Is this really the top cleric in Saudi Arabia, and why did he say this?

[cooterhein]

According to this source, Grand Mufti Shiekh Abdulaziz Al Shiekh is the top cleric in Saudi. Is that correct?
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2...ays-daesh-militants-are-israeli-soldiers.html

I saw a part of the title initially, something about "Top Saudi cleric says something about Daesh." I didn't see the end of it initially. Once I clicked on it, I find out the top Saudi cleric is claiming that Daesh is really a bunch of Israeli soldiers (categorically untrue), while Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is responding by saying he hasn't forgotten about Israel for one second, and will turn it into a graveyard (something he really can't do). I wouldn't be surprised if he also criticized Saudi for being allies with the US and for doing their bidding like a little puppy dog- and if he was to make such a claim, that would be sort of true. But that's beside the point.

Getting back to the point, though. Why would this person claim that Daesh is a part of the Israeli army? It's plainly not true. So what is this? Is he just saying it for effect? Is it okay to do that when you're a major Sunni cleric?

And finally, what's it going to take in order to get Saudi clerics to start being useful in all of this? I mean, look, I have my own religion, which is not Islam, and sometimes I have certain problems with other religious groups on the whole (not talking about Islam for just a moment). For the most part though, when I hear a prominent religious leader say something in a very public manner and on a global scale, I expect to hear something that makes me respect him, even if there's a chance that I don't respect his entire religion as much as he would like. But then here's what just happened instead.

I'm about to look at what the Saudi cleric has to say, and I'm hoping for something good- here's his chance, I don't know much about him but maybe I'll have a reason to respect this man! Maybe I'll be really impressed!- and then he says Daesh is really a bunch of Israeli soldiers, now let's go kill them. And I'm thinking oh no, this again. Why does it have to be this again?

So what's up with this? How important is this particular cleric anyway, why did he do this, and why must he insist on disappointing me?

 

[syed_z]

Peace be with you and thank you for your post. There was a Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia named Abdul Aziz Ibn Baaz who claimed that the Sun revolves around the earth which is false according to the astronomical evidence. So the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia is not the grand mufti of the Islamic World, he doesn't represent the entire Muslim world....

 

[keiv]

According to this source, Grand Mufti Shiekh Abdulaziz Al Shiekh is the top cleric in Saudi. Is that correct?
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2...ays-daesh-militants-are-israeli-soldiers.html

I saw a part of the title initially, something about "Top Saudi cleric says something about Daesh." I didn't see the end of it initially. Once I clicked on it, I find out the top Saudi cleric is claiming that Daesh is really a bunch of Israeli soldiers (categorically untrue), while Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is responding by saying he hasn't forgotten about Israel for one second, and will turn it into a graveyard (something he really can't do). I wouldn't be surprised if he also criticized Saudi for being allies with the US and for doing their bidding like a little puppy dog- and if he was to make such a claim, that would be sort of true. But that's beside the point.

Getting back to the point, though. Why would this person claim that Daesh is a part of the Israeli army? It's plainly not true. So what is this? Is he just saying it for effect? Is it okay to do that when you're a major Sunni cleric?

And finally, what's it going to take in order to get Saudi clerics to start being useful in all of this? I mean, look, I have my own religion, which is not Islam, and sometimes I have certain problems with other religious groups on the whole (not talking about Islam for just a moment). For the most part though, when I hear a prominent religious leader say something in a very public manner and on a global scale, I expect to hear something that makes me respect him, even if there's a chance that I don't respect his entire religion as much as he would like. But then here's what just happened instead.

Why would anyone claim that these guys are Muslim? You see the people they are killing right? Daesh, as a whole, might not be part of the israeli army but, I wouldn't rule out that israel has no role in this. Israel isn't invincible as you and many others appear to think. These guys could easily attack military targets and infrastructure within israel but choose to "recruit" guys from everywhere else around the world. Ever seen the Daesh parody video made by a group of Palestinians a while back? On top of it being funny, its not far from the truth. Of course he can't israel turn into a graveyard.. That's like the US military launching nukes upon itself. Makes no sense. Why would a country want to do that to itself

I'm about to look at what the Saudi cleric has to say, and I'm hoping for something good- here's his chance, I don't know much about him but maybe I'll have a reason to respect this man! Maybe I'll be really impressed!- and then he says Daesh is really a bunch of Israeli soldiers, now let's go kill them. And I'm thinking oh no, this again. Why does it have to be this again?

