Paris, January 28: The sectarian tension is rising a notch in Saudi Arabia: Forty-one Salafi clerics have supported the Saudi preacher Muhammad Al-Arifi, who insulted the Iraqi Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, drawing Shiites’ ire.
The Wahhabi “Takfirists” treat Shiites as “heretics” and urge them to “repent” or risk stirring up The community’s hatred that is already on edge in both the kingdom and the region.
“Rafidhas” and “seculars” in the same bag
The 41 Salafists – including professors of Islamic theology, preachers, imams, judges, and two officials of a pro-takfirist website – are taking aim ay the ‘rafidhas” (derogatory term referring to the Shiites in the Salafi phraseology) and seculars (i.e. the Saudi writers and journalists who had denounced the remarks of Sheikh Arif and warned against the dangers of “Iraqization” of Saudi Arabia).
“Sheikh Arifi (who called Sistani a “heretic” and “depraved”) has told the truth,” said the 41 clerics in a statement posted on the website of Sheikh Nasser bin Suleiman Al-Omr – who is called the “Nazi” by the Shiites – then republished by many sites, including “Lojainiat” (pro-Sunni) and “Rasid” (pro-Shiite).
The signatories state that “Sistani is a symbol of Rafidhas (…) who insult the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad, throw the anathema on Sunnis and allow the shedding of their blood, as is the case in Iraq and Iran, venerate the tombs and practice other wrong rituals.”
“We call on all Shiites to repent,” added the signatories, headed by Sheikh Abderrahman bin Nasser Al-Barak, a former professor at the Islamic University of Al-Imam Mohamed Bin Saud and an eminence of Salafism.
They also blast “seculars, these enemies of Islam and clerics, these hypocrites, these minions of rafidhas and all those who plot against Muslims.”
Urgent calls to “stifle sedition”
As usual, the readers’ reactions show the divisions in the Saudi society. Some expressed their contempt for “rafidhas” and “seculars” and their support for Sheikh Arifi to whom a site was dedicated as part of “a grassroots campaign to gather one million signatures to demolish the claims of Sistani’s defenders.
However, hundreds of readers, including Sunnis, have poured their vengeance against “those Wahhabis who advocate hatred and sow sedition,” “those loyal supporters of the Taliban whose place is at Guantanamo or at Tora Bora alongside Osama bin Laden, and not in the country of the two Holy Mosques,” in a reference to Saudi Arabia.
Some readers call on King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, “a man of interfaith dialogue” to strike with an iron fist this group of Salafists who seek to divide Muslims and undermine national unity.”
Others urge the authorities to “enact a law punishing those who advocate hatred and threaten national unity.”
“Wahhabi and Irhabi (Wahhabi and terrorist): two sides of the same coin,” said Abu Salem who alleged that the Wahhabi clerics “are currently implementing a wicked US-Zionist plan to sow division in Muslims ranks.”
Official silence
The authorities, however, continued to keep mum nearly a month after the defamatory sermon against Sistani.
A poem, ironically titled “Apology to Sistani” and written by Hassan Al-Salem, was posted today on “Lojainiat “a scathing satire of Grand Ayatollah!
“It’s in the habits of the authorities to keep silence in order not to inflame the situation. But they give the impression of endorsing the activities of Takfirists with their silence towards this group,” wrote outraged Rasid online.
The same day, Al-Hayat’s Al-Daoud Shariyane, indirectly calls on the Ministry of Islamic Affairs to apologize to Sistani.
“Arifi delivered his sermon from the top of the minbar (the pulpit of the mosque). The minbars are under the control of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Letting the sermon pass without explanation and without apology would mean that Friday sermons in the kingdom are the personal opinions of speakers, which is serious, “argued Shariyane.
—Agencies