Ibn Taymiyyah and Anthropomorphism [Tashbeeh]

Majmu' al-Fatawa by Taqī ad-Dīn Abu 'l Abbās Ahmad ibn 'Abd al-Halīm ibn 'Abd as-Salām Ibn Taymiya al-Harrānī al Kurdi

تقي الدين أبو العباس أحمد بن عبد السلام بن عبد الله ابن تيمية الحراني‎

Sultan Shahi wrote:

Also: in Salafism: Theory and Practice Alexander Vasilyev writes: “The doctrine (akida) of the Wahhabi school of thought (its second name – Salafism – is derived from the concept of as-Salaf-as-Salih, and refers to a group of righteous associates of the Prophet Muhammad whom the Wahhabis claim to follow) was established in the Muslim world by Sheikh Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab on the basis of the writings of the fourteenth century theologian ibn Taymiya, who throughout his entire life was accused by his "professional colleagues" of anthropomorphism (tashbih) and, at the same time, of insisting on the absolute transcendence of the divine person. In the conception of ibn Taymiya and ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, God appears in relation to the world and his own creations as an indifferent being, an outside observer who lacks any personal presence not only in man (the “spark of God”, or fitra, emphasized by the followers of Muslim mysticism), but also in the world of creatures.”

Salafism: Theory and Practice - A comprehensive look

Movladi Udugov

http://www.newageislam.com/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=985

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Translation of Al-'Aqidah Al-Wasitiyah by Ibn Taymiyyah

The Saved Group ( al-firqah an-najiyah ), The people of the Sunnah and the Community believe these things, as they believe what Allah revealed in His Precious Book (i.e., the Qur'an ); (They believe) without distorting or denying and without asking how ( takyif ) or shaping ( tamthil ); Rather, they comprise the center of the groups of the Ummah (the Muslim nation), as the Ummah comprises the center of all nations. With regard to the Attributes of Allah, The Glorified, The Exalted, they comprise the center between the denying Jahmiyah and the people who shape and create likenesses (ahl at-tamthil almushabbihah); And they comprise the center between the Qadariyah and the Jabriyah with regard to [the acts of Allah the Exalted], and between the Murji'a h and the Wa'idiyah of the Qadariyah and others without regard to [Allah's threat], and between the Haruriyah and the Mu'tazilah and between the Murji'ah and the Jahmiyah with regard to [the names of faith and religion], and between the Rawafid and the Khawarij with regard to the (Prophet's Companions).

In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful The praise belongs to Allah Who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth (i.e., Islam) making it incumbent on all religions.

Allah is the best of witnesses , and I testify that there is no god but Allah alone and that He has no partner ; I admit and believe in the oneness of Allah. And I testify that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger ; May Allah greatly bless him, his family, and his companions.


This is the belief of the saved group , the victorious ones to the Day of Judgment, the people of the Sunnah and the Jama'ah (i.e., The belief in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the resurrection after death, the belief in Divine Decree ( qadar ), be it good or bad) .


Part of the belief in Allah is the belief in how He has described Himself in His Book (the Qur'an) and in how His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) has described Him. Believe without distorting or denying and without questioning or shaping; Rather, believe in Allah, The Exalted:

"There is none like Him; He is the All-Hearer, the All-Seer." (ash-Shura 42/11)


Do not deny Him the way He has described Himself; Do not change words from their context; Do not disbelieve the names of Allah and His Signs; Do not exemplify His Attributes with the attributes of His creatures because Allah, The Exalted, has no likeness: There is none comparable to Him;


There is none equal to Him; The Exalted, the Supreme, is not measured by His creatures; Indeed, He best knows Himself and others; He is All-Truthful; and His Speech prevails over the speech of His creatures.


Moreover, His messengers are truthful and thus speak the truth. This is opposite to those who speak about Him what they themselves know not. About this, The Exalted, The Supreme has said:


"Glorified be your lord, the Lord of Majesty, from that which (the unbelievers) attribute (unto Him). And peace be upon the messengers. And praise be to Allah the Lord the Universe." ( as Saffat 37/180-182 ).


He glorified Himself with what the opponents of the messengers said of Him; And He greeted the messengers because what they said was free from defect.


He (the Glory is His) combined what He described Himself as between negation and affirmation . Consequently, the people of the Sunnah and Jama'ah must not deviate from what the messengers brought forth; verily, it is the right path, the path of those upon whom Allah bestowed His grace, he path of the prophets, saints, martyrs, and righteous people.


Allah's Names and Attributes in the Qur'an


Chapter One


The following is included in this idea of how Allah describes Himself in Surat al-Ikhlas , (chapter 112) which equals a third of the Qur'an , where He says:


"Say He is Allah The One, Allah The Eternal. He never begot, nor was begotten. There is none comparable to Him." And He described Himself in the greatest Ayah (verse) in His Book (i.e., Ayat al-Kursi ): "Allah, there is no god save Him, The Living, The Eternal. Neither slumber nor sleep overtake Him. Unto Him belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and the earth. Who is he who intercedes with Him except by His permission? He knows that which is before them and that which is behind them, while they encompass nothing of His Knowledge except what He wills. His seat ( kursi ) contains the heavens and the earth, and He is never weary of preserving them. He is The Sublime, The Great." (al-Baqarah 2/255 )


Therefore, Allah protects whoever reads this Ayah at night and no devil can get close to him until morning. Allah has also said:


"Depend on The Living One, He Who will never die." (al-Furqan 25/58) .


And He, the Glorified, has said:


"He is The First ( al-Awwal ) and The Last ( al-Akhir ), The Outward ( as-Zahir ) and The Inward (al-Batin ) ; He is The Knower of All Things." (al-Hadid 57/3)


Knowledge:


"He knows that which goes down into the earth and that which comes out from it, and that which descends from the heavens and that which ascends into it. He is The Merciful, The Forgiving." (Saba' 34/2)

"With Him are the keys of the unknown (mafatih al-ghaib) , none but He knows them.


He knows what is in the land and the sea; not a leaf falls but He knows it; not a grain amid the darkness of the earth, naught of wet or dry but (it is recorded) in a clear record." (al-An'am 6/59)


He has said:


"No female conceives or gives birth except with His Knowledge." (Fatir 35/11)


And He has said:


"That you may know that Allah is able to do all things, and that Allah knows all things." (at-Talaq 65/12)


Might:


And He has said:


"Indeed, Allah is the One Who gives livelihood, The Lord of Unbreakable Might." (adh-Dhariyaat 51/58)


Hearing, Seeing:


And He has said:


"Nothing is like Him; and He is The Hearer, The Seer." (ash-Shura 42/11 )


And He has said:


"Lo! Comely is this which Allah admonishes you to be. Lo! Allah is ever Hearer, Seer." (an-Nissa' 4/58)


Will:


And He has said:


"If only, when you entered your garden, you had said: That which Allah wills is; There is no strength save in Allah." (al-Kahf 18/39)


And He has said:


"If Allah had so willed it, those who followed after them would not have fought one with the other after clear proofs had come unto them. But they differed, some of them believing and some disbelieving. And if Allah had so willed it, they would not have fought one with the other; But Allah does what He wills." (al-Baqarah 2/253)


And He has said:


"The beast of cattle is made lawful unto you [for food], except that which is announced unto you [herein], hunting being unlawful when you are on pilgrimage; Indeed, Allah ordains that which He wills." (al-Ma'idah 5/1)


And He has said:


"Of whomsoever it is Allah's will to guide, his heart He expands into Islam; And of whomsoever it is His will to send astray, his heart He made closed and narrow as if he were engaged in sheer ascent." (al-An'am 6/125)


Love:


He has said:


"And do good; Indeed, Allah loves those who do good." (al-Baqarah 2/195)


And He has said:


"Act equitably; Indeed, Allah loves the equitable." (al-Hujurat 49/9)


And He has said:


"So long as they are true to you, be true to them; Indeed, Allah loves those who keep their duty." (at- Tawbah 9/7)


And He has said:


"Truly, Allah loves those who repent, and loves those who care for cleanliness." (al-Baqarah 2/222)


And He has said:


"Say, [O Muhammad, to mankind]: If you love Allah, follow me; Allah will love you." (Al'Imran 3/31)


And He has said:


"Allah will redeem a people whom He loves, and who love Him." (al-Ma'idah 5/54)


And He has said:


"Indeed, Allah loves those who fight in ranks for His cause, as if they were a solid structure." (as-Saff 61/4)


And He has said:


"He is The Forgiving, The Loving." (al-Buruj 85/14)


Mercy:


And His saying:


"In the name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful."


