In the recent weeks, UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths and officials from the U.S., U.K. and other European countries have been trying to affect a ceasefire in Yemen and promote a political solution to the conflict there. In October Griffiths announced plans for a new ro...
During a debate on Al-Hurra TV (U.S.) that aired on November 9, 2018, Saudi journalist Muhammad Al-Osaimi said that Iran is the "obvious and real enemy" of the Arab states. He criticized the Arab countries for not recognizing Israel's existence even though the entire world - the ...
On October 16, Al-Jazeera TV aired a simulation of Jamal Al-Khashoggi's murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The simulation is based on information leaked by Turkish sources, and it shows Al-Khashoggi being grabbed by two attackers, who injected him in the neck with...
On November 11, 2018, The Washington Post published an article by Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, chairman of the Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee in Yemen, attacking Saudi Arabia for its actions in the context of the war in Yemen. The article also attacked the U.S., arguing that t...
Now that Saudi Arabia has acknowledged its responsibility for the Khashoggi murder, it is time to clarify Turkey's role and responsibility in the affair, from the perspective of the battle between Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Arabia's Muhammad Bin Salman for the leader...
The tension between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which has been ongoing for 18 months, intensified even further following the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.[1] Known for his criticism of the Saudi authorities and support for the Muslim Brotherhood (which Saudi...
Since the murder in early October of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and with the daily publication of foreign media reports on Saudi involvement in the affair, many articles are appearing in the Saudi media expressing rage at what they called a hostile media campaign against t...
A Saudi TV debate dealt with the question whether people suffering from psychological problems should go to a psychiatric clinic or to someone who would recite Quranic verses over them. Psychiatrist Dr. Jamal Al-Tuwairqi said that Freud, who, he claimed, "went to New York and fou...
In contrast to the scathing criticism directed at Saudi Arabia by Western media and by Saudi Arabia's Arab rivals, headed by Qatar, following the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the kingdom's Arab allies, as well as Arab bodies and organizations, have come t...
In an address at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinian preacher Sheikh Abu Mus'ab Al-Hadra criticized Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman for having the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi carried out in the Saudi consulate. After spending infinite funds on weapons and forei...
In the last 24 hours, Saudi Arabia has sharped its tone towards the U.S., in response to recent statements by U.S. officials, among them President Donald Trump, that Saudi Arabia will be punished if it proves to be responsible for the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Al-Kh...
Following the September 22, 2018 shooting in Iran's Ahwaz region, Muhammad Ahl Al-Sheikh, a columnist for the Saudi government daily Al-Jazirah, described the shooting as a "legitimate resistance operation" by the Arab minority that is oppressed by the Iranian regime, and express...
Saudi-Kuwaiti singer Shams Bandar said that she accepts Jews, Christians, and people with no religion. Responding to criticism of a tweet blessing Jews on a holiday, she said sarcastically: "So burn them. Bring Hitler back. Bring ovens… We have modern ovens that burn faster." Whe...
Abdullah Al-Mutlaq of the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars said that polygamy was "sometimes a necessity and sometimes a crime" and that if a man marries multiple wives, he must treat them equally. Speaking on an October 3 fatwa show on Saudi Arabia's TV Channel 1, Al-Mutlaq said...
The disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, and was never seen leaving it, is a trending topic in the Arabic press, particularly the Saudi press. Khashoggi, whom some Turkish elements surmise was murdered ...
In 2014, Saudi cleric and author Sheikh Muhammad Al-Arifi gave an address in which he cited the antisemitic hadith "The Prophecy of the Rock and the Tree," and said that the Jews were cowardly by nature, as could be seen throughout history - in the days of the Prophet Muhammad, i...
In an article he published following the September 22, 2018 attack on the military parade held by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Ahvaz, Saudi journalist Hussein Shubakshi attacked the resistance axis – Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas – which, he said, wages ...
On October 7, 2017, on the occasion of the 44th anniversary of the 1973 war between Israel and the Arabs, the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat published an article by its former editor, 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, in which he praised then Egyptian President Anwar Sad...
