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The un-Islamic Islam of the Saudi ruling Family
Most people in the non-Muslim world as well as many ordinary Muslims all over the world may be tempted to think that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Saudi ruling family more or less represents the true face of Islam as preached by the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) and later taught and propagated by his faithful companions and followers. However, the truth of the matter is that there is a light year-gap between the Saudi “Islam” and the true Islam, as enshrined in the Holy Quran and Sunna or traditions of God’s final messenger to mankind.
By “Saudi Islam” I don’t mean in any way the honourable Hanbali school of Jurisprudence followed by most Saudis and numerous other Muslims around the world. What I do mean is the scandalous misuse and abuse of Islam by the decadent and unimaginably corrupt Saudi ruling family to perpetuate their virulent dictatorship and grip on power, mainly in the service of their parochial selfish interests and the interests of their foreign protectors, who are enemies of Islam.
Serious deviation from Islam
In this article, I will try to pinpoint some of the most scandalous contradictions between true Islam and the notoriously “sham Islam”, practised by the tribal Saudi dictatorship which claims rather shamelessly that its “legitimacy” is derived from its strict adherence to Sharia, a claim fraught with dishonesty and mendacity.
I don’t deny that the Saudi regime’s rule of the vast Arabian peninsula has always contained and continues to contain some superficial aspects of Islam such as the organization of the annual Haj pilgrimage to Macca and the maintenance of the holy places. However, if we examine the nature of the Saudi rule more meticulously, without resorting to complacency and sycophancy, we will be undoubtedly affronted with grave violations that are absolutely antithetical to the letter and spirit of Islam.
Medieval feudal dictatorship
To begin with, the ruling Saudi dynasty is a medieval kind of tyrannical dictatorships whereby the unelected king is viewed, de facto at least, as a sort of god, with absolute and unlimited authority. Thus the King, can, theoretically at least, kill any citizen, rape any woman, and arrogate any amount of money from the public treasury with total impunity and without any modicum of accountability. Needless to say, any gesture of dissatisfaction by the people, however faint or innocuous, is punishable by death or life imprisonment.
This contradicts rather sharply the clear principles of Islam which make it amply clear that a religous Muslim ruler must be chosen by the people, either directly or through their elected representatives, namely “Ahlul Hall wal’aqd“(literally, people who tie and untie). Moreover, Islam states unequivocally that obedience to the ruler is contingent upon and subject to his absolute dedication and commitment to the Sharia.
Kleptocracy: A government of thieves, run by thieves, for the benefit of thieves
As we all know, the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) said “By Allah, if Fatema, the daughter of Muhammed, stole, I would cut off her hand.”
However, we see that the Saudi rulers view the wealth of the entire country as their own wealth. Hence, it is no coincidence that all Saudi kings since King Faisal, who was assassinated by his nephew in 1975 arrogated tens of billions of dollars from the public treasury. This explains the fact that Saudi kings, Princess and hundreds of other members of the ruling family devour a large chunk of the Saudi treasury.
In 1988, Fortune Magazine estimated former King Fahd’s wealth to be around $18 billion (making him the second-richest person in the world at that time). Forbes estimated Fahd’s wealth to be $25 billion in 2002. In addition to residences in Saudi Arabia, he had a palace on Spain’s Costa del Sol which made Marbella a famous place. Current estimates of Crown Prince Muhammed Ibn Salman’s wealth are put at $23 billion. All in all, estimates of the Saudi ruling family’s wealth measure their net worth at $1.4 trillion. This figure includes the market capitalization of Saudi Aramco, the state oil and gas company, and its vast assets in fossil fuel reserves. In light, one can quite safely argue, without the slightest exaggeration, that the Saudi regime is actually a government of thieves, run by thieves, for the benefit of thieves.
Hence the question, what sort of Islam are these master hypocrites and liars talking about when they claim they are ruling the country in accordance with the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet? Their malicious, pernicious lies are crying to the seventh heaven.!
The truth of the matter is that these depraved thieves are only using Islam as a pretext to hide their rapacity, corruption and criminality.
Indeed, One doesn’t go too far by arguing that the Saudi dynasty and Saudi ruling family is an incurable malignant cancer upon the conscience of Islam and Muslims as they constitute the ultimate antithesis of the religion of justice. This is because they knowingly commit grand treachery against Allah, His messenger and the religion of Islam while claiming that they rule according to Sharia! Islam is not an enigmatic religion. It is the Saudi ruling family that is corrupt beyond imagination.
Jamal Khashogji
The hair-raising murder of Jamal Khashogji at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018 epitomizes the un-Islamic Islam of the feudal Saudi regime. And as we all know, the murderous crown Prince and de facto king (MBS), who ordered the grisly murder, has eventually emerged unscathed from that eternal stigma.
Open-ended incarceration for God-fearing Ulema and rights activists
Today, MBS is incarcerating in shocking conditions thousands of Saudi intellectuals, Ulema, and activists for voicing non-conformist views. Some of them have died in their cells. Others are agonizing as a result of physical and psychological torture.
The draconian justice system in the Kingdom of fear and darkness sentenced two Saudi women for 35 and 45 years respectively for using the social media. This week, it was reported that a Saudi court sentenced Noura bint Said al-Kahtani to 45 years in prison for social media posts. The woman was convicted of “using the internet to tear the (Saudi) social fabric” and for “violating public order by using social media.” A few weeks earlier, the same court sentenced Salma al-Shehab, a mother of two and doctoral candidate at the University of Leeds in Britain, to 35 years in jail for following and retweeting dissidents and activists on Twitter.
