Top Saudi Cleric Assails Terrorists

MOUNT ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's top cleric called on Muslims around the world Saturday to forsake terrorism, saying those who claim to be holy warriors were an affront to the faith.

In a sermon that was remarkable not only for its strong language but also its timing — at the peak of the annual hajj — Sheik Abdul Aziz al-Sheik told 2 million pilgrims that terrorists were giving their enemies an excuse to criticize Muslim nations.

"Is it holy war to shed Muslim blood? Is it holy war to shed the blood of non-Muslims given sanctuary in Muslim lands? Is it holy war to destroy the possessions of Muslims?" he asked.

A large number of the victims of suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq (news - web sites) and elsewhere have been been Muslims.

Al-Sheik, who is widely respected in the Arab world as the foremost cleric in the country considered the birthplace of Islam, spoke at Namira Mosque in a televised sermon watched by millions of Muslims in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

The mosque is close to Mount Arafat, where the pilgrims converged Saturday for the climax of their annual trek. This year's hajj has been carried out amid heightened security after a year of terror attacks in the kingdom.

In speaking of terrorists who killed fellow Muslims, al-Sheik was clearly referring to the Prophet Muhammad's final sermon, delivered on Mount Arafat 14 centuries ago.

It contained the line: "Know that every Muslim is a Muslim's brother, and the Muslims are brethren. Fighting between them should be avoided."

Al-Sheik also criticized the international community, accusing it of attacking Wahhabism, the sect whose strict interpretation of Islam is followed in Saudi Arabia.

"This country is based on this religion and will remain steadfast on it," he said.

"Islam forbids all forms of injustice, killing without just cause, treachery ... hijacking of planes, boats and transportation means," he said.

Saudi Arabia came under Western pressure after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

The Saudi government conducted a crackdown on extremist groups after suicide bombers attacked housing compounds inhabited by foreigners in May. Saudi and U.S. officials blamed the attack, and a similar suicide bombing in November, on groups linked to al-Qaida, which is led by the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).

On Thursday, suspected terrorists shot dead six Saudi security personnel in a shootout in a house in suburban Riyadh.

In total last year, bombings in Saudi Arabia killed 51 people, including eight Americans. Saudi and U.S. officials have blamed the bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Bin Laden is a Saudi exile.

U.S. officials have been encouraging Saudis to crack down on financing for terrorism via religious charities and curtail teaching of religious extremism in schools as well as mount a campaign to undercut popular support al-Qaida.

Liberal intellectuals in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait also called for such revisions in the teaching of Islam in schools and mosques.

Governments in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan have taken steps toward purging school books of terms offensive to other religions, and reformers argue that change should start by lessening the religious grip on education.

"The minds of youth in the Islamic nation need to be shielded with Islamic sharia (law) and good manners and deeds. The nation's future generations will only be reformed by what reformed the past generations," he said.

Pilgrim Mustafa al-Shawwaf, a Canadian of Syrian origin, said he agreed that terrorists had tarnished Islam. He criticized Muslim fundamentalists, including the Wahhabis, for practicing an exclusive form of the faith.

The pilgrims arrived at Mount Arafat in the early hours of Saturday. Worshippers of all ages and origins, moving slowly, shoulder-to-shoulder, shaded themselves from the sun with white umbrellas, chanting in unison "at thy service, at thy service, oh God."

Emergency workers directed the crowd as it converged 12 miles southwest of Mecca, in a ritual believed to represent the Day of Judgment, when Islam says every person will stand before Allah, or God, and answer for his deeds.

Temperatures approached 86 degrees. The sunshine made parasols a popular purchase at $1.30 each, and street vendors sold fruit, prayer mats and drinks. Along the path to Mount Arafat, sprinklers mounted on poles cooled worshippers. Free water and milk were handed out.

"This is the worst day for the devil, when he sees thousands of Muslims gathered in such a show of force and piety," said Egyptian Abdel Aziz al-Jezairi.

Fatima Farouk, a Nigerian, said that despite the demanding journey, she was thrilled "because after Mount Arafat, you're almost promised heaven."

You see their population as a strength. I see them as a severe weakness. A massive population isn't an army waiting to be inducted, it's a humanitarian disaster waiting to happen.

