Saudi Opposition Clerics Make Sectarian Call to Jihad in Syria

THE DAILY STAR: RIYADH: Dozens of Islamist Saudi clerics have called on Arab and Muslim countries to "give all moral, material, political and military" support to what they term a jihad, or holy war, against Syria's government and its Iranian and Russian backers.

Although the clerics who signed the online statement are not affiliated with the government, their strong sectarian and anti-Christian language reflects mounting anger among many Saudis over Russian and Iranian involvement in Syria's war.

Russia last week started airstrikes against Syrian opposition targets that it describes as aimed at weakening ISIS, a move Riyadh has denounced. The clerics' statement compared it to the Soviet Union's 1980 invasion of Afghanistan, which prompted an international jihad.

"The holy warriors of Syria are defending the whole Islamic nation. Trust them and support them ... because if they are defeated, God forbid, it will be the turn of one Sunni country after another," the statement said. » | Reuters | Monday, October 5, 2015

Gaddafi's Sons Tried to Get Saudi Cleric Help: TV
REUTERS: Sons of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have failed to persuade prominent Saudi clerics to issue religious rulings against a revolt that is threatening to bring down the veteran leader, Al Arabiya television said on Monday.

The Saudi-owned channel said on its website that Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam had contacted one cleric, Salman al-Awda, and Saadi Gaddafi had reached out to a second, Ayedh al-Garni, but both rejected their calls.

"You are killing the Libyan people. Turn to God because you are wronging them. Protect Libyan blood, you are killing old people and children. Fear God," Garni said he told Saadi.

Garni made the remarks on air on Sunday, the website said, adding Awda gave the same message to Saif al-Islam.

Awda has a weekly television show on Saudi-owned pan-Arab channel MBC1 and has been praised by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before as a religious scholar he felt did not toe the government line. Garni gave lectures in Libya last year. Continue reading and comment >>> Reporting by Andrew Hammond, editing by Mark Trevelyan | Dubai | Monday, February 28, 2011

Saudi Arabia: Scholars Call for 'Jihad' Over Israeli Raid
AKI: Leading Muslim scholars and religious leaders in Saudi Arabia have called for jihad against Israel after the deadly raid on the Gaza humanitarian aid flotilla this week. In a statement distributed to Arab media, 70 of the country's prominent religious leaders said Muslims had an "obligation" to take action and to help end the embargo on Gaza aid.

"We have to strike at the heart of Israel to drive them out of Muslim territories in a way that breaks the Gaza embargo," the statement said.

"Dialogue and negotiations only increases violence by the Jews," the statement said. "The only way to save our (Muslim) nation from attacks and humiliation is to return to the way of Allah." >>> | Thursday, June 03, 2010

Analysis: Saudi Speeds Up Education Reform, Clerics Resist
REUTERS: RIYADH - Accused of promoting the religious radicalism that inspired the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia has stepped up efforts to reform its school curriculum, but clerical opposition means change will be slow, analysts say.

King Abdullah appointed a new team to lead the education ministry this year in a surprise reshuffle in the conservative Islamic state, where reformers say promises of change when Abdullah took the throne in 2005 have amounted to little.

Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, a former intelligence official, took over as education minister with Faisal bin Muammar, who headed a body set up in 2003 to promote social and economic reforms, as his deputy.

"We have been calling for such changes for a long time," said Mohammed Youssef, a professor of education at King Abdulaziz University who wrote a book in 2004 on restructuring the Saudi education system.

The United States zeroed in on Saudi schools after it emerged that 15 of the 19 attackers who killed some 3,000 people there on Sept. 11, 2001 were Saudi. They acted in the name of an Islamist group, al Qaeda, headed by a Saudi, Osama bin Laden.

Foreign and Saudi critics said Saudi educational material permitted the killing of non-Muslims and promoted the idea of cleansing Muslim countries from Western cultural influences. >>> By Asmaa Alsharif | Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Saudi Clerics’ Outbursts Hurt Image of Islam
THE NATIONAL - RIYADH: When the head of Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court recently declared that media officials responsible for airing immoral television programmes could be killed, his remarks provoked what has become a familiar response around the world.



Ridicule and scorn for Saudi Arabia, and more “proof” for Islamophobes of the “backwardness” of Islam. 



Sheikh Lihedan’s remarks were not the only ones in recent months to trigger a spate of global eye-rolling. 



In March, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al Barrak declared that two Saudi writers, whom he accused of expressing heretical ideas, should be put to death unless they recanted.
Another elderly sheikh, Abdullah bin Jibreen, told an interviewer on Al Majd TV, a conservative Riyadh-based religious station, that journalists “who insult scholars to shame or discredit them or undermine their authority … should be punished”. 
Sheikh Jibreen’s suggested chastisements included “imprisonment for a long time”, being “removed from the positions they hold, or … flogging”.



There were other less frightening, but sometimes silly, pronouncements that caused non-Muslims to wonder why representatives of such a profound and spiritual religious tradition as Islam concern themselves with trivialities. 



The most famous was a declaration by a member of the Saudi religious police, officially known as the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, that dog-walking had become an unacceptable “phenomenon” in Riyadh. He demanded enforcement of 14-year-old ban on selling cats and dogs. 



Then came a Saudi cleric bemoaning the fact that young children have become enamoured of such cartoon figures as Mickey Mouse even though Islamic law stipulates that mice should be killed.



Sheikh Mohammed al Munajid told Al Majd TV last month that sharia regards a mouse as “one of Satan’s soldiers”. Saudi Clerics’ Outbursts Hurt Image of Islam >>> By Caryle Murphy | September 25, 2008

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