Shahid Bolsen Responding to Sami Hamdi's analysis of MBS on @TheThinkingMuslim

In this video, I'm gonna watch an interview with Shadi Hamdi, who I guess is a journalist or political commentator, editor of a of an online journal and so on. He's being interviewed on the thinking Muslim YouTube channel, and the topic is Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman. This may be a long video because I'm gonna actually go through it. This it's an hour and a half interview, and I'm gonna go through the whole thing and respond to to various points inshallah. Okay.

So in the first few minutes, he's talking about sort of the domestic political situation in Saudi Arabia that bin Salman inherited and how to consolidate his power as the crown prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. I think this is more or less accurate. He talks about bin Salman needing to implement certain economic policies that may be unwelcome by the Saudi population. I'm not sure if that's accurate. The question is in the context of allowing certain entertainment activities in Saudi Arabia that Muslims worldwide find offensive.

Raves in the desert and concerts and whatnot, saying that this is a sort of a trade off where Bin Salman is telling the Saudi population, I'm gonna have to do policies, domestically that you may dislike, but on the upside, you'll get to watch, Beyonce. Giving people, you know, opportunities to to dance and have fun and whatnot, can distract them and depoliticize them. That's that's a general policy that that governments would take. That's more or less accurate, but I don't know if it's specifically because he wants to stifle criticism or opposition to particular policies. I think he would just like to be left alone, to rule the country the way he sees fit, and he would like the people, the population to be distracted with other things.

Okay. There's a couple of things here. He says that, one of the reasons that Bensalman is providing these entertainment activities for the population is because he's afraid of a backlash. He's afraid of a backlash from the population against the policies that he needs to implement, that Shadi believes he needs to implement. And he mentions the Arab Spring, the idea being that there might be a kind of an Islamist backlash against the policies or anyway, a popular backlash against the policies.

But then he says that bin Salman is part of the NBC generation. In other words, the generation that was influenced by the broadcasting of western films and, television programs on the cable channel. And if bin Salman is from the NBC generation and he's highly influenced by NBC, then so is the population of Saudi Arabia. If they are inclined towards the same things that, MBS is inclined towards, then I'm not sure what would be the basis for a backlash. If Mohammed bin Salman is part of the MBC generation, well, so are most of the Saudis.

So they would be on the same page with regards to what they want to see happen in Saudi Arabia. Then he goes on to talk about that this is, again, some some sort of a trade off whereby bin Salman is saying, I will give you, you know, these activities, these frivolities, and you will agree to not want civil engagement, to not wanna have a voice in policy, to not wanna have a voice in the government and and and so on and so forth. When did the population have civil engagement in Saudi Arabia? Is this a new phenomenon that Mohammed bin Salman is introducing to Saudi Arabia that was previously democratic with a dynamic civil society that, had a lot of say in policy making. Now this is nothing new.

So I don't I don't think that this trade off is even necessary. I think he's closer to the truth in saying that MBS and the majority of the population in Saudi Arabia are what he refers to as the MBC generation. In other words, they are less inclined towards the rigid Wahhabi Salafi Madhhab and the imposition of very strict interpretation of Islam that the previous regimes in Saudi Arabia have imposed. So I think bin Salman and the population are more likely on the same page in this regard. And it's not so much that he's sort of bribing the population to not be political.

I think that they generally wouldn't be anyway because what what's their heritage of political activism? It's not much. The jailing of sheikhs, the jailing of scholars, the jailing of Khattibs, the jailing of activists is not an innovation by Mohammed bin Salman. This is something that we've always seen in Saudi Arabia and in The Emirates and in the Arab world and on earth. I don't think it's fair to attribute this as some sort of unique quality of, Mohammed bin Salman's regime.

He's talking about the fact that, people who are criticizing, bin Salman sponsoring these entertainment activities, people who criticize that also criticize the very rigid interpretation of Islam that, Saudi Arabia has imposed for the last several decades. So that weakens their ability to criticize bin Salman because after all, you also don't agree with this very rigid Wahhabism, Saddafism, whatever you wanna call it. Now I'm doing the other thing. I'm doing something else. I'm opening it up to other more liberal, types of activities and you're criticizing that.