He has said:


"Our Lord! You comprehended all things in mercy and Knowledge." (al-Mu'min 40/7)


And He has said:


"He is Merciful to the believers." (al-Ahzab 33/43)


And He has said:


"My Mercy has embraced all things." (al-A'raf 7/156)


And He has said:


"Your Lord has prescribed for Himself Mercy." (al-An'am 6/54)


And He has said:


"He is The Forgiving, The Merciful." (Yunus 10/107)


And He has said:


"Allah is better [than any one] at guarding, and He is The Most Merciful of those who show mercy."(Yusuf 12/64)


Pleasure and Anger:


He has said:


"Allah takes pleasure in them and they in Him." (al-Ma'idah 5/119)


And He has said:


"Whoever slays a believer intentionally, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah's wrath is against him and He has cursed him." (an-Nissa' 4/93)


And He has said:


"That will come to be because they followed that which angered Allah, and shunned that which pleases Him." (Muhammad 47/28)


And He has said:


"When they angered Us, We punished them." (az-Zakhruf 43/55)


And He has said:


"But Allah was adverse to their being sent forth and held them back." (at-Tawbah 9/46)


And He has said:


"It is most hateful in the Sight of Allah that you say that which you do not." (as- Saff 61/3)


Coming:

He has said:


"Will they wait until Allah comes to them in canopies of clouds, with the angels? Then the case will have been already judged." (al-Baqarah 2/210)


And He has said:


"Are they waiting to see if the angels come to them? Or your Lord [Himself]? Or some of the Signs of your Lord? That Day Signs of your Lord will come." (al-An'am 6/158)


And He has said:


"Nay! When the earth is pounded to powder, then your Lord will come and the angels will come
rank upon rank." (al-Fajr 89/21-22)


And He has said:


"A day will come when the heaven and the clouds will be rent asunder and the angels will be sent down in a grand descent." (al-Furqan 25/25)


Face and Hand:


He has said:


"Only the Face of your Lord of Might and Glory will remain." (ar-Rahman 55/27)


And He has said:


"Everything will perish save His Face." (al-Qasas 28/88)


And He has said:


"What kept you (Iblis) from falling prostrate before that which I have created with My Hands."(Sad 38/75)


And He has said:


"The Jews said: Allah's Hand is tied.' May their hands be tied and may they be accursed for the [blasphemy] they utter. Rather, both His Hands are widely outstretched; He gives and spends as He pleases." (al-Ma'idah 5/64)


Eyes:


He has said:


"Wait patiently for the Command of your Lord, [O Muhammad], for verily you are in Our Eyes." (at-Tur 52/48)

And He has said:


"We carried him [Nuh] on an [ark] made of planks and nails; It floats under Our Eyes, as a reward for him who was rejected." (al-Qamar 54/13-14)


And He said:


"I have maintained you [Musa] with My Love that you might be reared under My Eye." (Ta Ha 20/39)


Hearing:


He has said:


"Allah has indeed heard her who argued with you [O Muhammad] concerning her husband, and who complained unto Allah; Allah hears the argument between both of you; Indeed, Allah is Hearer,Seer." (al-Mujadalah 58/1)


And He has said:


"Verily, Allah heard the saying of those [the Jews] who said: Allah is poor and we are rich." (Al'Imran 3/181)


And He has said:


"Do they think that We do not hear their secrets and their private counsels? Indeed [We do], and Our Messengers are by them to record all." (az-Zakhruf 43/80)


Seeing and Hearing:


He has said:


"Indeed, I will be with you [Musa and Harun], Hearing and Seeing." (Ta Ha 20/46)


And He has said:


"Is he then unaware that Allah sees?" (al-'Alaq 96/14)


And He has said:


"Who Sees you when you stand up [to pray]? And [sees] your movements among those who fall prostrate [in worship]? Indeed, He, and only He, is The Hearer, The Knower." (ash-Shu'ara' 26/218-220)


And He has said:


"Say [unto them]: Act! Allah will see your actions, and [so will] His Messenger and the Believers." (at-Tawbah 9/105)

Power of Planning: He has said:


"He is, in His Power, Supreme." (ar-Ra'd 13/13)


And He has said:


"They [the unbelievers] plotted and planned, and Allah planned too; Allah is The Best of Planners." (Al-'Imran 3/54)


And He has said:

"So they devised a plot: and We devised a plot while they perceived not." (an-Naml 27/50)


And He has said:


"Indeed, they devise a plot [against you O Muhammad] and I devise a plot [against them]." (at-Tariq 86/15-16)


Forgiveness:


He has said:


"If you do good openly or conceal it, or if you forgive evil, indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Powerful." (an-Nissa' 4/149)


And He has said:


"Let them forgive and disregard [the transgressions of others]. Do you not wish that Allah forgive you? Allah is Forgiving, Merciful." (an-Nur 24/22)


Might:


He has said:


"And the might belongs to Allah and to His Messenger." (al-Munafiqun 63/8)


And He has said about Iblis (the Satan):


"[ Iblis ] said: Then by Your might, I will lead all of them astray'." (Sad 38/82)


And He has said:


"Blessed be the Name of your Lord, Full of Majesty, and Honor." (ar-Rahman 55/78)


Oneness:


He has said:


"Therefore, worship you Him and be you steadfast in His Service; Do you know of anyone who can be named along with Him?" (Maryam 19/65)


And He has said:


"There is none comparable to Him." (al-Ikhlas 112/4)


And He has said:


"Do not set up rivals to Allah when you know [The Truth]." (al-Baqarah 2/22)


And he has said:


"Yet there are some people who take (idols as] rivals to Allah, loving them with a love like (that which is the due) of Allah (only), but those who believe overflow in their love of Allah." (al-Baqarah 2/165)


And He has said:


"Say: Praise be to Allah, Who begets no son, Who has no partner in [His] dominion and Who [needs] none to protect Him from humiliation;' And Magnify Him with all magnificence." (al-Isra'17/111)


And He has said:


"All that is in the heavens and all that is on the earth glorifies Allah; To Him belongs Dominion; To Him belongs Praise; He is Able to do all things." (at-Taghabun 64/1)


And He has said:


"Blessed is He Who sent down the Criterion [ al-Furqan ] to His Servant [Muhammad], that He may warn all creatures. He to Whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth, no son has He begotten; Nor has He any partner in His Dominion. It is He Who created all things and ordered them in due proportions." (al-Furqan 25/1-2)


And He has said:


"Allah did not beget a son; Nor is there any god along with Him; Otherwise each god would have taken away what he had created and some of them would have lorded over others. May Allah, Be Glorified above all that they allege. He knows what is hidden and what is exposed. May He Be Exalted over all that they ascribe as partners [to Him]." (al-Mu'minun 23/91-92)


And He has said:


"Do not invent similitudes for Allah; Indeed, Allah knows and you know not." (an-Nahl 16/74)


And He has said:


"Say: My Lord forbids only indecencies whether open or secret, sin and wrongful oppression. You're associating with Allah that for which no Revelation has been given, and you're saying things about Allah of which you have no knowledge." (al-A'raf 7/33)


Settling on the Throne:


(Al-Istiwa' A'la Al-'Arsh)


He has said:


"The Beneficent One, Who is Settled on the Throne (al-Arsh)." and "Then He Mounted the Throne." Allah repeated this theme six times in the Qur'an.


He has said:


"Verily! Your Lord is Allah Who created the heavens and the earth in six days; Then He Mounted the Throne." (al-A'raf 7/54)


And He has said:


"Verily! Your Lord is Allah Who created the heavens and the earth in six days; Then He Established Himself on the Throne." (Yunus 10/3)


And He has said:


"Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see; Then He Mounted the Throne." (ar-Ra'd 13/2)


And He has said:


"The Beneficent One, Who is Established on the Throne." (Ta Ha 20/5)


And He has said:


"Then He Mounted the Throne, The Beneficent One." (al-Furqan 25/59)


And He has said:


"Allah created the heavens, the earth and all that is between them in six days; Then He Mounted the Throne." (as-Sajdah 32/4)


And He said:


"He it is Who created the heavens and earth in six days; Then He Mounted the Throne." (al-Hadid 57/4


Highness:

And He has said:


"Behold! Allah has said; 'Oh Jesus! I am taking you and raising you up to Me." (Al'Imran 3/55)


And He has said:

"Rather, Allah raised him up to Him." (An-Nissa' 4/158)


And He has said:


"To Him good words ascend, and He elevates the pious deed." (Fatir 35/10)


And He has said:


"O Haman! Build me a tower, that I may reach the roads, - the roads of heavens, and that I may climb up to the God of Moses, though verily I think he [Moses] is a liar." (Ghafir 40/36-37)


And He has said:


"Do you feel secure that He Who is in Heaven will not cause you to be swallowed up by the earth when it shakes? Or do you feel secure that He Who is in Heaven will not send against you a wind casting down pebbles from the sky? That is that you may know the manner of My Warning." (al-Mulk 67/16-17)


And He has said:


"He created the heavens and the earth in six days; Then He Mounted the Throne. He knows all that enters the earth and all that emerges there from and all that comes down from the sky and all that ascends therein; He is with you wherever you may be. And Allah is Seer of what you do." (al-Hadid 57/4


Omnipresence:


And He has said:


"There is no secret conference of three but He is their fourth, nor of five but He is their sixth, nor of less or more but He is with them wherever they be: And afterward, on the Day of Resurrection, He will inform them of what they did. Indeed, Allah is Knower of All Things." (al-Mujadalah 58/7) And He has said addressing Abu Bakr in the cave during the Hijrah : "Grieve not. Indeed, Allah is with us." (at-Tawbah 9/40)

And He has said:


"Indeed, I will be with you, Hearing and Seeing." (Ta Ha 20/46)


And He has said:


"Indeed, Allah is with those who protect themselves and with those who do good." (an-Nahl 16/128)


And He has said:


"Be patient and persevering, for Allah is with those who patiently persevere. 15 (al-Anfal 8/46)


And He has said:


"How often a small company overcame a big one by Allah's Help! Allah is with those who steadfastly persevere." (al-Baqarah 2/249)


Speech:


He has said:


"Whose words ( Hadith ) can be truer than Allah's?" (an-Nissa' 4/87)


And He has said:


"Whose utterance ( Qil ) can be truer than Allah's?" (an-Nissa' 4/122)


And He has said:


"When Allah said ( qala ): O Jesus, son of Mary" (al-Ma'idah 5/116)


And He has said:


"Perfected is the Word ( kalimatu ) of your Lord in Truth and Justice." (al-An'am 6/115)


And He has said:


"To Moses Allah spoke ( kallama ) directly." (an-Nissa' 4/164)


And He has said:


"And of whom ( messengers ) there are some unto whom Allah spoke ( kallama )." (al-Baqarah 2/253)


And He has said:


"When Moses came to Our appointed place, and his Lord spoke ( kallama ) unto him." (al-A'raf 7/143)


And He has said addressing Musa :


"We called him ( nadainahu ) from the right side of [Mount] at-Tur and made him draw near to Us for communion." (Maryam 19/52)


And He has said:


" When your Lord called ( nada ) Moses: Go unto the wrong-doing folk'." (ash-Shu'ara' 26/10)


And He has said:


"And their Lord called both of them (nadahuma) [Adam and Hawwa']: Did not forbid you That Tree, and tell you ( wa-aqul ): Lo! Satan is an open enemy to you?" (al-A'raf 7/22)


And He said:


"On The Day He will call unto them ( yunadihim ) and say: Where are My partners who you fabricated?" (al-Qasas 28/62)


And He has said:


"On The Day He will call unto them ( yunadihim ) and say: What answer gave you to the
messengers?" (al-Qasas 28/65)


And He has said:


"If anyone of the pagans seeks your protection, grant it to him so that he may hear the Words ( kalam) of Allah." (at-Tawbah 9/6)


And He has said;


"A party of them used to listen to the Words ( kalam ) of Allah, then used to distort it knowingly after they understood it." (al-Baqarah 2/75)




And He has said :


"They wish to change God's Words ( kalam ); Say: You shall not follow us.' Thus Allah said ( qala ) before hand." (al-Fath 48/15)


And He has said:


"Recite what has been revealed to you of the Book of your Lord; None can change His Words (kalimatihi )." (al-Kahf 18/27)


And He has said:


"Verily this Qur'an narrates ( yaqussu ) unto the Children of Israel most of the matters which they dispute." (an-Naml 27/76)


And He has said:


"This is a Blessed Book ( kitabun mubarakun ) which We have sent down." (al-An'am 6/92)

And He has said:


"Had We send down this Qur'an on to a mountain, verily you would have seen it humbled and rent asunder for fear of Allah." (al-Hashr 59/21)


And He has said:


"When We substitute one Verse ( Ayah ) for another and Allah knows best what He reveals-they say: You are but a fabricator; But most of them know not. Say: The Trustworthy Spirit (i.e., Gabriel) has brought it ( The Qur'an ) from your Lord in Truth, in order to strengthen those who believe, and as Guidance and Good Tidings for Muslims. We know well that they say: It is a man who teaches him; The language of him they falsely point to is notably foreign, while this is Arabic, pure and clear." (an-Nahl 16/101-103)


Looking at Allah:


He has said:


"Some faces, That Day, will beam (in brightness and beauty), looking toward their Lord." (al-Qiyamah 75/22-2 3)


And He has said:


"(Relaxing) on couches looking (at their Lord)." (al-Mutaffifin 83/35 )


And He has said:


"For those who do good, is the best ( reward given ) and more* (thereto). (Yunus 10/26)


And He has said:


"There they have all they desire; And there is still more with Us." (Qaf 50/35)


And the Qur'an is full of Verses which deal with this topic; Whoever studies the Qur'an carefully searching for guidance from it, the truthful path will be clear to him.


Allah's Names and Attributes in the Sunnah


Chapter Two


The Sunnah 16 of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) interprets the Qur'an and clarifies it, and leads to it, and expresses its meaning. We must accept and believe in the sound Ahadith in which the Messenger (peace be upon him) described his Lord, The Almighty, The Exalted, 17 such as the hadith :


"Our Lord descends during the last third of each night to the lower heaven, and says: 'Is there anyone who calls on Me that I may respond to him? Is there anyone who asks Me that I may give unto him? Is there anyone who requests My Forgiveness that I may forgive him?"' (Agreed upon it by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And the hadith :


"Indeed, Allah is happier with the repentance of his 'abd (worshipper) than any one of you is with finding his lost riding camel." (Agreed upon it by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And the hadith :


"Allah laughs about two men who kill each other but both enter paradise ." (Agreed upon it by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And the hadith :


"Allah marvels about the despair of His creatures ('ibad), while the changing of their situation from bad to good is very near, He looks at you, and you are very desperate, so He keeps laughing, because He knows that your relief is very close." (Its isnad is good; reported by AhmadIbn Hanbal and others)


And the hadith :


"(On the Day of Judgment) when a group of unbelievers is thrown into Hell, Hell asks for more until the Lord Almighty puts His foot into it; then it folds up saying: Enough, enough'." (Agreed upon it by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And the hadith :


"Allah The Exalted, says: 'Adam!' And Adam answers: 'Here I am, at Your service!' Then a voice calls: 'Verily! Allah orders you to send a delegate from your offspring to Hell'." (Agreed upon it by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And the hadith :


"Allah will talk to each person directly without a mediator between them." (Agreed upon it by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And the saying of the Prophet (peace be upon him) on curing the ill:


"Our Lord Allah Who is in heaven, may Your name be sanctified, Your law is in heaven and on earth; As Your Mercy is in heaven so make Your Mercy on earth. Forgive our faults and our sins. You are the Lord of the good people, bestow some of Your Mercy, and some of Your Cure on this pain that the sick may be cured." (This hadith has good isnad, reported by Abu Dawud and others)

And the hadith :


"Do you not trust me, while I have the trust of Him Who is in Heaven?" (Sound hadith; reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And the hadith :


"The Throne is above the water, and Allah is on the Throne; He knows what you are up to." (Good hadith, reported by Abu Dawud and others.)


And the saying of the Prophet (peace be upon him) to the maid:


"Where is Allah?" And she answering: "In heaven." And he saying: "Who am I?" And she saying: "You are the Messenger of Allah." And he saying "Free her; She is a believer." (Muslim)


And the hadith :


"When any one of you stands up for prayer, you must not spit in front of you nor to your right, because Allah is in front to you; But you may spit to your left, or under your foot." (Agreed upon it by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And the hadith :


"My Lord! The Lord of the Seven Heavens, and The Lord of the great Throne, our Lord and The Lord of all, The Creator of plants and trees, The Revealer of the Tawrah (Old Testament), the Injil (New Testament) and the Qur'an: I seek refuge in You from the evil of myself and from the evil of all creatures; You are The First; Nothing is before You. You are The Last; Nothing is after You. You are the Outward; Nothing is over You. You are the Inward; Nothing is inside of You. Help me to pay my debt and keep poverty from me." (Muslim)


And the saying (of the Prophet, peace be upon him), when his companions raised up their voices in invocation ( Dhikr ):


"O people, restrain yourselves. Indeed, you are not calling One Who is deaf or absent; Rather, you are calling a Hearer, One very close by; The One Who you are calling is closer to each one of you, closer even than the neck of your riding animal." (Agreed upon it by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And the saying (of the Prophet, peace be upon him):


You will see your Lord as you see the full moon; Nothing will impair your view of Him; And if you are able to keep the dawn prayers and the mid afternoon prayers, do it." (Agreed upon it by al-Bukhari and Muslim)


And many more of these ahadith in which the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) relates of his Lord whatever he relates.


Allah is Above Everything


What we mentioned of belief in Allah included belief in what Allah has revealed in His Book ( the Qur'an ), and what has been continuously reported from His Messenger (peace be upon him), and what the early generation of the Ummah unanimously agreed upon: That Allah, The Glorified, is above His heavens on His Throne, exalted above His creatures, and that He, The Glorified, is with them wherever they be and knows whatever they do. He summed it up in His saying:


"He is the One Who created the heavens and the earth in six days; Then He Settled on the Throne. He knows what goes into the earth and what comes out of it and what descends from heavens and what ascends into it; He is with you wherever you are; Allah sees all what you do." (al-Hadid 57/4)


His saying "He is with you" does not mean that He is commingled with the creatures: The language does not indicate this and it is against what the early generation of the Ummah agreed upon, and contrary to Allah's creation of all things; For example, the moon is one of Allah's Signs to be found amongst the smallest of his creatures; It is placed in the skies where it is at the same time with both the traveler and the non-traveller, wherever they are; and He, The Glorified, is on the Throne, watching over His creatures, ruling over them; This is, as well as other Signs of His Lordship. All that Allah The Glorified mentioned-that He is on the Throne ( al-'Arsh ) and that He is with ustrue in itself does not warrant distortion but should be protected from false conjectures, such as thinking that the apparent meaning of His saying "In Heavens" means that heavens contain Him. This is invalid according to the consensus of all the people of knowledge and faith.


"Indeed, His Seat ( Kursi ) encompasses heavens and earth, and it is He Who holds heavens and earth so they do not perish and He Who holds heaven so that it not fall on earth except by His Permission. "It is among His Signs that heaven and earth stand fast by His Order." (ar-Rum 30/25)


The Closeness of Allah to His 'Ibad


Included in this is the belief that He is very close to His creatures, responding, as He has summed it up in His saying:


"If My 'ibad ( worshipers ) ask you about Me; (say that) I am very close, answering the caller when he calls on Me." (al-Baqarah 2/186)


And the Prophet (peace be upon him) said to his Companions when they raised their voices in
invocation of Allah:


"O people! Restrain yourselves. Verily, you are not calling One Who is deaf or absent, the One you call is nearer to each of you than is the neck of your riding animal." What has been revealed in the Book (i.e.,the Qur'an) and in the Sunnah - of His Closeness and His Concomitance - does not contradict what has been told of His Exaltation and Highness. Indeed, Glory be to Him, there is none like Him in all His Attributes, and He is High in His Nearness and Near in His Highness.

End of quote Translation of Al-'Aqidah Al-Wasitiyah by Ibn Taymiyyah

Aal-e-Saud, USA and Wahabis!

Continuation of my earlier posts [watch the documentary]


1 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis.html


2 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-2.html

3 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-3.html

4 - Who are Wahhaabis?

