving ban.

In a gesture appeared to be aimed at alleviating the fears of conservatives, Saudi authorities last month held 200 people, including dozens of women, and penalised them for wearing improper dress and other "moral" violations.

"There has been a giant change but things remains fragile and extremely delicate," said one diplomat who has lived in Riyadh for the past six years.

"Many people support it and many others oppose it. The problem is if the two sides collide."

https://news.yahoo.com/saudis-appreh...151938420.html

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Land of Tawheed eh?

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In a further sign of liberalisation in Saudi Arabia, hearts and flowers are everywhere as the Kingdom prepares to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Arab News reports that Saudis are buying extravagant gifts, flowers, cheesy balloons and even teddy bears for that special person.

As recently as three years ago it would have been unthinkable to celebrate Valentine’s Day as it was considered haraam. Many Islamic scholars consider celebrating the festivals of the non-Muslims to be forbidden.

Florists and confectioners used to hide their red roses and heart-shaped chocolate in fear of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Restaurant owners even banned birthday or anniversary celebrations on Feburary 14 for fear of arrest or closure.

But in 2018 former Makkah CPVPV President Sheikh Ahmed Qasim Al-Ghamdi declared that Valentine’s Day did not contradict Islamic teaching or doctrine. Celebrating love was universal, and not limited to non-Muslims, he said.

“Celebrating Valentine’s Day does not contradict Islamic teachings as it is a worldly, social matter just like celebrating the National Day and Mother’s Day,” he told Saudi media. “All these are common social matters shared by humanity and are not religious issues that require the existence of religious proof to permit it.

“There are many worldly things that we deal with morally that may be of interest to non-Muslim communities and became more common among Muslim communities because of their popularity,” he said, citing the Prophet (pbuh) as an example. “The Prophet dealt with many worldly things that came from non-Muslims.

“Even greeting peaceful non-Muslims in their special religious holidays is permitted without participating in a forbidden act that contradicts Islam,” he said, downplaying perception that it was an imitation of non-Muslims when Muslims also celebrate the day of love.

Since Mohammed bin Salman became de facto Saudi leader he has overseen the liberalisation of the country including a burgeoning entertainment industry.

The history of Valentine’s Day is shrouded in mystery like that of its patron saint, Saint Valentine.

One theory suggests Saint Valentine was a priest who served during the 3rd Century in Rome, who was executed for defying a decree from Emperor Claudius II that outlawed any remaining single men from marrying as they were better soldiers than those who had already wed.

According to the story, Valentine was sentenced to death after continued to he was found to be performing secret marriages for love-struck couples.

By the Middle Ages, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France, for his symbolism of love.

https://5pillarsuk.com/2020/02/14/sa...alentines-day/

And these 'scholars' wonder why their credibility is going down the drain.

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Salaam

Another update.

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Related, interesting analysis of whats going on.

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In this video, I am talking about the sham trials of 5 Kurdish journalists and its similarities to the sham trials in Saudi & UAE. I talk about the ‘security for skirts’, ‘security for silence’ and ‘security for salary’ trade offs in Kurdistan.

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Another update, the ideology of Saudism takes root.

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So MBS is going down the UAE route, steady erasure of the Islamic basis of its society.

[Labayk]

And when it is said to them, "Do not cause corruption on the earth," they say, "We are but reformers." Unquestionably, it is they who are the corrupters, but they perceive [it] not. (al-Baqarah: 11-12)

[Karl]

Salaam

The globalists snap their fingers the Sauds obey.

I will return Saudi Arabia to moderate Islam, says crown prince

Mohammed bin Salman tells the Guardian that ultra-conservative state has been ‘not normal’ for past 30 years


Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has vowed to return the country to “moderate Islam” and asked for global support to transform the hardline kingdom into an open society that empowers citizens and lures investors.

In an interview with the Guardian, the powerful heir to the Saudi throne said the ultra-conservative state had been “not normal” for the past 30 years, blaming rigid doctrines that have governed society in a reaction to the Iranian revolution, which successive leaders “didn’t know how to deal with”.

Expanding on comments he made at an investment conference at which he announced the launch of an ambitious $500bn (£381bn) independent economic zone straddling Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, Prince Mohammed said: “We are a G20 country. One of the biggest world economies. We’re in the middle of three continents. Changing Saudi Arabia for the better means helping the region and changing the world. So this is what we are trying to do here. And we hope we get support from everyone.

