"To all of those involved in violence and criminal acts, you should take up the chance and exploit the amnesty initiative," said Al-Sudeis

By Hamam Abdelmaboud, IOL Staff

RIYADH, July 3 (IslamOnline.net) – A prominent Saudi scholar has called on militants to lay down arms and make use of a two-month amnesty, but also urged the government to "seek true reform".

"To all of those involved in violence and criminal acts, you should take up the chance and exploit the amnesty initiative," Sheikh Abdel-Rahman Al-Sudeis, imam of the Holy Mosque of Makkah, told worshippers Friday, July 2.

The government announced the amnesty Tuesday, June 29, during which citizens could surrender unlicensed weapons without penalty.

Al-Sudeis hoped for Saudis to make use of the opportunity and hand over unlicensed weapons, hoping for "an end to violence," demonstrated by bloody fierce clashes between militants and security forces.

"The arms' bearers have painted a grim image of Islam and triggered the imposition of a tight grip on charities," said the renowned Saudi scholar, also taking blame to a "inflated media campaign" in this regard.

The Saudi government said in June that two of its major charity organizations are to be dissolved, as the United States accused them of being used for financial, material and logistical support to what Washington terms as "terrorist organizations."

"Reform"

The imam of the Holy Mosque in Makkah said the crisis gripping the Islamic world should lead its leaders to turn on a new page for "revision and reform".

"You should make reforms between yourselves on one hand, and with your peoples on the other," Al-Sudeis said.

"You should underline truth by evidence, and protect young men and women against any alien thought."

The Amnesty comes less than a week after Riyadh announced a one-month amnesty for Al-Qaeda militants - who have been waging a year-long wave of attacks targeting expatriates, government buildings and officials, and oil-related facilities - to give themselves up.

At least 85 police and civilians, many of them foreigners, have been reportedly killed in bombings and shootings over the last 13 months.

Authorities have seized huge caches of weapons including rifles, pistols, hand grenades, mortars, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and tons of explosives.

Many of the weapons are believed to have been smuggled across Saudi Arabia 's porous southern mountain border with Yemen . The two countries have agreed to tighten security controls on the frontier to stem the flow.

Be Positive

In Egypt , another Islamic scholar called on Muslims to be positive and interactive in the society where they live.

"Muslims have to be positive, as negatively is abhorred" in the religion, said Sheikh Yasser Mughawri Friday in a central Cairo mosque.