We could probably drive all of these countries straight into the Stone Age without even using nuclear weapons. A few cruise missile strikes on some key dams, precision bomb strikes on key infrastructure targets like railroad junctions and bridges, strikes on water purification facilities, power plants, etc. is all it would take. Then those large populations would DIE. Those countries would collapse as they struggled to stave off mass starvation. Chaos and revolution would take care of the rest. It wouldn't kill all or even a majority of them (of course, we could do that, too) but it would set them back so far that they could never be any kind of threat.

But, you see, we've never waged a war against a people, only against their governments and militaries. We've avoided doing things like that, because we don't have any desire to target civilians.

Knocking down enormous office buildings while thousands of civilians are inside is such an abhorent idea to us that we would never even think of it.

Our enemies don't feel so constrained.

All Islamics are the same to you, there are no good people of that faith. (that would make you a bigot)

The faith itself is based on murder and mayhem, so how can there be good people of that faith? Perhaps there are good (but stupid) people IN that faith, but nobody who understands it and has faith in a god that gives you a whorehouse for torturing and killing your neighbors IS good.

Maybe that's why you never answered my question # 136 : To: American in Israel
Are you saying we should kill all muslims?

I never said that, I simply think that if we stop trying to kiss up to evil, and simply whole heartedly attack those who whole heartedly attacked us, that Islam can be shown for the False God death cult that it is. Most of the stupid ones will then realize just who is playing them (Satan for you stupid ones), for a fool, wise up and fly right.

You may call it bigotry, but in the same light, paying murderers to not kill makes more murderers, but hanging the worst from the public square makes most wannabee power freaks realize that it is not working, and God is not behind it. If we Nuke Mecca, and announce that Allah is dead, it will deflate Islam like a tired basketball run over with a Mack Truck.

Just like Japan, if we had invaded, it would have cost over a million men's lives just on our side, and the Japanese would have fought to the last man. We would have ended up trying to rebuild a island that was completely devastated, with only women and children left on it. Instead we killed a few hundred thousand, and the Japanese who could read the writing on the wall surrendered and stopped worshiping their emperor as God.

Now you Islamic apologists have called me a liar and a bigot, but I have demonstrated that I am not by my words. But your words have demonstrated that you are backing a religion that is both, and murderers and thieves to boot. You will stand with them in the judgment day, but instead of standing as an ignorant unschooled Arab, you will stand with all the blessings of America behind you. Yet still you chose to sleep with the devil. Your judgment will be far harsher than the average Muslim who has been brainwashed into evil from childbirth. You had the truth and CHOSE evil.

Bring marshmallows, you are gonna have plenty of fire to roast them with.

We could probably drive all of these countries straight into the Stone Age without even using nuclear weapons. A few cruise missile strikes on some key dams, precision bomb strikes on key infrastructure targets like railroad junctions and bridges, strikes on water purification facilities, power plants, etc. is all it would take. Then those large populations would DIE.

Indeed you nailed it, I propose striking the religious nerve center, but the "Moslem Horde" as Nations do not have a chance. One Carrier can wipe out the entire Middle East, and there is not a dang thing they can do about it. It is our own care for the life of their people that keeps them alive, where their own Megalomaniac rulers could care less.

An insane situation, caused by insane men. Yes they have the bomb, yes they can kill by terrorism millions of people, but we have the bomb and can kill billions. 1.5 Billion to be exact. The real difference is we can build a free society, and they can only build dictatorships. Any madman can crash a plane, but it takes an engineer to build one. Indeed, we have gone to the moon, but they have only worshiped it.

That's ridiculous. You know there are moderate and secular Islamics. Not everyone in the Islamic faith is a terrorist. Stop making every sect of Islam the same.

Stop trying to excuse a Death Cult by saying just some of them are following their scriptures. What percentage of baby killers is it OK to have before you admit that the foundational teaching are evil? It is not like it is some wacko sect has interpreted the sayings of Mohammad to mean kill infidels, Mohammad said Kill Infidels!

It is the Fundamentalists that are the Killers, they are simply doing what the Koran says to do. You can not claim that terrorism is marginalized when it is the Mainstream teachings of the religious/government system. It is also not a good indication of Islam's innocence when you have to look for some side sect for innocence. Another indication of the depth of the problem is there are NO SECTS denouncing the Jihad. NOT A SINGLE ONE, NONE, NADA, ZIP.

So get real.

I have NOT called you a bigot. But if the shoe fits........

"You will stand with them in the judgment day, but instead of standing as an ignorant unschooled Arab, you will stand with all the blessings of America behind you."