So what's up with this? How important is this particular cleric anyway, why did he do this, and why must he insist on disappointing me?

And who exactly are you to him? I don't think impressing an anonymous poster on the net is on his top 10 things to do list

 

[czgibson]

Greetings,

It's possible he said it because many in the Muslim world are very fond of conspiracy theories. We see them put forward on this forum all the time. Conspiracy theories about 9/11 are especially popular. This in turn may be because it's much easier to believe a conspiracy theory (and play the victim card) than to believe the simple fact that people calling themselves Muslims are causing death and destruction on almost a daily basis in various parts of the world.

Peace

 

[*charisma*]

Getting back to the point, though. Why would this person claim that Daesh is a part of the Israeli army? It's plainly not true. So what is this? Is he just saying it for effect? Is it okay to do that when you're a major Sunni cleric?

And finally, what's it going to take in order to get Saudi clerics to start being useful in all of this?

lol and what's the difference between a zionist and Daesh? and what is it that you expect saudi clerics to do exactly? I don't see christians clerics doing anything whenever psychopaths from the church decide to terrorize.

I'm about to look at what the Saudi cleric has to say, and I'm hoping for something good- here's his chance, I don't know much about him but maybe I'll have a reason to respect this man! Maybe I'll be really impressed!

You're looking for a reason to respect another human being?? Well, look at you on your high horse.

This in turn may be because it's much easier to believe a conspiracy theory (and play the victim card) than to believe the simple fact that people calling themselves Muslims are causing death and destruction on almost a daily basis in various parts of the world.

ORRR it could be because a lot of governmental and political information is hidden from the public, and the truth is often covered up.

No one is denying that there are sick individuals who label themselves as Muslims and do atrocious things, but no Muslim is claiming these individuals as a part of our Ummah. Yet, the media is very keen on destroying our image.

 

[sister herb]

Groups like Daesh are very beneficial for the zionists. I am sure they would love to support them if they could.

And how we can be so sure they don´t?

:shade:

 

[Search]

:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

Getting back to the point, though. Why would this person claim that Daesh is a part of the Israeli army? It's plainly not true. So what is this? Is he just saying it for effect? Is it okay to do that when you're a major Sunni cleric?

First and foremost, I think people make claims because they either believe them to be true or want them to be true or both. I'd like to clarify that as yet, I had never even heard of this presumably "important" Saudi cleric until you brought him to my attention, and as I'm a traditional Muslim, I'd like to believe I'd have heard of him if he was all that important in the context of global Muslim world or even relevant to Muslims in the West. Quite patently, I don't believe either likely and it seems to be that he may be an important scholarly figure perhaps in Saudi Arabia or even maybe in some sense known in the Arabian peninsula but he's not someone over whom I'm concerned. People can say anything they want. Donald Trump, a presidential candidate of the U.S. though I do not like his bigotry against Mexicans or Muslims and statements against women, says anything he wants; and we can criticize a person's position or specific words, in this case, Donald Trump's without believing he represents Christians in the U.S., all whites in the U.S., all Republicans or even America at large. Do you think it is okay for Donald Trump to say half the things he says? I don't think so. Probably the same could be said of this major Sunni cleric, but in the end, it doesn't matter because he has a right to his opinion just as Donald Trump has the right to his (even if I can't get behind him).

Well, when a person stands for the position of running the country, I too expect the person to be "presidential" in his/her words, demeanor, actions, and personality. However, we are not getting that with Donald Trump. Or even Hillary Clinton who recently has though been cleared by the FBI Director has been discovered to have lied to the American public throughout the email scandal. What we want and we get are two different beasts, whether that include politicians or religious figures. For example, a pastor in Arizona named Steven Anderson said clearly bigoted and unsympathetic and celebratory words in regards to the Orlando shooting because the shooting involved the death of people of presumed homosexuals/lesbians. Even if I believe that Steven Anderson is a fringe Christian, which I do, I don't that his words were an appropriate response or even merited.

Why does it have to be this again?

So what's up with this? How important is this particular cleric anyway, why did he do this, and why must he insist on disappointing me?

