Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Saud Arabia: Prominent Cleric Denies Muslim Brotherhood Link | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page

Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat-Sheikh Awad al-Qarni has asserted to Asharq Al-Awsat that he was surprised by media reports citing Egyptian authorities’ accusations that a number of well-known Arab personalities are leading the Muslim Brotherhood’s [MB] international organization as his name was among them.

Regarding the possibility of taking legal action against the accusation attributed to the Egyptian security authorities, he said “the accusation is in itself a badge of honor and it came only after my fatwa during the Israeli attack and blockade of the Gaza Strip.” He also did not rule out the circulation of his name to the other Arab countries and rejected in his statement to this newspaper all the Egyptian authorities’ accusations against his person stressing that what the accusations said were entirely lies, fabrication, and defamation.

Regarding his connection with the MB group and organization and other groups, Sheikh Awad al-Qarni expressed his respect for these Muslim groups “since they are the backbone for protecting the Muslim nation’s identity and nobility, defending its causes, and seeking its unity and revival.” He asserted that he is in Saudi Arabia and despite the effects and agitation happening in the original and moderate Islamic trends “we do not have here Islamic organizations or movements in the organizational sense as is the case in other countries since the reason why these organizations and movements were established was to confront imperialism and then fight its vestiges in Muslim societies. These do not exist in Saudi Arabia.”

Al-Qarni went on to say that from the historic, cultural, social angles in addition to the political one, all the Islamic trends stem from and are based on the Islamic term of reference and therefore there is no need to establish these organizations and movements which have “a grateful and pioneering role in the other Muslim countries.”

He stressed that the accusation made against him was just the result of his principled and firm stands (according to him) against the Zionist project and also stressed that he was willing to confront any party before the honest Saudi Shariaa judiciary which does not know military or special courts and then, he added, the facts will be revealed.