[Al Ahram] Soddy Arabia's...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
highest religious figure praised a leading Sunni Mohammedan scholar on Thursday for his condemnation of Hezbollah following its intervention in Syria.
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh's words add to the growing criticism of Hezbollah by Sunni authorities, underlining the sectarian aspect of Syria's civil war where mostly Sunni rebels are fighting Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
, a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
The Shi'ite Hezbollah, once revered by fellow Arabs as a bulwark against Israel, has lost support due to its military support for Assad, including helping his forces retake the strategic border town of Qusair from rebels on Wednesday.
Influential Qatar-based Sunni holy man Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi
...crackpot Egyptian Islamist theologian. He is best known for his program
Shariah and Lifeon Al Jazeera, with an estimated audience of 60 million kindred souls worldwide. He is also well-known for IslamOnline, which occasionally advocates things like slavery and thumping the old lady with a rod no thicker than an inch, and has published more than 120 books, including
Islam: The Future Civilization.Joe has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Moslem Brüderbund. Some of his views have been controversial in the West, though less so among the rubes of the Mysterious East, and he was refused entry to the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and from the Palestinian territories condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving
Islam a bad name....
last week called for jihad (holy war) against Assad and called Iranian-backed Hezbollah - which means party of God - "the party of Satan".
He said he had been wrong to have praised Hezbollah in the past when he had sought to bring Sunnis and Shi'ites closer together.
Saudi Arabia's al-Sheikh, the highest religious authority in the birthplace of Islam, said Qaradawi's stance was in line with Sunni orthodoxy.
"Part of his statement was his support and reference to the stance of some of the (Saudi) kingdom's great scholars, which has been clear towards this hateful sectarian party since its establishment," he said in a statement carried by the Saudi press agency.
He called on scholars and politicians to act to stop Hezbollah's "aggression".