The conference did more: it declared that Salafis are not Sunnis.
In fact, the conference agenda was to define what or who comprise Ahl al-Sunnah wa-al-Jama'ah. The final communiqué stated that Sufis, Ash'aris, and Maturidis are all part of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-al-Jama'ah. The Saudis have traditionally railed against these groups placing them outside the fold of Islam. Now the shoe was on the other foot. There was very strong reaction from the Saudi court preachers. How dare anyone, especially the alims of al-Azhar who were present in large numbers at the conference, show such ingratitude when the Saudis have not only funded al-Azhar but also shored up the Egyptian regime? <<<
http://www.crescent-online.net/.../outcome-of-the-islamic...
crescent-online.net|By CRESCENT ONLINE WEB SERVICES
From: Mayraj Fahim <fmayraj@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2016 10:30 AM
To: Farida Majid
Subject: Re: For the first time, Saudi Arabia is being attacked by both Sunni and Shia leaders
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2016 10:30 AM
To: Farida Majid
Subject: Re: For the first time, Saudi Arabia is being attacked by both Sunni and Shia leaders
http://www.ibtimes.com/oil-prices-2016-saudi-arabia-cuts-oil-egypt-2429556
| | www.ibtimes.com Saudi Aramco has halted the shipment of refined oil products to Egypt, possibly over political disputes. | |
Oil Prices 2016: Saudi Arabia Cuts Off Oil To Egypt
From: Mayraj Fahim <fmayraj@yahoo.com>
To: Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2016 5:55 PM
Subject: For the first time, Saudi Arabia is being attacked by both Sunni and Shia leaders
"With the prolonged decline in oil revenues, the stakes for ensuring stability and continued financial flows both into the Gulf, and the profitability of ventures flowing out of the Gulf, are high. "
Gulf states are torn between economic sense and military ambition
"If their final communique was any indicator, the group of distinguished scholars had a very particular message for the Muslim world: Wahhabism - and its associated takfirism - are no longer welcome within the Sunni fold. Specifically, the conference's closing statement says this:
"Ash'arites and the Maturidi are the people of Sunnism and those who belong to the Sunni community, both at the level of the doctrine and of the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence (Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi'i, Maliki), as well as Sufis, both in terms of knowledge and moral ethics."
In one fell swoop, Wahhabism, the official state religion of only two Muslim countries -Saudi Arabia and Qatar - was not part of the majority Muslim agenda any longer.
The backlash from the Saudis came hard and fast, honing in on the participation of Egypt's Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb of Al Azhar, the foremost center for Sunni theological study in the Islamic world."
The backlash from the Saudis came hard and fast, honing in on the participation of Egypt's Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb of Al Azhar, the foremost center for Sunni theological study in the Islamic world."
"
Saudi Arabia has, after all, subsidized the flailing Egyptian economy to the tune of billions of dollars in the past few years, alongside its Wahhabi neighbor Qatar, which has in turn bank-rolled the Muslim Brotherhood – a group also excluded from the Grozny meeting.While Tayeb did not single out the Saudis in his conference speech, his elevated position in the global Sunni hierarchy lent a great deal of weight to the proceedings. And Al Azhar's prominence in the Sunni world is rivaled only by the relatively new role of the Al Saud monarch as the custodian of the two holy sites, Mecca and Medina.Just last year – in Mecca, no less - Tayeb slammed extremist trends during a speech on terrorism, lashing out at "corrupt interpretations" of religious texts and appealing to believers "to tackle in our schools and universities this tendency to accuse Muslims of being unbelievers."
It is Wahhabism that is most often accused of sponsoring this trend globally. The radical sect, borne in the 18thcentury, deviates from traditional Sunni doctrine in various ways, most notably sanctioning violence against nonbelievers - including Muslims who reject Wahhabi interpretation (takfirism).
Saudi Arabia is the single largest state contributor to tens of thousands of Wahhabi-influenced mosques, schools, clerics and Islamic publications scattered throughout the Muslim world – many of them, today, feeders for terrorist recruitment. By some accounts that figure has reached almost $100 billion in the last three decades or so. In Grozny, conference participants made reference to this dangerous trend, and called for a "return to the schools of great knowledge" outside Saudi Arabia – in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen." The House of Saud's Journey to the Islamic Desert
For the first time, Saudi Arabia is being attacked by both Sunni and Shia leaders
What, the Saudis must be asking themselves, has happened to the fawning leaders who would normally grovel to the Kingdom?
|
| |
|
|
Iran boycotted the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, this year after rising tensions between the nations AP The Saudis step deeper into trouble almost by the week. Swamped in their ridiculous war in Yemen, they are now reeling from an extraordinary statement issued by around two hundred Sunni Muslim clerics who effectively referred to the Wahhabi belief – practiced in Saudi Arabia – as "a dangerous deformation" of SunniIslam. The prelates included Egypt's Grand Imam, Ahmed el-Tayeb of al-Azhar, the most important centre of theological study in the Islamic world, who only a year ago attacked "corrupt interpretations" of religious texts and who has now signed up to "a return to the schools of great knowledge" outside Saudi Arabia.
