The Saudi Mufti Prohibits giving money for Iftar charity, legitimizes slavery

The Saudi Mufti Prohibits giving money for Iftar charity, legitimizes slavery

    Monday, April 08, 2024   No comments

Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority, issuing a religious decree concerning the practice of giving Iftar sadaqa in the form of cash (money), provided reference that can be seen as legitimizing slavery despite its abolition all around the world and despite the evidence in the Quran that designated slavery as evil and encouraged Muslims to free slaves when unable to fast, break an oath, or commit other moral or legal infractions. The Fatwa comes in a time when more than 2 million people in Gaza are starved to death and could need cash provided to them through aid organizations who can only receive money from the world community.

According to the Saudi Press Agency, the Grand Mufti of the Kingdom said, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Chairman of the Council of Senior Scholars and Chairman of the Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Fatwa, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh, issued a ruling that giving Zakat al-Fitr in money is not valid “because that is contrary to the Sunnah of the Messenger of God, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him. May God bless him and grant him peace and the Rightly Guided Caliphs who used to remove it from food.”

The Saudi Mufti added that “Zakat al-Fitr has been prescribed for all Muslims, males and females, old and young, free and slaves.”

It should be noted that other Sunni schools of law consider giving iftar charity in the form of cash (or anything of value), to be valid.

The kingdom has been run through an arrangement that granted Wahhabi scholars from Al Sheikh clan, religious power in return for their blessing of the form of governance in the kingdom under the control of the Al Saudi clan. Saudi Arabia’s official religious practices are derived from the Wahhabism, the strictest religious sect in Islamic societies and Wahhabi religious figures use textual evidence irrespective of rational facts and changed circumstances. The same sect is followed by members of al-Qaeda and the “Islamic State”.

The "Taliban": "we destroyed 18 Iranian border facilities in total"

The "Taliban": "we destroyed 18 Iranian border facilities in total"

    Sunday, May 28, 2023   No comments

Taliban is stil driven by the same supremacist ideology that founded it; that appears to be the conclusion one can draw from the statements of its leaders about the recent clashes at the border with Iran.

A statement issued by the Taliban's Social Communications Department read: "The Iranian Revolutionary Guards carried out terrorist attacks from its huge border posts. Iran has not put up a strong resistance so far. It seems that its army is weak and feminine."

For his part, the leader of the "Taliban" movement, Abdul Hamid Khorasani, stated in a video speech: "Do not test our strength. You are behind the scenes with the Westerners. We are true Muslims. If the sheikhs allow us, we will seize Tehran."

Saudi Religious Rulers: There is no validity to apostasy law in Islam

Saudi Religious Rulers: There is no validity to apostasy law in Islam

    Sunday, January 22, 2023   No comments

For years, the Saudi political rulers used the fictitious apostasy law to kill political opponents, religious Salafi authority found the fictitious bases for the political rulers to do so. Now with the Saudi political rulers changing their tune about apostasy, the Saudi Religious Rulers are preparing the ground for them to change apostasy law. An influential Saudi religious authority just declared this: "There is no validity to apostasy."

Tolerance with regard to leaving the Islamic religion in Saudi Arabia, or what is known as apostasy and the apostate from Islam, was not permissible or open to discussion.

“There is no punishment for apostasy unless the apostate is against the ruler.”

However, as the Kingdom entered the era of openness, rational voices began to address these controls, the latest of which was what Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, the former director of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, dared to do, and his writing of an article entitled “There is no validity until apostasy.”

Al-Ghamdi said in his article, which sparked controversy among Saudis, that what is established in the court texts of the Qur’an is the freedom of man in his faith, and that there is no compulsion in religion. Abstract apostasy is an explicit, coherent, correct text that cannot be challenged.

Al-Ghamdi added: I will explain here the response to the suspicions of this objection, as follows: First: They argued with what the two sheikhs included in their Sahihs on the authority of Ibn Masoud, who said: The Messenger of God said: “The blood of a Muslim who testifies that there is no god but God and that I am the Messenger of God is not lawful except in one of three “A life for a life, the married adulterer, the one who separates from his religion and the one who abandons the group.” They said, “This is a report in the Two Sahihs that states that the apostate should be killed.” I said: This hadith is incorrect, and it is not accepted that it is clear for the following: First: Its chain of transmission is weak, because its effect is on the most basic, and it is fraudulent. He narrated it with cursing, and what he cursed will not be accepted from him.”

The Saudis were divided over Al-Ghamdi's interpretations. Some of them found that he inferred false evidence, and its purpose was to waste God's law, and some of them found that Sheikh Al-Ghamdi is leading a battle of thought and enlightenment against the extremists.

