JUM'AH KHUTBAH (30 May 2008)

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It is in such a manner that We make plain our signs so that the course of the

criminals may become clear.

Bismillah Ar-Rahmaan Ar-Raheem.

Alhumdulillah. Peace and blessings on Muhammad (sallalahu alaihi wa sallam), his Noble Companions and Family.

Brothers and sisters...

 

Audio on http://www.islamiccenterdc.com/apps/videos/ (04-12-2004)

THE KUFR OF THE SAUDI REGIME-PART 1

I greet you with the greetings of peace and salute you with the blessings and providence of Allah. I'd like to begin by saying that the opinions and ideas that are expressed from the podium this evening may not necessarily represent those who organized this effort; I don't speak for any particular Muslim Student affiliation; I speak from what is considered some experience in life so the opinions and the information that is strung together this evening is the sole responsibility of this speaker- that's on the 1st count. On the 2nd count I also have to say that I'm appreciative to some of you who have the courage, (as it were), to initiate a presentation on a critical approach to the Saudi Arabian Government. For those of you who are from an Islamic commitment or background, you know that within Islamiccircles it is quite a challenging if not an impossible task to speak against the Saudi Arabian Government in a public setting such as this. If there'sgoing to be any criticism or any evaluation of the Saudi Arabian Government, much of it is done in very limited and in closed quarters. Of course this is not limited and this is not closed; this is a setting in which everyone has (out) of their own free will or choice the opportunity to be here without someone telling you "you can't be here or you shouldn't be here." Even though you have been exposed to those types of  words or advice, you made the effort and came here  and at east we should be thankful for your efforts.

That being said I should also preface this presentation by saying that in my particular case, speaking about Saudi Arabia is almost like when a person is hungry and he comes across a very delicious meal; and sometimes when a hungry person is involved in trying to satisfy his hunger with an appealing meal it gets a little messy- so you may find that part of this presentation may get a little messy because there are so manythings to be said in a limited amount of time to say it. I guess, (from my understanding of my communication with some of the organizers), this presentation will be followed by a Q & A session- you may ask your questions (and) we'll try to answer them. I think we should all take advantage of having our internal thoughts or our concealed interests being expressed so that we can interact with each other as it is expected in a university setting. After that has been said I'd like to begin to say that there's so many things that can be said about Saudi Arabia and I know the audience here is a little mixed i.e. I'm not speaking to one monolithic group of people- obviously it appears that not all of you are Muslims so I'm going to have to tailor some of this presentation to what we may call a "mixed audience."  It doesn't matter- facts are facts- it's just a matter of the way of communicating these facts that we should be concerned with.

Let me alsoadd, (before I begin), another observation and that is sometimes Muslims, Christians and Jews maybe have an acrimonious misunderstanding of each other when it comes to speaking about governments; I know the case of Muslims- being a Muslim- that many Muslims have a very difficult time trying to express criticism about Saudi Arabia and this is probably equally true about Jews who have a great deal of difficulty expressing criticism of Israel and because we live here in the United States and most of the population of the United States is, (at least in a nominal sense), Christian and some of these Christians have quiet a bit of difficulty in expressing criticism towards the government of the United States. Even though we will mention in the course of this presentation the government of the United States and Israel is not primarily concentrated on the United States and Israel- there's no way a person is going to talk about Saudi Arabia in an intelligent wayand dodge or avoid speaking about the United States and Israel. For those who do not belong to the Islamic faith, hopefully this presentation will become a building block in the way they join faith, reason and politics together to give them a little courage, (maybe), if they are of the Jewish persuasion to speak up against Israel as a government and for those who are American Christians to also, (in a likewise manner), be bold enough to speak against the aggressive nature of US policies inside and beyond the United States. I think I've, (sought of), exhausted my introductory remarks- now let's try to focus our attention more on Saudi Arabia per se.

Many people begin asking "why this presentation or type of lecture expressed against a particular government in the Muslim world? We are looking at between 50 and 60 other governments and the probably all fall into the same category of being un-Islamic governments, (more or less.)" I'm not going to take issue with that because that general statement is no doubt truthful, but the concern is that Saudi Arabia is the government that is in control of the two holiest places pertaining to Islamic conviction and commitment; these two places are Makkah and Al Medinah and any government that is going to be in control of Makkah and Al Medinah, (by definition and deliberation), is going to have the attention and focus of the Muslim mind on it. (You can) call it a geographical mistake or the by product of the nation state system that came out of the 1st and 2nd world wars, (you can give it your own type of political description- I am not very much concern about that at this point ); my concern, (along with other thinking Muslims), is the area where the fact is Saudi Arabia is a government that rules over Makkah and Al Medinah (and) thereby applies policies to these centers of Islam that affect all other Muslims in the world and therefore we should be concerned. It's not a matter of "I'm a Saudi Arabian therefore I'm the only one who is supposed to speak about it "- No! "We're not speaking about Najd, Aseer and Naf'saa; we are speaking about Makkah and Al Medinah in particular when we're speaking about the Saudi Arabia and that is why there should be in the 1st instance much concern and thought given to what Saudi Arabia is doing particularly in these two areas.

