Senior Iranian official Mohammad-Javad Larijani referred to the U.S. 9/11 Commission Report, and said that in some cases, Al-Qaeda members travelling from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan and elsewhere were allowed to pass through Iran without having their passports stamped. Larijani,...
Shiite Iraqi scholar Yousuf Al-Nasseri, Deputy Secretary-General of the Hizbullah Al-Nujaba movement, said that "our top priority is to topple the political regime in the 'Kingdom of Sands' in the Arab Peninsula – the Saud clan," which was "footing the bill for all the massacres ...
The 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia will commence on June 14. This means that Ramadan – which falls this year between May 17, 2018 and June 14, 2018 – coincides with the period of intensive practice ahead of the games and with pre-tournament friendly matches. Furthermore, the first...
After 65 years of enmity between North and South Korea and of severe North Korea-U.S. tension, both conflicts appear to be moving towards resolution. At the historic April 27, 2018 summit between North Korean President Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the two l...
A video showing the first Saudi women to receive their driver's license was posted on YouTube by the Saudi Center for Government Communication on June 5, a few weeks before the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia was due to be lifted. The video shows several women driving and ho...
The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
On May 31, 2018, Al-Malahem, the media arm of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), released a new issue of its M...
In an article in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that was published two days after the Arab League summit in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, Saudi writer Mish'al Al-Sudairy argued that these conferences are pointless because over the years they have produced almost nothing....
Lebanon's May 6, 2018 parliamentary election – held nine years after the previous election and under a new electoral law, which, according to many, benefited Hizbullah – resulted in an electoral achievement for this organization and its allies, who gained about 70 out of 128 seat...
Among the Saudi intellectuals, journalists and writers who have recently been expressing open support for Israel,[1] the voice of intellectual 'Abd Al-Hamid Al-Hakim was especially prominent. Al-Hakim, until recently the director of the Middle East Center for Strategic and L...
Introduction:
The mounting tension between Israel and Iran, which came to a head with Iran's firing of missiles at Israel from Syrian territory and Israel's counterattack on Iranian sites in that country, sparked a debate in Saudi Arabia regarding which side Saudis should supp...
The attempts of European countries, specifically France, Germany and Britain, to safeguard the nuclear agreement with Iran were met with criticism in the Saudi press. Articles in Saudi newspapers accused these countries of being even more eager to maintain the agreement than Iran...
In an article laced with invective, and titled "You Have No Shame, Do you? Soon, You Will Raise U.S./Israel Flags In Mecca/Medina… Jerusalem Is A Common Homeland For Us All!", the editor-in-chief of AKP mouthpiece Yeni Safak, Ibrahim Karagul accused UAE Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed ...
On May 15, 2018, the day after the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Saudi journalist Amal 'Abd Al-'Aziz Al-Hazzani called on Arabs and Palestinians to come to terms with reality and to take advantage of the event to renew negotiations with Israel. In an article in the Lo...
U.S. President Donald Trump's May 8, 2018 announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) and its reinstatement of the harsh sanctions against Iran won broad support from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Saudi Arabia officially stated that it welcomed...
Saudi-Palestinian relations have been extremely strained recently, due, inter alia, to reports of active Saudi involvement in formulating and promoting U.S. President Donald Trump's "Deal of the Century," and apparently also due to increasing media reports that Saudi-Israeli rela...
Deputy Secretary-General of the Iraqi Hizbullah Al-Nujaba Movement, Sheikh Yusouf Al-Nasseri, discussed recent statements attributed to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and said that anyone who denies the doctrine of the Mahdi "is an impure heretic who should be killed." Sp...
In a January 12, 2018 article in the English-language daily Saudi Gazette, columnist Nefeen Abbas rebukes women who oppose their husband taking a second wife. Men, she says, unlike women, get bored with the monotony of married life, and if not allowed to take another wife they ar...
Saudi scholar Sheikh Saad ibn Abdullah Al-Humayd, said that although we have no proof of the authenticity of "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion," the films produced by Hollywood and "the feverish competition meant to preoccupy people with the arts, with sports, with theater, an...
In his March 18, 2018 column in the London-based Saudi Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily, journalist Hussein Shubakshi wrote about the situation of the Jews who had lived in the Arab countries. He noted that they suffered discrimination and prejudice, despite the fact that they were "pilla...