What's up is that Daesh has caused more havoc in the Muslim world and a shocking Muslim death toll than all combined non-Muslim deaths in any attacks, and they are a bane of the Muslim world's existence at this moment in time. They are brutal, merciless, and unapologetic about being both. And back in 2014, when I was still in law school and when Daesh had at that point been relatively tame compared to what we've experienced up to now, Daesh had made it clear that its next target was Israel after Assad and his armed forces were given their due. Whatever anyone believes or not of Israel, I do believe that Israel would have known that information as Daesh had made it public, and Israel had a vested interest in ensuring that Daesh did not reach its borders and wreck the planned havoc. Suddenly, of course in 2015 and 2016, West and other Muslim-majority countries are becoming its prime targets and Israel is nowhere on its list except as a distant objective? It doesn't add up. I do believe Mossad agent(s) at some point in time infiltrated the Daesh camp (as that is what I would have done if I had information as Israeli government that a bunch of zealots and wanna-be-martyrs are planning to wreck havoc) and dissuaded Daesh's top leader and important right-hand men away from targeting I Israel. There are many ways to fight an enemy, and you don't always to fight on the front-lines to accomplish what you want. T. E. Lawrence was able to play a covert liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and Arab revolt that led to the beginning of the ending of the Ottoman Empire.

You do realize the Saudi cleric said what he did primarily to an Arab Muslim audience that are as sick and tired of Daesh leading the crusade against Muslims, killing them left and right as if it's actually the game "Call of Duty" instead of real life with real human beings that are dying just because they happen to disagree with either Daesh's ideology or get in the way of Daesh. He had probably as much as sympathy as Donald Trump does when he gets up in front of a primarily white blue-collared middle-aged audience when he says that he will make America great again by profiling Muslims, building a wall keeping out illegal Mexicans, and makes insulting comments generally on a person since the underbelly of America are tired of "political correctness." Besides, you do know how Daesh's existence began right? The American government, as shown by secret intelligence documents, show that we welcomed and fueled the beginning and growth of Daesh.

The Sunni Saudi Arabian cleric insisted on disappointing you because you are still tunnel-visioned and need to see the bigger picture in able to understand all the players, their motives, and what's what in the context of geopolitics and ensuing bloodbath.

 

[Search]

:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

Everything isn't so black and white, czgibson: I'm not saying that the Saudi cleric is right. I don't think he is, at least not from what he's exactly said. However, we do live in an age of disinformation: If I have though learned anything from the The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire, it is that what the U.S. says and what it does behind the scenes are two entirely different things (and U.K. as its ally has to follow its cue), and I don't see any reason to believe that Israel operates any differently or that it wouldn't want to ensure its survival at any cost in a hostile Middle East (and even more hostile Daesh grandstanding as the next Caliphate) and that should be concerning to all global citizens because what we see and what we hear does not encompass the truths to which we're deliberately not made privy.

Greetings,

It's possible he said it because many in the Muslim world are very fond of conspiracy theories. We see them put forward on this forum all the time. Conspiracy theories about 9/11 are especially popular. This in turn may be because it's much easier to believe a conspiracy theory (and play the victim card) than to believe the simple fact that people calling themselves Muslims are causing death and destruction on almost a daily basis in various parts of the world.

Peace

 

[Scimitar]

You know what frustrates me?

For you guys the Daesh/ISIS/ISIL are either Salafi, or Yahuddi...

Can't it be both?

It's not hard to see what they are.

The top brass is Yahuddi like that fake khaliph and his inner circle of war mongering generals and advisors, while the main build up of the movement is weak Muslims who have no idea what Islam is and have fallen for their lies.

It's not one nor the other - it's both.

Meh

Scimi

 

[czgibson]

Greetings,

Everything isn't so black and white, czgibson: I'm not saying that the Saudi cleric is right. I don't think he is, at least not from what he's exactly said. However, we do live in an age of disinformation:

Don't get me wrong: I'm not dismissing conspiracy theories out of hand. Some conspiracy theories have been proven, such as the Holocaust and Watergate. I also strongly suspect that the JFK assassination was the result of a conspiracy.

I just happen to think that the conspiracy theories I've seen on this forum are a load of nonsense.

Peace

 

[Scimitar]

In the age of convenience, there is no convenient truth.

If you wanna learn that truth, you gotta go deep, and really study it.

