RIYADH: Cleric Ayed Al-Qarni has apologized to Saudi society for the Sahwa movement and what he decribed as its violations against Islam.
The Saudi scholar and author was a prominent figure in the Islamic Awakening (Sahwa) movement in the Kingdom, which peaked in the 1990s. The movement was a faction of Saudi Qutbism – an Islamist ideology developed by Sayyid Qutb, the figurehead of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Sahwa movement was led by a number of hate preachers including Safar Al-Hawali and Salman Al-Ouda.
“In the name of Al-Sahwa, I apologize to the Saudi society for the mistakes that have contradicted the Qur’an and Sunnah, and contradicted the tolerance of Islam, a moderate religion,” Al-Qarni said during a Ramadan show on the Rotana Khalijia channel.
The Sahwa movement’s origins stem from when Muslim Brotherhood members fled prosecution in Egypt in the 1950s and 60s, seeking refuge in Saudi Arabia.
The movement demanded a bigger role for clergy in governing and a more Islamic, conservative society as a defense against Western cultural influences. It also opposed the presence of US troops on “Muslim land.”
In 1991, Al-Hawali delivered a sermon saying: “What is happening in the Gulf is part of a larger Western design to dominate the whole Arab and Muslim world.
Denouncing the movement, Al-Qarni said he now supports “moderate Islam.”
“I am today supportive of the moderate Islam, open to the world, which has been called for by his highness the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman,” Al-Qarni said.
“We invite the world to come over… our religion was sent as a mercy and safety to mankind,” he added.
In the same interview, he also spoke of Qatar’s role in luring Sahwa clerics.
“The further away you are from our country (Saudi Arabia), the more they (Qataris) like you… and give money, villas for those who oppose Saudi Arabia,” he said.
In 2016, Al-Qarni was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt in the southern Philippines, where he was giving a lecture. Al-Qarni has been listed as a target in Daesh’s magazine “Dabiq.”