This remarkable meeting took place in Grozny and was unaccountably ignored by almost every media in the world – except for the former senior associate at St Antony's College, Sharmine Narwani, and Le Monde's Benjamin Barthe – but it may prove to be even more dramatic than the terror of Syria's civil war. For the statement, obviously approved by Vladimir Putin, is as close as Sunni clerics have got to excommunicating the Saudis.
Although they did not mention the Kingdom by name, the declaration was a stunning affront to a country which spends millions of dollars every year on thousands of Wahhabi mosques, schools and clerics around the world.
Wahhabism's most dangerous deviation, in the eyes of the Sunnis who met in Chechenya, is that it sanctions violence against non-believers, including Muslims who reject Wahhabi interpretation. Isis, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are the principal foreign adherents to this creed outside Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Saudis, needless to say, repeatedly insist that they are against all terrorism. Their reaction to the Grozny declaration has been astonishing. "The world is getting ready to burn us," Adil Al-Kalbani announced. And as Imam of the King Khaled Bin Abdulaziz mosque in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, he should know.
As Narwani points out, the bad news kept on coming. At the start of the five-day Hajj pilgrimage, the Lebanese daily al-Akhbar published online a database which it said came from the Saudi ministry of health, claiming that up 90,000 pilgrims from around the world have died visiting the Hajj capital of Mecca over a 14-year period. Although this figure is officially denied, it is believed in Shia Muslim Iran, which has lost hundreds of its citizens on the Hajj. Among them was Ghazanfar Roknabadi, a former ambassador and intelligence officer in Lebanon. Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has just launched an unprecedented attack on the Saudis, accusing them of murder. "The heartless and murderous Saudis locked up the injured with the dead in containers..." he said in his own Hajj message.
A Saudi official said Khameni's accusations reflected a "new low". Abdulmohsen Alyas, the Saudi undersecretary for international communications, said they were "unfounded, but also timed to only serve their unethical failing propaganda".
Yet the Iranians have boycotted the Hajj this year (not surprisingly, one might add) after claiming that they have not received Saudi assurances of basic security for pilgrims. According to Khamenei, Saudi rulers "have plunged the world of Islam into civil wars".
However exaggerated his words, one thing is clear: for the first time, ever, the Saudis have been assaulted by both Sunni and Shia leaders at almost the same time.
The presence in Grozny of Grand Imam al-Tayeb of Egypt was particularly infuriating for the Saudis who have poured millions of dollars into the Egyptian economy since Brigadier-General-President al-Sissi staged his doleful military coup more than three years ago.
What, the Saudis must be asking themselves, has happened to the fawning leaders who would normally grovel to the Kingdom?
"In 2010, Saudi Arabia was crossing borders peacefully as a power-broker, working with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Qatar and others to troubleshoot in regional hotspots," Narwani writes. "By 2016, it had buried two kings, shrugged off a measured approach to foreign policy, embraced 'takfiri' madness and emptied its coffers." A "takfiri" is a Sunni who accuses another Muslim (or Christian or Jew) of apostasy.
Kuwait, Libya, Jordan and Sudan were present in Grozny, along with – you guessed it – Ahmed Hassoun, the grand mufti of Syria and a loyal Assad man. Intriguingly, Abu Dhabi played no official role, although its policy of "deradicalisation" is well known throughout the Arab world.
But there are close links between President (and dictator) Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechenya, the official host of the recent conference, and Mohamed Ben Zayed al-Nahyan, the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince. The conference itself was opened by Putin, which shows what he thinks of the Saudis – although, typically, none of the Sunni delegates asked him to stop bombing Syria. But since the very meeting occurred against the backcloth of Isis and its possible defeat, they wouldn't, would they?
That Chechenya, a country of monstrous bloodletting by Russia and its own Wahhabi rebels, should have been chosen as a venue for such a remarkable conclave was an irony which could not have been lost on the delegates. But the real questions they were discussing must have been equally apparent.
Who are the real representatives of Sunni Muslims if the Saudis are to be shoved aside? And what is the future of Saudi Arabia? Of such questions are revolutions made.
__._,_.___