Do you are you therefore advocating this very radical, and rigid Salafism that you yourself have criticized? Okay. That's that's a valid point, but also it's it's actually a valid point. Binsalman by what he's doing because again, if we're talking about the MBC generation, the the population is tired of this very rigid, interpretation of Islam. Bensalman is tired of this very rigid interpretation of Islam and he views it as holding the country back and holding the population back and I think he has a point.

This is, in my view, that in my opinion, this is his thinking. He has to do something to conclusively, to decisively castrate the power of the religious institutions that enforce this very rigid interpretation of Islam. So he has a concert, so he has a rave, so he opens it up to these types of activities to show you don't have power anymore. And I don't see that that would cause a backlash among a population whom he is describing as the MBC generation. I see this as Mohammed bin Salman reading the room and understanding that his people are tired of this rigid interpretation of Islam.

Whatever you may think about it, the population has been living with it for decades, and they're tired of having a Mutawah come to them with a big beard and and telling them that they are of and that they're, you know, committing shirk or something because of the length of their trousers and so on. And we all know from our own life experience and our own interactions with people who are indoctrinated through that system of very rigid Wahhabism that it creates human bots. It creates people who cannot process information properly, who can't process information correctly, who can't think critically, who can't be objective in, the way they interact with the world, who are highly highly ideological, rigid in their thinking, robotic in their understanding of things. And they they they operate like a kind of, cheap AI where there's just sort of pattern recognition. They see certain things, they hear certain words, there's certain red flags for them, and then they just jump to this isn't Islam, this isn't true Islam, this isn't proper, this is yours, your aqidah is wrong and so on and so on and so on.

They have an extremely narrow understanding of the religion and that narrow understanding often translates into a very narrow understanding of the world because you have become accustomed to viewing the world in very simplistic terms, and you have become accustomed to not thinking for yourself. You've you've become accustomed to being spoon fed what to believe, what to think. And very often, what you are being spoon fed to think and believe is incredibly simplistic and there's no room for complexity or nuance. There's no room for it. And then you go out into the world and you approach the world with the same mindset and obviously that's that's gonna be holding you back as a population, as an individual, and as a nation.

So I think that bin Salman has identified, I need to decisively restrict the power and influence of these institutions and this ideology. And he's doing it in a rather dramatic, and we can agree relatively distasteful way. But there's but but there's a method to it. There's a reason for it. It's because it has to be a decisive and conclusive emasculation of the power of these institutions.

Okay. Now he's making the point that in a country like Tunisia, they really, really cracked down on Islam and on religious influence in Tunisia. And then when they had the Arab Spring, in the first election, Istimus parties did the best in the elections. But at the same time, he's suggesting that what bin Salman is doing is endangering the religion among the population and that the people are in danger of, you know, being misguided and becoming deviant and, becoming irreligious and so on. But he's contradicting that by talking about how that doesn't work.

The people turns out Muslims don't need to have the religion imposed upon them. They don't need to have the government enforce religion upon them. They are religious because they believe in Allah. They're religious because they are Muslims and being Muslim matters to them. So he's making he he's he's contradicting his own argument that bin Salman is endangering religion in Saudi Arabia while pointing to the fact that when the government in Tunisia cracked down on Islamic, influences in the society, it had no impact on the sentiments of the population and it would be the same in Saudi Arabia as it would be anywhere else because Muslims are not religious because it is enforced by the government.

It's enforced by their heart. It's enforced by their conscience. It's by their iman. And iman can't be legislated by the government or enforced by the government.

So I'd be wearing to the same that the youth are celebrating it. I think there are lots of people perhaps who are going to these parties and the raves and the like. But I think there are more people in Saudi who are very worried, very uncomfortable what is taking place. And the proof is that Vincent Mann believes that to implement them, he needs to imprison people. To implement them, he must crack down on the population.

Okay. This is a bit dishonest in my opinion. He's not cracking down on the population. He's cracking down on descent, which is not new. And again, he's sort of contradicting what he said earlier in that we're talking about, as he said, the MBC generation and saying that they're not necessarily on board with what bin Salman is doing, but if they're the MBC generation then they would be.

