Khashoggi’s Possible Murder Opens Gates of Hell for Saudi Regime

By: Kayhan Int’l 

When the Saudi regime unmanly martyred prominent religious leader, Sheikh Baqer Nimr an-Nimr in January 2016 and brutally suppressed the popular protests that erupted as a result in the Eastern Region, it reserved for itself a blazing place in the eternal inferno, having entered the fires of hell almost a year earlier in March 2015 with its unprovoked war on Yemen to kill so far over 20,000 Muslim men, women, and children, in addition to the crime of injuring scores of thousands of others, destroying the infrastructure, displacing hundreds of thousands from their homes and hearths, and trapping millions in diseases and famine.

Sadly, these crimes against humanity of the heretical Wahhabi minority cult which governs the family fiefdom created by Britain in 1932, went unpunished in this transient world because of the US-Israeli support for the Saudis and the treason to Islam of most Muslim leaders who thrive on the multi-million dollar grants doled out to them by Riyadh from the looted oil-wealth of the deprived native Shi’a Muslim majority of the once independent Eastern Region. 

Emboldened by the ominous silence of the Ummah and the world at large towards its unabated sacrilegious acts of terrorism that neither respect the sovereignty of Muslim countries nor the sanctity of the holy sites in the Wahhabi-occupied Land of Revelation, Hijaz, related to Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), his blessed household, and his companions; the Saudis this time cowardly killed one of their own dissenting journalists and that too on the soil of a foreign country.

The latest murder would have also gone unnoticed and unlamented had Jamal Khashoggi (correct pronunciation "Khashoqchi” or Spoon-Maker in Turkish) been a member of the suppressed Shi’a Muslims of Arabia, or an ordinary Sunni citizen adhering to the officially banned schools of Hanafi, Shafe’i, Maleki and Hanbali jurisprudence. 

Since the victim was a ‘political’ Wahhabi of a prominent family of Turkish descent (his grandfather Mohammad Khaled Khashoqchi was personal physician to Abdul-Aziz the desert brigand of Jewish origin from Najd for whom London had created the artificial entity Saudi Arabia), having close cooperation with the regime in intelligence and security matters before falling out last year with the current clique and settling in the US where he acquired American nationality and wrote for the leading daily ‘Washington Post’, the gates of hell in this mortal world are being opened upon senile King Salman ibn Abdul-Aziz, or more properly on his self-imposed Heir Apparent Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) – the power behind the throne.

From Washington to the capitals of Western Europe, the press and the political leaders, including the American president and his Secretary of State, are openly calling for clarification from Riyadh whether Khashoggi has actually been killed as reported or being detained for his regular criticism of the destructive policies of MBS including the war in Yemen and the suppression of freedom at home.

In Ankara, President Rajab Tayyeb Erdoghan of Turkey, has assumed personal charge for probing the case of Jamal Khashoggi who on October 2 stepped into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in full view of CCTV, only to disappear in thin air. The claims of the consulate that the journalist left shortly were disproved by the CCTV which have recorded the sudden appearance of some 15 tough looking Saudi guys into the consulate later that day and their departure with large boxes on the same day for the international airport for flight back to Riyadh.

Speculations are rife that Khashoggi, whose fiancé waited for long hours in frustration outside the consulate before notifying the police of his failure to come out, was murdered and his dismembered body removed in boxes.   

Since October 3, the Turkish foreign ministry has several times summoned the Saudi ambassador several times to demand explanation, but has not received any convincing answers. The Turkish judiciary has authorized the search of the Saudi consulate, along with forensic experts to determine what actually happened.

The report will certainly be embarrassing for the Saudi regime, whose de facto head, MBS, continues to issue ever-changing statements, oblivious of the fact that he is axing his own feet.

Khashoggi seems to have become the latest victim of Riyadh’s witch-hunt against ‘dissident’ voices. This is what happens when insiders, especially those involved in intelligence and security matters, disavow the regime. 

The question that arises is: Should Khashoggi’s disappearance matter in the face of the broad violence, abuse and altogether oppression Saudi Arabia continues to commit?

The answer is obvious. It indicates the unraveling of a system now focused on eating its own out of fear of being ousted. The situation is dangerous and all indicators point to serious erosion of regime legitimacy that will certainly lead to an implosion from within.

The Turks have long seen the Saudis as upstarts unworthy of political legitimacy. Moreover, Riyadh has already annoyed Ankara through its irrational policies of blockading Qatar, and using General Abdul-Fattah as-Sisi to discredit the Muslim Brotherhood and overthrow the elected government of President Mohammad Morsi. 