Is the article below not an eye opener?

King's Ransom by Seymour M. Hersh How vulnerable are the Saudi royals? 16 October 2001 [appeared in The New Yorker] READ MORE..

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-4.html

5 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-5.html

6 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-6.html


7 - Who are Wahhaabis?

I wonder if you have exercised your American Made Constitutional Right to criticize the below mentioned US-SAUDI POLICY. READ MORE


http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-7.html



Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 1

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 2

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 3

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 4

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 5

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 6

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 7

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 8

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 9

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 10

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 11

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 12

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 13

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 14

Who are Wahhaabis? - 7

Faiz wrote:

Dear Aamir Sahib,

The Western governments are, by and large, NOT oppressive. The US people are proud of it and try their level best to honor it, protect it and keep it that way. I think your logic of “moving out of the Land of oppression” applies more to a "Muslim" country, such as "Saudi Arabia" where Christians and other religions cannot even build a place of worship

Irfan
=======================================

Dear Irfan Sahab,

I wonder if you have exercised your American Made Constitutional Right to criticize the below mentioned US-SAUDI POLICY.

King George, Prince Abdullah, Global Warming, and the Torture of Thomas Jefferson May 01, 2005 By Paul Street

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/6369

"The period of history which is commonly called 'modern,'" wrote Bertrand Russell in 1945, "has a mental outlook which differs from that of the medieval period in many ways. Of these, two are most important: the diminishing authority of the Church, and the increasing authority of science." "The culture of modern times," Russell added, "is more lay than clerical," so that "states increasingly replace[d] the Church as the ...authority that controls culture." These "modern" states, partly under the influence of science, tended, Russell felt, toward democracy, which first became "an important force" in "the modern sense" with the American and French Revolutions (1).


Last Monday, nearly 230 years after the modern democratic American Revolution challenged the Divine Right of Kings and "made the rights of man known to all of Europe" (Condorcet), a curious meeting took place in the vacation home of the President of the United States. News of this summit in Crawford, Texas sent Kant, Voltaire, Condorcet, Thomas Jefferson and other leading thinkers of the Ages of Reason and (bourgeois) Revolution spinning in their coffins a little faster than usual.


In one chair sat George W. Bush, the "messianic militarist" (Ralph Nader's description) United States (U.S.) president who once invoked "Christ" as his favorite political philosopher ("because he changed my heart") and who announced his imperialist war(s) on terror and the Arab world as "a crusade" (2). A friend of school prayer and the death penalty and a religiously based opponent of abortion rights, gay rights, civil rights, evolutionary science, and stem-cell research, Bush is probably the nation's most theocratic president to date. He finds critical electoral support among the highly mobilized group of Americans - equaling perhaps a third of the first "modern" nation's citizenry - who call themselves Fundamentalist Christians and who therefore tend to believe literally in such biblical prophecies as Armageddon, and the Second Coming. These beliefs, taken from the book of Revelation, "imply acceptance," as David Harvey notes, "of the horrors of war (particularly in the Middle East) as a prelude to the achievement of God's will on earth"(3).


Bush is probably the most authoritarian U.S. president since at least the turn of the 20th century. He has exhibited extreme disdain for democratic institutions and values in numerous ways, including chronic deception of the American public (most dramatically in regard to the reasons for, and achievements of, his Iraq occupation and nature of his "middle-class" tax cuts), denial of citizen access to public White House records, and a determination to enact regressive, corporate plutocratic domestic policies opposed by most Americans.


Sitting in the other chair at Crawford was Crown Prince Abdullah, neo-medieval monarch of the most reactionary and doctrinaire nation on earth. According to Gilbert Achcar in 1997, "democratic" America's longstanding client state Saudi Arabia "is the antithesis of democracy. It is a country where the Koran and Sharia are the only basic law and which is run by ultra-puritan Wahhabi [fanatically extremist and arch-authoritarian] Muslims. It is incontestably the most fundamentalist state in the world, the most totalitarian in political and cultural terms, and the most oppressive of the female half of the population" (4).


Things have not improved much in Saudi Arabia (from an Enlightenment perspective, at least) over the last eight years. The kingdom still enjoys a continuing "positive relationship" with the United States despite, or because of, its continuing terrible record of antidemocratic actions. It still practices the wholesale denial of civil, political, and human rights. Despite the Bush administration's pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric about bringing "freedom" and "democracy" to the Arab world, the "totalitarian" Saudi state remains a close US ally, receiving ample support from the Pentagon.


The secret to this "positive relationship," of course, is oil. Saudi Arabia has the largest petroleum reserves on the planet, a factor of great significance to the architects and maintainers of American empire. "In 1945," Noam Chomsky notes, U.S. State Department officials "described Saudi-Arabian energy resources as 'a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in history.'" Thanks mainly to its vast oil endowments, President Dwight Eisenhower considered the oil-laden Persian Gulf (where Saudi Arabia remains the petroleum-soaked crown jewel) to be "the most strategically important area of the world." By controlling Saudi and other Arab oil resources and production, U.S. policymakers have long hoped to attain significant "veto power" over the economic, military, and diplomatic conduct of rival states and regions, who depend significantly on external (and especially Middle Eastern) energy supplies(5).


The relevance of that "strategic" and "veto" power is accelerated for those policymakers by America's growing dependence upon foreign oil imports and the emergence of more functional state-capitalist systems in Western Europe and East Asia as superior economic competitors. Increasingly unable to keep up (on purely economic terms) with their world capitalist rivals, the deeply indebted and highly "defense" (military)-addicted U.S. empire relies like never before on its vast military might (a source of power and weakness at one and the same time) to shore up its challenged economic strength by keeping an armed boot on the global oil spigot (6).


At the same time, American imperialists rightly consider control of that spigot as vital to their declared project of preventing the surfacing of any conceivable challenge to U.S. global military hegemony. As Harvey notes, "the military runs on oil. North Korea may have a sophisticated air-force, but it cannot use it much for lack of fuel. Not only does the U.S. need to ensure its own military supplies. But any future military conflict with, say, China [which U.S. planners consider to their greatest strategic military rival in coming decades, P.S.], will be lopsided if the U.S. has the power to cut off oil supplies to its opponent." (7)


Thanks to the State Department's early understanding of oil-rich Saudi Arabia's "stupendous" strategic relevance, U.S. imperial architects made a critical deal with the kingdom after WWII. The U.S. was granted decisive control over the Saudis' economic and external affairs (including oil production and pricing), along with military basing rights. In return, the U.S. agreed to guarantee the security of the regime from internal (democratic and otherwise) and external threats.


Buttressed by its initially small share of the oil wealth that American corporations extracted from its soil, the Saudi state managed to keep the Ages of Reason and Revolution at bay into the 21st Century. As Achcar notes, "the perpetuation and installation" by the US of "a pre-modern tribal dynasty in Saudi Arabia" - a process replicated by the US and other western nations (principally England) in other Arab oil states - has "contrasted strongly with colonialism's project of overturning traditional structures in other parts of the world and setting up models emulating political modernity. The 'civilizing mission' of the West in the establishment of state institutions did not extend to [Saudi Arabia and other oil monarchies]. On the contrary, here the project was to consolidate backwardness in order to guarantee unfettered exploitation of hydrocarbon resources by the imperial power" (8).



And exploit Saudi oil the US did. American corporate petroleum authorities pumped out and processed enormous amounts of the kingdom's "black gold" and sold it at remarkably low prices - down to $1.29 per barrel by 1969 - to fuel the dazzling expansion of leading core state (Western and Japanese) economies during the 1950s and 1960s.


It is true that Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other Arab oil states including Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait dramatically increased oil prices and Arab wealth by forming a producers' cartel (OPEC) that brandished the boycott weapon to great effect in the 1970s. By the end of that decade, Middle Eastern oil had risen to $25 per barrel, with Arab elites now receiving most of the revenue. Nonetheless, as Middle Eastern historian Rashid Kahlidi points out, "the American companies continued to enjoy a privileged position in their relations with the Saudi oil industry" and "the United States continued to enjoy its strategic privileges in the country, such as rights to military bases. American industry and services also had great advantages in access to the lucrative Saudi market, which in light of the new oil wealth was insatiable in its demand for construction, consumer goods and most profitably of all expensive weapons systems far too complex to be used without the very expensive training and maintenance provided by American companies." The fantastic new oil revenues made the Saudi regime more powerful than ever in its ability to repress dissent, including that of those who wish to deny the US special privileges in and around the kingdom (9).


Which brings us to the reason for the Crown Prince's presence in Crawford. He came to discuss the expansion of Saudi oil output, required by the American overlords to reduce what Bush and his advisors consider the "unreasonably" high ($55 a barrel) price of oil. The corporate-petrocratic White House does not mind high oil prices; no true "oiligarchy" would. But the administration is worried that current prices at the American pump are so elevated that they threaten US economic growth and endanger the Republican Party's ability to effectively push its expensive, regressive, and reactionary policy agenda. It was, by all appearances, a successful meeting for Bush: Prince Abdullah committed his kingdom to investing $50 billion to increase Saudi oil production over the next decade.


To show concern for the embattled American consumer, the White House had the monarch sit down briefly with some ordinary folk in a dingy Crawford diner. "Heck," Bush wanted the American people to know, "ole Abdullah" (we do not know if Dubya has given him a personal nickname yet) "is a regular fellow...wants to sit down and order a burger too" - just like our pseudo-populist, blue-blooded president. Gas prices and not human rights were the discussion topic during this little appearance, we can be sure.