In an article published August 9, 2018 in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi author and researcher Fahd Al-Shkairan claims that Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden derived inspiration for his ideological and military activities from Iran's Islamic Revolution, and t...
Following the death, on August 25, 2018, of Republican U.S. senator John McCain, Khalid Al-Suleiman eulogized him in his column in the Saudi government daily 'Okaz. Titled "The Last of the Honorable American Politicians," the column describes McCain as a serious and wise politici...
Against the backdrop of the Canada-Saudi Arabia tension following the arrest in Saudi Arabia of human rights activists,[1] on August 8, 2018, Muhammad Al-Sa'ed, who writes in the Saudi daily 'Okaz, published an article harshly critical of Canada. He wrote that, following Hillary ...
MEMRI's Director of Reform in the Muslim World Mansour Al-Hadj discussed the recent arrests of human rights activists in Saudi Arabia. Al-Hadj said that the lack of political reform under Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has disappointed those who were hopeful abou...
On August 6, 2018, the Saudi-based Twitter account Infographic_ksa tweeted an image of an Air Canada aircraft that appeared to be heading towards the CN Tower in Toronto – in an apparent hint at the September 11, 2001 attacks – accompanied by the text in English: "Sticking one's ...
Against the backdrop of the political crisis between Saudi Arabia and Canada, commentators on the Saudi 24 network launched an attack on Canada's human rights record, especially with regard to Canada's indigenous people. They "are being dispersed and killed," said Saudi jour...
On July 25, 2018, the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen attacked two Saudi tankers in the strait of Bab El-Mandeb in the Red Sea. In response to the attack, Saudi Arabia announced it was suspending shipments of oil via the strait "until maritime transit through Bab El-Mandeb is...
Recently, there has been a discussion in Saudi Arabia about appointing women to roles connected to the religious establishment, such as in issuing fatwas and serving as religious judges (qadis).
In a Ramadan edition of his television program on Saudi Al-Majd TV, 'Abdallah Al-M...
In an opinion piece published July 23, 2018 in the Saudi English-language daily Arab News, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Khalid bin Salman, called on the international community to adopt a unified and comprehensive strategy to confront the destabilizing behavior...
In an article published July 15, 2018 in the Saudi government daily Al-Yawm, Saudi journalist Sukina Meshekhis called on the Arab countries to take bold steps, including certain concessions, in order to advance peace with Israel. She wrote that peace is a supreme human aim for wh...
It has recently been reported that U.S. President Donald Trump plans to slap oil sanctions on Iran beginning in November of this year. To this end, on June 30, 2018 he asked Saudi King Salman Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz to increase his country's oil production so as to prevent any shortage...
In a June 13, 2018 interview with Saudi MBC TV, Saudi journalist Mishal Al-Sudairy recounted the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, from Mufti Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, who allied himself with Hitler in WWII, through his successor Ahmad Al-Shukeiri, who "lived his entire l...
In a June 13 TV interview, Saudi journalist Mishal Al-Sudairy recounted the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, from Mufti Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, who allied himself with Hitler in WWII, through his successor Ahmad Al-Shukeiri, who "lived his entire life in five-star hote...
Shiite Iraqi cleric Yassin Al-Musawi said in a recent TV interview that Saudi Arabia, which it called "our kindhearted neighboring country... that meek and calm kingdom that wants only what's best for us," sends us suicide bombers on a daily basis. "One day they send us ISIS, ano...
Muhammad Al-Arab, head of the Paris-based "Peace Without Limits" NGO, criticized Hamas, which he said has brought famine upon its people in Gaza and has become Iran's "hired gun." "Whenever Iran is in trouble, Hamas instigates incidents, in order to relieve the pressure [on Iran]...
In advance of the June 24, 2018 implementation of Saudi King Salman bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz's historic decree permitting women in the kingdom to drive, the Saudi Al-Watan daily published, on June 18, an infographic by the Saudi Department of Transportation featuring answers to question...
The decree issued by Saudi King Salman bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz nine months ago lifting the ban on women drivers in the kingdom will go into effect on June 24, 2018. In the lead-up to the historic date, Wafa Al-Rashid, a columnist for the Saudi 'Okaz daily, attacked the demeaning and pa...
