Wed 08 May 2019:
Aaidh Al Qarni is one of the most vocal religious clerics in the kingdom but has long courted controversy
A prominent Saudi preacher has apologised for his previous hardline interpretations of Islam and said that a period of puritanical Quranic thought by a group of the kingdom’s clerics had been a mistake.
Aaidh Al Qarni had been part of the “Sahwa” clerical movement in the 1990s that that had criticised the government for allowing US military personnel into the country due to the threat that then Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein could invade. The Sahwa movement in Saudi Arabia grew out of a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood after the 1950s. Appearing on Saudi television show Al Laiwan on Rotana on Monday evening, Al Qarni said: “I apologise, in the name of the Sahwa [movement] to the Saudi society for the mistakes that were not related to Islam and for the extreme Fatwas”.
He added: “Our religion is a religion of peace, safety and mercy. Thanks to God, we discovered this in the texts and interpretations of our scholars.” “You cannot compare my ideas that I had when I was only 24 or 26 years old to my current thoughts. Now, I visited 40 countries and read thousands of books. I also knew and met intellectuals, scholars and wise people.” Al Qarni added that he now supported the “moderate Islam” that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has advocated.
However, many took to Twitter to criticise the cleric’s contrition, saying that his apology was far from sufficient. Famous Saudi Actor Nasser Al Qasabi tweeted that the apology was not enough. “A real apology lies in presenting a detailed written criticism from within the movement which gives clarity on its origins, who was associated, and how it originated,” he said. “This [apology] is not enough because the price was too high.”
#عائض_القرني
تقول بكل شجاعه أعتذر
أعتذارك هذا لا يكفي لأن الثمن كان باهظاً .
أعتذارك الحقيقي يكمن في تقديمك كتاب ناقد مفصل من داخل هذه الحركه تكشف فيه بهدوء وعمق و وضوح أصولها ومع من أرتبطت وكيف نشأت وكل رموزها ونهجها وكواليسها و مخططاتها
هذه هي الشجاعة وغيره استهلاك إعلامي— ناصر القصبي (@algassabinasser) May 7, 2019
The Sahwa movement advocated isolationism from the West and non-Muslim states, a curtailing of the royal family’s rule and a strengthening of the clerics as a bulwark against the westernisation of society. The group was outlawed and Al Qarni was imprisoned for five years from 1994. In 2003, he wrote the widely popular book Don’t Be Sad, an anecdotal tome that gave advice for living a fulfilling Islamic life and being happy.
After 2011, Al Qarni began to advocate for greater social tolerance but again courted controversy a few years later for praising Qatar shortly before the start of the Gulf boycott of the peninsular nation for supporting terrorism. While Qatar denies the charges, Egypt, Saudi, the UAE and Bahrain cut off political and trade ties with the country in 2017. He was arrested again in 2017, reportedly on terror charges.
On Monday, he also apologised for his praise of Qatar and said he would devote his efforts to writings that support the government. Al Qarni is one of the kingdom’s most prominent preachers and has over nearly 19 million followers on Twitter. In 2016, he was shot by a gunman as he left a university in the southern Philippines city of Zamboanga where he had been giving a lecture. His name was also published on an ISIS target list in the militant group’s internal magazine Dabiq.
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