Responsible journalists might find the administration's push for increased Saudi oil production (and lower oil prices) highly interesting in light of Bush's disastrous, illegal, and immoral occupation of Iraq. Among other things, this brazen imperial action was supposed to bring Iraq's vast petroleum reserves on line, helping keep oil prices within America's definition of "reasonable." But two years after Bush's proto-fascistic "Mission Accomplished" PR stunt (featuring the "top-gun" president landing in a flight suit on a U.S. aircraft carrier off the California coast), this and other declared "Operation Iraqi Freedom" objectives remain woefully unfulfilled. The war on Iraq has "succeeded" only in killing perhaps 100,000 Iraqi civilians, sacrificing more than 1,500 (predominantly working-class) US service persons (and maiming many more), shattering civil authority within Iraq, and tearing down standard civilized norms and institutions of international law and decency. It has deeply alienated Arab (including Iraqi) and world public opinion, fanned the flames of Islamic fundamentalism, and sparked an impressive Iraqi resistance movement that has naturally targeted oil pipelines in its effort to force the invader's departure.


For a significant number of Americans of Fundamentalist sentiment (maybe even the president himself), however, this may all be largely for the good. After all, the bible calls for a final war beginning in the Middle East as prelude to the return of Jesus Christ Our Savior and the ascendancy of non-sinners to Heaven.


Also meriting critical journalistic attention is the meaning of Bush's call increased Saudi (and global) oil production in relation to the broad scientific consensus which concludes that planetary temperatures are dramatically elevating thanks primarily to human society's massive discharge of petroleum-based emissions. This "global warming" problem carries numerous disastrous consequences - many already well underway - for human beings and other living things. As John Bellamy Foster has recently noted, "not only has global warming emerged since the 1980s as the greatest threat yet to the biosphere as we know it, but the problem has gotten rapidly worse. The prospect of only a very limited rise in average world temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels - an amount of increase thought to separate non-catastrophic from catastrophic levels of global warming - will soon become unstoppable."


There is "growing fear among scientists," Foster adds, "of runaway global warming due to cumulative effects associated with a lessening of the carbon-absorbing capacities of the oceans and forests - a probable consequence of global warming itself. In Antarctica glaciers are melting and ice shelves thinning, pointing to a rise in sea levels. All ecosystems on earth are now in decline. Species are facing extinction at levels not seen for 65 million years. Global shortages of fresh water are looming. The toxicity of the earth is increasing."


"All this and more is to be expected," Foster adds, " now that the rational regulation of the environment under capitalism has been shown to be a dangerous fantasy" in "the age of neoliberal globalization," when the world's unchallenged military superpower refuses to sign even the mild anti-warming Kyoto Protocol (10).


The last thing this developing eco-catastrophe calls for is increased production and consumption of petroleum.


Bush's brazen indifference to the looming problem of anthropogenic global warming (seen in his suppression of government reports documenting climate change as well his rejection of the Kyoto accord) is certainly related to his corporate-petrocratic background and connections. Real (or onetime wannabe) Texan oil men don't lose sleep about the externalized costs of their poisonous industry. But another part of the administration's disregard for growing concerns about planetary warming is more cosmological in nature. The nation's Fundamentalist Christians have little reason to care about the excessive heating (human-generated or not) of the climate. When it's all about the end of the world and getting to be one of The Chosen People who doesn't get "Left Behind" (the name of a best-selling series of apocalyptic fundamentalist novels in the US) on the fleeting and sinful earth, after all, global warming is no problem. From a literalist biblical perspective, the ongoing climate change might actually be welcome: it will help the world burn faster when Judgment Day comes.


I have no idea what Saudi religious doctrine tells Prince Abdullah to think about the melting of the planet. It seems safe to assume, however, that his government's efforts to maintain high oil prices have had less to do with protecting a livable climate than maintaining the wealth and power of his tribal, arch-reactionary state.


The leading minds of the Age of Reason would be horrified by the spectacle of boy-king George and his good friend Prince Abdullah meeting to accelerate the disastrous overheating of humanity's only available climate. More than two centuries after the American Revolution heralded the arrival of "modern" (at once rational and democratic) statesmanship, these two dynastic and fundamentalist heads of states' selfish contempt for democracy, science, and the greater common good should disqualify them from serving as toxic arbiters of our environmental fate. Should, that is...in an even moderately rational and democratic world.


Would Enlightenment leaders be surprised? At least one, perhaps, would not. As Chomsky has reminded us on repeated occasions, Thomas Jefferson in his later years warned that the early US Republic's "banking institutions and moneyed corporations" (Jefferson) would, "if not curbed, become a form of absolutism that would destroy the promise of the democratic revolution." Subsequent developments, Chomsky notes, "have more than fulfilled" Jefferson's "most dire expectations." The nation's great and inherently (and legally, in fact) pathological corporations and the concentrated structures of political power they tend to control "have become largely unaccountable and increasingly immune from popular interference and public inspection while gaining great and expanding control over the global order." Ruled by massive, profit-addicted, and militantly hierarchical institutions - modern "managerial" corporations - that were given "the rights of immortal persons" under early 20th century US law, American global state capitalism has occasionally been compelled to temper its underlying tendencies towards savage inequality, tyranny, oppression, empire, militarism, and ecological as well socioeconomic imbalance. Beyond occasional moments of rational, socially responsible, and democratic reform and regulation, however, the system's deeper and irresistible drift is always towards the destructive and chaotic concentration of unaccountable power and the ceaseless pursuit of wealth and control for the most privileged members of the owning, investing, and exploiting (business) class (11). The advance of "whatever works" (in policymakers' eyes) to serve those basic, dark imperatives is the basic rule of life and policy under the soulless regime of the "moneyed corporations"


Thanks to this harsh reality, there's no particular commitment on the part of those in power to scientific rationalism and/or democratic modernism per se. The dominant values are profit, power, empire, and the never-ending quest for capital accumulation - guiding principles that lead often enough to the embrace of atavistic, "pre-modern" barbarism and blatant disregard for humanity and its environmental and other needs. Embodied by such science-friendly national founding heroes as Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson, the legacy of the Age of Reason becomes little more than a means to reactionary, selfish, and unreasonable ends.


Rational, scientifically informed thinking is embraced and empowered only insofar as it serves the deeper autocratic imperatives of empire, profit, and inequality. It is employed in the rapacious capitalist extraction of the planet's fossil fuels. It is disregarded, however, when it comes to understanding and confronting the grave ecological price that is paid for excessive, unregulated carbon emissions. It is put to profitable and strategic imperial use in the sophisticated arming of a vicious, medieval monarchy that happens to support the United States' neo-medieval determination effort to rule the world on the basis of a sheer preponderance of force.


But then, this is what happens when the democratic revolution gives way to the absolutism of state capitalist autocracy. Only those who do not understand the inherently antisocial irrationality of American imperial capitalism - living embodiment of the Thermidorian nightmare that Jefferson glimpsed - should find it odd that two reactionary, aristocratic petro-Fundamentalists like King George and Prince Abdullah are empowered to push the overheated planet's temperature higher even as the preponderant majority of the world's scientifically trained climate experts say "STOP."


References


1. Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy (NY: 1945), p.491.


2. David Corn, The Nation (January 19, 2000); James Carroll, Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War (NY: 2004)


3. David Harvey, The New Imperialism (NY: 2003), pp.190-191. Many of Bush's military "crusaders" are "recruited," Harvey adds, "from the [US] South, where such views are prevalent." Consistent with Harvey's opinion that the influence of the religious right on US politics "should not be underestimated," the Crawford meeting took place one day after Republican US Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist (who wishes to follow some of Bush's evangelical footpaths to the White House in 2008) went on Christian fundamentalist television to support the elimination of the 200-year-old (thereby dating from the Age of Reason) Senate filibuster rule - the last remaining tool for the more "secular humanist" Democratic Party to block the appointment of fanatically rightist anti-abortion (and simultaneously hyper-neoliberal[economically deregulatory]) judges to the federal courts. See Paul Street, "The Nuclear Option and the One Party State," ZNet Magazine (April 23, 2005), available online at

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=90&ItemID=7710.


4. Gilbert Achcar, The Clash of Barbarisms (NY: 2002), p.46.


5. Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (NY: 2003), p.150.


6. Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, pp. 145-152; Harvey, The New Imperialism, pp. 24-25, 84-85, 198-206.


7. Harvey, p.25; Chomsky, p.152.


8. Achcar, p.45


9. Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston, MA: 2004), p.110.


10. John Bellamy Foster, "The End of Rational Capitalism," Monthly Review (March 2005): 10-11.


11. Noam Chomsky, Powers and Prospects: Reflections on human Nature and the Social Order (bastion, 1996), p. 72; Joel Bakan, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (NY, 2004); Foster, "The End of Rational Capitalism," pp. 1-13.



Paul Street (pstreet99@sbcglobal.net ) is the author of Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9.11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2004) and Segregated Schools: Race, Class, and Educational Apartheid in the Posat-9/11 Era (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005)

Who are Wahhaabis? - 6

Dear Aamir Sahib,

These stupid ignorant Wahhabis who have occupied the Haramain in the Prophet's country must have been a constant source of agony for the blessed soul of the Prophet because of what they put out to the world in the name of Islam! It is because these degusting individuals that Islam is viewed everyday so negatively in the West--impressions that we, living in the West, have to put up with.

Irfan
=========================================================

Dear Irfan Sahab,

Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] have no contact with this world after his death therefore there is no question of agony on the acts of Wahhaabis. You before opening your mouth regarding the agony of the soul of Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] learn something about soul from Quran since Quran alone is your criteria I will quote Quran

وَيَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الرُّوحِ قُلِ الرُّوحُ مِنْ أَمْرِ رَبِّي وَمَا أُوتِيتُم مِّن الْعِلْمِ إِلاَّ قَلِيلاً

They are asking thee concerning the Spirit. Say: The Spirit is by command of my Lord, and of knowledge ye have been vouchsafed but little. [AL-ISRA (ISRA', THE NIGHT JOURNEY, CHILDREN OF ISRAEL) Chapter 17 - Verse 85]

By the way the very same Wahhaabis i.e. Aal-e-Saud are the biggest partner of the USA [your country of origin and please lodge the protest with the US State Deptt and drag Saudi Govenrment in any US Court of Law on their Human Rights Violation] and see what happens.

