A Black History: Where Do The Wahhabi Scholars Stand With Respect to The Palestinian Struggle?

Unlike most contemporary Islamic currents, both Sunni and Shiite, get away of many of the symbols of the Wahhabi movement in the Arab world, sometimes tweet away from the swarm in their stance on the Palestinian issue, as their general stance has been characterized to some extent by apathy, but negative in certain cases.

In the following lines, we review a chronology (time order) of the development of the Wahhabi discourse and the formation of its general features, regarding the Palestinian issue and the position on the opposition movements in the occupied territories.

The Most Prominent Wahhabi Fatwas on The Palestinian Issue

The Fatwa of Al-Albani in the obligation to move out from Palestine

Fifteen years before his death in October 1999, the Wahhabi scholar Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani was asked in the mid-eighties of the last century about the necessity of migrating the people of Palestine in the West Bank to a second country, and the dialogue was as follows:

Questioner: The people of the West Bank, should they leave and immigrate to a second country?

Al-Albani: They must get out of the land from which they were unable to expel the blasphemers, to a land where they will be able to carry out their Islamic rituals.

Prohibition of Killing Israeli Soldiers Other Than in Situations of Attack

One of the students of the Jordanian Salafi preacher Ali al-Halabi, supervisor of the “Imam Al-Albani Center for Scientific Research and Systematic Studies” in Jordan, asked a question about the issue of killing Jews in Palestine at all, and the latter’s answer was as follows:

Ali Al-Halabi: Someone insures you, gives you electricity and water, passes money to you, works with him, takes his money, and deceives him, even if he is a Jew? This killing is permissible when confronting, during the declared war, but you are safe, and he is your safety, then you betray him and take him, this is not permissible.

Saudi Wahhabism (Versions of 2017-2018)

In December of 2017, the Saudi Salafist preacher Badr al-Amer attacked a large segment of the people of Palestine who supported the opposition against the Zionist entity, describing them as Palestinian scum and enemies of Saudi Arabia.

It is also worth noting that some of the tweeters who previously announced positions in support of the opposition and the besieged Gaza Strip, and rejecting the Israeli aggression, which targeted the Strip during Eid al-Fitr last year, announced without prior notice that they had retired from tweeting on the social networking site Twitter, and removed from their accounts those tweets. Which condemned the Israeli aggression, and called for prayers for the people of Gaza and their support.

In a related development, the history of the Wahhabis and the Wahhabi preachers is full of betrayal of Arab and Islamic causes. We present the most prominent of this black history in the following lines:

1990: The Wahhabi establishment issues a fatwa permitting the entry of American forces into Saudi soil and stationing in it in order to protect it from the alleged Iraqi interference. The Mecca Conference (the symbolism of the place) to which more than 413 senior Wahhabi priests were invited around the world constituted a banquet of betrayal. The American occupation and its help in striking Iraq in a war in which one hundred thousand people were killed, and in which Saudi Arabia participated with one hundred thousand fighters. The strange thing is that the Mufti of the House of Saud and the head of the Council of Senior Scholars, Abdulaziz bin Baz Ifta – before the second Gulf War – prevented the use of infidels in the “jihad”, Inferring many verses and hadiths, he asserted the inviolability, so he said: (Muslims do not have the right to support the unbelievers or seek assistance from them over their enemies, for they are among the enemies and their families do not believe, and God has forbidden their loyalties, and forbade their taking them as a liner, and he ruled that those who took them were among them, and he told that all are among the oppressors.).

1995: The Mufti of the House of Saud and the head of the Council of Senior Scholars, Abdulaziz bin Baz, issues a fatwa permitting normalization with the Zionist entity and recognition of the State of Israel, on the basis of which the Saudi Crown Prince at that time, who later became king, advanced in what was known as the “Arab Peace Initiative”, which was adopted by the clumsy Arab League in The Arab summit conference in Beirut in 2002, which confirms the recognition and normalization of relations between the Arab countries with Israel, and what is remarkable in this apathy is that Shimon Peres mentioned it in a speech before the members of the Israeli Knesset and they stood up for her and applauded, and Peres expressed his admiration for the Wahhabi sheikh and urged Arab youth to follow him.

2003: The Wahhabi establishment recruited dozens of scholars on the screens in order to strike the Iraqi resistance during the American invasion in 2003 and to issue fatwas prohibiting fighting the occupation army under the pretext of the absence of a clear banner for jihad in a clear service of the American project in the region.

2011: The Council of Senior Scholars, which is considered the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, issued a statement categorically forbidding protests, and deeming demonstrations “forbidden.” The commission concluded its jurisprudential position by saying that it “affirms the sanctity of demonstrations in these countries,” and called for replacing this method with another method based on “counseling,” and at the same time urged “the importance of the legitimate, supervisory and executive authorities carrying out their duties as stipulated by state regulations and the directives of their guardians. And hold accountable every negligent. ” The statement was signed by the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Al Al-Sheikh, and a number of senior Wahhabi clerics in the Kingdom, including Abdullah Al-Luhaidan, Saleh Al-Fawzan and Abdullah bin Muhammad Al-Sheikh.