“What happened in the last 30 years is not Saudi Arabia. What happened in the region in the last 30 years is not the Middle East. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, people wanted to copy this model in different countries, one of them is Saudi Arabia. We didn’t know how to deal with it. And the problem spread all over the world. Now is the time to get rid of it.

Earlier Prince Mohammed had said: “We are simply reverting to what we followed – a moderate Islam open to the world and all religions. 70% of the Saudis are younger than 30, honestly we won’t waste 30 years of our life combating extremist thoughts, we will destroy them now and immediately.”

The crown prince’s comments are the most emphatic he has made during a six-month reform programme that has tabled cultural reforms and economic incentives unimaginable during recent decades, during which the kingdom has been accused of promoting a brand of Islam that underwrote extremism.

The comments were made as the heir of the incumbent monarch moves to consolidate his authority, sidelining clerics whom he believes have failed to support him and demanding unquestioning loyalty from senior officials whom he has entrusted to drive a 15-year reform programme that aims to overhaul most aspects of life in Saudi Arabia.

Central to the reforms has been the breaking of an alliance between hardline clerics who have long defined the national character and the House of Saud, which has run affairs of state. The changes have tackled head-on societal taboos such as the recently rescinded ban on women driving, as well as scaling back guardianship laws that restrict women’s roles and establishing an Islamic centre tasked with certifying the sayings of the prophet Muhammed.

The scale and scope of the reforms has been unprecedented in the country’s modern history and concerns remain that a deeply conservative base will oppose what is effectively a cultural revolution – and that the kingdom lacks the capacity to follow through on its economic ambitions.

The new economic zone is to be established on 470km of the Red Sea coast, in a tourist area that has already been earmarked as a liberal hub akin to Dubai, where male and female bathers are free to mingle.

It has been unveiled as the centrepiece of efforts to turn the kingdom away from a near total dependence on oil and into a diverse open economy. Obstacles remain: an entrenched poor work ethic, a crippling regulatory environment and a general reluctance to change.

“Economic transformation is important but equally essential is social transformation,” said one of the country’s leading businessmen. “You cannot achieve one without the other. The speed of social transformation is key. It has to be manageable.”

Alcohol, cinemas and theatres are still banned in the kingdom and mingling between unrelated men and women remains frowned upon. However Saudi Arabia – an absolute monarchy – has clipped the wings of the once-feared religious police, who no longer have powers to arrest and are seen to be falling in line with the new regime.

Economically Saudi Arabia will need huge resources if it is to succeed in putting its economy on a new footing and its leadership believes it will fail to generate strategic investments if it does not also table broad social reforms.

Prince Mohammed had repeatedly insisted that without establishing a new social contract between citizen and state, economic rehabilitation would fail. “This is about giving kids a social life,” said a senior Saudi royal figure. “Entertainment needs to be an option for them. They are bored and resentful. A woman needs to be able to drive herself to work. Without that we are all doomed. Everyone knows that – except the people in small towns. But they will learn.”

In the next 10 years, at least five million Saudis are likely to enter the country’s workforce, posing a huge problem for officials who currently do not have jobs to offer them or tangible plans to generate employment.

The economic zone is due to be completed by 2025 – five years before the current cap on the reform programme – and is to be powered by wind and solar energy, according to its founders.

The country’s enormous sovereign wealth fund is intended to be a key backer of the independent zone. It currently has $230bn under management. The sale of 5% of the world’s largest company, Aramco, is expected to raise several hundred billion dollars more.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...m-crown-prince

Wow what a radical prince. I have heard rumours that the Al Saud family were crypto Jews and no wonder as they talk like globalist cultural Marxist Jews. Well if he is absolute monarch then the people of Arabia can ask him to step down if they are not happy with his anti Islam policies and if he refuses, the people of Arabia have the right by Allah to cut off his head. Sounds extreme but it is written in the Noble Quran.

[IslamIsTruth]

So, I touch on this on the latest podcast. I started a podcast last Ramadhan because of lockdown, I couldnt go to the masjid and thought i would utilise my time InshaAllah. In the podcast we touch on
1) What was the purpose behind the Pope's visit to Iraq?2) How is the Vatican used by the US?
3) How is the Interfaith project being used to change Islam?

Have a listen InshaAllah and share.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g53j2bD5NJw


Also available on all Podcast providers:


itunes:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/talking-minaret/id1510992450#episodeGuid=Buzzsprout-8139482

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

The new 'Saudism' takes hold.



Lots of comment.

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And a lot more to be said but I wont spam.