Scimi

 

[cooterhein]

Peace be with you and thank you for your post. There was a Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia named Abdul Aziz Ibn Baaz who claimed that the Sun revolves around the earth which is false according to the astronomical evidence. So the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia is not the grand mufti of the Islamic World, he doesn't represent the entire Muslim world....

Correct me if i'm wrong, but no one represents the entire Muslim world. Is that right?

Now, there is a very large group of Sunni religious leaders that get together on a regular basis, but they are basically on equal footing with each other. I suppose I'm curious to know if this man is well known to the rest of the Sunni world, if he is seen as truly emblematic of Sunnis as a whole or just Salafism in particular (is that the right word? I'm choosing to bypass the Wahhabist label), and I suppose how well known and how well respected he is among regular Muslims worldwide.

 

[Search]

:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

In 2014, I was in law school, and that is when Daesh was still relatively tame and most honestly couldn't have predicted even with its videos that Daesh would go as far as it did to attack Western nations or even Muslim-majority nations. In 2014, Daesh's plans included a clear-cut and publicized idea to attack Israel and wreck havoc there. If you're Israel and you know that you're in the Middle East surrounded by nations hostile to you due to your reputation for human rights violations and illegal occupation, you'd have to be smart enough to ALWAYS stay abreast of every development, every sound, every wind in the Middle East. And I think that's what Israel does, as would I if I were part of its government; it is not conspiracy - it is basic common sense and survival 101.

And if I had (as the Israeli government) learned that Daesh, a brutal organization comprising of wanna-be-martyrs and fanatics, was planning on attacking Israel - I would as the Israeli government send my best agents to infiltrate Daesh because there is no such thing as being too safe and ensure that Daesh didn't reach its objective to wreck havoc. My agents would have two jobs: one to win the trust of top leaders and the other to transmit all information at safest moments to Israeli government. That would be again common sense. I'd do it because "knowing" the enemy as well as the back of your hand is the surest way of ensuring that your enemy is under your eye. Do I think this happened? Yes. Do I have any way to prove it objectively? No. Why do I think this happened? Because the 2014 publicized goal of Daesh to defeat Assad and his armed forces and destroy Israel did not align with what happened in 2015 and 2016 comprising of attacks on Western nations and Muslim-majority nations. I think somewhere Daesh's objectives were diverted and the hatred redirected to another direction by deliberation, and I do think Mossad agents played a hand in it. Can I prove it objectively? No. Do I believe it? Yes.

Also, I do think Daesh comprises mostly of the most fanatical and brutal Muslims the world has ever seen - I am not denying that nor will I ever. I don't think many Muslims realize how brutal some Muslims have gotten over the course of years of fomented anger at Western intervention that is eager to burn the world down. I know this because on another site on the Internet I went in with the idea of destroying Daesh's interweb support and had the dubious privilege of talking to Daesh defenders and even a self-confessed Daesh member who was happy to share his real name and Twitter and images, and for my pains of proving that Daesh is not considered legitimate by Muslim scholars globally and proving that what Daesh is doing is wrong from Islamic sources, I was called vile names, constantly menaced and received actual death threats. I didn't take any of that seriously because menace and death threats on the Internet don't faze me, but it did prove to me one thing: Daesh hate Muslims more who do not accept them as legitimate than they do even the West, and wrestling power is the opiate on which they are seeking to thrive. I honestly worry about the future of this world because I do think the world is going to hell in a handbasket because brutality is going to be met with more brutality and I think the persons who will suffer are the innocents (and don't they always!).

Greetings,



Don't get me wrong: I'm not dismissing conspiracy theories out of hand. Some conspiracy theories have been proven, such as the Holocaust and Watergate. I also strongly suspect that the JFK assassination was the result of a conspiracy.

I just happen to think that the conspiracy theories I've seen on this forum are a load of nonsense.

Peace

 

[syed_z]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but no one represents the entire Muslim world. Is that right?

Now, there is a very large group of Sunni religious leaders that get together on a regular basis, but they are basically on equal footing with each other. I suppose I'm curious to know if this man is well known to the rest of the Sunni world, if he is seen as truly emblematic of Sunnis as a whole or just Salafism in particular (is that the right word? I'm choosing to bypass the Wahhabist label), and I suppose how well known and how well respected he is among regular Muslims worldwide.

Thanks Cooterhein for your question.