It means MBS now stands alone as the regime appears to be on a course of free fall, with even friends in the White House seeing him as a dangerous liability and no longer a strategic partner. In other words, Washington may have no other choice but to dump MBS.

A jahili Hajj

By Abu Dharr

Makkah and al-Madinah were always open to all Muslims but under the Saudis, these have become off-limits. If the Prophet (saws) or Prophets Ibrahim and Ismail (as) wanted to perform Hajj today, the Saudis would insist they obtain a visa before coming!

The Hajj (the annual journey to sanctified Makkah) is in progress as these words are being written. Alas, the Hajj this year, as has been the case for many, many years, is a non-Hajj. Why? Simply because it is a fact, and a recurring one at that. Hajj was meant to have meaning(s).

In Hajj we have the tears of Hajar (Isma‘il’s loving mother); we have the survival of Isma‘il, the dying baby. We have the desperate but hopeful mother Hajar running between al-Safa and al-Marwah to save the life of her infant son who was dying of natural and social causes on the hot Arabian sands of that desolate area in Hijaz. Hajj was meant to relay to humanity the physical and behavioral construction of Allah’s (swt) sanctuary and asylum for the homeless and the stateless.

Makkah itself came into existence to lodge and accommodate Prophet Ibrahim (a) who was expelled by his own people from his original society and its culture. Prophet Ibrahim (a) lived humanity’s first dispersion and homelessness. Thus came a time and place where Ibrahim and his son Isma‘il (a) would (re)construct Allah’s (swt) sanctuary — the inviolable Ka‘bah — as a haven for the world’s displaced and destitute. One of the meanings of circling around the Ka‘bah is to establish the fact that we (the displaced, the marginalized, the oppressed, the victims) do exist — in the manner that neutrons (elementary particles with zero charge and mass about equal to a proton) enter into the structure of the atomic nucleus, eventually becoming a mass — crowds of people, critical mass with meaningful and life-sustaining movement.

The Hajj is meant to motivate us to take issue with Satan in a physical way. The pelting of stones (ramyu al-jamarat) at the symbol of Satan demonstrates our willingness to do battle with the forces of evil, and not be satisfied with words of condemnation alone. These are the forces of evil that have rendered us the forlorn Rohingya, the rootless African-American Muslims, the exiled Islamic movement members, the landless Palestinian populations of the world and the tens of millions of refugees who have been scattered all over the world.

One of the meanings of Makkah, alienated from our conscience, is to offer meat and food to the starving, the poor, the hungry, and the malnourished. When Prophet Ibrahim was ordered to sacrifice his eldest and begotten son Isma‘il (a), the very fiber of human nature said “no.” How can a father (Ibrahim) sacrifice his own son Isma‘il (a) who together with Hajar are the genesis of Makkah, their newly and only home and homeland? How can an alienation of a lifetime suffered by Ibrahim be permitted to revisit him again as a consequence of Isma‘il (a) being sacrificed? But Allah’s will had to be done. And when the father began to actualize the putting to death of his beloved Isma‘il (a), Allah’s (swt) mercy, His sole prerogative, intervened and overturned His command to Ibrahim (a). Allah (swt) did not want human sacrifice; it was a test of Ibrahim (a).

Thus we have, at a minimum, a meaning and a lesson: (a) obeying Allah (swt) eventually leads to feeding the hungry, the thirsty, and the dying; and (b) the intention to sacrifice the most precious thing one has in life becomes reclamation of life itself.

This inclusive and hospitable Makkah lost its meaning and identity, the first time around, when its rulers forced our beloved Prophet (pbuh) to leave under the threat of assassination — when he went to Yathrib (Madinah). Nowadays, Makkah has again lost its meaning and identity when its rulers forbid the Hajj and the ‘Umrah to anyone who recaptures and assimilates the character of Prophets Ibrahim, Isma‘il, and Muhammad (a).

The Hajj was meant to break down all barriers and to fulfill the objective of unity and uniformity among all those who attend. Muslims shed their worldly positions and their social status when they don the ihram. You can’t tell by looking at a person whether he/she is upper class or lower class, military or civilian, from the elite or from the working class, etc.

All of these meanings and much more are absent from the Saudi-ized Hajj. Initially, their British masters and now their American overlords have managed to macro-manage the Hajj through the Saudi petro-family. And due to the absence of the thinking Muslim Ummah the Yahudi-Saudi Hajj has become meaningless ceremonial customs and ossified observances and programmed practices.

Who said that Muslims are only allowed two or three weeks in the land of the Prophet (pbuh) and the Qur’an? With current Saudi rules and regulations Prophets Ibrahim, Isma‘il, and Muhammad (a) would have to apply for visas to go to Makkah and Madinah, and then have to endure security checks once they arrive.