Yes, a 45-year imprisonment sentence for writing a simple tweet! What sort of Islam is that? Would the Prophet of Islam and his companions have condoned this outrageous absurdity and preposterousness?
Eternal subservience to America
Ever since Britain withdrew from the region in the early 1960s, Saudi Arabia has been a de facto American protectorate. The unholy bond goes like this: The U.S, sustains the Saudi dynasty in power in exchange for Saudi Arabia serving and doggedly guarding American and Israeli interests in the entire Middle East.
In the last two decades, Saudi Arabia spent tens of billions of dollars to prop up dictatorial rulers in the region. It is widely believed that the Saudi monarchy paid more than 20 billion dollars to overthrow the first democratically-elected President of Egypt, Muhammed Mursi, in 2013. The advent of the visibly ignorant Egyptian dictator, Abdul Fattah Sissi, who is Israel’s No.1 lover in the Arab world, was preceded by huge massacres of pro-democracy activists, at the Rabaa and Nahda squares in Cairo where between 7000 -10,000 men, women and children were either slaughtered en mass by machinegun fire or incinerated alive by Egyptian forces.
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Needless to say, The Saudis funded these hideous crimes and the concomitant bloody coup, which put a tragic end to Egypt’s brief democratic experiment. The King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah, congratulated Sissi for his great victory over “the apostates.” Soon after these events, the Saudi government issued a plethora of laws and decrees criminalizing any individual calling for democracy, human rights and civil liberties in Saudi Arabia. Thus, anyone convicted of indulging in these “crimes” would be guilty of apostasy,” a grand felony punishable by death.! Yes, this is the Islam of Saudi Arabia. Does it look like the rule of Umar Ibn al Khattab and Abu Bakr and Ali ibn Abi Talib, let alone the rule of the Almighty’s final messenger to mankind?
Moral decadence
MBS is reportedly suffering from a host of personality defects including a clear mental disability which he often seeks to conceal by displaying exaggerated aggressiveness and intimidation. This is the reason why he always insists on receiving written questions by journalists and TV interviewers especially when visiting foreign countries.
He is also a lecherous hedonist par excellance. He is said to have arranged a promiscuous orgy in the Maldives in 2015 to celebrate his appointment by his father as Crown Prince. He reportedly paid 50 million US dollars for the party which was “attended” by 150 “women models” from several Western countries. A recently released book claimed that MBS arrived at the resort only after the models were tested and found safe from sexually transmitted diseases. The book, titled ‘Blood and Oil’ written by Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck, exposes MBS’s scandalous lifestyle and ruthless quest for power. Predictably, the Saudi media wouldn’t report on this and similar scandals for obvious reasons.
Allah will not be deceived
As we all know, such filthy promiscuity, obscene extravagance and wanton squandering of the Muslim Umma resources are absolutely Haram (strictly prohibited) according to the Book of Allah and the Sunna of our beloved prophet. However, these cardinal vices are obviously Halal and perfectly acceptable according to the pseudo-Islam of the Saudi ruling family. But Allah will not be deceived and His punishment will be very sever, indeed.
Today, MBS is busy carrying out an aggressive campaign of de-Islamization in Saudi Arabia This campaign has permitted Saudi women to dress more or less like western women, effectively abandoning the Hijab, though gradually. The campaign also allowed inter-gender mixing with a clear prurient underpinning as well as a plethora of sex-oriented “recreational activities” which fly in the face of Sharia rules of modesty. One Saudi intellectual residing abroad intimated to this writer that “it is only a matter of time before MBS allows prostitution houses and bars serving hard liquor to operate openly in the kingdom, especially in the Red Sea resort town of Jeddah, not far from the Kaaba, the holiest Muslim place on earth.
Reacting to this combination of brutal dictatorship, rampant corruption and falsified Islam, some Saudi youngsters are leaving Islam altogether embracing other religions. Others have opted to embrace atheism. It is not exactly known how widespread is the phenomenon. However, unofficial estimates put the number of atheists in the kingdom at tens of thousands.
The sinful Love relationship with Israel
Saudi Arabia has displayed definitive signs indicating that the Kingdome is about to start a cordial relationship with the bellicose Zionist entity of Israel which is continuing to murder and savage fellow Palestinian Muslims in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on a daily basis. Signs of this sinful relationship included allowing Israeli passenger aircraft to fly over the kingdom, instructing social media bloggers as well as Friday Jumaa speakers and media in general to malign Palestinians and their enduring cause.
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Officially, Saudi spokesmen claim the Kingdom’s traditional stance vis-à-vis the Palestinian issue has remained unchanged. However, the growing behind-the scene normalization between the kingdom and the evil apartheid Jewish entity suggests that the Saudis are effectively turning their backs on the Palestinian cause.
Needless to say, this treasonous abandonment of the Muslims’ No.1 cause shows that Saudi Arabia is not only betraying the Palestinians and the Aqsa sanctuary but is actually betraying the very soul of Islam itself. The Holy Quran warns Muslims repeatedly against taking hostile and belligerent enemies as allies. “Whoever embraces them amongst you is one of them, “the Quran warns.
Indeed, the looming alliance between Riyadh and Tel Aviv, should be viewed as a sign of apostasy, which ejects that horrible, primitive regime from the realm of Islam.