The September 26, 2017 decree by the Saudi King granting women permission to drive is to take effect on June 24, 2018, and the various Saudi authorities have been taking measures in preparation for implementing it, such as issuing a Saudi driver's license to women who already hav...
The rapid expansion of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in Iraq, and the fact that many of its fighters are Saudis, have sparked growing fears in Saudi Arabia that the extremist organization might spread to the kingdom. Among the reflections of this fear were the Saudi respo...
In an article titled "From 9/11 to Foley’s Murder, Extremism Lives On," 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, the director of Al-Arabiya TV and former editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, seeks an answer to the question why the world's 13-year war on terror has not achi...
In an article titled "Enough Lies, the Arab Body Politic Created the ISIS Cancer," senior Lebanese journalist Dr. Hisham Melhem, who is Al-Arabiya's Washington bureau head and a correspondent for the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, comes out against the prevalence of conspiracy theories...
In the opinion section of the English-language daily Saudi Gazette, UK-based Pakistani journalist Ali Ashraf Khan wrote that the rise of antisemitic sentiment throughout the world – exemplified by statements such as "all Jews should be gassed,"[1] is an "understandable reaction" ...
Saudi Admiral (Ret.) 'Umro Al-'Amery, who is currently a writer, and who penned a column for the Saudi government daily Al-Sharq from 2012 to 2013, posted on his Facebook page criticism of the Palestinians, particularly Hamas, in the current Gaza conflict with Israel. He stated t...
In an article in the official Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, titled "Only In The [Saudi] Kingdom: A Woman Gives Birth To Her Own Guardian," Saudi writer Lubna Al-Khamis termed as "benighted" the Saudi law that requires every Saudi woman to have a male relative as her mahram, or guardian...
The takeover of large parts of Iraq by the terrorist organization The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was met with astonishment in Arab world. ISIS's advance was termed "a disaster",[1] a tsunami,[2] or even "the end of the Arabs."[3] The surprising nature of the developme...
In a recent fatwa, senior Saudi cleric Sheikh 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Barrak proclaimed that football is an abomination that causes people to waste their time, to adopt the depraved customs of the enemies of Islam, and to glorify "infidel" football players. He issued the fatwa in respo...
Against a backdrop of the Gulf states' bitterness regarding U.S. policy in the region, the Saudi and Bahraini presses recently published a number of articles condemning it.[1] In a particularly scathing column published May 17, 2014 in the Bahraini daily Akhbar Al-Khaleej, Bahra...
The Saudi religious police prevents the kingdom's citizens from celebrating Valentine's Day and bans the sale of red roses and other products associated with the holiday. Enforcing this ban, the Buraidah criminal court on May 2014 issued sentences totaling 32 years' imprisonment ...
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (left) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani At a May 12, 2014 meeting in Tehran, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed to boost Iran-Pakistan bilateral relations. They also agreed to press ahead wi...
In a May 14, 2014 article in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Al-Arabiya director and the daily's former editor 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed responded to reports that the Saudi foreign minister has invited his Iranian counterpart for negotiations in Saudi Arabia. Al-R...
On March 26, 2014, a video was posted on YouTube showing two Saudi youths being executed by Jabhat Al-Nusra (JN) on charges of fighting for the rival jihad group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).[1] In response, Saudi columnist Dr. Muhammad Al-Harbi published an articl...
In an article titled "A New President from the Bush Clan" in the London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi columnist Mamdouh Al-Muhaini supported former Florida governor Jeb Bush as the Republican candidate for the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, and detailed his reasons for...
In her column in the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi columnist Lamia Al-Swailem attacked the glorification of death in Arab culture, and examined the difference between the value of human life in the Arab world and in the West. Calling on the Arabs not to accuse Westerners ...
The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here. According to an Urdu-language daily, recruitment has begun for Saudi Arabian security agencies in different areas of Pakistan's...