Makkah, Madinah, and the Hijaz have always been open to all the Muslims of the world, until, that is, the advent of the Anglo-Yahudi Saudis. Makkah was the melting pot of the Muslims of the world. Any Muslim from anywhere in the world — from Sumatra to Timbuktu — had he/she so intended and was able to do so, could go to Makkah for the Hajj and/or the ‘Umrah and stay there for the love of Allah (swt) and His Prophet (pbuh). Not any more. Now the Saudi regime sees to it that all Muslims who come to perform the Hajj and ‘Umrah must leave the land of Muhammad (pbuh)… and stay away. The security setup is going electronic and the Saudis with coaching from Washington and Tel Aviv will have files on Muslims coming for Hajj!

Poor Muslims! Under these imposed conditions, they do not have it within their larger selves to take these hydrocarbon Saudis to the cleaners. O Muslims! Where is the ‘Umar and ‘Ali in you? Don’t you know you have all the Allah-given rights to go and be in the vicinity of the Prophet (pbuh) and be there as long as you can support yourselves without the Saudi bid‘ahs of imprimaturs, visas, and other secular endorsements that beg the permission of royals to obey Allah (swt)?

At a time when Palestine is occupied in the bloody manner that breaks out in wars every few years, resulting in thousands of people killed, tens of thousands wounded, and hundreds of thousands becoming homeless, why can’t you the Muslims demand to go to Khaybar? Is Khaybar off-limits to the hujjaj (pilgrims)? Is Khaybar occupied territory? At a time when the Saudis are meeting incessantly with the Yahudis to do war against Islamic self-determination, at a time when their intelligence chiefs are frantically exchanging notes and ideas on how to defeat an awakening of Muslims in Asia and Africa, at a time when Wahhabi Arabia finds common purpose with Talmudic Zionism, at a time when Riyadh receives its orders to classify activist Muslims as “terrorists,” with all the accompanying legal and penal consequences, isn’t it high time that we the Muslims who are going to a purposeful Hajj also go to Khaybar to recollect our thoughts and inspire our generation with our Prophet’s (pbuh) defeat of Yahud in Arabia the first time around?

You heard it here first. Hajj has to become meaningful — it has to have a meaning and a purpose. Al-Hijaz has to be accessible to all Muslims every day of the year. And every place the Prophet (pbuh) went in Arabia should be approachable by any Muslim who so intends to walk the footsteps of the Prophet (pbuh) That obviously and boldly includes Khaybar, the stronghold of Yahud, that was liberated by the Prophet (pbuh) and his committed generation of combat-ready Muslims.

Have you ever taken a few minutes to think about the fact that we don’t have even a picture of Khaybar today? Even the Muslims, who are Saudi citizens and who — it would appear — do not have the same restrictions and restraints placed upon them as other Muslims have — even they do not trek up to Khaybar and have programs there about Zionism and its evil nexus of clients who all cooperate to reduce Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims to what we have become in today’s world.

Why can’t we, the Muslims of the world, think about holding an international and global conference about Palestine in Khaybar itself? Is there any sacred or secular law that says we can’t or shouldn’t? Why aren’t all programs pertaining to Palestine — political, humanitarian, social, educational, academic, etc. — convened in Khaybar?

The simple answer is that Yahud have reoccupied Khaybar through their Saudi soulmates. Just like Palestine no longer belongs to the Muslims, Khaybar, too, no longer belongs to the Muslims. Palestine is under Hebrew occupation and Khaybar is under Arabian occupation.

The Saudi regime is wasting our precious time on their imperialist and Zionist sponsored Hajj. They are wasting our holy places by physically and morally demolishing them in Makkah and Madinah. They are wasting our wealth by financing the imperialist-Zionist military industrial banking complex. They are wasting our din by their Wahhabi nihilist outfits.

And what is due to Allah is for people to journey to the Inviolable House — whoever is able to trek that path… (3:97).

Dr Kalim Siddiqui: Muslim political culture as a basis for the unity of the Ummah

Crescent International

This month marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Dr KALIM SIDDIQUI, one of the leading intellectuals of the contemporary Islamic movement. Here we reprint an abridged version of an article first published in 1983.

It is my object to indicate some of the ways in which the unity of the Ummah has taken shape through history. Despite the issues that appear to divide us, a solid mass of the Ummah is united at many levels. The apparent causes of division operate only on the surface. It is my view that the history of Islam has produced a political culture that is common to all Muslims. Muslims throughout the world, whatever their political, cultural, linguistic or ethnic origin, or whatever their other preferences may be, all belong to a common political culture.