Meanwhile, at this rate they will be building temples soon

blurb

Ramayan & Mahabharat will soon be taught in Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince MBS has directed schools to include the 2 Indian epics in their curriculum. It's a big message of co-existence.



A weeks a long time on politics.

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[Karl]

Maybe this prince is under the control of the American empire just like Herod was under the control of the Romans and he had to deal with "extremists" the zealots. Maybe if he does not do what he is told he will end up like Saddam Hussein.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Well Trump crude and vulgar as he is did give them a reality check on who their security depends on.



Saudi have been dependent on USA/UK etc for many decades but there was some room for indepdendent behaviour mainly due to oil, so it gave them some leverage. With the Iraq war in the 1990s Saudis became heavily dependent on USA for its protection. This coupled with the decline in the oil economy has boxed them into a corner. Finally the failure to unseat Assad and the disastrous civil war that unfolded further compounded the decline of Saudi influence. This caused immense disquiet among its traditional allies (hence Trumps ultimatum and European states willing to talk with Iran). And lets not forget the aftershocks in the wake of the Arab spring.

So all these factors plus many others (domestic etc) has led to a changing of the guard so to speak. Hence the rise of MBS.

I dont think any sane person would take any religious instruction from this clown for obvious reasons.

You could say MBS is following in the footsteps of the athiest Ataturk or the Shah of Iran in his 'modernising' reforms but more likely hes going to follow the path trailblazed by MBZ who is busy dismantiling, distorting, erasing the Islamic basis of UAE and replacing it with a variant of secular liberal ideology.

It will be slow and gradual but we see it happening.

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Recently Loudspeakers have been banned from Masjids.

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Remember the time when Saudis used to justify themselves on the basis they were Islamic? See how thats all suddenly changed? Now the new trend is 'Saudism'

The only good thing about this is that the mask has finally come off and Muslims can plan and act accordingly.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update. From the UAE.

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Meanwhile in Qatar

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

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Edit - Related the new 'Saudism' takes hold.

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comment.

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Oh dear - More on the new Saudism.

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

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Saudi seeks religious reset as clerical power wanes

Muezzins issuing high-decibel calls to prayer have long been part of Saudi identity, but a crackdown on mosque loudspeakers is among contentious reforms seeking to shake off the Muslim kingdom’s austere image.

Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest Muslim sites, has long been associated with a rigid strain of Islam known as Wahhabism that inspired generations of global extremists and left the oil-rich kingdom steeped in conservatism.

But the role of religion faces the biggest reset in modern times as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, spurred by the need to diversify the oil-reliant economy, pursues a liberalisation drive in parallel with a vigorous crackdown on dissent.

Chipping away at a key pillar of its Islamic identity, the government last month ordered that mosque loudspeakers limit their volume to one-third of their maximum capacity and not broadcast full sermons, citing concerns over noise pollution.

In a country home to tens of thousands of mosques, the move triggered an online backlash with the hashtag “We demand the return of mosque speakers” gaining traction.

It also sparked calls to ban loud music in restaurants, once taboo in the kingdom but now common amid liberalisation efforts, and to fill mosques in such large numbers that authorities are forced to permit loudspeakers for those gathering outside.

But authorities are unlikely to budge, as economic reforms for a post-oil era take precedence over religion, observers say.

“The country is re-establishing its foundations,” Aziz Alghashian, a politics lecturer at the University of Essex, told AFP.

“It’s becoming an economically driven country that is investing substantial effort in trying to appear more appealing – or less intimidating – to investors and tourists.”

In the most significant change that began even before the rise of Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia neutered its once-feared religious police, who once chased people out of malls to go and pray and berated anyone seen mingling with the opposite sex.’

In what was once unthinkable, some shops and restaurants now remain open during the five daily Muslim prayers.

As clerical power wanes, preachers are endorsing government decisions they once vehemently opposed – including allowing women to drive, the reopening of cinemas and an outreach to Jews.

Saudi Arabia is revising school textbooks to scrub well-known references denigrating non-Muslims as “swines” and “Tapes”.

The practice of non-Muslim religions remains banned in the kingdom, but government advisor Ali Shihabi recently told US media outlet Insider that allowing a church was on “the to-do list of the leadership”.

Authorities have publicly ruled out lifting an absolute ban on alcohol, forbidden in Islam. But multiple sources including a Gulf-based diplomat quoted Saudi officials as saying in closed-door meetings that “it will gradually happen”.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that Saudi Arabia has entered a post-Wahhabi era, though the exact religious contours of the state are still in flux,” Kristin Diwan, of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told AFP.

