MOSQUE SERMONS FROM SAUDI ARABIA - MARCH 17: AN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JEDDAH 000232

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/21/2015
TAGS: ECON EFIN KISL KWMN PREL SA SCUL
SUBJECT: MOSQUE SERMONS FROM SAUDI ARABIA - MARCH 17: AN
ANTI-AMERICAN SERMON IN THE EASTER PROVINCE, AND IMAMS
PREACH AGAINST CORRUPTION AND IN SUPPORT OF THE STOCK
MARKET.


Classified By: Consul General Tatiana Gfoeller, for reasons
1.4 (b) and (d).

FROM THE EASTERN PROVINCE: AN ANTI-AMERICAN SERMON


1. (C) At the Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal Mosque in Khobar on
March 17, Shaikh al-Qahtani delivered an aggressively
anti-American sermon to an audience of approximately 500
worshipers. The sermon was the strongest condemnation of the
Untied States yet delivered by this imam. He began by
recounting his recent visit to an old acquaintance who had
graduated from an American university and continued living in
the U.S. for many years. The imam said he was shocked to
find a sticker on his friend's door that displayed an
American flag and the slogan "Keep it flying." (Note: He
read the slogan in English and immediately translated it into
Arabic. End note.) The imam remarked to the congregation
that he could not comprehend how a Muslim could display the
flag of a country that has been nothing but hostile to Arabs
and Muslims.

AMERICA DECEIVES MUSLIMS


2. (C) It was apparent from the imam's comments that he had
done some research on USG public diplomacy programs in the
Middle East. The sermon continued with an attack on
America's allies in the Middle East and their failed efforts
to polish America's image. He called on the congregation to
never believe America and its supporters. Muslims, "should
restrict their judgment of the world's only superpower to its
deeds." He spoke of what he called "failed American efforts
to improve its public image in Arab and Muslim countries, and
that the status quo will continue and may even get worse as
long as Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Palestine
remain fresh on people's minds, unless, of course, the United
States soon undertakes corrective measures." The imam
enumerated what he called America's failed propaganda wars
meant to deceive and blind Arabs and Muslims alike, while its
military and law enforcement authorities continue to target
and discriminate against Muslims.

HUGHES RESIGNS IN DESPAIR


3. (C) He then recounted the role of American officials,
telling the congregation that Karen Hughes, the latest
"American PR wizard" resigned (sic) out of sheer frustration
despite her hard work and that this has also been the case
with her predecessor." COMMENT: The correspondent notes
that the imam seemed to appreciate Hughes' repeated visits to
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey. END COMMENT.

U.S. WAR CRIMES RECOUNTED


4. (C) Warming to his theme, al-Qahtani then accused the
United States of war crimes against many people, including
Palestinians, Afghans, Iraqis, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese
and even native American Indians. He announced the number of
killed and injured as a result of American "aggression." He
declared that Western policy is based on the principle of
"Protecting the White Man" at any cost, including waging wars
of genocide against others. As an example, he noted how
American settlers had reduced the number of native Americans
from 15 million to a mere 200,000 in the early part of the
Twentieth Century by resorting to wars, killings and other
illegal and inhuman means, such as spreading communicable
diseases among Indians, namely chicken pox. He said the
settlers accomplished this by giving the Indians contaminated
blankets after they had been driven from their homes.
Extending his antipathy beyond the United States, the imam
cited other examples of genocide perpetrated against Muslims,
including Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Spain and other places.

IMAM CONDEMNS THE STOCK EXCHANGE, AS WELL.


5. (C) The second portion of his sermon was a reaction to
the stock market decline in the Gulf states and Egypt in
recent days. He expressed displeasure that so many people
had abandoned their homes and jobs just to focus on the stock
market. He criticized businesses for abandoning their real
work to focus on the stock market. "When ... an agricultural

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company," he noted, "stops doing what it's supposed to do
just for the sake of money (it) is inexcusable. There's more
to life than money. We should all learn the lessons that can
be derived from the crash. Every man and woman should
understand that honest work is God's way of earning a living.
I am told many office workers and employees, particularly
teachers, have been seen day trading, either outside their
work places or at their desks, when they should have been
working trying to legitimize their salaries. I call this
stealing, pure and simple, and employers have every right to
demand refunds. As for those who have invested through banks
and businesses that offer interest, I say their loss is
double because they have lost the world and they have also
lost the Hereafter." He then insisted that the market
decline was responsible for numerous suicides and attempted
suicides, and an unbelievable number of divorces, fights, and
un-Islamic behavior. He considered it a blessing in
disguise. "There may be short cuts to becoming wealthy, but
the only sure way to keeping what you own and living a happy,
settled and healthy life is through work."