The Muftis of Saudi Arabia who serve at the Supreme Council or higher posts like the grand mufti are all government appointed. They are not chosen by the consensus of the Ummah. Since Saudi Arabia Government rules over the Hijaz (Arabian Peninsula), it is they who choose and appoint whom they consider to be the best for this post. They don't do this with advise of other Muslim governments or influential scholars of the Muslim world.

All Saudi Grand Muftis hail from the Al Ash Shaykh (The Family of the Sheikhs) who are descendants of Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, who was a founder and a propagator of what we know today as the Salafi Thought.

Muhammad Ibn Saud - the founder of the House of Saud - accepted Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab's doctrine and undertook its defence and propagation after having agreed to the conditions that the political sovereignty should rest with Family of Saud, whereas religious authority should belong to Muhammad in Abdul Wahhab. The Saudi-Wahhabi alliance was further cemented by an intermarriage between the two families.

The current Mufti Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh belongs to that family.

 

[cooterhein]

Why would anyone claim that these guys are Muslim?

This used to be a more complicated argument to make, but now it's actually been streamlined and simplified. First, let's review what we know about Saudi and about Mecca, particularly during the month of Ramadan.

What we know is that access to Mecca is restricted to Muslims. Non-Muslims cannot go there. Of course this is especially important during Ramadan, there are so many Muslims making the pilgrimage and space is limited, so why would you allow non-Muslims to go there for the sake of curiosity or perhaps for the sake of violence when there's so many Muslims going there for the right reasons? As I'm sure you know, anyone who's trying to go to Mecca during the holy month needs to demonstrate that they are Muslims to the satisfaction of whoever it is that's allowing them to go there. So as a general and really reliable rule, you can expect there to be nothing but Muslims in Mecca at any given time, and especially during Ramadan.

Now let me ask you a question that has a very easy answer. Have any members of Daesh been to Mecca lately?

You see the people they are killing right?

I do see the people they are killing. They are killing Muslims. Have you seen where Daesh has been going lately? Again, that would be Mecca. The place where only Muslims are allowed to go. And again, Daesh has been going there. Then they killed people- in Mecca. Who was it they killed in Mecca? Of course it was Muslims, that's blatantly obvious. Only Muslims are ever allowed in Mecca. And who did the killing? Again, Muslims, because it happened in Mecca and we know that only Muslims are allowed to go there.

What we're looking at is an internal conflict. Muslims killing Muslims- that is, evidently, what's happening.

Daesh, as a whole, might not be part of the israeli army but, I wouldn't rule out that israel has no role in this. Israel isn't invincible as you and many others appear to think.

Well, I would, but not because Israel is invincible. I rule it out because I know who these Daesh characters were to start with- they were Saddam's guys, they became unemployed as a result of the US and its misguided nation-building plan, and these particular guys weren't given anything to do, or any type of role in the new Iraqi order. After sitting around and watching Shiites take power and take revenge on Sunnis, they eventually made an unlikely alliance with the Baath party. Things progressed from there. Nothing about who these people are or where they came from would remotely suggest any connection to Israel, the group has condemned Israel and pledged to harm it, this is a group that talks about the Palestinian people more than it talks about anyone in Mosul or Raqqa, and they are harshly critical and condemning of what Israel is doing. Apart from all that, there is no actual, credible evidence that there's any secret cooperation behind all the hostility criticism and violence.

What would possess the former muscle of Saddam to align themselves with Israel, while simultaneously spreading hatred for Israel? No, strike that, let's just do the first part. After they stopped being Saddam's guys, why would they align themselves with Israel? What would prompt them to do so? What would they hope to get out of that?

These guys could easily attack military targets and infrastructure within israel but choose to "recruit" guys from everywhere else around the world.

It's really not so easy, freedom of movement has been non-existent in occupied Palestine since before Daesh. And from what I've heard from people in the area, Daesh actually has been trying to do some things there, especially in Gaza- specifically, they're hoping to flip enough key people to their allegiance so they can take over control of the area from Hamas. The people of Gaza haven't shown much support for that type of regime change though, and Hamas has avoided any real threat of losing control. Whatever plan Daesh has in mind, Hamas isn't giving up their control so far. For example, pro-Daesh elements in Gaza include a group known as the Omar Brigades, and when they have fired rockets into southern Israel, Hamas has come after them and arrested them. In Gaza, at least, rockets get fired when Hamas says so.

