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A file photo of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Kingdom’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah bin Muhammad Al Sheikh.
The dispute between Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood is not new, but the issuance of an official statement from the Kingdom Council of Senior Investigators on the group brought the dispute to the forefront and raised questions on the media sites about its timing.
In a new tweet, Saudi Minister of Islamic Affairs, Defense and Guidance, Abd al-Latif Al al-Sheikh, called for Friday’s sermon in the kingdom to be dedicated to the statement of the Council of High Academics, which classified the Brothers Muslims as a “terrorist organization”.
On Wednesday, the Council of Senior Scholars released a statement describing the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist group that does not represent the approach of Islam”, adding that “the group is pursuing its partisan goals that contradict the teachings of the religion.” .
This is not the first such statement by a Saudi official regarding the Muslim Brotherhood, as religious bodies in the Kingdom had previously warned in 2017 of what they called “the group’s approach based on breaking the state.”
However, the recent statement by high-level academics explicitly referred to the group as “a terrorist, who does not represent Islam and is pursuing its partisan goals.”
Muslim Brotherhood Response
For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood responded with a statement denying “the accusations made by the Council of High Academics”, adding that “the group is completely remote from violence and terrorism, and has always been a victim of violence and terror. of dictatorial regimes “.
Mixed reactions
The Saudi minister’s tweet, and before it, the statement from the Council of Senior Scholars, sparked mixed reactions that still resonate on Twitter.
The opinions of Arab tweeters were divided between supporters and opponents of the commission’s statement, and they dedicated several hashtags to talk about the issue, the most widespread of which was: # Senior academics criminalizing the Brotherhood.
The hashtag had the notable participation of religious elites and well-known personalities in Saudi Arabia.
Supporters of the Saudi minister’s call say the time has come to end what they described as the danger to the group, whose ideas “have sparked the spread of extremist ideology and disrupted plans to renew religious discourse.”
The tweeters cited tweets by sheikhs and intellectuals calling for the criminalization of the Muslim Brotherhood and calling for adherence to the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars speech.
Gulf tweeters and media professionals called for organizing “sessions to educate young people and enlighten them politically and protect them from the ideology of the Brotherhood,” as they say.
On the other hand, the defenders of the Muslim Brotherhood criticized the call of the Saudi minister to “assign the sermon to the Brotherhood instead of focusing on priority issues for the Saudi citizen.”
Others cited statements by prominent Saudi scholars who had previously praised the Brotherhood, such as Abdulaziz bin Baz and bin Jibreen.
Politicians and Twitter users also described the recent statement by the Council of Senior Scholars as “flattery”, saying: “If the addresses of the top leaders in the kingdom change (in the future), this same body will issue a statement praising the group. which had a close relationship with Saudi Arabia in the 1970s. “
Tweeters: Why is this moment?
The Saudi Authority did not explain the reason for issuing this statement, but it came weeks after the actual decision to reform it.
However, observers and commentators described the commission’s statement as a “political fatwa in line with regional and international changes, especially after Joe Biden’s victory in the US electoral race.”
Biden vowed to reevaluate relations with Saudi Arabia and criticized what he saw as “leniency and tolerance on Trump’s part of human rights violations in the kingdom.”
Commentators believe the Council of Senior Scholars statement came in response to “enthusiasm shown by some Muslim Brotherhood supporters for Yaiden’s victory and talk by some about its potential negative impact on Saudi-American relations,” according to his saying.
While others refuse to link the commission’s statement to the results of the US elections, they instead link it to attacks in Saudi Arabia and several European countries recently.
Saudi commentators and journalists say the Council of Senior Scholars statement included “a clear message to Europe that the Brotherhood does not represent Islam, and that its threat to Islam is the same as the threat that threatens Europe,” as they put it. .
Therefore, the declaration is considered by many to be a statement that Saudi Arabia seeks to “promote a different form of religiosity.”
In recent years, Saudi journalists and tweeters have conducted electronic campaigns against those who belong to Islamic movements in the region.
Activists believe that “the Brotherhood, and those who support it, are the main enemy of the path of reform adopted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”
They are inferred from excerpts from a speech delivered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on November 12.
In his discussion on security and political developments, bin Salman presented a comparison with the phenomenon of extremism in the past and what the situation has reached.
While people welcome Bin Salman’s statements about “the Kingdom’s success in restoring the image of moderate Islam after eradicating the ideas of the Islamic Group, such as the Awakening and the Brotherhood,” others downplay its importance and consider it an attempt “to undermine the currents of political Islam, which represented an alternative to a project that has long been monopolized by the Saudi authority.” , Which is the idea of representing Islam, “as they say.
In this context, singer Muhammad Abu Arab commented: “During the last decades, the true religion has been hijacked by the Islamic currents, led by the Brotherhood, and its identity has been distorted in the consciousness of the Muslim individual … for the sake of of his political agenda # We are _ Muhammad_ Bin Salman.
Regarding Muhammad al-Mukhtar al-Shanqeeti, he wrote: “What the despots and their international supporters want is not a moderate Islam, but a fat-free Islam that does not support the oppressed and does not upset the unjust … and they found what they want in # the turbans and the poor of conscience “.
While another group remains on the fence on both sides of the conflict, and some of them criticize the support of some Arab governments for the Salafist movement, taking advantage of the principle of obedience to the ruler who raises it.
Therefore, this team believes that Arab governments and their Islamist opponents have failed to advance thinking in their societies and have monopolized a special concept of religion that serves their political vision.
In March 2018, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described the Brotherhood as a “terrorist incubator” and attacked the group in a television interview on the US station “CBS”, vowing to “eradicate members of the Muslim Brotherhood” from Saudi schools in no time.
There is no declared organization of the group in Saudi Arabia, which in earlier times had hosted prominent Brotherhood leaders.