Those who rejected Al-Ghamdi’s article invoked what Ibn Taymiyyah said in Al-Sarim Al-Masloul: Apostasy is of two types: an abstract apostasy, and a severe apostasy, the law of killing in particular, and both of them have established evidence that the owner must be killed.

The Saudi authorities were leveling accusations of apostasy, not only with regard to leaving Islam, but those charges included insulting the divine being and the Prophet Muhammad, and criticizing the Saudi state for applying the provisions of Sharia, for example, the charges that were leveled against the Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayyad, and a death sentence was issued against him. Then it was commuted to 8 years in prison.

Saudi Arabia has not yet abolished the “punishment of apostasy,” and in some cases replaces its mandatory punishment with death, with imprisonment.

Saudi Salafi Religious Leaders rebuke Taliban over Women Education Ban

Saudi Salafi Religious Leaders rebuke Taliban over Women Education Ban

    Saturday, December 24, 2022   No comments

 The largest Saudi religious body calls on the Taliban to reverse the ban on girls from university education and affirms that “preventing women from education is not permissible in Islamic law.” The Afghan government orders civil organizations not to allow women to come to work

Today, Saturday, the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars called on the Afghan government to enable Afghan women the right to education in educational institutions, and to reverse its decision to prevent women from doing so, noting that preventing women from education is not permissible in Islamic law.

And the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars stated in a statement today, Saturday, that “Islam, with its tight legislation and its complete constitution, preserves every human being, male and female, his rights,” and lists his duties, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

The commission, which is the largest religious body in the Kingdom, affirmed that “Islam, with its rulings and legislation, preserves the legal rights of women completely and undiminished, so women enjoyed, under this true religion, their rights that preserve their humanity and preserve their dignity. diverse science, and participated in the Muslim community throughout history in its renaissance, leadership and prosperity.

The Council of Senior Scholars noted, “At the forefront of the rights that Islam has preserved for women is the right to education, as the legal texts that encourage and encourage learning tend towards women as well as towards men.”

Last Wednesday, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed the Kingdom's surprise and regret at the decision of the Afghan caretaker government, led by the Taliban movement, to prevent Afghan girls from having the right to university education.

Last Tuesday, the Taliban decided to ban university education for women in Afghanistan indefinitely, according to a letter sent by the Ministry of Higher Education to all public and private universities.

The letter, signed by Minister Nada Muhammad Nadeem, said: “I inform you all to implement the aforementioned order to stop female education until further notice.”

The ban on higher education for women comes less than 3 months after thousands of them took university entrance exams across the country.

"Serious complaints have been received regarding non-compliance with the Islamic headscarf and other rules and regulations related to women's work in local and international organisations," the ministry responsible for approving licenses for NGOs operating in Afghanistan said in a letter seen by AFP.

In its letter addressed to international and local non-governmental organizations, the ministry added that “in the event of neglecting the guidance … the organization’s license will be revoked.”

Two non-governmental organizations that spoke to AFP confirmed that they had received the letter from the ministry.

"We are suspending all our activities as of Sunday," a senior official of an international organization involved in humanitarian work in several remote areas of the country told AFP, on condition of anonymity. "We will soon hold a meeting of senior officials from all NGOs to decide how to deal with this issue," he added.

Likewise, another official working for an international non-governmental organization concerned with food distribution said that the ban is “a big blow to female employees.”

"We have a large number of female staff to address concerns about humanitarian assistance to Afghan women," he added, asking, "How do we address their concerns now?"

Dozens of international and local NGOs operate in various sectors in various remote areas of Afghanistan, and many of their employees are women.

In response to the latest decision, the UN Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, said the ban was "a clear violation of humanitarian principles."

The Sunni-Shia Cold War: The Origins and Evolution of the Saudi Hegomony

The Sunni-Shia Cold War: The Origins and Evolution of the Saudi Hegomony

    Tuesday, November 15, 2022   No comments

There has been a Sunni-Shia cold war going on since 1979, but hardly anyone talked about it in those terms. That is because, in part, the rulers of Saudi Arabia chose to conduct this cold war through proxies or from the shadows. Then, Wikileaks ended the Saudi rulers' abilities to project power and influence, especially as a Sunni moderate power, in secret and the rise of the young, ambitious prince, MBS as he is known, to power while his father is still the nominal figurehead allowed them to deflect blame for any and all missteps. However, during a long tv interview in 2017, MBS revealed all the cards: He described his clash with Iran as an existential one because he sees Iranian leaders and Shia, in general, as irrational actors who hold on to messianic belief about the coming of a savior--which makes them unworthy of dialogue and diplomacy.