By political culture I mean a combination of a common set of memories, a common historical experience, a commonly defined and felt current situation, a common enemy and a common expectation of the future. Within this framework we can go as far back as Adam (a.s.). It is part and parcel of the political culture of Islam, the ‘stored’ memory of the Muslims. The earliest common experiences of history itself were shaped by Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, through a long chain of prophets. We are the people who are responsible for the defence and promotion of this Divine tradition of history and history-making.

Within this framework we have certain primary roots. The primary roots of this political culture, which has found expression in various ways throughout history, go back to the Qur’an and to the tradition of revealed knowledge as a whole. The secondary roots of our political culture are spread throughout Islamic history. Some of us prefer to rely on some secondary roots, others to rely on other secondary roots. As a result of these preferences over our secondary roots, we have "schools of thought" in Islam, but the primary roots of our common political culture are the same and commonly shared, and about them there is no dispute among the Muslims: there has never been, there is not today, and there never will be in the future.

Having said that, I want to move to the contemporary situation, and deal with the unity of the Ummah, which has been severely damaged by the colonial system. The colonial rulers over Muslim lands have taken great care to divide the Ummah in a way that will prevent the Muslims from acting together as a single force in the making of history. It is this scheme of the colonial powers and the western civilization that has been defeated by the power of the Muslim political culture expressed in the Islamic Revolution in Iran. I have over the last few years defined and analyzed the Islamic Revolution in terms of its four major characteristics. The first of these is the Islamic Revolution’s commitment to unite all Muslims into a single movement.

The complete mobilization of all Muslims in the pursuit of a single set of goals is the first basic characteristic of this Revolution. If we go right back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) we would find that this was also the primary characteristic of the Ummah that was created by him in the Hijaz. The goals were revealed to the Prophet and they remain unchanged to this day for all Muslims. The mobilization of the Ummah of all Muslims in pursuit of a clearly defined set of goals is the basic quality of the Islamic Revolution in Iran today, and this was also the basic quality of the original Islamic movement that was led by the Prophet 1,400 years ago.

The second feature of the Islamic Revolution in Iran is that the people of Iran produced from among themselves a leadership which was committed to the goals of Islam. This was not a middle-class leadership, or a leadership created by a particular class of people or political party in order to pursue their particular interests. This is a leadership which is muttaqi. There is one basic characteristic of taqwa: that it is contagious. The taqwa of the leadership has been transmitted to the young generation of Iran today. There are some in Iran, in their middle age, who seem to be in a no-man’s-land as far as taqwa is concerned. But the young people in Iran are a muttaqi generation, and this, I think, is a very hopeful pointer to the future of the Ummah, the future of the Islamic State and of the Revolution. Thus the mobilization of the masses and the emergence of a muttaqi leadership are the first two of the basic characteristics of an Islamic movement. A movement that fails to produce a muttaqi leadership or fails to mobilize the Muslim masses cannot bring about an Islamic Revolution or establish an Islamic State.

The third characteristic of the Islamic Revolution is produced by the combination of a muttaqi leadership and the mobilized masses of Iran. This combination has released the energies of the people and committed these energies to the restructuring of the entire socio-economic and political order of Iran. It is no longer a case of merely changing the government of Iran, which is what people like Bani-Sadr wanted. This is a question which has been positively decided in Iran in favour of a complete change in the socio-economic and political order at every level, from the colonial culture that had become dominant.

In this field Iran has another very important role to play. For the first time in modern history we now have a living, dynamic laboratory where policy options based on Islamic concepts can be tried out. When we say that Iran is Islamic, we do not for one moment mean that everything in Iran is right. Iran is Islamic because a genuine attempt is being made to find policy options from the prescription of the Qur’an and the Sunnah in order to solve the problems of a modern society. Of course, much of what is happening in Iran is experimental and provisional; these are experiments shaped by Islam and controlled by a muttaqi leadership. Alternative hypotheses will be tried out until successful models can be created at all levels of the socio-economic, political and cultural order of the Islamic State of Iran. If we refer back to Madinah we find that this is precisely what happened there. Every single existing relationship was changed by Islam. Families were divided, fathers against sons and sons against their fathers, and properties were redistributed. Change is the basic and permanent condition of Islam and the Islamic Revolution. This we find in the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, and this is what we have witnessed in Iran since the Islamic Revolution.