On April 14, 2018, about a week after the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad carried out a chemical attack on the town of Douma near Damascus that killed dozens, the U.S., U.K. and France launched a joint military strike on regime bases and facilities associated with its ...
In recent weeks, there have been indications of a possible shift in Saudi Arabia's policy vis-à-vis Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and recognition of his regime. These indications have prompted various predictions regarding the possibility of normalization of Saudi-Syrian relat...
U.S. President Donald Trump's statement that the Syrian regime will pay a "big price" for its April 7, 2018 chemical attack on Douma, which left dozens dead, as well as the American, British and French preparations for a military strike in Syria, sparked an intense debate in Saud...
Saudi scholar Sheikh Saad ibn Abdullah Al-Humayd said that although we have no proof of the authenticity of "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion," the films produced by Hollywood and "the feverish competition meant to preoccupy people with the arts, with sports, with theater, and...
On April 3, 2018, Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a missile at, and struck, a Saudi oil tanker in international waters west of the Yemeni port city of Al-Hudaydah. In its report on the incident, the pro-"resistance" Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV called the attack vengeance for Saudi ...
Houthi leader Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, president of "the Revolutionary Committee of Yemen," warned the British, the Europeans, and the Americans: "Stop your support of Saudi Arabia so that it will stop bombing us. If you continue, we will continue to shell Aramco and other vital f...
In its March 18, 2018 editorial, the Saudi government daily Al-Riyadh wrote that, in light of the atrocities perpetrated by the Syrian regime against its people, as currently exemplified by the massacre in eastern Ghouta, and given the helplessness of the international community ...
Speaking on Russia Today on March 26, Saudi Prince Turki Al-Faisal said that Iran, and not U.S. President Trump, was "causing trouble in the region," and that it was Russia's responsibility to "highlight the atrocious acts that the Iranian government perpetrates against its own p...
On March 25, 2018, when UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths was visiting Yemen and two days before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres were set to meet in New York, Houthi forces in Yemen fired seven ballistic missiles at Saudi...
U.S. President Donald Trump's removal of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his appointment of CIA director Mike Pompeo to replace him have garnered positive reactions in the Saudi press. In its March 14, 2018 editorial, the Saudi daily 'Okaz stressed the great importance ...
On January 22, 2018, close to International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27, 2018), Dr. Mohammad Al-'Issa, secretary-general of the Saudi-based Muslim World League (MWL), sent a letter to Sara Bloomfield, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., in...
Qatar's emir, Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani receives senior Hamas officials Isma'il Haniyeh and Khaled Mash'al (Source: Aawsat.com)
Since May 2017, Qatar has been waging a multifront battle with the Arab quartet. The camps are clear-cut: In Qatar's corner, there are Hamas, the Mu...
Recently, there have been signs that Saudi support for the Syrian opposition is eroding. Examples of this include Saudi Arabia's support, in 2017, for the de-escalation agreements signed under the sponsorship of the Syrian regime's main ally, Russia. Also, in November 2017, Saudi...
Saudi cleric Abd Al-Aziz Fawzan Al-Fawzan said that even though a Muslim might possess "some of the despicable and nasty traits of the Jews," one must not taunt or curse them for this. Describing these traits, Al-Fawzan said that the Jews are "the most envious of people and the m...
Saudi journalist Mohamed Al-Suhaimi said that he was in favor of silencing the microphones in the mosques, saying that the "terrifying" sound of the adhan call to prayer "coming from all directions" bothers people in prayer, scares children, and causes anxiety. "The group of peop...
As the Islamic State caliphate disintegrates, and it is not known for sure whether its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is alive, dead, or deep underground like Osama bin Laden after 9/11 – or possibly in a Syrian hospital in "critical" condition, as was widely reported this week – th...
Saudi Imam Abdulwahab Al-Omari said, in a Friday sermon, that Allah turned the Jews into apes and pigs, and that on Judgment Day, they would be the soldiers of the Antichrist. According to Al-Omari, Jesus would descend before Judgment Day, accept the shari'a, and pursue the Antic...
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 ...
A video showing the first Saudi women to receive their driver's license was posted on YouTube by the Saudi Center for Government Communication on June 5, a few weeks before the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia was due to be lifted. The video shows several women driving and ho...
Deputy Secretary-General of the Iraqi Hizbullah Al-Nujaba Movement, Sheikh Yusouf Al-Nasseri, discussed recent statements attributed to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and said that anyone who denies the doctrine of the Mahdi "is an impure heretic who should be killed." Sp...