And also he's pointing to Tunisia where having beaches and having parties and having raves and having concerts did not dampen the religious sentiment of the population. So where exactly is the danger here? His position is a bit muddled here, I think, because he's arguing that cracking down on religious authorities and religious influence doesn't change the religious sentiments of the population. And he's also arguing that in Saudi Arabia opening up entertainment opportunities and activities and so on doesn't change the religious sentiment of the population. So what's the danger?

Binsalman is jailing people because he's afraid of a backlash, not from the population. He's afraid of a backlash from the religious authorities, from the religious institutions, from precisely that segment in Saudi Arabia whom he is trying to restrict in their influence. Not the population. The population, if if what he said earlier is to be believed, are the NBC generation who are fed up from the the the rigid, gruff, harsh, Mutawah who was telling them do this, do that, and so on.

He he gave a quote once to the Los Angeles Times in which he said, the Saudis are voting with their feet, suggesting they're going to lead to these rapes and their parties. If that was the case, the the prisoners would not be formed. And I think that is one of the greatest indication to situate.

The the prisons aren't full of people who didn't wanna go to a rave. That's not what the prisons are full of in Saudi Arabia. The prisons aren't full of people who didn't wanna go see Mariah Carey. The prisons are full of people who are criticizing bin Salman and accusing him of being too liberal or being too western or of de Islamizing Saudi Arabia. That's who is being prosecuted in Saudi Arabia.

The people who represent the vested interests of the Wahhabi Salafi religious institutions and authorities whom bin Salman is trying to restrict in their influence. No government, even if they call themselves democratic, no government wants the participation of the population in policy making, period. Nobody wants that in who who's in power. Everybody in power wants to do things on their own, and they want the population to sit down and shut up. And in the Arab world, especially in the Khaleid, the rulers have a very paternalistic, approach to governance whereby they see themselves as the father of their country.

They see themselves as a father and the population is the children and father knows best. You're not supposed to talk. You're not supposed to question dad. You're not supposed to, you know, be a backseat driver, and you're just supposed to listen and trust that your father knows what's best for you, and he's implementing policies that are for your best interests. That's the way the rulers in the Khaleed think.

That's the way they have always thought. That's the way previous regimes in Saudi Arabia thought. That's the way Ben Zayed thinks in UAE. That's the way Mohammed bin Rashid thinks in Dubai. That's the way the ruler in Qatar thinks in Kuwait and so on and so on and so on.

They all think that way. And if you are critical, you will be shut down. It doesn't matter. This again isn't something new to Mohammed bin Salman, and it it's a bit disingenuous to pretend that it is. And it's a bit disingenuous to say that the only way that he can impose concerts on Saudi Arabia is by throwing people in jail and and and in other words, like threatening them as if if you don't go see Mariah Carey, we're gonna put you in jail.

Obviously, that's not what's happening. If you say that it's haram for me to do what I'm doing and and fear Allah and you shouldn't do this and, your your regime is invalid because of what you're doing, yeah, you're gonna go to jail. And that is the same thing that would have happened in the past. See, and the truth is that the rigid form of Wahhabism, Salafism, again, whatever you wanna call it, this rigid interpretation of Islam, that had to be enforced by throwing people in jail. And no tolerance for dissent, no tolerance for alternative opinions, that had to be enforced for decades by severe and harsh prosecution in Saudi Arabia.

Having concerts does not have to be enforced by imprisonment and prosecution. The host brings up a question now at around twenty minutes as to whether or not, bin Salman is doing this to placate the West. Okay. I'm not sure what he's gonna say, but I will tell you. The West absolutely supported strict Mad Khali Wahhabism.

Absolutely loves it. It keeps the population busy with checking the the the length of people's trousers, the length of people's beards, how much of the woman's face is showing, and they're completely depoliticized. There was no ideology Islamically in the Muslim world that was less political, that was more anti political than the Wahhabism that was enforced by Saudi Arabia for the last several decades, and America loved it. America has been supportive of Saudi Arabia for all these years and supportive of Wahhabism, supportive of Salafism because it was incredibly useful, for The United States. It was the basis for, sowing division in the Muslim world.