Finally, I would draw your attention to the confidence and ability with which a social order controlled by the Islamic movement, led by a muttaqi leadership, deals with the outside world. It is not possible for the superpowers, or any other powers, close or distant, to divert a Muslim people who are mobilized in the pursuit of the goals of Islam. One of the major achievements of Islam throughout history has been that Islam has defeated all those who have tried to stop it from becoming dominant in its immediate environment. Islam is not, and cannot be, subservient to other civilizations. An Islamic State cannot be a colonial State, it cannot be a State controlled or manoeuvred from outside. Islamic civilization cannot be half Iranian, half Afghani, half Arab and so on. It is perhaps inevitable that even today we still suffer from the disease that we are trying to cure. But the basic and fundamental point is that the Islamic civilization and the State cannot be subservient to any other kind of civilization, or any other kind of State, either a single State or a combination of States. The Islamic State and Islamic civilization must always be dominant over their environment. If the Islam of an ‘Islamic State’ is in any way subservient to some other social or cultural value, there is some weakness in its particular application of Islam. Islam does not allow any form of compromise, or some kind of ‘working relationship’, with its enemies, particularly not with those who are committed to the destruction of Islam.

These being the core values of Muslim political culture, I view the Islamic Revolution in Iran as a powerful expression of Islam in the world today. The Muslim political culture has been shaped by history itself. Nonetheless, we have to take account of another stream of history which has become powerful and hence controls a large part of the world. This particular stream of history is known to us as the western civilization. In my view, the western civilization stands for everything that Islam does not stand for. If there were any, or there have been any, or there can be found any similarities between the Islamic civilization and the western civilization, these are entirely accidental and superficial: these must not mislead us to believe that there is anything common between us and them. This is the mistake that was made by some Muslim thinkers when the powerful western civilization, emerging from Europe, overtook the lands of Islam. Some Muslims took the view that the western civilization was a Christian civilization and that we would be able to adopt and convert it into an Islamic civilization. As a result of this totally mistaken view, men like Sayyid Ahmed Khan in India, and many others in different parts of the world, preached that Muslims could profit from working within the western civilization. The result is that the west has found among us people who serve their interests; this has also enabled the west to destroy a great part of our heritage, our history and our society.

Now, however, we are well on our way to destroying the western myth that Islam is medieval, out-dated, and unable to create and support a State or society in the twentieth century. According to their history and historiography, religion was merely a product of man’s ignorance and superstition. Man, they said, had now grown up, become scientific and rational. They wanted to consign Islam to the same void as they cast Christianity.

The Islamic Revolution in Iran has shown that, despite the emergence of men like Mustafa Kemal, the Saudi royal family, and the leaders of Pakistan and many other countries, the Muslim political culture is still capable of restoring history to its original intended course. What Muslims everywhere must realize is that of all the nation-States and their political and economic systems that exist today, none is a creation of Islam or can serve the interests of Islam. All these so-called Muslim nation-States are the creation of imperialism and have nothing whatever to do with Islam or Islamic history. We have destroyed one pillar of western civilization in Iran, and all the others are destined to meet the same fate. There can be no difference of opinion among the Muslims on this particular point.

The western civilization controls the world by its economic policies. There is an alliance between the rich of the rich countries and the rich of the poor countries. It is through the latter that the former control our societies, our countries and our cultures. The Islamic Revolution in Iran has shown that when the Muslim political culture takes hold of the society, it takes us beyond the reach of the western civilization. The Islamic Revolution in Iran has destroyed the whole bag of political tools that the western civilization has used against Islam for the last 200 years. The colonial powers and the communist terrorists had hoped that the economic hardships created by trade sanctions would persuade the Muslim masses of Iran to overthrow the Islamic leadership. We have seen, however, that the Muslim masses, once they are mobilized by a muttaqi leadership, are prepared to undergo any amount of hardship in order to achieve the goals set by the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him.

In the case of Iran, two other points may be noted. One is a total commitment to do the right thing, whatever the cost. For instance, the Islamic Revolution in Iran has its own Constitution. It has been adhered to completely by everyone in Iran. Whatever the external consequences, the people of Iran have steadfastly believed that they should carry on with the internal working of the Constitution. The second is the emergence of a new set of institutions, such as the Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Inqilab-e Islami (the Revolutionary Guards), the Jihad-e Sazindagi (the Jihad for Reconstruction), and the Baseej (Mass Mobilization for War), among many. These institutions are slowly but surely taking over from the old institutions set up by the monarchy. I hope that the Islamic State of Iran will now help to create new institutions in the Islamic movement outside Iran. This is its natural role as the leading edge of the global Islamic movement.

[This article was first published in Crescent International, March 1-15, 1983. It is based on Dr Kalim Siddiqui’s speech at the International Unity Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from December 28, 1982 to January 2, 1983.]