I say Aal-e-Saud and Wahhaabis did the right thing in occupying Saudi Arabia and sacking the descendant of Ahl Al Bayt i.e. Sharif of Makkah i.e. Great Grand Father of Shah Hussain of Jordan because Sharifs of Makkah had allowed 4 Imams [School of Thoughts which as per you are deviant and Quran Illiterate] to lead pryares in Kaaba. These Sharifs of Makkah tolerated Plastered Graves and Grave Worshipping all around the House of Allah and if that was not enough right outside the Makkah Magicians and soothsayers [Kaahin aur Munaajim] fleecing people and playing with their faith and even if that wasn't enough there were several 'ALLEGED HOLY TREES' in and around Makkah and Median where childless women used to rub their vagina for issues/children.

Now shall you allow all these things as per your logic of Quran's religious freedom as per [2:256]

Any aesthetic sense [when one is taling about Quranic Islam] which promote Shirk [Polytheism] is not aesthetic at all [Irfan Sahab you now even deny your Quran alone logic]. For example People used to eat and suck/lick dirt [Khak-e-Shifa with a belief that dirt of Medina can give cure to sick] from a wall in Prophet Mohammad [PBUH]'s Mosque so the wall has to go as well as houses of the Companions [May Allah be pleased with every one of them], Old Mosques, and other such Historical Treasure of Saudi Arabia [related with Prophet Mohammad - PBUH] Era] which basically [if allowed to remain intact] would have opened doors of Fitnah [Anarchy i.e. Shirk]. These Monuments of Aesthetic Value in Saudi Arabia were obstructing the development of the two cities and two Mosques [Haramain of Makkah and Medina] due to millions of visitors every years therefore it was good step to do away with those Aesthetic Value Monument and similarly it was a good step to Buldoze THE GRAVEYARDS OF JANNATUL BAQEEH [Medina] AND JANNATUL MUALLAH [Makkah] and this should be done in every Muslim Country where a poor person cannot even afford a grave [present price of a single grave is 20 to 30 thousand Pak Rupees in Pakistan] due to Plastered Graves.


By the way where has gone your Quranic Wisdom concocted by your Quran Alone Logic by defending Religious Freedom for the Sufis like Hallaj and Ibn Arabi and denying Shias the same freedom of expression regarding Religion because in one of your message you have declared them Idol Worshippers!


However, what should be the concern for Muslim World regarding Saudi Arabia is this behaviour and every Muslim should protest on this:

THE PRINCE AND THE PORTFOLIO Monday, Dec. 01, 1997 By SCOTT MACLEOD/RIYADH


As the nephew of King Fahd and grandson of Saudi Arabia's founding father, Ibn Saud, Alwaleed, 40, initially availed himself of the leverage those connections provide. But he has become truly, singularly wealthy through a series of shrewd deals, most famously the headline-making rescue of Citicorp in 1991. The $590 million he pumped into Citi is now worth $5.1 billion. The prince also became a rich uncle for the floundering Disneyland Paris in 1994.

Perhaps a better name for him might be the Prince of Fallen Angels. Alwaleed has taken substantial stakes in companies that are out of favor. He took a bite of Apple because he loved the product. In Britain he bought Canary Wharf, an early '90s real estate disaster that nearly wiped out the billionaire Reichmann family of Canada, after the bottom had fallen out of the market. It takes great courage to invest in the Korean conglomerate Daewoo, given that country's economic troubles, but Alwaleed just bought 5.9% of it. Retailing was ailing in 1992 when he bought heavily into the holding company that owns Saks Fifth Avenue. Upscale retailing took off soon after. He recently bought 7% of Donna Karan International, a design house in disarray. He's even the de facto manager of singer Michael Jackson, a dying supernova that Alwaleed just might reignite.

As much as any other investor today, Alwaleed seems to be exploiting the advantages of an age in which even a man in the desert can be instantly plugged in to the world's information networks. "He is a very dynamic force. He brings tremendous energy to everything he gets involved in," says Robert Earl, Ceo of Planet Hollywood International. "He is totally tuned in to everything." Alwaleed is a master franchiser for Planet Hollywood's concepts, as well as a holder of Planet Hollywood stock. He tracked down Earl on the beach in Barbados, a business-suited entourage in tow, to make the deal.

Although the Planet Hollywood business may look like just another indulgence of an eclectic entrepreneur, it ties into other businesses, including the News Corp. investment. In the Middle East, Alwaleed is the producer of top Arabic recording artists, including Najwa Karam and Kathem al Saher, and he has a major share in one of the most popular Arabic satellite TV networks, called Arab Radio and Television. Planet Hollywood is a great place to promote music and television stars.

One sector where synergy is working well for Alwaleed is hospitality. He has quietly become one of the largest private investors in, and owners of, hotels. And not coincidentally, hotel values and returns are soaring, as the recent battle for ITT Corp. (Sheraton) has demonstrated. His goal is to create, with international partners, a web of four- and five-star hotels around the world. He currently owns 50% of the Fairmont group, 30% of Movenpick, a Swiss chain, and 25% of the upmarket Four Seasons chain. He is the sole owner of the deluxe George V in Paris and owns half of the Inn on the Park in London and the Plaza in New York, plus 17 other luxury hotels. His blueprint calls for 42 new hotels in 15 countries, in addition to plans to develop 40 new franchises for Planet Hollywood in the Middle East and Europe. Says Alwaleed: "Three years ago, I started to get into the hospitality industry. It was really in the doldrums. The hotel industry had been
hammered badly, especially the five-star hotels. Now everybody is talking about the hotel industry."

Alwaleed's success is partly explained by the blend of Saudi, Lebanese and American influences that have shaped his relatively short career. By his own reckoning, his investment savvy draws on a Bedouin's instinct for caution, a Levantine's flair for a bargain and a bean counter's fondness for the bottom line. "He has an extremely agile mind," says U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Wyche Fowler. "He is always two or three jumps ahead of you." Alwaleed can negotiate in Arabic, English and French.

The Prince's ultrarich uncles, the eldest sons of Ibn Saud, who rule Saudi Arabia today, have accumulated their wealth mainly by diverting huge sums, directly or indirectly, from the government's extravagant oil revenues. As a Riyadh businessman puts it, Alwaleed's branch of the Saud family tree has always been considered a little smoother and a little straighter than the rest. His father Talal, a former Ambassador to France, was one of the "free princes" who demanded democratization and went into temporary exile during the troubled 1953-64 reign of King Saud. Alwaleed's mother, Princess Mona, is the daughter of Riad Solh, the first Prime Minister of independent Lebanon.

Alwaleed's parents divorced when he was barely school age. Growing up with his mother's family in swinging, pre-civil war Beirut made him into a wild and, at 189 lbs., seriously paunchy teenager. Talal yanked him back to Riyadh and reality and installed him at the King Abdul Aziz Military Academy. Alwaleed credits the experience for giving him his strong personal discipline. Later, business and social science degrees from Menlo College in California and Syracuse University gave Alwaleed the know-how to make his start.

He likes to tell the tale of how he made his first billion or so out of a $15,000 gift from his father. Talal had also given his son a house worth $1.5 million, which Alwaleed mortgaged to raise capital. Along the way, he used some of the money to play that favorite game of Saudi royalty, land speculation, and quickly turned a $150,000 investment into a $2 million profit.

Alwaleed demonstrated his grasp of American business tactics when he launched the first successful hostile takeover of a bank in Saudi Arabia, winning the United Saudi Commercial Bank. Alwaleed believes the takeover made his name in Saudi Arabia while simultaneously giving him a vantage point for branching out into other businesses.

By 1991 Alwaleed had the itch to diversify overseas. Sagging oil prices had produced a severe recession in the kingdom, creating a feeling of unease made worse by Saddam Hussein's invasion of neighboring Kuwait. Alwaleed already owned 4.9% of Citicorp--a percentage that allowed his ownership to be anonymous. But with the bank wobbling and the stock falling, he soon made his name known by tripling his stake.

As of last week, his holding company was pursuing some 160 investment opportunities. Overseeing all this is an investment staff of 20 employees from Saudi Arabia and seven other countries. His payroll also includes a former White House communications expert--this is, after all, a man who spends $80,000 a month on phone bills--as well as a camel caretaker, a muezzin who calls the Muslim faithful to prayer from a minaret, and 18 soccer players whom Alwaleed pays to play games with his son, at his son's private field.

To keep his operation lean yet opportunistic, he outsources his consultants--Citicorp for investment banking, Arthur Andersen for company advice, Saatchi & Saatchi for p.r. and Hogan & Hartson, a Washington law firm, for legal matters. (Alwaleed is the first to notice that the initials of these firms form the acronym CASH.)

Alwaleed does not have what you would call regular hours. He arrives at his bank and slides behind the chairman's desk at 10 a.m. Three hours later, he heads across town to his office at Kingdom Holding. There he juggles scores of projects through meetings, phone calls and faxes until 3 a.m. the next day.

In between he takes a three-hour break, returning to his palace health club--an expansive aquamarine spa with an Olympic-size pool, tennis courts and a bowling alley--for a buffet lunch and light workout. When the job is finally finished, he takes a walk in the moonlight, has a light meal and sleeps five hours. On weekends he drives to a private desert encampment 45 miles from Riyadh, where he eats supper on a rug with Bedouin retainers called khawian, some armed with silver-handled Colt .38s.