It was the basis for sowing extremism in the Muslim world. It was the basis for creating extremist militant radical groups in the Muslim world like ISIS, like Al Qaeda, Daesh, and so on. It was the basis for fueling militancy and jihadi ideology in Syria and elsewhere, all of which is useful for destabilization and disruption by The United States. They do not want to see Wahhabism, Salafism, this very strict anti political ideology, wane in Saudi Arabia. So if you think that, bin Salman is doing this to placate the West, it's the opposite.

This is the last thing that the West wants to see in Saudi Arabia.

No crown prince or king has ever said to an American official, we need to reign in Islam in Saudi Arabia.

Okay. First of all, he just he just gave the quote that bin Salman is supposed to have said to some American official, and then he mischaracterizes the quote. Bin Salman said, I need your support, I need your help, and I need time to counteract the radical extremist ideologies in Saudi Arabia. Now he is characterizing that as bin Salman saying, we need to reign in Islam in Saudi Arabia. It's not Islam.

It's a very specific, dogmatic, intolerant, inflexible, rigid interpretation of Islam that bin Salman is trying to rein in. Now he is disingenuously, saying that it is Islam itself. That's not what's happening at all. If anything, bin Salman is trying to bring Saudi Arabia in line with the rest of the Muslim world with regards to their approach to Islam because Wahhabism, Salafism, this very, very strict form of Salafism, is completely out of step with the rest of the Ummah and is completely out of step with the history of Islamic scholarship and understanding of the religion. And this is what bin Salman was talking about, and now this guy is characterizing it as Islam itself.

Although he clearly is not a Salafi Wahhabi, he's if anything, he's Ihwani. He's he looks like Ihwani, he talks like Ihwani, he's clearly leaning towards Ihwani whether he is actually a member of the Ihwani or not, but he clearly leans in that direction. They don't believe that the Saudi previous version of Islam is the correct version of Islam. So don't don't now say that this very dogmatic and very specific Najdi interpretation of Islam by Mohammed bin Abdul Wahab is the interpretation of Islam. You don't even believe that yourself.

At at twenty one minutes forty one seconds, he says, I don't think that the Americans asked bin Salman to do this. Yeah. No kidding. Of course not. That's the last thing they wanna see happen.

They don't wanna see Saudi Arabia become less radical. They need radicals. For the last twenty years, they've been in the radical manufacturing business in America for American foreign policy. Has been the radical extremist militant manufacturing business. One of their main ideological factories has been Saudi Arabia.

They don't wanna see it become deradicalized. Not at all.

These Arabs, they don't know how to vote. Bin Zayed says, according to the New York Times article, that if a man stood up in Mecca today and said, am the Mahdi or I am going to deliver Islam, Bin Zay said 80% of my army would go and join this man in Mecca.

Okay. Now if Mohammed Bin Zayed did say that and he genuinely believes that to be true about his own army, Is that not a legitimate concern? Isn't that a legitimate concern that any any person can stand up in Mecca and say I'm the Mahdi, and 80% of the army will go and support him? Is that okay? Is that fine?

Don't you think that that is an ideological indoctrination that needs to be countered? Don't you think that the people who would go along with something like that need to be better educated, need to have better critical thinking skills, need to have a better grasp of what the religion actually says and what the religion actually is? Or do you think that's fine? When Benzaid said that the Arabs don't know how to vote, I don't disagree with him. Why would they?

They haven't experienced democracy for decades. Why would they know how to vote? They will support anyone who they think who they see praying. Because, yes, the the the Muslims do care about Islam. They do care about the religion.

So, yeah, if they see like a Mohammed Morsi, for example, making Salah, they'll think, yeah, this is a great guy. Doesn't matter if he has no clue about policy. It doesn't matter. Yes. It's true.

Giving free and fair elections, so called, to a population, to an electorate that is that ignorant about policy and that is that emotional in their connection to Islam. That is dangerous. Of course, that's dangerous. You will get elected people who have no idea what they're doing.

I Vincent Benno envisioned 2030. It's from his own belief first before it's about winning over the West. You mentioned it.

He's correct. These reforms are not being dictated by the West. He's correct about that. I don't think, however, that he's correct in saying that this is a liberal elite who is forcing these reforms on the population against their will and who supported the coups and so on. Look, the coup in Egypt was a disaster.