And WHAT EXACTLY do you MEAN by THIS? Are we also finding out that you - who call yourself an AMERICAN in Israel -
have lost any patriotism you might have once had toward America? Anti-muslim AND anti-American? Showing your true colors now? Anti-American statements aren't appreciated on FR.

"how can there be good people of that faith? Perhaps there are good (but stupid) people IN that faith
but nobody who understands it and has faith in a god that gives you a whorehouse for torturing and killing your neighbors IS good."

"If we Nuke Mecca, and announce that Allah is dead,..."

"Obviously you do not, and are not a Christian, but just another Moslem liar. Thats ok, Moslems lie"

Neither are inflammatory, malicious statements like these.

You missed the point, and made my point. I was not pointing at the numbers, I was pointing out the fact that out of the ten largest Muslim nations in the world, we only have direct issues with one...Iran.

"Then those large populations would DIE."

That's genocide, in a scale that would make Hitler look like a rank amateur. It's advocating genocide against countries and people who we have no quarrels with. We have no fight with Indonesia, India, Turkey, and China whose Muslim population number in the millions. You are also forgetting the millions of Muslims in Europe, and the millions in the U.S.

We don't have a problem with Islam, nor do we have a problem with Muslims. We have a problem with extremists masquerading themselves as religious warriors in order to gain some sort of unwarranted legitimacy.

"I propose striking the religious nerve center, but the "Moslem Horde" as Nations do not have a chance. One Carrier can wipe out the entire Middle East, and there is not a dang thing they can do about it."

There is no difference between you and Muslim extremists.

"It is our own care for the life of their people that keeps them alive."

"Our" care?

You mean the care of rational people. The people standing between the zealots on either side advocating things like you just advocated.

"Yes they have the bomb, yes they can kill by terrorism millions of people, but we have the bomb and can kill billions. 1.5 Billion to be exact."

When you drop that bomb, will it know not to kill the millions of Christians that live among the 1.5 billion.

You are insane.

You're arguing with a muslim who thinks Iranian students on parade consist of a revolution, and a recent Latino immigrant who thinks that we should take nukes off the table in our war with militant Islam.

You can't win an argument like this with cultural relativists. Neither of them speaks for the average American who has had more than enough of the "religion of peace mantra."

This thread is an eloquent argument for shutting down immigration for 50 years, however.

"...and a recent Latino immigrant..."

And you don't have the cojones to address me when talking about me.

I am not a "recent" anything, I am not a "Latino" anything, and I am not an "immigrant".

I am an American, a far better one that you are by all looks, have been one for a greater part of my life than the one where I was something other than an American, and my ethnicity is Spanish, I have no idea what "Latino" is.

"... who thinks that we should take nukes off the table in our war with militant Islam."

And you are a religious zealot, akin to Muslim extremist, who advocate killing the millions to rid the world of the few.

Tell me about these nukes of yours that will strike Bali, and rid us of militant Islamics exclusively.

"You can't win an argument like this with cultural relativists."

The relativist here is you, who advocate murder wholesale, but in your case, is OK to murder wholesale.

"Neither of them speaks for the average American who has had more than enough of the "religion of peace mantra."

But megalomaniac religious fanatics such as yourself do?

Tell me, when did I, and the others on this thread who do not agree with you, appoint you to be our spokesman?

For that matter, when were you appointed to speak for anyone other than yourself?

The more you talk, the more you sound like Usama bin Laden.

"This thread is an eloquent argument for shutting down immigration for 50 years, however."

And that statement finally clears up what you are all about, and what your problem is.

I guess you're one of those that expects me to behave in some manner other than like the American that I am.

Free speech...but not for those you obviously see as second class citizens.

No louis, your groveling before the horde is insane. Fighting back is not. I see this as a war, and war is something to be stopped as quick as possible to save as many lives as possible. I do not see it as a football game where you decide that Christians must live and Islamics must die. Many innocents died in Dresden and Hiroshima. But far more lived. It is the cold hard facts of war that when someone starts one with you, you had better be the one ending it.

Two Islamic Nations have fallen, but the Stars and Stripes still flies. I am not suprised of your judging the situation by ethnicity or faith. Islamics are Bigots inherently as it is a part of the religion, it's a kill the infidel thingie.

I do thank you for rearing the ugly head of Islam for all to see for many who read this thread will now realize the danger that people like you are to them. That has made your constant baiting and insults quite worth it. Even evil can be used for good if you try hard enough.

Now I think I will go take a shower...