U.S. President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to Riyadh, slated for March 28, 2014, has received little attention in the Gulf press. The few articles that addressed it expressed criticism of the U.S. Middle East policy, especially vis-à-vis Iran, Egypt, Syria and Iraq, stating tha...
Ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia, planned for March 28, 2014, the director of Al-Arabiya TV and former editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, wrote an article on Saudi-U.S. relations. In it, he argued that t...
In a series of recent articles, Pakistani writers questioned the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for toeing the Saudi line as regards Syria, as media reports emerged that Saudi Arabia has asked for Pakistani military weaponry such as Chinese-built JF-17 Thunder figh...
In a Friday sermon, Saudi Imam Ibrahim Al-Harethi extolled martyrdom and Jihad, and criticized the “traitors in the Arab media” – mentioning Al-Arabiya TV and the Saudi London-based “Al-Sharq Al-Awsat” daily – praying to Allah to have “their hands chopped off and their tongues cu...
The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here. In a recent TV interview, former Saudi Internet celebrity Suleiman Al-Subaie, known as "Sambateek," recounts how he became invol...
Saudi columnist Dr. Jibrin 'Ali Al-Jibrin, who is a sociology professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, wrote in an article in the official Saudi daily Al-Watan that Muslims fight each other and thereby do themselves more harm than their enemies do; despite this, he said they ...
Lately, several historic and unusual meetings have taken place between Saudi Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington and London, and Israeli officials.[1] In response to criticism evoked by these meetings, which were seen as a kind of ...
According to the Urdu-language daily Roznama Naya Akhbar, Saudi Arabia has asked Pakistan to dispatch two divisions of its army (some 30,000 troops) to the kingdom as part of a bilateral defense agreement currently being formulated between the two countries. The report has it th...
On January 13, 2014, liberal Saudi columnist Khalaf Al-Harbi published an article in the Saudi government daily 'Okaz, in which he claimed that, despite the "horrific acts of massacre" that former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon carried out, the number of Arabs he killed is n...
In a December 24, 2013 column in the English-language paper Gulf News titled "Has Iran Really Changed?", former Saudi ambassador to Washington Prince Turki Bin Faisal responds to his own question with considerable skepticism. While noting that Saudi king 'Abdallah wishes the ne...
Every year, with the approach of the Christian holidays, and particularly Christmas, religious rulings are published in the Arab and Muslim world prohibiting Muslims from participating in the Christian celebrations and from extending holiday greetings to Christians.[1] In an arti...
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, manager of Al-Arab TV and former editor of the official Saudi daily Al-Watan, dedicated his November 23, 2013 column in the London daily Al-Hayat to the topic of youths who are tempted to travel to jihad in Syria. The title of the column calls to...
The following MEMRI TV clip is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here. Following are excerpts from an interview with imprisoned Saudi Jihadi cleric Walid Al-Sinai, which aired on MBC TV via t...
On September 23, 2013, two young Saudi men drove off a bridge while being chased by the officers from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, i.e., the Saudi religious police, known locally as "the Haia." One of them was killed instantly and the other l...
In a video address, jihadi leader Sheikh Saqr Al-Jihad called to commit martyrdom and to be placed in Paradise "along with the Prophet Muhammad... Sheikh Osama [bin Laden], and Sheikh Abdullah Azzam." "Oh, how we miss them," wailed the sheikh, who, wielding a dagger, said: "We a...
Dr. Hamza Al-Salem, a columnist for the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, argued in a September 12, 2013 article titled "Salafism Is On Its Deathbed" that Salafism, i.e. Wahhabism, [1] which was once a source of strength and power for Saudi Arabia, is now the source of the mental, social, ...
In recent months, the Twitter account @Wahabism has tweeted a series of satirical comments about the meaning of Wahabism, or Wahhabism, explaining how the Wahhabi ideology has become a source of bloodshed across the Islamic world, especially when followed by Sunni jihadi organi...
In an interview with the Saudi Rotana Khalijiyya TV channel, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and former chief of general intelligence, said that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were experiencing a crisis of confidence. To U.S. President Obama, who, accordin...