FROM MECCA: IMAM DENOUNCES CORRUPTION AND ITS SOURCE, THE
MEDIA


6. (U) During his March 17 sermon from the Holy Mosque in
Mecca, renowned preacher Shaykh Dr. Abd-al-Rahman al-Sudays,
denounced corruption in its many forms, saying that Islamic
shari'ah seeks construction and not destruction and warned
against corruption, which leads to ruination. The greatest
form of corruption, the imam announced, is disbelief in God.
Another serious form of corruption, in the imam's view, is
the "poisonous intellectual and cultural moral invasion,
which has brought trends of deviation and corrupted many
people, especially young men and women. It has polluted
their minds, distorted their beliefs, deprived them of their
social values, diverted them from their religious and moral
principles, and subjected them to storms that lead to
confusion, decadence, and defeatism." The sources of this
subversion are "the media that pump waves of corruption and
forms of deviation through their shameless channels and
networks." They corrupt societies and families through the
vice and immoralities they spread, he charged.

THE ENVIRONMENT IS BEING CORRUPTED


7. (U) Also earning the imam's censure were "those
corruptors who polluted the purity of the environment and the
beauty of nature by spreading chemical substances, carrying
out devastating nuclear tests, and releasing poisonous
gaseous waste as well as the arms race in weapons of mass
destruction."

FINANCIAL CORRUPTION ALSO THREATENS FAITHFUL


8. (U) Another serious form of corruption, the imam said, is
the "spreading of what has befallen the nation's economy
through forbidden transactions and usury. The materialistic
race between the followers of world stock exchange markets
and the crises suffered by these markets are only warnings."
He concluded this section stating, "were it not for God's
mercy and the king's great gesture (note: referring to
government efforts to stop the market decline. End note.) a
disaster would have occurred. But many people now look
forward to the Islamization of these money markets to make
their dealings conform to the shari'ah rules."

IMAM ALSO CONDEMNS LAWLESSNESS AND IRAQ


9. (C) He then decried the "corruption that has rent hearts
... caused by misled renegade factions ... awakening the
sleeping sedition, spilling forbidden blood, and indulging in
crime." He also noted "There is also the corruption suffered
by our brothers in the Land of the Two Rivers (Iraq) through
the various kinds of tragedy, persecution, siege,
displacement, and killing, among the disasters caused by this
form of corruption were the attacks on mosques and the
terrorization of worshippers in them."

WOMEN CORRUPTED IN ORDER TO CORRUPT ISLAM


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10. (C) In his second sermon of the day, the imam continued
on the theme of corruption, but amended his inventory of
corrupt practices to show that the "biggest corruption is the
bemoaning of women's rights," adding "it is an exposed lie
and an old deception. Our dire enemies want to turn the
Muslim woman against her Islamic religion, values, and ideals
and rebel against her Muslim dress, chastity, and shyness."


11. (C) After this litany of corruption and acrimony, the
imam ended th sermon with a prayer to God to support Islam
an Muslims, humble non-believers and unbelievers, proect
religin, and make this and other Muslim coutries safe and
secure.

FROM MEDINA: IMAM ENDOSES STOCK EXCHANGE...


12. (U) From the Holy Mosque in Medina on March 17, Shaykh
Salah Budayr delivered a sermon favorable to the stock
exchange, recognizing that "the desire to develop capital and
exchange commodities for something better is the motive
behind the commercial transactions and the economic dealings,
as well as the incentive for the exchange and disposal of
capital and the assumption of the risks of its development
and investment."

...WITHIN LIMITS, MANY LIMITS


13. (U) But he qualified this endorsement by saying: "We
must consider the shari'ah rules on the profit coming from
trading and investment so that it will be permissible profit
and correct investment." The shari'ah requires that:
"trading must not be in the sale of forbidden things and
their means, such as shameless space channels, magazines that
contain pictures of naked women and call for sin, instruments
of entertainment, CD's and blue
movies, and alcohol, cigarettes, and so on." Additionally,
the "profit must not stem from usury or deceptions, which
seem to be correct sale outwardly, but are usury inwardly."
Nor can the profit derive from "unfair dealings, such as
giving wrong descriptions of goods to tempt people to
conclude the deal, or hiding any faults in them, which is a
form of betrayal, deception, and cheating." Less clearly he
also asserted: "profit must not stem from risk-taking, which
means risking one's funds for the sake of funds, which may or
may not materialize." The profit must not arise from
"monopolizing and hoarding commodities so as to raise their
prices and thus exploit people." In a final, and most timely
admonition, in the wake of the wild oscillations in the
Kingdom's stock market, he cried: "Oh, Muslims, whoever
enters into any market dealing or plots to cause harm to
investors by exploiting their ignorance and lack of
experience, tampering with the funds of or plundering the
poor and cheating them is doomed to punishment."
Gfoeller