No Luis I am not, but you are so busy pre-judging my positions you often completely take what I say in a new light.

For instance, if you actualy read instead of emote to my post with your rage, and read the comment that it was addressed to you will discover that I was speaking about the United States restraint in the Middle East in the drive to find a just solution to this war.

We do have the ability to wipe out the Middle East, the fact we have not speaks volumes to those who can hear instead of those who live in a knee-jerk world.

I think that instead of wiping out Saddam and Afghanistan, with its untold thousands of deaths, a simple air-strike in Mecca would have sufficed. I have also advocated sky writing with the F16's as we leave "Our God is Bigger than your God."

Now you may twist that into anything your twisted mind can come up with, but the net loss in life would be a fraction of what will be the net loss in the end.

According to the teachings of Islam, if a member of Islam attacks a stronger enemy and brings destruction on his village, nation etc, he is a shame to Islam and Allah is not with him.

You want to end this quick? Speak Moslem to them.

Don't kiss them, Kick them right between the legs hard and fast. That they understand. It is Saudi Arabia that should be gone, not Saddam and the Tali-ban.

But for the sake of the Arabs of Afghanistan and Iraq, I do not regret the prior actions. It is you leftists that want to leave them in the chains of slavery in the name of freedom that I do not understand.

These people are trying to kill you, what part of Jihad do you not understand?

Unlike you (I think) I live with Arabs, and in fact I like them, they are a simple, passionate people who are the best hosts in the world, bar none. But and it is a big BUT, Islam is like heroin to them. It takes advantage of their simple ways and substitutes pride and arrogance. I have not met a Moslem Arab I can trust.

What you leftist bigots do not understand is that the Arab culture was superior to the Western culture of its day. It is Islam that destroyed the Arabs. If it was not for Islam, the Arabs would have reached the moon long before us. You guys want them to remain in the bonds of slavery to Islam so you can get all gushy about the "cute" Moslem's.

It is Bigotry in the highest form, you think you are superior to them, when in fact you are not. You have more education than them by far, and yet you choose evil. They will have far less to answer for in the Judgment day, for they were trapped in Islam in ignorance, but you? America spent more money schooling you in free government schools than they will earn in an entire lifetime.

The average Arab family earns $800 bucks A YEAR. Ten years of their wages do not add up to what California pays for ONE YEAR of your schooling.

You are living proof that knowledge does not equal wisdom.

"No louis, your groveling before the horde is insane."

What's truly insane here is you.

I haven't "groveled" before anyone, nor am I an "apologist" to anyone with an IQ somewhere above pond scum. I, along with others here, have attempted to hold a rational discourse on the issue around your repeated attempts at shutting anyone who does not hold your extremists positions on the subject. Your tactics are exactly the same as the tactics of the Islamic extremists. Your language is the language of extremists, and your idea that anyone who does not embrace your ideology is to be defamed, belittled, accused of being in concert with "the enemy", as I pointed out earlier on this thread, are the tactics extremists use to defeat opposition from the majority.

Well, you can't shut me up, in spite of your blatant lies about me, in spite of your repeated insults, and in spite of your sarcasm.

What's surfaced here, is a textbook example of the workings of extremists...all in your posts.

You claim that Muslims are evil because they advocate the wholesale murder of others based on their religious beliefs, yet you advocate the wholesale murder of other based on their religion beliefs.

You claim that Muslims are evil because the suppress dissenting voices within their world, yet you and your colleagues are in here trying to suppress dissenting voices within this forum.

You claim that Muslims are evil because they are intolerant, yet, there are few as intolerant as you on this thread.

You fear "them", and you have given in to your fear. In doing so, you have become them.

The only ugly head that's reared itself here is the head of blind hatred, and it sits squarely on your shoulders.

"...a simple air-strike in Mecca would have sufficed."

What utter ignorance, what colossal stupidity.

What the Qur'an DOES teach Muslims, is to fight to the death against anyone that attacks their faith, and you want to make that attack happen.

The fact that you think for one minute that destroying the psychical manifestation of a religion will do anything other than enrage and unite believers?

Hundreds of millions of Muslims kneel in prayer daily facing a place most of them will never actually see, yet, your insanity would have us believe that it being not actually there would stop them?

What we do know is that the Muslims believe that the greatest thing they can do, is to die in the name of Islam, defending the faith.

Your disease would have us believe that giving the billion a reason to behave like the few is the solution to the problem.

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