“Religion no longer has veto power over the economy, social life and foreign policy.”

In another shift, observers say Saudi Arabia appears to be turning its back on global issues affecting fellow Muslims, in what could weaken its image as the leader of the Islamic world.

“In the past its foreign policy was driven by the Islamic doctrine that Muslims are like one body – when one limb suffers the whole body responds to it,” another Gulf-based diplomat told AFP.

“Now it is based on mutual non-interference: ‘We (Saudi) won’t talk about Kashmir or the Uyghurs, you don’t talk about Khashoggi’.”

Prince Mohammed, popularly known as MBS, has sought to position himself as a champion of “moderate” Islam, even as his international reputation took a hit from the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

He has vowed to crack down on radical clerics, but observers say many of the victims have been advocates for moderate Islam, critics and supporters of his rivals.

One such cleric is Suleiman al-Dweish, linked to former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, MBS’s key rival.

Dweish has not been seen since his detention in the holy city of Mecca in 2016 after he tweeted a parable about a child spoiled by his father, according to London-based rights groups ALQST and a source close to his family.

It was seen as a veiled insult to MBS and his father King Salman.

Another is Salman al-Awdah, a moderate cleric detained in 2017 after he urged reconciliation with rival Qatar in a tweet. He remains in detention even after Saudi Arabia ended its rift with Qatar earlier this year.

“Politically, MBS has eliminated all his rivals, including those who shared many of the same goals of religious reform,” said Diwan.

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/5087893...l-power-wanes/

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

Saudi appoints first female assistants for the 2 Holy Mosques

Saudi Arabia has appointed two female assistants for the management of the Two Holy Mosques in a historic first for the kingdom.

Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah and head of the General Presidency of the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques, appointed Dr Fatima Al-Rushood and Dr Al-Anoud Al-Aboud as his assistants.

According to the Saudi Gazette, the appointments issued on Thursday include 20 women who hold masters and doctoral degrees, in key leadership positions at the presidency.

Dr Fatima was made assistant president for women's affairs and advisor to the president, while Dr Al-Anoud was appointed as assistant president for women's development affairs.

Al-Sudais also issued an order for the establishment of an assistant agency for women's empowerment as part of ongoing efforts to empower women in line with the kingdom's Vision2030, established by de facto leader and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

"Women who are working at the Two Holy Mosques have proven their competence in various fields," Al-Sudais explained.

"The presidency aims to continue working to achieve the maximum benefit from the distinguished female cadres, and to harness their efforts in serving Hajj and Umrah pilgrims and visitors in accordance with the Kingdom's Vision 2030," he added.

Last month the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah allowed women to perform Hajj without a mahram (closely-related male guardian) in an unprecedented move, provided that they were among a group of other women. Female guards were also appointed for the first time at the Grand Mosque in Makkah. While in June, unmarried, divorced or widowed Saudi women were permitted to live alone without the consent of a mahram.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20...-holy-mosques/

[Karl]

Ha ha We're all living in America. I reckon the Taliban need to invade Saudi Arabia and put it right. I can't believe the extent at which the Saudi people have been willing to grovel and stoop so shamelessly to please a few Western Zionists and globalist cultural Marxists. Saudi Arabia was Holy when it had a GDP of $50 and no oil for sale. Probably will be opening gay bars, brothels and casinos in the near future.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

No big secret anymore.

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

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[Karl]

This "reforming" prince puts me in mind of the Shah of Iran and things did not go well for him. Could a revolution happen in the kingdom? If he is behaving like an infidel how can he rule Arabia? Does he have Jewish blood in him?

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update, if anybodys in any doubt about the new direction.

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Though if you look at the comments that this is from an UAE publication. Still not surprising.

Oh dear oh dear.

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Meanwhile in Egypt.

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But fear not, Dr zakir naik is on the case!

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More seriously there is a purpose to this.

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Hah.

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update.

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[Muslim_2023]

Iblees controls the corrupt Saudi regime (and other dictatorships in the region).

Quite obvious we'd think.

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update. Comprehensive discussion on whats happening.

Blurb

From the war in Yemen to raves in Riyadh, political analyst Sami Hamdi analyses the ‘modern’ Saudi Arabia as a regional power. Many see the country to be a staunch ally, even stooge of the United States, yet others hail its recent strategic turn under Muhammad Bin Salman as a sign that at last the country is looking to forge an independent path.



More strange goings on in the land of Tawheed.

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[سيف الله]

Salaam

My eyes! This has to be put on record.

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Response and comment.

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