On the other hand, Hamas has been supporting a Daesh-linked group in Sinai, so it's not as if they're completely at loggerheads. Outside Gaza, there's a fair bit of coopertion. This is basically the situation, though- plenty complicated, fairly delicate, it could and pretty much will change, and it's really not so simple as "Well they could easily just, so why don't they."

And who exactly are you to him? I don't think impressing an anonymous poster on the net is on his top 10 things to do list

Well, I'm an American, and I know there's certain parts of Islam that he'd be embarrassed to admit this too, but our countries are allies. This is also a moment when he's on a bit of a world stage, so it really does matter what everyone thinks about him right now, not just a room full of Muslims.

 

[M.I.A.]

Wrong answer, maybe you can draw parallels to the statements made during the invasion of Jordan..

Although someone better qualified should remind me. I do not remember them.

Maybe he is as much a "Jewish conspirator" as the isis group..daesh if they are even the same thing.

The irony of claiming to give graveyards.. while people try to take away yours.

Maybe they need better glasses...

A windows update if you will.

 

[cooterhein]

Thanks Cooterhein for your question.

The Muftis of Saudi Arabia who serve at the Supreme Council or higher posts like the grand mufti are all government appointed. They are not chosen by the consensus of the Ummah. Since Saudi Arabia Government rules over the Hijaz (Arabian Peninsula), it is they who choose and appoint whom they consider to be the best for this post. They don't do this with advise of other Muslim governments or influential scholars of the Muslim world.

All Saudi Grand Muftis hail from the Al Ash Shaykh (The Family of the Sheikhs) who are descendants of Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, who was a founder and a propagator of what we know today as the Salafi Thought.

Muhammad Ibn Saud - the founder of the House of Saud - accepted Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab's doctrine and undertook its defence and propagation after having agreed to the conditions that the political sovereignty should rest with Family of Saud, whereas religious authority should belong to Muhammad in Abdul Wahhab. The Saudi-Wahhabi alliance was further cemented by an intermarriage between the two families.

The current Mufti Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh belongs to that family.

That is extremely helpful and informative, I previously knew very little of what you just told me. Thank you very much! You included some very helpful distinctions along with the basic facts, and for that I thank you.

 

[cooterhein]

:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

In 2014, I was in law school, and that is when Daesh was still relatively tame and most honestly couldn't have predicted even with its videos that Daesh would go as far as it did to attack Western nations or even Muslim-majority nations. In 2014, Daesh's plans included a clear-cut and publicized idea to attack Israel and wreck havoc there. If you're Israel and you know that you're in the Middle East surrounded by nations hostile to you due to your reputation for human rights violations and illegal occupation, you'd have to be smart enough to ALWAYS stay abreast of every development, every sound, every wind in the Middle East. And I think that's what Israel does, as would I if I were part of its government; it is not conspiracy - it is basic common sense and survival 101.

And if I had (as the Israeli government) learned that Daesh, a brutal organization comprising of wanna-be-martyrs and fanatics, was planning on attacking Israel - I would as the Israeli government send my best agents to infiltrate Daesh because there is no such thing as being too safe and ensure that Daesh didn't reach its objective to wreck havoc. My agents would have two jobs: one to win the trust of top leaders and the other to transmit all information at safest moments to Israeli government. That would be again common sense. I'd do it because "knowing" the enemy as well as the back of your hand is the surest way of ensuring that your enemy is under your eye. Do I think this happened? Yes. Do I have any way to prove it objectively? No. Why do I think this happened? Because the 2014 publicized goal of Daesh to defeat Assad and his armed forces and destroy Israel did not align with what happened in 2015 and 2016 comprising of attacks on Western nations and Muslim-majority nations. I think somewhere Daesh's objectives were diverted and the hatred redirected to another direction by deliberation, and I do think Mossad agents played a hand in it. Can I prove it objectively? No. Do I believe it? Yes.