That's not to say, also, that Saudi Arabia has a significant amount of wealth and a significant amount of misinformation hiding behind that type of information that it shuffles within Muslim circles. It definitely has a network of Islamic Centers and Mosques throughout the world through which it exerts influence beyond its volume and capacity; so if you are living thousands of miles from Makkah and Al Medinah, (whether you know it or not), there is a type of Saudi Arabian influence that takes shape. You can go to your local Masjid or Jum'ah prayers etc. that has some type of Saudi influence or Saudi Arabian orientation in it. Even if you cannot extend you political thoughts to Makkah and Al Medinah (and) even if you just live a local life, you have, also, to be concerned with the intruding influence the Saudi Arabian government has through this nexus of Islamic Centers and Masaajid around. I think(and) in a sense I hope we can understand why we should be almost obsessed with taking a close look at what the Saudi Arabian government is doing as far as we Muslims are concerned. Whether you agree or disagree with it, the fact out there in the real world is that it is poking itself into the affairs of the

 Muslims globally and locally.

If we wanted to go back a little- I think we need this ingredient somewhat- into the Saudi Arabian historical make up of Saudi Arabia, we find that there is no legitimacy for a Saudi Arabia as a nation state as far as scripture is concerned. The Saudi Arabia government says that it goes by the Holy book- which is fine; that statement stands very perfectly accepted at face value, but a close look tells us that's not the case. Saudi Arabia is a nation state and the concept of an Islamic political order is a transnational concept that doesn't recognize national frontiers. On this basis, the concept of the Ummah consolidated as one political/economical/financial/military expression doesn't recognize these 50 odd nations that we have- the most important one being, for the purposes alluded to earlier, Saudi Arabia itself. Saudi Arabia, hence, gains a political definition (that is) not extracted from the Qur'an or Sunnah but (that is) extracted from the

 realities of the disintegration of the old world order that was made up before World War one into this new political terrain that we have today coming out of these inter war years. Saudi Arabia is one of these creations- so no one should come and say that Saudi Arabia has some kind of Islamic legitimacy as a nation state.

(Number two)- I don't want to go into some of the archaic details of the feuds among the tribes of Arabia during the past three centuries, (particularly in 18th and 19th century), when these tribes consolidated themselves to become the rulers of Makkah and Al Medinah and therefore the primary political wave in the Arabian peninsula. There's a lot of skirmishes, feuds and battles between these different factions in Arabia and that doesn't concern us very much even though some of it is very ugly. What concerns us though is the British who came though in the aid of the Saudi clan began to favor this particular clan in disregard of the others (by) giving them money- GBP 60,000 per year then GBP 120,000 as the years went by to consolidate their position. At that time the main concern was that this Saudi clan, (which today has become the royal family), becomes the dominant force in Arabia. With the little influence of a little cash into a barren land like Arabia the Saudi clan gained considerable prestige, (as it were), among these other tribes and it did so with an alliance with a religious trend inside of Arabia that can be trailed to Muhammad ibn Abdil Wahhab. This arrangement or sharing of power began between the Al Saud and what was referred to as the Ikhwan at that time eventually led, (in the course of the 20th century), when oil and the American dollar came in and there was now a type of understanding between the British and the Americans on how to detail with promoting the Saudi royals in Arabia- some arrangement had to be reached between those who were more prone to secularism and those who had a fervent, (some would say almost fanatical), religious impulse in them. So, we had in the making in the past 100 years a type of balancing of power inside of Saudi Arabia between those who are the Saudis- to give you of sense (of what we mean) when we say Saudis/tribes/clans- one of the Sauds in the early last century was married to 22 wives and from those 22 wives this person had around 45 children; that's just a synopsis of the type of clannish togetherness that we are speaking about that was the genesis of today's royal family. Obviously they felt this blood relationship amongst themselves- they're very close to/related amongst themselves. The marital habits in that society is to be married to their family, (cousins marry cousins, etc.), so you have this clan solidarity that formed inside Arabia and likewise among the Ikhwan- the religious component- of this alliance in Arabia. This type of arrangement kept its pace normally up until September 11. (I am skipping over some details here as some idea has to be formulated without getting distracted into these details). On September 11 something new happened to this alliance between the religious and secular faction in Saudi Arabia and that was (that) a major strain was placed on the Saudi government to try and distance itself from these "religious fanatics." (This is not my choice of words, this is how the strategists in Washington communicated this whole case to the Saudi royals). The Saudi royals felt here is where we have to do something about this and here is where we have the unraveling as we see right now happening in Arabia.