Underage marriage, particularly marriage between underage girls and older men, is common in some parts of the Arab and Muslim world, and occasionally comes up for debate in the Arab media. This happened recently following the case of a Yemeni 11-year-old, Nada Al-Ahdal, whose fat...
`Following the November 24, 2013 signing of the Joint Plan of Action in Geneva between Iran and the 5+1 group, most Arab countries – including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Qatar, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE – officially welcomed the deal, each for its own reasons, and expressed ...
Historical Background Two months ago, the Saudi government began to build a fence along its border with Yemen in an attempt to separate the residents along both sides of the border. The border between the two countries was set out in the 2000 Jeddah border treaty, which included ...
In recent years, a debate has surfaced in the Saudi media over the use of flogging as a punishment administered by the Saudi Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Hundreds of Saudis are flogged every week for alleged "vice" crimes, such as harassing women,...
Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producing country among the members of the Organization of Oil Producing Countries (OPEC) and, as such, it is the dominant force in that organization. Changes in the supply equation that could diminish its role and influence in the international oi...
The leadership of the Egyptian Christian Coptic community has recently begun to express in public positions and complaints in a way uncommon in the past. The leader of Egypt's Coptic community, Patriarch Shinoda III, who in his articles, interviews, and public statements used to...
IntroductionOligarchy is a government in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes. In Saudi Arabia, the few are the royal princes who are descendents of the founder of the modern Saudi Kingdom, King Abd Al-Aziz bin Sa'ud who, upon his de...
The Arab League summit meeting held in Beirut at the end of March was characterized by two major events - one substantive and the other symbolic. The substantive event was the unanimous vote in favor of Crown Prince Abdallah's proposals for peace between Israel and the Arab coun...
Abdallah's Peace PlanCrown Prince Abdallah bin Abd Al-Aziz,[1] Deputy Prime Minister and Commander of the Saudi National Guard, carried his peace initiative to Crawford, Texas, on April 25 after declining to meet with President Bush last year.[2] Most Arabic papers underscored t...
Full Withdrawal According to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Prince Abdallah demanded a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders. But, according to Henry Siegman, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, unnamed Saudi officials said Saudi Arabia would s...
IntroductionOn February 17, 2002, The New York Times published an article by columnist Thomas Friedman in which he reported about a conversation he had with Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah bin Abd Aziz Al-Saud. Prince Abdallah told Mr. Friedman that he had drafted a peace proposal wh...
On June 21, 2001 the US announced its decision to indict fourteen suspects of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, in Daharan,Saudi-Arabia, in which 19 American soldiers were killed and approximately 400 people injured. The announcement was followed byanger against the US in Iran and ...
Saudi TV host Nadine Al-Budair talked about the contradictions in Arab society regarding attitudes toward women, saying that men prevent women from stepping out of their homes out of fear for their wellbeing, but "violently rape, burn, and kill their women at home." Al-Budair, sp...
Saudi cleric Adel Al-Kalbani, former Imam of the Great Mosque of Mecca, reiterated his claim that the Shi'ite scholars are heretics, saying: "What would you call someone who accuses Abu Bakr, Omar, or Uthman of heresy? You cannot call him anything [else]. Any person who accused '...
Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan warned Saudi Arabia that if the kingdom does anything "stupid," "I doubt that any place in Saudi Arabia will remain intact, with the exception of Mecca and Medina." Speaking on Al-Manar TV on May 7, he was responding to recent statements b...
In an in-depth interview, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud rejected the possibility of any dialogue with Iran, asking how they could possibly reach an understanding with a country that is based on an "extremist ideology" and believes that it must "take contro...
In a video-clip posted on the Internet in October 23 2015, Saudi blogger Anas Iskander parodied a stereotypical Orthodox Jew, and exchanged accusations with him, calling him a "filthy Zionist" and disputing the question of historic rights to the land. In the skit, titled "Palesti...
Saudi cleric Sheikh Ayman Al-Anqari cited various hadiths in support of his claims that "coexistence in the sense of freedom of religion... is null and void" and that there are two kinds of Jihad: offensive Jihad and defensive Jihad. The punishment for apostasy, he said, "is one ...
