RIYADH: The warning of the Saudi Crown prince to imams and khateebs of mosques in Saudi Arabia on Saturday is generating interesting debate in the kingdom.
During a meeting with a group of imams, Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz warned imams and khateebs of the mosques that they are being monitored, reminding them to battle extremist ideas.
"Tell your colleagues, the mosque imams, that we are keeping an eye on them and we know them," he told a group of imams in a meeting on Saturday. The Crown Prince said the preachers had a responsibility to fight militants.
Some of the known militants were known to be religious scholars. Khaled al-Harbi, who gave himself up in Tehran last week, was a known scholar who used to teach lessons in Haram-e-Makkah.
Al-Harbi had appeared in a video with Osama bin Laden praising the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. Many imams in Saudi Arabia, however, believe that mosques are not to be blamed for generating what the Saudi government calls as deviant groups and they consider such thought as a result of the media propaganda as part of the war waged against Islam.
There is a noticeable international trend to attack Islam and blame it for whatsoever happened, said Assim Lukman Al-Hakeem, Imam of Ja'afar Al-Tayyar Mosque, Jeddah.
He said it's not the mosques nor the charity organizations but the impact of a war waged against Islam following the Sept 11, 2001, attacks. Yet Al-Hakeem believes that people with a political agenda are behind the recent terrorist attacks inside the kingdom.
Al-Hakeem confirmed that imams are monitored but said this is not an issue as long as the imams are saying the right thing. Imams are not informed in advance what to say or what their Friday sermon should include, he added, but we know exactly what is suitable to talk about based on the events that take place and what might concern people.
It is only when there is a big event such as that of the Sept 11. At that time we were told not to mention anything about it either positive or negative during our Friday speech, he said.
Sa'ad Abdul Rahman, Imam of Omar Bin Al-Khattab Mosque in Khoar, also agreed. He said imams have never participated in prompting those groups to do what they did because it is unacceptable in Islam. Yet if there is a role that the imams wrongly played with regard to the recent attacks, it must be by keeping silent and not condemning those acts.
