RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s top Sunni cleric warned Muslim youths to steer clear of “calls for jihad” issued on “perverted” grounds, the official SPA news agency reported yesterday.
“Young people should not let themselves be influenced by calls for jihad ... on perverted principles,” said Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh, quoted by SPA.
“It is a great misfortune that our youths are being exploited to fuel sedition” and lured into war zones “under the pretext of jihad”, he said. Those “endangering the lives” of young Saudis have “disobeyed God and have sinned.”
The mufti, in comments on August 18, condemned Al Qaeda and Islamic State jihadists as the “enemy number one” of Islam.
On Tuesday, the interior ministry announced eight arrests in northwest Saudi Arabia on suspicion of recruiting young people to join IS operations in Iraq and Syria.
IS jihadists have seized vast swathes of Sunni territory straddling Syria and Iraq.
The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz vowed on June 29: “We will not allow a handful of terrorists, using Islam for personal aims, to terrify Muslims or undermine our country and its inhabitants.”
AFP