Absolutely. Sisi is a disaster. Absolutely. But Mohammed Morsi was a disaster also. The election of Mohammed Morsi was a disaster also.

Let's be honest. Muhammad Morsi had no clue how to govern Egypt. He had no clue about policy. He had no idea. One of the first things that Muhammad Morsi did when he was elected was to reach out to the IMF and to start negotiations with the IMF.

That's one of the first things he did. He didn't have any principled, objection to the IMF neoliberal program. No principal objection. No moral objection. No economic objection.

He hesitated to implement IMF reforms because he was afraid of a backlash. Okay. By saying that to the IMF, which he said, he was inadvertently recommending the army for the government because the army doesn't have to worry about backlash because the people with guns don't have to worry about a backlash. So who is the IMF, the West? Who are they going to prefer?

The Muslim brotherhood who are incompetent at governing and who cannot handle a backlash, who who don't have sufficient control over the military to ensure that they can crack down on a backlash? Or are you going to trust that job to Abdul Fadah Hasisi who can bring out the big guns and make sure that the the neoliberal program is implemented without any significant, disruption. People voted for Mohammed Morsi because, yes, they have an Islamic sentiment, because they're emotionally Muslim. One of the first things he did was to reach out to the IMF. And within weeks or within months of his election, they were filling the tunnels in Gaza with waste material from septic tanks.

This is your guy. This is your your leader with Takwa because you saw him praying in the, presidential palace, And he's filling the tunnels in Gaza between Egypt and Gaza with waste. And he's telling the IMF, I will do what you want me to do, but I'm scared of the people. That's that's what happens when you have the electorate who will vote for anyone who says that they're Muslim and has the banner of Islam and says Islam is the solution and so on. That's what you get.

You get someone who is completely incompetent and who is acquiescent and obsequious towards the West and who has no idea how to implement policies, has no idea how to govern, and doesn't have the ability to even control his own army. So the West, The UAE, and Saudi Arabia, and the IMF threw their support behind the coup. You have to understand how these things actually happened and why. Because, yes, the coup was a disaster, but Mohammed Morsi was a disaster, but is the wrong guy for the job. And the people who have the ability to, place the right guy for the job did it.

That's all.

That to enable the economic innovation, we need to remove the chains of the religious thought. But how do they explain that? Because there doesn't seem to be a connection between

Oh, there's a very clear and obvious connection, and he's not wrong. Like I said, the the very strict and rigid Wahhabism stunts thought. It stunts the ability to think properly. Now I'm not saying something against, Salafism blanket. There's a contingent of incredibly, intelligent, educated, nuanced thinkers within the Salafis.

However, they are not representative of Salafism and Wahhabism generally. And what the that Wahhabi Salafi education does to a person's brain is to turn it into a kind of a cheap AI, really. So there absolutely is a connection between removing the chains of the religion, and by the religion here, it is not the religion. It's the very dogmatic and rigid version and interpretation of the religion that Saudi Arabia has been implementing for and imposing and enforcing for decades. That does need to be reined in.

There's no question about that. It is damaging to the ability of people to think properly. He has to be able to rein in the influence of the, Salafi Wahhabi religious institutions who can otherwise disrupt his plans because they have a completely different set of priorities than him. He has to deal with reality. He has to deal with, like, what he's talking about, diversifying the economy.

And you have to do what you have to do to diversify the economy. If you want to be sustainable, that's absolutely realistic. And he can't be forced to also appease and placate, dogmatic religious authorities in his own country. So there's there's an obvious connection. In fact, there's no way to disconnect them.

If you want to develop Saudi Arabia economically, you must rein in the influence of these rigid, dogmatic religious authorities. No question about it. And you have to reform your education system so that people can develop actual critical thinking skills and an actual, more flexible and more comprehensive and thorough understanding of the religion to appreciate the fourteen hundred years of scholarship that isn't as simplistic as, oh, this is haram, this is halal, it's all clear cut, this is black and white. This is not the way anybody sees it who who has a mind. But if you if you come through an education system that that cultivates that way of thinking, like I said, you will use that way of thinking throughout all other areas of life, which will set you behind other people who can actually think properly.

