Erdogan aide warns Saudi king against executing Muslim scholars

An advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has written to Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Ale Saud, warning that the planned execution of Muslim scholars would bring nothing but “disaster” to the monarch.

According to Press TV, in an open letter to King Salman published by Turkish daily Yeni Şafak on Monday, Yasin Aktay raised concerns about plans by the Riyadh regime to execute three imprisoned dissidents, Sheikh Salman al-Ouda, Sheikh Awad al-Qarni and Ali al-Omari, after the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

The Saudi king, he said, would achieve nothing by executing the scholars.

“That which will bring disaster to you is executing Islamic scholars, which was recently announced. Scholars are the inheritors of prophets, and each scholar is a world on their own. The death of a scholar is like the death of the world. The killing of a scholar is like the killing of the world,” Aktay added.

He also noted that scholars are treasures of the Muslim community and their case is not a domestic issue.  

“The matter of Islamic scholars is not an internal affair. The scholars in question are assets who are acknowledged and revered by the whole Muslim community. They are not your subjects; they are our common treasures, whose advice we heed, and who are beacons of light with their knowledge and stance. The sin of detaining them even an hour in the dungeon, let alone executing them, is enough to destroy an entire life,” Aktay said.

Erdogan’s aide further said that he had met with Ouda and believed that “he does not bear a grain of the extravagance” the Saudi regime had attributed to him.

“The claim of extremism toward Salman al-Ouda is a great slander. On the contrary, he is an extremely sympathetic and logical Islamic scholar who has made Islam appealing to youth and modern-day people with his familiar discourse,” he explained.

Contrary to Ouda, he added, official Saudi scholars — who advocate the radical Wahhabi ideology — encourage people to wage attacks in Afghanistan, ban women from driving and sow discord among Muslims and non-Muslims.

Elsewhere in his letter, the Turkish official called on King Salman to deliver justice in the case of the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate in October 2018, which is reported to have been ordered by the king’s son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Erdogan’s aide also urged the Saudi King to use his wealth to solve the problems of the Muslim world and bring an end to their suffering.

ME