Saudi Shura Council Member Ibrahim Al-Buleihi said that Arab society has become "even more backward than it used to be." Speaking on Rotana Khalijiyya TV on November 3, 2016, he said: "In the past, we did not create organizations like Al-Qaeda and Taliban. At least we had aspirat...
Former Palestinian Foreign Minister and chief negotiator Nabil Shaath said that in 2000, Saudi King Abdullah, then the Crown Prince, had given the Palestinians half a billion dollars and had collected another half a billion from the Arab League in order to keep the Intifada going...
Saudi academic and preacher Dr. Saad Al-Durihim recently said that it is in the interest of society to permit women to drive. "If the ruler believes that there is no problem with women driving, he should make this decision," said Al-Durihim, adding that "there is nothing in Islam...
Saudi cleric Sheikh Awadh Al-Qarni said that 9/11 had been "premeditated, fabricated, and calculated," and that the towers had been toppled by a controlled explosion. Speaking on the Saudi Al-Majd TV channel on January 10, Sheikh Al-Qarni said that "it is in the West's interest f...
Saudi author Turki Al-Hamad expressed optimism about the possibility of change in Saudi society, saying that even though "our society has been hijacked" and "unimaginable things have been done to it," he believed that "a viable ideology will prevail, even if it takes time." Speak...
Saudi Prince Khalid Al-Faisal said, in an Al-Arabiya TV interview, that "there are no longer conspiracies that are concocted in secret," because "global policies are out in the open." Prince Al-Faisal, who chairs the Beirut-based Arab Thought Foundation, an NGO dedicated to promo...
Saudi cleric Sheikh Abd Al-Aziz Moussa spoke out against the radicalization of Saudis and said that suicide operations "are haram in Riyadh as well as Tel Aviv, because they constitute murder." In a December 15 interview, which aired on Rotana Khalijiyya TV, he said that that "If...
Saudi cleric Khaled Al-Felaij said that the holidays celebrated by "the infidel Jews and Christians" were "based upon Falsehood, heresy, and polytheism" and that it was haram for Muslims to celebrate them, to greet those who celebrate them, or to give or accept presents from them...
Saudi writer Abdullah Alalweet said that the focus on issues of sex and women's apparel was not the essence of liberalism and that "anyone who judges the West by what women there wear or by their sexual conduct is... an idiot." Speaking on Rotana Khalijiyya TV in a December 4 int...
Saudi cleric Abd Al-Rahman Abd Al-Karim said that Islamic law requires that the woman stay at home. When a woman goes out to work, "it detracts from the beauty of the home," he said. Abd Al-Karim, speaking on Rotana Khalijiyya TV on November 6, suggested that Saudi Arabia should ...
Saudi writer Khaled Mushawah said that a reformulation of Islamic concepts is a positive things, as it is in the nature of Mankind to reexamine concepts and to develop. Notions should develop in keeping with changing political, economic, and social circumstances, he said. Mushawa...
In a Friday sermon, Sheikh Ibrahim Duwaish, Professor of Sunna at Qassim University, Saudi Arabia, compared the Jews to venomous snakes and sly foxes, saying: "The Jews will never abandon their disloyalty, their treachery, their slyness, or their wickedness." Sheikh Duwaish calle...
Saudi journalist Meshari Al-Zaidi hailed the victory of "the popular Republican bulldozer, the businessman Donald Trump" and said that "the sun of the American Obamite term is about to set." Speaking on Al-Arabiya TV on November 22, Al-Zaidi said: We Arabs, and especial...
Liberal Moroccan writer Said Nachid talked, during a conference of the Adhoc organization of liberal modern thought, held in Rome, about his friend Raif Badawi, who was arrested in 2012 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam through electr...
When asked why a man who loves his wife should turn to polygamy, Dr. Zahra Al-Muabbi, a Saudi family and marital consultant, responded: "One wife is not enough." She said that while the man was created with capabilities "which he can dispense among four wives," a woman "cannot ev...