Also, I do think Daesh comprises mostly of the most fanatical and brutal Muslims the world has ever seen - I am not denying that nor will I ever. I don't think many Muslims realize how brutal some Muslims have gotten over the course of years of fomented anger at Western intervention that is eager to burn the world down. I know this because on another site on the Internet I went in with the idea of destroying Daesh's interweb support and had the dubious privilege of talking to Daesh defenders and even a self-confessed Daesh member who was happy to share his real name and Twitter and images, and for my pains of proving that Daesh is not considered legitimate by Muslim scholars globally and proving that what Daesh is doing is wrong from Islamic sources, I was called vile names, constantly menaced and received actual death threats. I didn't take any of that seriously because menace and death threats on the Internet don't faze me, but it did prove to me one thing: Daesh hate Muslims more who do not accept them as legitimate than they do even the West, and wrestling power is the opiate on which they are seeking to thrive. I honestly worry about the future of this world because I do think the world is going to hell in a handbasket because brutality is going to be met with more brutality and I think the persons who will suffer are the innocents (and don't they always!).

I do thank you for your comments, and I appreciate what you put yourself through in the course of talking to some of these people- even if you say it doesn't faze you, I've said that before too but I do know the Internet venom can be quite something, even if you're handling it well.

There is one particular thing that I've heard from several sources on Daesh, though- specifically, that there are multiple levels of leadership, but the truly inner circle that really makes the key decisions is a very small group of people, these are men who literally all worked for Saddam together back in the day, if anyone is added to this core group it tends to be their family members and that is literally all. This, at least, was how they did it for as long as this group was able to survive well enough to stay functional. From everything I've heard though, this has been an ironclad group right from the outset that didn't allow anyone outside the circle to infiltrate or influence them in any way- they were well aware of such a threat, and they seem to have guarded against it quite well. Perhaps up to a certain point, but for a really good length of time these efforts were effective.

I've also come across some reports of intel that was basically stolen and then made available- it's not the most comprehensive information, but from what I saw, it was some paperwork from some of the earliest plans that Daesh had put together. Evidently, they had a certain type of PR campaign, and a set of objectives that they put out there for recruiting purposes. And some of that was accurate to the actual plans, and to what they did. Apparently though, there were some other plans that were being made from the outset that they never made public, and they never would have been known if not for these leaks. Right here, you can look at pictures of the actual pages (written in Arabic, so I can't read them myself).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...jihadi-refresher-course-weapons-training.html

Some of the things they reveal are plans for a Quranic constitution, an unexpectedly dense and detailed web of bureaucracy, health and education, departments for dealing with state assets (since they did plan to form a proper state)....they went public with a plan to keep fighting and expanding their borders forever, they went public with a plan to usher in Armageddon within the next few months or years, but all along they had a series of plans that they weren't telling anyone about. So perhaps they had plans all along for attacks on certain nations, or on whoever made them angry. Or maybe they formed new strategies in response to unforeseen events as they occurred. What I can't imagine is that Israeli agents (or CIA agents, either) would have been able to infiltrate the inner circle, as tight and defensive as it was. Did they try? They certainly did, and some of these guys may have even been able to hold recruiting positions so they could usher more of their guys into the region. But were they able to breach the inner circle and really influence decision-making at the top levels? I seriously doubt it, this was extremely well protected against and so they had to live with being able to gather intel.

 

[M.I.A.]

In the end, Allah swt raises and lowers as he wills..

Let's hope we are walking past at the right time.

 

[cooterhein]

:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)



First and foremost, I think people make claims because they either believe them to be true or want them to be true or both. I'd like to clarify that as yet, I had never even heard of this presumably "important" Saudi cleric until you brought him to my attention, and as I'm a traditional Muslim, I'd like to believe I'd have heard of him if he was all that important in the context of global Muslim world or even relevant to Muslims in the West. Quite patently, I don't believe either likely and it seems to be that he may be an important scholarly figure perhaps in Saudi Arabia or even maybe in some sense known in the Arabian peninsula but he's not someone over whom I'm concerned.

Thank you very much for sharing this, it's just the sort of thing I was hoping to find out about.

People can say anything they want. Donald Trump, a presidential candidate of the U.S. though I do not like his bigotry against Mexicans or Muslims and statements against women, says anything he wants; and we can criticize a person's position or specific words, in this case, Donald Trump's without believing he represents Christians in the U.S., all whites in the U.S., all Republicans or even America at large.

As of now, that's not the case, but if he wins....it's frightening, and it's also a compelling argument to the effect that he does represent the US at large, if he's President. Just by being the Republican nominee, that is a pretty good argument that the things he's saying represents the Republican party too. The selection process (and him being the selection) speaks to this.

