my colleague meshari al zaidi wrote an article in asharq alawsat newspaper, april 21, 2023 edition, on the brotherhood figure and activist tariq al suwaidan known for his activities and attempts to find out new zones for politics and culture supporting muslim brotherhood ideology.
al zaidi said he knew al suwaidan for more than 20 years through recorded tapes he had released to talk about islamic history, the biography of prophet muhammad (peace be upon him), the andalusia caliphates, and other topics. al zaidi said despite his widespread popularity, al suwaidan and despite that he was an intruder on the heritage scientific material, he was making primitive mistakes, even in pronouncing the proper names and places, and these are the least mistakes.
al suwaidan moved on to lecture on self-development redundantly using the nonsense popular material. the attendees were crammed to hear those lectures presented by al suwaidan and his colleagues of modernized preaching stars, despite the fact that al suwaidan is a big fan of himself, he is not a freelancer.
he was part of the then agenda adopted by the muslim brotherhood and aimed at creating media material concerning history and get use of it in order to reshape the mentality of the victims to meet the muslim brotherhood ideology.
during the arab (muslim brotherhood) spring, some of the muslim brotherhood figures including al suwaidan and salman al oda revealed the secret. it was not strange for al suwaidan to be a subject of scandal because of the tweet he uploaded on his twitter account and deleted later.
in that tweet, al suwaidan said, “both aqsa mosque and the holy mosque in makkah are brothers in terms of receiving the heavenly revelation. both are linked by the holy light of al qader night. i pray to allah almighty to combine them in liberation soon.”
defending himself from the negative reaction of people to his bold calling for the liberation of the holy mosque of makkah, al suwaidan said it was an error committed by those managing his account. this actually is not correct because al suwaidan had earlier stated that it is he who manages his own accounts on social media. furthermore, the excuse is not acceptable because it is so strange that he authorizes others to run his account and upload tweets that may cause him great damage.
al zaidi asked if it is only al suwaidan among muslim brotherhood figures who presents to be smart on social media or if he is one out of many others of his like. al suwaidan is basically an oil engineer. however, it did not prevent him from showing his talents in other fields. it is obvious that most of the figures belonging to the muslim brotherhood lack academic religious knowledge and they are not specialists in islamic heritage and conscription. most of them come from irrelevant backgrounds like engineering, medicine, and pharmacology. this is an axiomatic piece of information for those who study the history of the brotherhood.
the generation of tariq suwaidan and amr khaled, and their neighbor in that, salman aloda, is experimenting with new techniques in modern public discourse, and trying to wear the mantle of modernity and tolerance, without prejudice to the core of the solid brotherhood thought.
al-zaidi praised a note by the saudi researcher youssef al-dini, in which he explained this deception of forgiving the new preachers, calling for looking at “the nature of the fundamentalist personality from a political angle, and that it is not linked to religion or a state of religiosity, but rather uses religious slogans as a conceptual mask to pass its ideology towards power.”
al suwaidan, amr khalid, and salman al oda tried a new mechanism for dealing with the crowds portraying themselves in the image of tolerance, modernity, and advancement. they did so while they are committed to the core of the muslim brotherhood ideology.
al zaidi highlighted the observation of the saudi researcher yousef al deini who stressed the need to study the radical characters from a political view to conclude that such characters get use religious slogans as face masks to pass their eagerness for power.
footnote: a specialist expert corrected what i mentioned in my article published last thursday by al qabas daily. he said the accurate number of kuwaiti citizens recorded in 1957 was 104 thousand. he pointed out that considering the highest average of the increasing number of citizens after subtracting death cases, the number of kuwaiti citizens should become a maximum of 700 thousand at present and not 1.4 million. so where is the glitch?