The vitriolic Imam and death threat phone messages

A strange story comes from Arab News today. An imam has been jailed for sending death threats to the senior member of the local branch of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs in Hail, Saudi Arabia. Sheikh Abdullah Al-Hammad received the death threats on his mobile phone after his ministry had fired an imam from his role as a prayer leader. The sacking happened after the Ministry ordered the local imam to desist from making anti-Western political slogans during his sermons. When the imam would not comply with the order and was suspended, he then sent the threats. This led to a court case brought at the Hail religious court.

The imam had argued with the demands to stop condemning the West in his sermons, justifying that it was acceptable in Islam to wish for bad things for Western countries' governments. The imam did not deny sending the death threats, and was jailed for seven months, with an additional 150 lashes. Today, the imam will have his appeal against the sentence heard at the Saudi Cassation Court.

Sheikh Abdullah Al-Hammad said: "If and when an imam is seen to have indulged in any wrongdoing, he is summoned by the ministry. If the mistake is unintentional, he is warned and resumes his job. But if the wrongdoing is intentional, he is punished according to the level of the violation."

Earlier this December Prince Naif (Nayef), the Interior Minister, claimed some Saudi mosques were not abiding by guidelines and were failing to discourage extremism and not preventing jihadists from traveling abroad to become insurgents, particularly amongst young people. In June, Prince Naif had summoned prayer leaders to a meeting to urge them to stop the ideology that brought young people into the fold of Al Qaeda.

It should be mentioned that this Prince Naif is Naif bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, and is not to be confused with Prince Nayef Bin Sultan Bin Fawwaz al-Shaalan (also spelled al-Chaalan) who has been accused of using a royal plane to smuggle cocaine into France in 1999.

Naif bin Abdul Aziz, born in 1934, is fifth in the line of accession to the Saudi throne. He has been the Interior Minister since 1975, a position which is one of the most powerful in the kingdom. His claims of being against the ideology that leads to people joining Al Qaeda are somewhat hypocritical.

He is, according to Wikipedia " the Supervisor General of the Saudi Committee for the Al Quds Intifada, which supports and compensates the families of the Palestinean Intifada including those of suicide bombers.... His monetary contributions have been viewed, mostly by non-Muslims, as possible incentives to carry out such bombings. It is believed that Prince Nayef has personally contributed at least $33 million to Intifada families." Prince Naif suggested in November 2002 that 9/11 was the work of Zionists.

On a more positive note, Prince Naif has donated money to UNESCO for the education of Palestinian children.

There are 58,110 mosques in Saudi Arabia, and of these, 11,806 perform Friday prayers.