In a video uploaded to his YouTube channel on October 27, 2016, Saudi imam Zayd bin Musfir Al-Bahri discussed how executions should be carried out, saying that while "some jurisprudents" say that for any premeditated killing, execution should be "by the sword alone," "some schola...
Saudi women's rights activist Nasema Al-Sada called for the state to make decisions "that will bring about a qualitative change in the lives of women" and recognize that "the woman is a equal citizen with mental maturity." The issue of the guardianship of women was discussed In a...
Saudi-born singer Shams Bandar, also known as "Shams the Kuwaiti," rejected the notion that the words "hur al-ayn" refers to the black-eyed virgins of Paradise, saying: "It is inconceivable that [God] would create man, pamper him, and make a paradise for him with Bollywood-style ...
In a video posted on the Internet on October 28, Saudi Jihadi cleric Abdallah Al-Muhaysini congratulated Saudi suicide bomber Yunis Al-Qir'awi, saying: "This hero is going to Paradise tonight, in order to marry the beautiful black-eyed virgins." Al-Muhaisiny saluted Al-Qir'awi's ...
Saudi scholar Dr. Muhammad Al-Sallomi recently said that while minorities have "human rights," they must not have "sovereign rights," which, he said, refer to the national, ideological, and cultural security of a country. Is it conceivable that in Saudi Arabia, "the minorities wo...
Saudi writer and poet Shtiwi Al-Ghithi discussed the ideological roots of ISIS in an October 14 interview with the Abu Dhabi-based Sky News Arabia TV. "Some of the things that ISIS is doing can be found in our heritage and in much of the religious discourse in Saudi Arabia and el...
Interviewed on MBC TV on October 19, Saudi Deputy Minister of Economy and Planning Dr. Mohammad Al-Tuwaijri said that given Saudi Arabia's dwindling reserves and the instability in the oil market, "bankruptcy would have been inevitable" if it had not implemented "bold reforms."
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Saudi author Said Al-Suraihi, interviewed by the Al-Arabiya network, said that the crisis in the Arab world stemmed from the perseverance of tribal perceptions of the ruler as the sheikh or the surrogate of God, who cannot be taken to task. He accused the Arab regimes of keeping ...
Speaking on the Yemeni Al-Masirah TV channel on October 9, a day after a Saudi-led airstrike attacked a funeral ceremony in the capital of Sanaa, Abd Al-Malik Al-Houthi, Leader of "Ansar Allah" Movement, accused the U.S. of being "the mastermind behind it, the planner, the decisi...
Speaking on BBC Arabic, Saudi writer and women's rights activist Hala Al-Dosari said that women in Saudi Arabia face more legal restrictions than in any other country and that: "The problem of the [Saudi] legal system is that it deals with the lives of people living in the 21st c...
Islamic researcher Muhammad Al-Tawbah said, in a recent TV interview, that the Jews, whose "interests are threatened" by the presence of the Muslim immigrants in Europe, "have a great interest in causing aversion of Muslims and in banning a Muslim from owning a newspaper, for exa...
In a video posted on his YouTube channel, Saudi Cleric Sheikh Mamdouh Al-Harbi said that "the concept of terrorism is a blessed one" and that it is "required by the Shari'a." He further said that the only meaning of Jihad is fighting the infidels, stressing that the term "Jihad,"...
In a recent YouTube video, Saudi scholar Dr. Abdallah Al-Yahya warned that the Jews "are like a cancer in the economy of countries: If they spread, along comes someone to eradicate them, but then they grow once again." Al-Yahya further said: "Before they were burned in the Holoca...
On his political satire show "DNA," broadcast by the Al-Arabiya network on September 14, Lebanese journalist and satirist Nadim Koteich lampooned Bashar Al-Assad after reports that Syria had downed two Israeli aircraft with missiles."Bashar Hafez Al-Assad - that's a trademark," h...
Saudi cleric Sheikh Muhammad Al-Shemali, speaking on the Saudi Al-Ahwaz TV channel, said that women in the West live "a bitter reality" of humiliation and degradation. Unlike Muslim society, in which "the woman is protected," Western women are "corrupted" by having more than one ...