Saudi scholar Sheikh Saad ibn Abdullah Al-Humayd said that although we have no proof of the authenticity of "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion," the films produced by Hollywood and "the feverish competition meant to preoccupy people with the arts, with sports, with theater, and...
Houthi leader Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, president of "the Revolutionary Committee of Yemen," warned the British, the Europeans, and the Americans: "Stop your support of Saudi Arabia so that it will stop bombing us. If you continue, we will continue to shell Aramco and other vital f...
Speaking on Russia Today on March 26, Saudi Prince Turki Al-Faisal said that Iran, and not U.S. President Trump, was "causing trouble in the region," and that it was Russia's responsibility to "highlight the atrocious acts that the Iranian government perpetrates against its own p...
Saudi cleric Abd Al-Aziz Fawzan Al-Fawzan said that even though a Muslim might possess "some of the despicable and nasty traits of the Jews," one must not taunt or curse them for this. Describing these traits, Al-Fawzan said that the Jews are "the most envious of people and the m...
Saudi journalist Mohamed Al-Suhaimi said that he was in favor of silencing the microphones in the mosques, saying that the "terrifying" sound of the adhan call to prayer "coming from all directions" bothers people in prayer, scares children, and causes anxiety. "The group of peop...
On January 5, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, member of the Iranian Assembly of Experts, delivered a Friday sermon, in which he said that "Saudi Arabia gave the money, and America did the planning," and that the plan was to "gradually bring weapons into Iran, and in the month of Bahman,...
Admiral Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, was interviewed on Lebanese Mayadeen TV on January 1, 2018. Admiral Shamkhani, referring to the protests in Iran, stated that “the Internet and the hashtags constitute a proxy war against the Irani...
Abdelhameed Hakeem, General Manager of the Jeddah-based Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies, talked about his visit to Ramallah and Jerusalem, in which he met Israeli dignitaries and peace activists, and said that "we agreed that the missing link is the absence of ...
Yemeni politician Abd Al-Wahhab Al-Mahbashi, a member of the political bureau of the Houthi "Ansar Allah" movement, said that their missiles "can threaten all the oil tankers that go to all the factories in the West, and finance and fuel the planes of the Saud clan. They can thre...
In a recent TV interview, Saudi writer Mohammed Al-Saed said that over the past century, Arab groups, regimes, and political parties had "peddled in the Palestinian cause and pinned all their mistakes on it to serve their own economic interests and survival." Talking about the mi...
Saudi cleric Sheikh Abd Al-Aziz Fawzan Al-Fawzan said that while there is more leniency regarding secular or national holidays, participating in Christmas celebrations, congratulating Christians on their holiday, and sending them gifts is not permitted because Christmas "is based...
In a Friday sermon delivered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Lebanese-American Imam Abu Musaab Wajdi Akkari warned in the congregation not to "be weak" and say "Merry Christmas" to people. By doing so, "you are indirectly acknowledging a Satanic holiday," he said. If someone asks why yo...
Saudi researcher Abdelhameed Hakeem, General Manager of the Jeddah-based Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies, said that the Arabs must acknowledge that Jerusalem is "as holy to the Jews as Mecca and Medina are to the Muslims." Speaking on Al-Hurra TV, Hakeem said t...
A Saudi animation video posted on YouTube, Twitter, and other social media platforms warned Iran of the Saudi retaliation in the event of an Iranian military strike against the Saudi kingdom. The video, which is in English with Arabic subtitles, with versions subtitled in Farsi, ...
London-based Islamic scholar Haitham Al-Haddad, originally from Saudi Arabia, gave an address in Norway in which he talked about the alienation that many young people feel toward the European country in which they live and said that this was what led to the appeal of ISIS. "Takin...
Sheikh Bassam Al-Amoush, former Jordanian ambassador to Iran, said that missiles fired by the Houthis against Saudi Arabia were Iranian missiles. Warning about the role of Hizbullah in the region, he said: "Hassan Nasrallah is mightier than the Lebanese president, mightier than t...
Kuwaiti TV host Mohammad Al-Mulla praised Saudi Arabia and Egypt as the leaders of the Arab world, and called to unite the Arab countries to confront the "Zoroastrians," a slanderous term referring to Shiites. "Allah willing, we shall unite and once again lead the world," he said...