The hours that these children spend on Quran and Islamic studies in schools is to be significantly reduced. And in its place, we will introduce subjects of critical thinking. I know it's ironic even that anybody who speaks on Twitter is put in prison. But the point here being is that the dire the correlation Vincent man makes is clear. Too much religion is hampering critical thinking with regards to the development of the economy.

No. Not too much religion. Too much dogma and that specific interpretation of religion. That's what he is seeing as pampering critical thought and intellectual development in Saudi Arabia and hence economic development in Saudi Arabia, and he's not wrong.

And I think part of that is that when you ask the West to explain their enlightenment, to explain how they became the superpower that they are, they will always bring it back to their bitter war with the church. That when they defeated the church, when they removed its influence, we had free thinking and we became a dominant economy. Bin Salman is importing a history that is alien from the region.

No. That's not it at all. I mean, the West is the West and they have their own problems and they have their own reasons for why they did what they did. That has nothing to do with what, Bin Salman is doing. He has correctly identified in my opinion, he has correctly identified the very strict, very rigid Wahhabi way of thinking and ideology and indoctrination in Saudi Arabia as harmful to the intellectual development and growth of his people, and he is correct.

That is not the same thing at all. In fact, in some in some ways, it's the opposite of saying that he is trying to restrict or limit religion because that particular interpretation of the religion is extremely limiting. That interpretation of the religion is very narrow and it blocks out huge oceans of knowledge in Islam that you will only be able to pursue if you have broken free from that indoctrination. So this does not, in my view, what he's talking about anyway, the specific examples that he's talking about reduce, the time spent on Quran, recitation, and learning Quran, and increase the amount of time spent on critical thinking, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that whatsoever, in my opinion. Because again, this is just putting Saudi Arabia more in line with the rest of the Muslim world, and all of us are Muslims.

Are you are you arguing that the Saudis are better Muslims than the rest of us? Are you arguing that their particular interpretation of Islam, the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is more correct than everybody else? I mean, this is this is what is being implied by this argument because you have religious education in Malaysia, you have religious education in Indonesia, you have religious education in Turkey, you have religious education in Egypt, you have religious education throughout the Muslim world. Just giving them the chance to learn some other things, what is wrong with that? That's just bringing them in line with the rest of the Ummah.

Because as Ibn Khaldun said that the the conquered always wants to follow the conquerors way. That the dominant powers wants to be like The US in terms of its power and prosperity, so I should follow something very similar to them. So vision twenty thirteen, the culture is so cool.

No. See, this isn't following this isn't trying to imitate the West or be like the West. This isn't, bin Salman trying to imitate the West. This isn't bin Salman trying to be like them. This isn't the conquered imitating the conqueror or trying to follow the ways of the conqueror.

This is closer to what the Muslims have always been. If anything, he's trying to emulate the Islamic empires of the past, the Islamic governments of the past, the Islamic states of the past, not America. Why would you think that? That's a very biased, take in my opinion that he knows will appeal to Muslim audiences even though it's a kind of a cognitive dissonance because if you're Muslim and you come from the Muslim world, you know that where you grew up, it wasn't like that. You know that where you grew up, you learned other things too.

And you're Muslim, and you care about the deen, and you practice the deen, and you also pursue other things in your life. And you try and your nation tries to develop economically. Why is there a different standard for Saudi Arabia? And why are you pretending now that the strict Wahhabi version of Islam is the correct version of Islam when you don't follow it yourself and nobody else in the world agrees with that?

Mohammed bin Salman announces a series of measures where he says that loudspeakers must be reduced to 33% of the volume for the call to prayer, and they are banned for Quran and Khutbah. Some people might think, okay, loudspeakers might be annoyed. How many revert stories have you heard of people walking down the street in a Muslim country hearing the Quran on the loudspeaker and saying that it moved me to the extent that I entered the mosque and then they became Muslim? That's the first thing. Second point is

Okay. He's arguing that bin Salman commanding that the volume of the loudspeakers for the and for the Quran should be reduced to 3033%. That this somehow will prevent non Muslims from walking in the street and hearing it and being moved in their heart and coming and coming to the masjid and becoming Muslim. This presupposes the presence of non Muslims walking in the street in Saudi Arabia. But when bin Salman implements policies to try to facilitate non Muslims coming to Saudi Arabia, he gets criticized for that too.

