|
Saudi Arabia Faces Pro-Taliban Religious Movement at Home
DUBAI, Oct 17 (News Agencies) - Saudi Arabia, reluctant to join the U.S.-led anti-terrorist war on Afghanistan, is facing a religious backlash in support of the Taliban and in defiance of the Muslim establishment, news agencies reported.
The threat from the religious trend swirls around Sheikh Hmud bin Oqla al-Shuaibi, a scholar from Buraida in the district of Qassim, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Sheikh Shuaibi was personally singled out Saturday for praise by al-Qaeda, the group led by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden whom Washington blames for being behind the September 11th terror attacks.
"We back the fatwas [religious decrees] issued by the great imams of Saudi Arabia, particularly ... Shuaibi who has banned cooperation with the Jews and the Christians," said al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith in a message broadcast by Qatar-based al-Jazeera television.
The fatwas have justified the September 11th attacks and asked Muslims to defend their Taliban brethren, who rule most of Afghanistan and now face U.S.-led strikes after refusing to hand over bin Laden.
"America is an [non-believing] country, an enemy of Islam and Muslims," said Shuaibi, who is in his 70s, in a
fatwa recently posted on his Internet site, regularly visited by thousands of web users.
"It is rather unfortunate that some of our scholars have resorted to pity and sympathy [toward the United States]. They forgot the killings and destruction carried out without pity by this [non-believer] state in many Islamic countries," he said.
Shuaibi appeared to target Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia who had condemned the outrages in New York and Washington as contrary to Islamic law but stopped short of denouncing the strikes on Afghanistan, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Sheikh Saleh al-Lahidan, president of the kingdom's Higher Judicial Council, also denounced the terror attacks as a "terrible crime".
Shuaibi, jailed in 1985 after a wave of religious agitation in the country a year earlier, prohibited Muslims from helping non-believers against the Taliban.
He also denounced "certain [non-believing] Muslim governments" for allowing Washington and its allies to use their soil, airspace, seas and military bases as launching pads to strike Afghanistan.
Riyadh, which has been under intense U.S. pressure, was further embarrassed when six Shuaibi disciples followed suit in denouncing the U.S.-led strikes, and another influential scholar called for raising money to help the Taliban.
Saudi Arabia, one of only three states to recognize the Taliban rule over Afghanistan, cut ties with the movement in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. But Riyadh has rejected any direct participation in the war effort.
In a first Saudi reaction to the strikes on Afghanistan, Interior Minister Nayef bin Abdel Aziz said Monday that Washington could have confronted terrorism without air strikes that harm "innocent" civilians.
"This standoff between the independent and official scholar has discredited the official ones," said Saad Faqih, spokesman of the London-based Saudi opposition Movement for Islamic Reform (MIR).
"Many young Saudis, fans of bin Laden, have discredited official scholars whom they accuse of being too complacent toward the regime," he said.
"This is very dangerous, given that the regime bases its legitimacy in the Shari'a," or Islamic law, Faqih warned.
|