Of course, the life of a desert billionaire does have its perks in addition to its quirks. Twice divorced (he has two children, Khalid, 18, and Reem, 14), Alwaleed is not currently linked with any woman. He laughs sheepishly when people tell him, as they frequently do, that he is the world's most eligible bachelor. In contrast to the stereotype of the whoring petro-sheik, he calls himself a "calorie counter" who doesn't drink or smoke and has an American's obsession with fitness (he now weighs in at 136 lbs.). His only vice seems to be, hardly surprisingly, an appetite for luxury. He is very fond of his 282-ft. Kingdom 5-KR, the ostentatious yacht formerly owned by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and then by Donald Trump, who called it the Trump Princess before the banks took it back. Alwaleed keeps the boat moored in the southern French resort of Cannes. He takes about three long business trips a year and, depending on the distance, can choose from a private jet fleet that includes a Boeing 767, a Boeing 727 and a Challenger 601. He owns some 300 cars, including a blue Rolls-Royce for his daughter.

Then there is the new $100 million palace. Even in Saudi Arabia, they are not building houses like this one any longer. In February, Alwaleed and his children are scheduled to move into a sand-colored palace whose 317 rooms are adorned with 1,500 tons of Italian marble, silk Oriental carpets, gold-plated faucets and 250 TV sets. It will have four kitchens, for Lebanese, Arabic, Continental and Asian cuisines, and a fifth just for dishing up desserts, run by chefs who can feed 2,000 people on an hour's notice. Their royal highnesses will be able to swim in a lagoon-shaped pool, or catch a film in the 45-seat basement cinema.

Perhaps the clearest sign of Alwaleed's growing influence is that he is attracting serious enemies, including some of his powerful al Saud cousins. "There is jealousy, even hatred," says a Saudi source. "It bothers people that he came from almost nowhere and--zoom!--now he's way up here." Rumors have circulated that he is a front man for others, especially in the Citibank deal. Alwaleed and Western diplomats in Riyadh dismiss them as unfounded. He seems determined to let his influence grow, no matter the consequences. "I have nothing to hide," he says. "I've made $12 billion plus through hard work, and I am proud of it."

One important new area to watch, however, will be Alwaleed's political ambitions. Saudi Arabia is not a happy country. It is experiencing increasing economic and political strains--remember the 1996 bombing of the U.S. Air Force barracks near Dhahran--because of stagnation caused in part by an elderly and autocratic leadership. Although Alwaleed swears complete support for King Fahd and his other uncles, his immense wealth is beginning to give him rising influence on developments affecting the kingdom.

His business investments in the Middle East, for example, provide him with direct access to Arab heads of state, on whom he may have a moderating influence, since many of Alwaleed's international partners are Jewish and support Israel. "Religion has never been a barrier between us," says Four Seasons Hotels Inc. CEO Isadore Sharp. "He mentioned once that we have similar value systems and moral principles."

1 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-1,00.html

2 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-2,00.html

3 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-3,00.html

4 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-4,00.html

5 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-5,00.html

6 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-6,00.html

"UNQUOTE"

Who are Wahhaabis? - 5

When the Religious Clerics connive with the State to coerce people instead of saying what is right and just as per Quran and Shariah then incidents like the Occupation of Holy Kaaba take place and rogues and US CIA AGENTS like Osama Bin Laden helps in playing havoc in the Muslim World. As per Saudi Fatwa through authentic references of Quran and Hadith all the followers of other sects e.g. Ahmediya or Quadiyani, Barelvi, Deobandi Tableeghi Jamat, Shia, Ismailia are Deviant {Gumrah, Mushrik, Kaafir, Bidaati and what not} but how would they justify Aal-e-Sauds doing business with Late. Agha Hassan Abidi of BCCI {A Shia}, conniving with General Ziaul Haq {A Deobandi follower of Militant Deviant Jamat-e-Islami} to save his dictatorship and their kingdom, 860 Billion US Dollars of Saudi investments in the USA alone, and there are thousands of examples goes on and on…

As per an eyewitness who was there after the blood bath of 1979 in Holy Kaaba that those who had occupied the Kaaba were very simple Muslim rather puritans, one of them was the son of Maulana Badiuddin Shah Rashidi aka Peer Jhanday Shah of Sindh {A top Ahle-Hadith Cleric of Sindh}. During the occupation the leader Juhaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Saif al Utaiba decided to take out a procession outside Holy Kaaba for demanding the better living facilities, jobs, and they further wanted to demand ban on cinemas and other such vices {as per them} but someone amongst the protestors mistakenly rather stupidly raised the slogan of him being Imam Mehdi and that’s where Saudi Mullahs/Mutawwas came in with ready made Fatwa of “BAGHI AND BAGHAWAT {quoting it as Fitnah, Rebellion or Khurooj against the rightful Rulers}”.


Amazing footage of Juhayman Al Otaybi (sometimes spelled al-Otaibi or numerous other variants), the ringleader behind the disastrous 1979 siege of Mecca. The footage, originally broadcast on Saudi government-controlled TV, also shows the dead body of the alleged Mahdi Juhayman was promoting with the attack. (The Mahdi is an apocalyptic figure in some strains of Islam.)

Footage of Juhayman Al Otaybi

http://intelwire.egoplex.com/2007_09_27_blogarchive.html



Juhayman Bin Mohamed Bin Seif al-Otaibi was born in a Brotherhood settlement in the area of Quseim, close to the city of Ghatghat, the headquarters of Sultan Bin Bijad who was killed by the forces of the founding King Abdel-Aziz during the famous Sibla battle. Juhayman had a strict religious upbringing. He married the daughter of prince Sajer Al Mohaya who was arrested after the Haram incident, then later married the sister of Mohamed Ibn Abdullah al-Qahtani. He work for about two years on the national guard forces. Juhayman studied at the Islamic university in Medina and was the student of Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Bin Baz, former Mufti of Saudi Arabia.

Juhayman returned to Qusaim in 1974 with a number of students and started promoting the establishment of a fundamentalist movement that he called “The Brothers’ Movement” at the time (different from the Egyptian group the Muslim Brotherhood). Juhayman exceeded the teachings and methodology of his teacher Sheikh Bin Baz, expressing direct criticism of Ibn Soud. Juhayman said that Sheikh Bin Baz never objected to the Brothers’ Movement teachings, but that he had blamed them for focusing on Saudi issue alone. Juhayman then stopped attending Sheikh Bin Baz’s meetings and lectures. In his third message “The Brothers’ Call” he said that they (he and his colleagues) had to educate themselves when they couldn’t find “pure” Sharia education in the official Sharia school. They promoted their movement in tribal areas and grew in number.

They then moved to the capital Riyadh in 1976 where Juhayman published his first message under the title “The Law of Loyalty and Obedience: Corrupt Government” in which he attacked jurisprudents. In this message he said “People should not obey, but fight, Muslim rulers who do not adhere to the teachings of Quran and tradition. These corrupt rulers use Sharia to serve their own personal objectives and deal with unbelievers”. These ideas led to his arrest with 98 of his followers in the summer of 1978. However, they were not put on trial.

Sheikh Bin Baz was asked to examine their ideas and discuss with them. After listening to them, Bin Baz refused to consider them traitors, thus the authorities had to release them after they spent six weeks in prison. They promised to stop preaching and attacking rulers. Contrary to Osama Bin Laden who has no significant writings, Juhayman wrote 14 fundamentalist messages that included his ideas, parts of which where published under the title “The Seven Messages”.

The messages were banned in Saudi Arabia. According to these messages, Juhayman believed that Saudi religious education as was conducted at that time should be stopped. Many Wahabis said that Juhayman said that “he saw hundreds of the graduates of these schools became preachers, as if preaching was a government profession where employees look forward to receiving their monthly salaries.” He believed that such schools only produce religious representatives of the government, but not real ulama (religious scholars) or sheikhs, as he believed these should be independent leaders who think and act in accordance with the interests of Islam and society rather than the authorities as was the case in Saudi Arabia.

In his first message Juhayman talked about the emergence of the awaited Mahdi. In 1979 he wrote that prophet Mohamed visited him in a vision, then God talked to him and ordered him to announce that he was the Mahdi, sent to purify the earth from corruption. Qahtani also claimed he had the same vision. Qahtani then married Juhayman’s sister. To be fair, not all Juhayman’s writings were of that type. In his 11 messages he expressed his position towards rulers of Muslim countries in general, and the Saud family in particular; he also addressed major Islamic jurisprudence issues, such as Jihad, in addition to his position towards emirs and obedience. In his message Juhayman wonders: “Can jihad be declared against atheist countries when we have exchanged ambassadors and experts? How can we promote Islam when we have Christians for professors? Can we contradict our professors? Can we call for raising the jihad flag while the Christian flag stands side by side with the monotheism flag? We shouldn’t be deceived to that extent, as there should be a clear distinction between what is right and what is wrong. We should stay away from these people, we should fight them.”

This is the same logic that Bin Laden used 20 years later in the speech broadcast by Al Jazira where he divided the world into two “areas”: the area of Islam and the area of atheism. He described the issue as a “crusade” against Islam and Muslims. Thus he follows the same line as Juhayman, and finds justifications in the older literature of al-Mawdudi, Qutb, and others.

On 20 November 1979, 500 dissidents led by the grandson of the leader of the Ikhwan rebellion – 38-year old Juhayman – seized Mecca’s Grand Mosque. Almost fifty years to the day, Juhayman reiterated his ancestor’s grievances as he grabbed the mosque’s loudspeaker and announced that the House of Saud had lost its claim to legitimacy through corruption, ostentation, and mindless imitation of the West. His words were chilling to the royal family, all the more so because they closely resembled Khomeini’s diatribes against the Shah.