We see there is a great amount of unprecedented tension between those who aspire for an Islamic state without any influence of this secular world around and those who opt for convenience and say "modernity is moving in a secular direction we have to move with- we can't stand in front of the world"- this kind of tension right now is playing itself out in Arabia with the details (that) you're probably all privy to when you read the newspapers. There is considerable amount of opposition that is growing in Arabia by those who almost "have had it" with the Saudi royal government. Before I come to this up to dated development inside Saudi Arabia I want to say something in particular to the Muslims who are listening closely and that is the Saudi Arabian government has put into effect policies pertaining to Makkah and Al Medinah, (as any Muslim knows these places are places of major pilgrimage once a year and the minor pilgrimages throughout the course of the year- Al Hajj and Al Umrah), the Saudi Arabian government has almost nationalized and destroyed the institution of the Hajj and the Umrah. We can quote for you some verses from the Qur'an for you- let us take one verse in which Allah says

Performing the Hajj/ pilgrimage is a matter of known months… (Surah Al Baqarah verse 197)

These are Allah's words- it's not some scholar speaking or some think-tank that is working these things out- this is a matter of a direct approach from the Holy scripture, but what Saudi Arabian government has done is it has reduced the three months that have become a matter of consensus among all Muslims, (the months of the Hajj viz. Shawwal, Dhu Al Qa'da, Dhu Al Hijjah), to three weeks. You go to the Hajj in the last 10 days of Dhu Al Qa'dah and then after the 10th day of Dhu Al Hijjah you have to leave! Where is the legitimacy for all of this?! Yet, (due to getting into traditions and placing their mind on hold), no Muslim questions this. There hasn't been a significant movement in the Muslim world to question the Saudis on the legitimacies of what they are doing to Makkah and Al Medinah. Not only are they illegitimately in control of these places but they are also forcing Muslims to disobey Allah in matters pertaining to Makkah and Al Medinah. Wedon't think that this is going to continue forever; we have confidence that there are Muslims who are beginning to think about this matters and if they are not permitted to solve this issue by peaceful means, (it doesn't seem like the governments in the area i.e. the Saudi Arabian governments and all the other governments all the way to Washington DC are having the Muslims enjoy the freedom to express themselves in a peaceful manner and solve an issue like this.

So what's left?! Muslims will be forced to go underground, organize and burst against these types of illegitimate policies/ procedures and anti scriptural laws. This is of course at a time when Saudi Arabia says that it is the maintainer of Shari'ah. This is probably one of the most misleading claims that the Saudi Arabian government says that "it is applying the Shari'ah. Saudi Arabia is not applying any Shari'ah in the true sense of the word unless we can say that the government in Israel isapplying the Taurah and the government in the United States is applying the Gospel to society over here- it's not interested in all of this. The qualitative difference in having the Saudi Arabian government in one hand and US Israel government in the other hand is the Saudi Arabian government is stuck with a forceful tradition of a society that tries to have its legal code conforming to the Qur'an. This is not the case in the United States; we don't have vocal/obvious influential Christians in US society who come and place a moral force/ pressure on decision makers in Washington and tell them "look you have to meet the standards of the Gospel!" It's not here; it doesn't exist. The same thing, even though to a lesser degree and to an arguable understanding, applies to Palestine otherwise referred to as Israel. Even in that land there is not a real/strong Jewish lobby to tell the Zionist lobby in Tel Aviv "look, you have to govern/conduct your policiesaccording to the Old Testament or Taurah- it doesn't exist. In Saudi Arabia it does exist. There are scholars and people who expect the society to be run according laws/regulations/procedures that are outlined in the Qur'an; so Saudi Arabian government finds itself in a position where it has to apply these laws to a society that wants them- not that it necessarily believes in them. Anyone who trails the conduct/behavior of the officials of government employees and decision makers will tell you "these people live a double life." In Arabia they wear their thawb, the gown, they go to the Masjid and they do all of these obviously personal and palpable Islamic obligations but in their hearts of hearts they are not convinced of this because when they leave Saudi Arabia they will tell you that as they are flying on the plane some of these characters will undress themselves from the traditional Arab garb and put on this Western garb.

Then, (when) you follow

 them as they take their course in Europe and in the United States- where do they go? They go to red-light districts in cities, casinos, brothels and all these other places. They are committing the same crimes for which the Shari'ah that they are applying in their own country was applied to them they would not exist or they would be walking around with amputated limbs. Yet, that being the case they will come and tell you that they are the maintainers of the faith, they are the protectors of the two Holy sanctuaries (and) they are the defenders of Islam. This is found in their literature, propaganda, books, school textbooks, media and in all of these. This is what they will tell you- they'll tell everyone this ad nausea and because of the convergence of interests and the multi layers of ignorance they get away with it.