So do you want them to be in the street so that they can hear the Quran? Or do you want the Quran to play at full volume to a street full of Muslims who have already heard it and are already Muslim and are not going to revert? In order for someone to revert to Islam, they have they have to be non Muslims present to hear it. But when he brings non Muslims, he's criticized for that. Look, as much as all of us despise the libertine aspects of Dubai, Between four and five thousand people convert to Islam in Dubai every year.

Those are people who came to Dubai as non Muslims most likely because of the libertine aspects of Dubai that we despise. They came there for that and they left as Muslims. So do you want to bring them and expose them to Quran and expose them to Islam or not? Or you just want to expose Muslims to Islam and Quran? You know, it's not as black and white as we would like it to be or as we we tend to think about it.

This is a very disingenuous criticism in my view. You're mad at him for reducing the volume because then non Muslims won't hear it and they won't convert to Islam because their hearts are moved by it. But also they won't be there anyway, so

Why would you reduce the loudspeaker of the volume when you're amplifying the volume of the giant rays and the nightclubs?

Okay. See, now he's losing me. Are they amplifying it? Are they are they putting loudspeakers throughout all of Juda, throughout Mecca and Medina saying, everybody listen to Mariah Carey? Come on now.

This is unhinged. And this is a problem. This reveals actually why mild criticism in a tweet gets harshly repressed because the intelligence services and bin Salman and the government can recognize that mild criticism is covering radical criticism. Because look, this brother begins the interview pretty much objective, reasonable, objective, more or less fair in his assessment of what bin Salman is doing and what his position is and what his strategy is and so on. And then he veers off into these accusations of bin Salman is trying to imitate the West and he's trying to amplify while reducing Quran and he's trying to restrict Islam and he's trying to de Islamize Saudi Arabia and so on.

This is radical unhinged criticism that began very mildly. So the Saudi authorities are gonna see any tweet that appears to be a very timid, criticism, or of the government, and they will understand, okay, what's actually beneath that is a radical criticism that is, you know, on the verge of being takfiri. Because now you're you're saying that bin Salman is aggressively trying to, limit the influence of Islam itself, the religion itself, while simultaneously promoting, fiqh and bahisha. This is a radical criticism. This is not fair because what what he's what he's allowing in Saudi Arabia is allowed in every Muslim country except, like, Afghanistan.

It's allowed in every Muslim country. Are we all in in every Muslim country in the world, are we less Muslim somehow? This is demagoguery, what he's doing now. He's not putting loudspeakers blasting Mariah Carey in the Kaaba.

If you had the choice to give your money to the imam of the mosque or to Mohammed bin Salman who tried to bring Nicki Minaj to Saudi Arabia, where would you prefer to give your money to?

Okay. This brother is really losing me because his criticisms now about like the the Ramadan rules are very very biased. I don't see anything wrong with the rules that he has mentioned, and I I certainly don't see anything unusual about the rules that he has mentioned. Now he's saying something that is just really, really blatantly manipulative demagogic rhetoric. Who would you rather give your charity to?

To the imam of the masjid or to Mohammed bin Salman who wants to bring Nicki Minaj? That's not the choice. That's not what's being offered here. Who would you rather give the charity your your charity to, your to, your to an unregistered charity that has not been checked by the government to see to ensure that the money actually goes where it's supposed to go or to a charity that has been registered and checked by the government to make sure that the money goes where it's supposed to go. That's the actual question.

And this is again not an unusual practice. This is the same thing that they have in UAE and in many other countries. That if you want to, give sadaqah, you have to give sadaqah to charities that are approved by the government. And that part of this has to do with money laundering. Part of this has to do with terrorist financing.

And this is an issue in The Gulf. You don't wanna give your money to an individual or or an organization who may misuse that money for illegal purposes or who may just eat the money. So charities have to register with the government and be reviewed by the government and be audited by the government and they conclude that these are legitimate charities that are not engaged in money laundering or terrorist financing and now you can you are approved to to give to these charities. I don't what's the problem with that exactly? He's trying to pose it as you're giving the money to Mohammed bin Salman himself.

That's not what's happening. That's a dishonest characterization of this policy.

