Safar Al-Hawali
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Safar Al-Hawali (born 1950) is a Saudi Islamic scholar who lives in Mecca.
He received his doctorate in Islamic theology from Umm al-Qura University, Mecca in 1986. During the 1990s, he was arrested for a period of time by the Saudi authorities for his violent criticism of the government when he distributed sermons on cassette tapes to incite militants to overthrow the government.
[edit] Written works
Safar Al-Hawali wrote a book on secularism as part of his master thesis at Umm Al-Qura University. This research was supervised by Muhammad Qutb, the brother of Sayyid Qutb. Here Al-Hawali traced the history of the separation between the Church and State and how the idea was imported to the Muslim world. In his Ph.D. research, Al-Hawali made an analysis of the separation between the claim of faith and deeds of worship. Both dissertations have been published.
When American soldiers put their feet on the soil of Arabia to liberate Kuwait from the occupation of Saddam Hussain, Al-Hawali made a detailed analysis on the issue. He warned the government and the Islamic clerics that the USA planned a long stay in the Gulf region. This was in The Promise of Kissinger. He cited many references to prove that the US has a strategic plan to benefit from the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Samuel P. Huntington included Al-Hawali in his famous Clash of Civilizations article.
In the year 2000, he wrote a treatise on the Intifada, entitled The Day of Wrath. He argued that the Biblical prophecies used by Christian fundamentalists to support the state of Israel actually predict its destruction. The treatise was subsequently translated into Hebrew by the Anti-Zionist Neturei Karta group.
After September 11, 2001, Al-Hawali wrote an open letter to President Bush.
When 60 American intellectuals issued an article justifying America's war in Iraq, Al-Hawali wrote a counter-article, rebutting their claims and pointing to the history of US foreign policy.
Al-Hawali wrote an article in Al-Bayan magazine on unitarianism among Christians. He traced the history of those who reject the doctrine of the Trinity, and believe in One supreme God. He claimed that monotheists had been subject to great persecution, by both Catholics and Protestants; and that five among the US presidents had been Unitarians.