This "top cleric," however, doesn't seem to have gone through a comparable selection process, from what I've been told in another response.

By the way, I despise Trump. I didn't really care at all before he was running for President, but now all of a sudden I care very deeply.

Do you think it is okay for Donald Trump to say half the things he says? I don't think so.

I don't think it's okay for him to say 95% of the things he says.

Probably the same could be said of this major Sunni cleric, but in the end, it doesn't matter because he has a right to his opinion just as Donald Trump has the right to his (even if I can't get behind him).

Everybody has the right to their opinion, but some people are in positions of power where they can do a lot of damage with those opinions. The damage is what's worrisome, and sometimes the lack of accountability.

Well, when a person stands for the position of running the country, I too expect the person to be "presidential" in his/her words, demeanor, actions, and personality. However, we are not getting that with Donald Trump. Or even Hillary Clinton who recently has though been cleared by the FBI Director has been discovered to have lied to the American public throughout the email scandal.

As it so happens, I support the Libertarian candidate for President, Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico. His running mate is William Weld, former governor of Massachusetts, and a guy that Mitt Romney really likes a lot (he also used to be the governor of Massachusetts). It will be my first time ever voting for a third-party candidate in a general election.

What we want and we get are two different beasts, whether that include politicians or religious figures. For example, a pastor in Arizona named Steven Anderson said clearly bigoted and unsympathetic and celebratory words in regards to the Orlando shooting because the shooting involved the death of people of presumed homosexuals/lesbians.

Speaking as someone who's spent his whole life in that specific branch of Christianity, I will say it is quite hostile to gay people, both in comparative and absolute terms. I'm not entirely surprised to hear about something like this, especially coming from my people, and to a pretty decent extent I do think it continues to be representative of a major segment of Christianity in the US.

Even if I believe that Steven Anderson is a fringe Christian, which I do, I don't that his words were an appropriate response or even merited.

He's the pastor of a church called Faithful Word Baptist Church, although I will note that lots of churches put the word Baptist in their name even though they're not a part of the Southern Baptist Convention. That's what this church is like, it's non-denominational and doesn't actually convene with any other Baptist churches. However....although certain things are taken to a bit of an extreme, it is a KJV-only church with doctrinal beliefs consistent with this branch of Protestantism, and its hardline approach on homosexuality, media, politics, and culture is really what I would expect from this type of Christian church. It's coming from a place where this type of mess is really quite common, and then there were some truly heinous comments that bubbled over the top and found a wider and more critical audience.

Now, that Fred Phelps church in Kansas that makes a point of being extremely anti-gay, that's another church that has Baptist on the sign even though it really isn't. That church is small, it's almost entirely made up of Phelps' extended family and a few close friends and their families. People are heavily pressured to stay in and not ever leave, it's got quite a few characteristics of a cult. As far as I know, Steven Anderson's church doesn't share all those characteristics, and from what I know so far it seems like a place that remains on the spectrum of who my people really are, and we do have to take a certain amount of responsibility for it. When it comes to the other example, the Phelps church, that place is a bit of a cancer that we're actively fighting against and people in the area have been working to support people who want to get out of it. This Faithful Word church seems to be a bit different from that though, again just as far as I know so far. It seems like a place where people freely hold to their extreme views and they don't have much of a problem finding other KJV-only Christians who feel the same way, and people opt-in or out of it as they will. This appears to be a church that has no trouble getting Protestant Christians to opt in, so how off the reservation can it possibly be?

Edit- although....this pastor is also a Holocaust denier and fairly anti-Semitic, which is not consistent with my type of people and my branch of Christianity. So apparently there's a bit more that I need to find out still.

The Sunni Saudi Arabian cleric insisted on disappointing you because you are still tunnel-visioned and need to see the bigger picture in able to understand all the players, their motives, and what's what in the context of geopolitics and ensuing bloodbath.

I do acknowledge that Israel is- and will- be using the Syrian instability as a reason to take more control of the Golan Heights and they are already getting more settlers in there. However, I also believe Israel can use any type on instability in their region in order to do some more of what they've always planned on doing, and if you care about the Palestinian people, it's always a bad idea to start a war within a few hundred miles of Israel. I don't think this is suggestive of a master plan between Israel and Daesh, I think it's consistent with the idea that Israel has always had certain goals and it will always use any regional instability as a way to get them done just a bit faster.