In Saudi Arabia, moderate article on Islam draws death fatwa

The response to threats against Abdullah Bejad al-Oteibi exposes a shifting balance between moderate and extremist versions of Islam in Saudi society.

By Caryle Murphy | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 29, 2008 edition

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Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - In his youth, Abdullah Bejad al-Oteibi was devoted to a doctrinaire version of Islam. He regarded those who disagreed with him as unworthy Muslims.

But during a government crackdown on religious militants in the 1990s, Mr. Oteibi spent time in prison, then traveled outside Saudi Arabia. Today, he says he believes in a more open-minded, moderate Islam and is an outspoken critic of extremists. In a recent article in Ar Riyadh newspaper, for example, he wrote that some clerics, to advance their own interests, make Islam more complicated and uncompromising than it actually is.

Unlike his past articles, this one drew an unusually harsh response from the hard-line religious community. Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Barrak declared that Oteibi's "heretical" ideas meant that he should be brought to court and asked to recant. If he refused, \Sheikh Barrak said, he should be put to death – an outcome, he added, that no Muslim would mourn.

While he counted on strong reaction to his piece, Oteibi says, "I never expected that it would get to ... the level of blasphemy and death fatwa. I thought that after [Al Qaeda's] crimes in our country, this should be a red line."

Barrak's so-called "death fatwa" against Oteibi and another Saudi writer, Yusuf Aba al-Kheil, shocked many Saudis. Despite the extreme conservatism of Islam in this country, it is rare for a religious scholar to publicly call for someone's execution because of his writings.

The controversial fatwa and the swift condemnation it drew from Saudi and other Arab intellectuals offer a look into the shifting balance between extremist and moderate versions of Islam in Saudi society today. It is a delicate balance that, for the time being, appears to be tipping ever so slightly towards the moderates.

Under King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, Saudis have been allowed to write and speak more freely, which has given moderates greater opportunities to advance their views. Some Saudis say this has caused consternation among hard-liners, and may explain why Barrak and his supporters felt a need to dramatically express their opinions.

"They cannot pick a fight with the government anymore, so they resort to picking a fight with the liberals ... to show themselves and others that they ... can still be an opposition," says Saudi political analyst Adel al-Toraifi.

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