A Saudi panel debated possible Saudi measures against Hizbullah on Rotana Khalijiyya TV on November 8. Saudi political commentator Mobarak Al-Atty said that he hoped for a "direct military operation that will annihilate Hizbullah," either by the Islamic Military Alliance or by th...
When asked about possible normalization of ties with Israel, Saudi author Ahmed Al-Arfaj said that "we don't need to love each other, but we must coexist." "At some point, when we get there – yes, I will support normalization," he said. Al-Arfaj, speaking on Rotana Khalijiyya TV ...
In a Friday sermon, Iranian Assembly of Experts Member Ahmad Khatami hinted at the Saudi Crown Prince, labeling him an "immature child." Khatami said: "If the enemy tries to cause even the slightest harm to the great Iranian nation, [the masses] will shatter the enemy's teeth to ...
Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said that Saudi Arabia had "asked Israel to attack Lebanon," and had offered "tens of billions of dollars" in return. In his address, which aired on Mayadeen TV on November 11, he said that in the Israeli media, "many are saying that t...
On November 11, Al-Jazeera TV reported that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the Yemeni people "faces poverty, famine, epidemics, and a siege on land, air, and sea," and that this was "unacceptable" and "points to a conspiracy that has become evident to everybody in the...
A song titled "Sister, You Will Drive" celebrates the lifting of the ban on Saudi women driving. The song, to the tune of Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild," is performed by the Jeddah-based "Most Of Us" band, and contains lines such as "No more driver, Uber, or taxi to take you any...
Egyptian-Canadian writer Said Shoaib said the curricula taught in Islamic schools in Canada placed their students in a bind because glorification of the Islamic Caliphate, providing a religious justification for killing, beheading, and occupation, ran counter to their values as c...
Indian cleric Salman Al-Husain Al-Nadwi was deported from Oman to Qatar following a September 19 lecture in which he attacked the Saudi king and leading Saudi religious scholars for supporting U.S. President Trump. The attack was triggered by an earlier statement by the imam of t...
Yemen's Minister of Health and Population Dr. Nasser Ba'aom, asked about what was being done to curb the phenomenon of khat chewing and its related diseases, at first said that Yemen had more pressing issues to deal with. After relenting and describing his ministry's actions to d...
Houthi leader Abd Al-Malik Al-Houthi declared that his forces had successfully tested a missile that could reach Abu Dhabi. In an address aired by Al-Masirah TV on September 14, Al-Houthi said that Yemenis should take their cue from North Korea, a country that succeeded in making...
Representatives of the countries in the Saudi-led bloc boycotting Qatar fumed when Qatar's state minister for foreign affairs Soltan bin Saad Al-Muraikhi, speaking at a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Arab League, called Iran an "honorable state." "This must be a joke," s...
Islamic Movement in Israel deputy leader Sheikh Kamal Khatib said that the Houston "flood" was divine punishment, praying: "Allah, increase [Your punishment] of the oppressors." He slammed the Saudi monarch for offering humanitarian aid for the victims in Houston, asking: "Aren't...
Egyptian MP Said Hassasin, who owns Al-Assema TV and moderates a talk show on the channel, lost his cool during a July 26 debate between Shi'ite and Sunni activists. Iraqi Shiite activist Youssef Al-Ghawab got the TV host and the Sunni Islamist guest riled up several times, when ...
In a lecture titled "Who Will Liberate Al-Aqsa," Saudi cleric Sheikh Mamdouh Al-Harbi said that the Muslims' war is with the Jews, not just with Zionists, adding that saying otherwise "constitutes a denial of the words of Allah and of the Prophet Muhammad." The lecture was posted...
In a Friday sermon delivered in Istanbul, Syrian cleric Sheikh Mohammad Basem Dahman said that ISIS was a purely American product, created in order to distort the image of Islam. "It created it and armed it," with the money of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Kuwait, and Qatar, cla...
Saudi Ambassador to Algeria Dr. Sami Abdullah Al-Saleh said that Hamas is a terrorist organization. In an interview dedicated almost entirely to the Qatar crisis, Ambassador Al-Saleh said that the only available option is for Qatar to accept all of demands made by Saudi Arabia an...
In a Rotana Khalijiyya TV interview, Saudi artist and sculptor Diyaa Aziz said that the conspiracies that attributed 9/11 to the Americans themselves were "totally illogical" and that "we got ourselves into this mess and we are continuing on the same path because of our ignorance...
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