And that's the reason why in these rules, you see the de Islamization being pushed. One of the rules was do not bring your kids to the mosque because they disturb the worshipers. So Bin Salman does a giant rave at the gates of Mecca in Jeddah. People are doing Umara less than one hour away. He brings pit bull and whoever in giant raves, etcetera.

And he wants to tell you, I don't want to disturb the worshippers.

Okay. See this guy, again, he's gone from being an objective analyst of what Bensalman is doing or trying to do. He's gone from that to being sort of an ideological rhetorician. He's doing this. He's he's he's banning Quran.

He's banning children from the Masjid and he's on the gates of Makkah. He's having a concert with Pitbull and Nicki Minaj and whoever else and then claiming that he doesn't want to disturb the worshipers. Can you hear when you're making umrah? Can you hear what people are doing in Jeddah at the rave? Can you hear that?

This is this is dishonest. I don't I don't see anything that he's mentioned so far and you can watch it yourself. I don't see anything that he's mentioned so far as unreasonable. A lot of these policies are exactly the same throughout all of the Muslim world. But he is he has an axe to grind.

Clearly, he's got a grudge against Saudi Arabia and against MBS. And I'm guessing that it's because he is inclined towards the Ihwan, but I'm guessing that it's because he has leanings towards the Muslim brotherhood and so he has an axe to grind against bin Salman. And he keeps he he he he keeps referring to bin Salman's effort to limit and restrict the influence of Wahhabi Salafi religious institutions in Saudi Arabia as de Islamization, which means that he subscribes to the idea that that particular dogma, that particular interpretation of Islam is the correct and only interpretation of Islam, and that if you restrict that particular interpretation, you are restricting the religion itself, which obviously he doesn't believe. He's not a Wahhabi. He's not a Salafi.

That's not what he subscribes to. But for the sake of his argument, he is portraying that particular dogma as the only version of Islam and therefore if you restrict that particular dogma, you are restricting Islam itself. In other words, it's a disingenuous argument and it it reveals that he just has an axe to grind.

Yes. But maybe Sheikh Wamsi questioned Omar bin Abdulaziz. Today, he questioned Omar bin Abdulaziz, a a figure considered who is revered by Muslims everywhere. His stories are told everywhere that during his reign, they couldn't even find people to give zikr to. If it's Omar bin Abdulaziz today, tomorrow it will be Ufman Laffin.

This again, bro, this guy is really losing me. He's I I I started with some respect for his analytical skills, and then he just has gone off the rails with an emotional and clearly agenda driven, set of criticisms that are increasingly outlandish. If you advocate having a historically accurate understanding and portrayal of Omar bin Abdulaziz, That is not casting doubt on him. That is clarifying who the man actually was and giving us as Muslims a proper understanding of this great man. I advocate taking that same approach to Uthman bin Athan.

I advocate taking that same approach to Omar bin Al Khattab. I advocate taking that same approach to Abu Bakr as Siddiq. I advocate taking that same approach to Ali bin Abi Talib. I take I advocate taking that same approach to all of the Sahaba. I advocate taking that approach to We don't need mythology.

We don't need legends. We need accurate authentic information. And if you think that somehow the esteem that the Muslims have for the will be decreased by having accurate information about them, then this is a problem in your mind that you think we need to exaggerate and make things up in order to make these people great, in order to make these people honorable, in order to make these people admirable, in order to make these people the best generations. No. They are the best generations.

And if we learn accurate information about them, that's valuable to us. Much more valuable than legends that no one can relate to and no one can actually believe because authenticity of information has always been of primacy to this ummah and to the scholars of this ummah. We have always wanted to have accurate, valid, verified information about Islam and about the important figures in Islam and about historic events. And if we actually are gonna take the position where we don't want things to be clarified, we don't want things to be authenticated, we don't want things to be accurate historically, we need our legends, we need our myths, then this is this is us going astray, Yanny. This is us going following the way of people with invented, religions.

This is us following the way of people who just need to make up stories to believe it. These were real people, And the more we know about them that is real and accurate, the more we can benefit. Understanding that these weren't Malaika, understanding that these were actual living breathing human beings. They weren't demigods. They weren't the stuff from the Greek pantheon.