Wikileaks' documents described the Saudi war on Iran from behind the scene succinctly and clearly. The Saudi leaders, according to the diplomatic cables, while publicly expressing dialogue with Iran, pushed US and European leaders to go after the "head of the snake", instead of fighting Iran's proxies. The framed it as a need to liberate Iran, as Biden said recently, they wanted the West to unleash a direct war on Iran, not rely just on sanctions. Those revelations forced Saudi and Emariti leaders to emerge from the shadows and attack Iran directly--but not militarily of course. They focused instead on a strategy that aims to unravel the entire political system of Iran from within. 

The new "leak" of documents from UAE shows how the strategy was developed and executed. The Lebanese newspaper, Alakhbar, produced a dossier about these developments. Other researchers and observers have compiled more evidence about the Saudi investment in media assets to realize their goals: the paralysis and destruction of the Iranian system of governance through internal Iranian actors.

_______________

From Alakhbar Dossier about Saudi-UAE Leaks: When Mohammed bin Salman stated the above sentence, in answer to Dawood Al-Sheryan's question about dialogue with Iran, he was announcing what was not usual in Saudi foreign policy, in what was termed "transferring the battle to the Iranian interior." Many at the time, when interpreting what Ibn Salman said, said that Riyadh would resort to what it used to do in terms of employing ISIS cells and the operations that separatist movements in Sistan-Baluchestan had long carried out in the Iranian depths. However, in the documents obtained by Al-Akhbar, it becomes clear that Ibn Salman meant targeting the Iranian interior, through a plan to influence the Iranian youth group, in parallel with the intensification of the discourse of demonizing Iran, directed at the Arab and Islamic audiences.

“We will not wait for the battle to be in Saudi Arabia, but rather we will work so that the battle for them is in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia.”

Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

Mohammed bin Salman

3 May 2017

On the morning of January 2, 2016, the world woke up to the news of the execution of Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr and a group of al-Qatifi youth, along with a group of Saudi officials and cadres of al-Qaeda. Angry reactions continued inside and outside Salman’s kingdom, and the night of that day closed. On the scene of the burning of the buildings of the Saudi diplomatic mission in Iran by angry Iranian youths.

Four days later, on January 6, the Emirati National Media Council was presenting to representatives of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain a proposed plan that he called the “media strategy for dealing with the Iranian file”, which developed in subsequent years, in coordination with the Americans, to become the “plan to undermine Iran.” From the inside.”

The proposal for the media strategy put forward by the Minister of State and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Media Council in the UAE, Sultan Al Jaber, stated that the goal behind it is to “build a public opinion hostile to Iranian policies from the internal and external public,” and that the strategy “centers on the political dimension and away from the sectarian discourse that It may weaken the public media discourse if it is relied upon. And most importantly, “the results of the strategy should be achieved after years.” In the initial proposal, as document No. 1 shows, the target audience is regional public opinion, Gulf public opinion, domestic public opinion inside Iran (the Iranian people and non-Persian Iranian minorities in particular), and the Iranian opposition abroad and at home. It is noteworthy in the “implementation partners” paragraph that the Emiratis mentioned the “Organization of Islamic Cooperation” as a partner in implementing the strategy, along with the official Gulf entities, the League of Arab States, and Iranian think tanks and opposition, noting that the Islamic Republic of Iran is an original member of the aforementioned organization whose decision-making is dominated by Saudi Arabia and harnessed. interests since its inception.

Read full dossier (Ar)...

 

A Saudi prince claims Western bias, comparing the wars in Ukraine and Gaza

A Saudi prince claims Western bias, comparing the wars in Ukraine and Gaza

    Monday, August 08, 2022   No comments

A Saudi prince responded to the sympathy of the Ukrainian ambassador in Israel: The hypocrisy of the West and its double standards have exceeded all limits.. People in Ukraine in the eyes of the West are not like people in Palestine

The Saudi prince, Abd al-Rahman bin Musaed, said, "The hypocrisy of the West and its double standards have exceeded all limits... People in Ukraine in the eyes of the West are not like people in Palestine."

The Ukrainian ambassador to Israel, Yevgeny Kornichuk, expressed his “great” sympathy with the Israelis, which a prominent Saudi prince considered “hypocrisy.”

In a tweet published by the Ukrainian embassy in Israel, Cornicheuk said: “As a Ukrainian whose country is under a long-term brutal attack by its closest neighbor, I feel great sympathy for the Israeli people.”

Cornichuk added, “Terrorism and attacks against civilians have become a daily routine for Israelis and Ukrainians. We have to put an end to this. We pray for peace and hope for an end to the escalation soon,” before the shooting stops between Israel and the “Islamic Jihad.”

It is a good sign that even the Saudi ruling family is moved by the plight of vulnerable peoples and outraged by the disproportionate use of force. But it is not clear if the Saudi ruling family would have the same sympathy and concern for civilians living in Yemen, a country that has been under Saudi armed attack, sanctions, and isolation killing thousands of children and pushing poverty in that country to record levels.