Saudi: Imam Reprimanded for Media Attack

Here’s a rarity: a Saudi imam is being disciplined for attacking journalists.

It seems that the opposite is generally the rule in the Kingdom. But, as Arab News reports, the imam, Muhammad Al-Eraifi, has been reprimanded for the contents of his Friday sermons and is now open to being sued in the Saudi courts, presumably for defamation.

I do think it important that the Ministry of Islamic Affairs is the one doing the reprimanding. In the past, they’ve shown a tendency to support imams, however immoderate they might be, in the face of journalistic criticism.

Whether any journalist will take up the invitation to sue, though, is a different matter, as the case would likely be heard in a Shariah court, notorious for idiosyncratic judgments based solely on the judge’s sense of propriety and interpretation of the Sunnah.

Imam reprimanded for using sermon to attack journalists

ARAB NEWS

RIYADH: The Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Dawa and Guidance has reprimanded an imam for attacking Saudi journalists during his Friday sermon. Muhammad Al-Eraifi described them as “traitors and puppets of foreign powers,” Asharq Al-Awsat reported Thursday quoting an official source from the ministry. The newspaper said the ministry disciplined the scholar after an investigation, which lasted for a week. The nature of the ministry’s disciplinary punishment means writers and reporters are free to take legal action against Al-Eraifi.”

by Crossroads Arabia

Crossroads Arabia is written by a former US foreign service officer who has had two tours in Saudi Arabia, 1981-83, 2001-03, who reads and speaks Arabic and has spent the bulk of his career in the Middle East, with assignments in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Bahrain in addition to those in the KSA.

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