While Muslims everywhere are concerned with the attacks on Islam and Muslims by our external enemies, particularly the US and its allies, far less attention is paid to the fact that Islamic history and culture are under attack from those who claim to be their guardians. ZAFAR BANGASH, the Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), discusses the Saudi authorities’ destruction of historical sites in the Hijaz.
1Egyptian politicians and intellectuals often claim that other Arabs borrow their ideas or attitudes from Egypt. It would not, therefore, be surprising if they claim that the Saudi rulers are copying president Husni Mubarak in their recent overtures to France, in an apparent attempt to distance themselves from the US, which has become very unpopular in the Muslim world.
When Saudi king Fahd died on August 1, the kingdom made a fine show of an orderly succession. Nonetheless, his successor, Abdullah, faces enormous challenges and uncertainties. NASR SALEM reports.
The Saudis' subservience to the US, and the fact that they exploit their position as rulers of the Holy Lands of Islam, is well established...
The Saudi ‘royal’ family rarely commits the error of publicly expressing anxiety or doubt about the durability of the House of Saud, or of openly criticising its US protectors’ backing for Israel.
Any Muslim considers Hajj to be a journey in repentance and submission, and hopes to return home cleansed of all sins, like a new-born baby. Hajj is an arduous undertaking beginning with the hijra (migration) of the Muslim from his or her place of abode to Makkah in preparation for the performance of various rites.
There was a time, not long ago, when Aal-e Saud were at the forefront of the West’s drive to subvert Islam and the Muslim Ummah. During the 1970s, the Saudi monarchs distributed petro-dollars to mosques and Islamic centres all over the world, usually through international front-organizations...
This book challenges the legitimacy of the Saudi monarchy as well as attempts to draw attention to the unjust activities of the regime...
Let us first get a simple point out of the way: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was declared in 1932. The Al-e Saud’s rise to power did not begin until their alliance with the British in the first world war.
Hajj reflects the state of the Ummah at any particular time in history. If Hajj is performed in a mechanical way by the vast majority of Muslims, it is because its true meaning and import have been deliberately obfuscated from them. Hajj, like all other aspects of Islam, has been largely shorn of its true meaning.
The control and administration of the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah by the Saudi family has long been the subject of debate and criticism. Much is made of the Saudis' mismanagement, and the tragedies which result from them, such as the fire at Mina last year. Their personal immorality is also often noted.
1The Saudi rulers are about to undergo, for the first time, the humiliating experience of a public drubbing by a fully paid-up member of the desert kingdom’s inner elite.
Of all the calamities that have befallen the Muslims in the twentieth century - abolition of the khilafah, imposition of the nation-State structure, the loss of Palestine and Al-Quds to the zionists etc - the emergence of the House of Saud in the Arabian Peninsula is one of the most grievous.
Zafar Bangash describes how from caravan robbers, the House of Saud occupied the Haramain.
The political and military association between the Saudis the kuffar is not so much a relationship of collaboration as of subjection. The Saudi family subject the lands, seas, and all the resources to Western, specifically American, political interests in the region.
