Time to Banish Banu Saud

MBS: a danger to all Muslims, but not billionaires

By Yusuf Dhia-Allah

The Bani-Saud clan is made up of an assortment of criminals and gangsters. Were Islamic law applied judicially and fairly, there would not be a single member of the clan left with his head over his shoulders much less a safe pair of hands. Their misdemeanors are not only individual but also collective, causing immense damage to the Ummah. Here is only a short list:

1. Illegal occupation of the Haramayn and arbitrary decision to bar some Muslims from performing Hajj or restricting pilgrims from some countries — Syria, Qatar, etc. — with whom Bani Saud are at war or loggerheads. Additionally, the arbitrary quota system imposed for decades and the artificially exorbitant prices prevent millions of Muslims from performing Hajj.

2. The Saudi-led war on Yemen launched on March 26, 2015 has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and millions of Yemenis on the verge of starvation. Among them are an estimated 8.5 million children. One million children are suffering from cholera, described by the United Nations as the worst epidemic in human history. Of the 24 million Yemenis, 22 million are food deficient, again the direct result of the Saudi-led siege.

3. The Saudi regime’s seven-year war on Syria has devastated the country and left more than 500,000 people dead. Nearly half of Syria’s population has become refugees. Equally disastrous has been the unleashing of takfiri terrorists who have indulged in gruesome beheadings, organ eating, and rape. They have perpetrated these crimes using the name of Islam, thus tarnishing its message and values. Syria has been left in ruins and would take decades and at least $250 billion to rebuild.

4. Bani Saud have now openly joined the Zionists and imperialists to betray the decades-long struggle of the Palestinian people. They have bought into the diabolical US-Zionist plot to force the Palestinians to live as slaves of the Zionists in Bantustans on their own land.

5. The Najdi Bedouins are guilty of instigating hatred against other Muslims with whom they have fiqhi differences unleashing demonic forces that have gone on a rampage killing thousands of innocent people. This hatred has assumed an extreme form and will take decades to overcome.

6. Internally, Muhammad bin Salman, the de facto ruler, has unleashed a reign of terror to silence all opponents, real or imagined, to his power grab. He has enforced this through large-scale arrests of prominent members of the royal family, businessmen and the clergy, especially those seen as not sufficiently deferential to the punk prince. At the same time, public beheadings have increased, clearly intended to terrorize any would-be critic into silence.

7. The policy of terror has gone hand in hand with lifting some restrictions on social mores. Women have been given the right to drive even while women activists are arrested. The Western media, their palms appropriately greased and bank balances fattened, have gone into overdrive to drumbeat about the “moderate” prince’s reforming zeal. Gambling casinos have opened up where even the court clergy are seen throwing the dice or spinning the wheel! And plans are afoot to open beaches where women can wear bikinis and booze would be plentiful. Bin Salman (BS) calls this modernization; others have dubbed it vulgarity. The policy of vulgarity is meant to create the impression the modernizing prince is catching up with time. The message is: go enjoy yourselves but do not interfere in politics or ask for any say in policy matters. These had better be left in the grubby hands of the king-in-waiting.

An artist’s impression of the leading figures in a billionaires’ rogues gallery who don’t bat an eye when millions of the weak and hungry are murdered, displaced, or impoverished.

Leading religious figures not sufficiently deferential to BS have landed in jail. These include Shaykh Salman al-‘Awdah (imprisoned since last September) and Shaykh ‘A’id al-Qarni. Another prominent salafi shaykh, Safar al-Hawali, 68, who is in poor health, was also detained last month. Together with al-‘Awdah, al-Hawali belongs to the Sahwah (awakening) movement and is a critic of US policies. The two came to prominence in the 1990s when they opposed the deployment of hundreds of thousands of US troops in the Kingdom on the eve of the US attack on Iraq. Both were detained and held in prison accused of inciting public disorder.

If Shaykh al-‘Awdah believes in Islamic governance based on the constitution that may be considered heresy by Bani Saud and the crown princeling, al-Hawali is closely tied to the Wahhabi ideology. So what has aroused Bin Salman’s ire against him? Independent thinking is not permitted in the medieval Kingdom. It is seen as a threat to Bin Salman’s grip on power. He is working to establish one-man rule in the Kingdom.

While clamping down hard at home, Bin Salman has surrendered completely to the imperialists and Zionists. During his visit to the US last March when Bin Salman met US President Donald Trump the latter said, “…they [the Saudis] have hundreds of billions of dollars. They will give them to us. They understand this.” The clear implication was, if you don’t cough up, you are out. Trump is nobody’s friend; he has publicly insulted his closest allies including Justin Trudeau of Canada, Angela Merkel of Germany, and Teresa May of Britain. Why would Trump care for a Bedouin from the desert smelling of camel dung?

Unlike any other country, the Arabian Peninsula is important to all Muslims because it houses the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah (jointly called the Haramayn). These do not belong to Bani Saud; they are invaders from Najd and alien to the land (the Hijaz) and ethos of Islam. Their continued occupation of the Haramayn poses a clear and present danger to Islam and the Muslims.

The sooner Bani Saud are banished from the Holy Land, the better for all Muslims. This should be treated with the same seriousness as the continued Zionist colonization of al-Quds. The two — Bani Saud and Bani Israel — are two faces of the same coin. They cannot be allowed to remain in power in either of the Holy Lands.