The Saudi leadership was initially paralysed by the takeover. The Grand Mosque surrounds Islam’s holiest shrine. Accordingly, no non-Muslim may enter the city of Mecca and shedding blood on such holy grounds is considered blasphemy. The Saudi royal family’s hands were tied for days as they deliberated how to dislodge the dissidents. The Ulema had to issue a dispensation to allow the bearing of arms in a holy place before any military move could be authorized.

Once more, the traditional alliance of convenience between the religious establishment and the House of Saud served its purpose. The fatwa issued by the highest religious authority, Mufti Bin Baz, legitimised the unthinkable – spilling blood in Islam’s holiest site. But even when the religious dilemma was solved, the Saudi military failed to end the siege. This time, the House of Saud had to ask the Ulema to sanction that the mosque be stormed by ‘infidels’. This second fatwa set a precedent that was to be invoked again during the Gulf War.


When the Saudi Forces couldn’t control the situation good old Pakistan came up with help French Military/General Zia ul Haq {Commander of the faithful} sent troops there and they used the Nerve Gas in Kaaba;

وَإِذْ جَعَلْنَا الْبَيْتَ مَثَابَةً لِّلنَّاسِ وَأَمْناً وَاتَّخِذُواْ مِن مَّقَامِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ مُصَلًّى وَعَهِدْنَا إِلَى إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ أَن طَهِّرَا بَيْتِيَ لِلطَّائِفِينَ وَالْعَاكِفِينَ وَالرُّكَّعِ السُّجُودِ

[And when We made the House (at Makkah) a resort for mankind and a sanctuary. Sorrah Al-Baqara - The Cow - Verse 125]


and electrocuted the floors of Kaaba and threw water, which resulted in catastrophe;

وَإِذْ قَالَ إِبْرَاهِيمُ رَبِّ اجْعَلْ هَـَذَا بَلَدًا آمِنًا وَارْزُقْ أَهْلَهُ مِنَ الثَّمَرَاتِ مَنْ آمَنَ مِنْهُم بِاللّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ قَالَ وَمَن كَفَرَ فَأُمَتِّعُهُ قَلِيلاً ثُمَّ أَضْطَرُّهُ إِلَى عَذَابِ النَّارِ وَبِئْسَ الْمَصِيرُ

[And when Abraham prayed: My Lord! Make this a region of security. Sorrah Al-Baqara - The Cow – Verse 126].


The smell of the gas lasted for days in a house, which is the holiest place on earth. Almost 90 % of Salafi, Deobandi, Barelvi and other Mullahs and Clerics were supporting General Ziaul Haq and nobody from religious lobbies came out against Zia on this.

Since all the Muslims around the world except Saudi Muslims are Infidel as per Saudi Interpretation of Islam but again where would you put this Quranic Verse rather a clear decree of Allah and it may be mentioned here when there is something very clear in Quran then there are no Hadiths, Fatwas, and Interpretation valid. There was just once stance when War was allowed around Holy Kaaba and that was the first and last time and allowed by Allah and that was during Fateh Makkah and that permission was granted to Prophet Mohammad {PBUH} and after that it is strictly forbidden to kill someone in the House of Allah and that decree is indefinite.


INTERNAL STRIFE IN SAUDI ARABIA:

On November 20, 1979 at least 500 dissidents invaded and seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The leader of the dissidents, Juhaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Saif al Utaiba, a Sunni, was from one of the foremost families of Najd. His grandfather had ridden with Abd al Aziz in the early decades of the century, and other family members were among the foremost of the Ikhwan. Juhaiman said that his justification was that the Al Saud had lost its legitimacy through corruption, ostentation, and mindless imitation of the West--virtually an echo of his grandfather' s charge in 1921 against Abd al Aziz. Juhaiman's accusations against the Saudi monarchy closely resembled Ayatollah Ruhollah Musaui, Khomeini's diatribes against the Shah. Furthermore, all holy places come under a special injunction in Islam. It is forbidden to shed blood there or to deface or to pollute them in any way. Despite careful planning on Juhaiman's part, a guard was shot dead by one of the nervous dissidents.

Such a desecration is a major violation under Islamic law and merits crucifixion for the convicted offender. Juhaiman's party included women as well as men, other peninsular Arabs, and a few Egyptians. A score of the dissidents were unemployed graduates of the kingdom's seminary in Medina. They had provisions for the siege they expected as well as extensive supplies of arms.

The government's initial attempts to rout the dissidents were stymied. Before any military move could be authorized, the ulama had to issue a dispensation to allow the bearing of arms in a holy place. When the religious problems were solved by announcement of the ulama's ruling, logistical problems bogged down the efforts of the military and the national guard for several days. Finally, two weeks later the military effort succeeded, and the dissidents were dislodged. All the surviving males were eventually beheaded in the squares of four Saudi cities. Far from discounting the efforts of the rebels, the leaders examined themselves and their policies more closely. Khalid, particularly, was sensitive to their complaints. Many of the dissidents had come from two of the tribes that traditionally have been recruited for the national guard. Khalid had spent much time with these people in the desert. Compounding the nightmare for the regime were Shia riots in Al Qatif in the Eastern Province two weeks after the siege of the Grand Mosque.


Many of the rioters bore posters with Khomenini's picture. Although these were not the first Shia protests in the kingdom (others had occurred in 1970 and 1978), the December rioters had become emboldened by Khomeini's triumphal return to Iran in early 1979. Up to 20,000 national guard troops were immediately moved into the Eastern Province. Several demonstrators were killed and hundreds reportedly arrested. Almost visibly shaken by the takeover of the mosque and the Shia disturbances, the Saudi leadership announced in the aftermath of these events that a consultative assembly (majlis ash shura) would soon be formed. The Shia disturbances in the Eastern Province encouraged the government to take a closer look at conditions there.


Although it was clear that the Shia had been radicalized by Khomeini, it was also obvious that repression and imprisonment were stop-gap solutions and as likely to promote further resistance as to quell it. Further, the Shia lived in the area of the kingdom most vulnerable to sabotage, where numerous oil and gas pipelines crisscross the terrain. Aramco had adamantly refused to discriminate against the Shia in their hiring practices, as had Saudi governmental agencies. Aramco had a preponderance of Shia employees--not only because of Aramco's location but also because Aramco employment offered a Shia the best chance for mobility. Compared with other towns in the Eastern Province, the Shia towns of Al Qatif and Al Hufuf were depressed areas.

The Shia lacked decent schools, hospitals, roads, and sewerage and had inadequate electrification and water supplies. Violent Shia demonstrations occurred once against in February 1980, and, although they were as harshly repressed as the previous ones, the deputy minister of interior, Amir Ahmad ibn Abd al Aziz, was directed to draw up a comprehensive plan to improve the standard of living in Shia areas. His recommendations, which were immediately accepted and implemented, included an electrification project, swamp drainage, the construction of schools and a hospital, street lighting, and loans for home construction.


It is Jewish conspiracy', was the common reaction in Pakistan; perhaps across the Muslim world. The uprising was crushed leaving 200 dead (figures however vary from 75 to 500). Leaders on the leaders of 'uprising' were publicly beheaded, as is the 'ritual' in the kingdom. Taliban later on were just imitating Sauds. In 1980, a Shia uprising in south of the kingdom also met the same fate. Saudi Shias, oppressed and deprived as they are even today, enthused by Khomeni's return started an uprising. Shah Khalid moved 200,000 National Guards and it was brutally crushed. The kingdom was again 'peaceful', ruled with an iron fist by corrupt House of Sauds until 1996.


Much of the opposition in the kingdom in 1980s was externalized. It was diverted towards Soviet Union through Afghan war. The oppositionists were encouraged to reach Pakistan to join 'Jihad 'against Soviet 'infidels'. The kingdom stayed peaceful until 1996 when a bombing in Riyadh reminded Sauds of al-Utaiba. This time it was Osama bin Laden playing al-Utaiba. Osama however survived the fate al-Utaiba met. It was because Osama, deprived of his Saudi nationality in the wake of first Gulf War, had been exiled. Interestingly, Osama, like al Utaiba, was a friend of Saud family too. {1}.


Notes and References.

1- HOLY QURAN.


2- INTERNAL STRIFE IN SAUDI ARABIA {1}

http://www.pushhamburger.com/morenews21.htm


3- Al Khobar: Sins of Parents Visting Upon Children Farooq Sulehria LABOUR PARTY PAKISTAN {1}

http://laborpakistan.org/article_farooq_khobar.html

4- CORRUTION IN THE HOUSE OF AAL-E-SAUD:


http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/corrupti.htm

5- HUMAN RIGHT ABUSES IN SAUDI ARABIA:


http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/human.htm

6- FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN SAUDI ARABIA:


http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/freedom.htm

7- POLITICAL DISSIDENCE IN SAUDI ARABIA:


http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/politica.htm

8- ECONOMY OF SAUDI ARABIA:


http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/the1.htm

9- PRINCE AND PRINCES IN SAUDI ARABIA:

http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/princess.htm

http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/prince2u.htm

10- BLOOD, OIL AND CYNICISM:

http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/therise.htm

11- THE SAUDIS: INSIDE THE DESERT KINGDOM:


http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/thesaudis.htm

12- THE BCCI AND SAUDI ARABIA:

http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/bcciaful.htm

13 - RULE OF LAW:


http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/saudilaw.htm

14 - Lal Masjid clerics claim support of Imam-i-Kaaba By Syed Irfan Raza

June 08, 2007 Friday Jamadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1428

http://www.dawn.com/2007/06/08/nat7.htm