Gulf | Saudi Arabia
Top Saudi cleric warns against 'evil' charities
Saudi Arabia's top religious authority warned Saudis against giving money to charities and organisations financing "evil" groups, a top local daily reported.
- AP
- Published: 00:56 March 9, 2008
Riyadh: Saudi Arabia's top religious authority warned Saudis against giving money to charities and organisations financing "evil" groups, a top local daily reported.
The warning by Grand Mufti Shaikh Abdul Aziz Abdullah Al Shaikh comes just days after police found an audio message from Al Qaida No 2 Ayman Al Zawahiri exhorting his followers to collect money for needy families in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"It is bad to give funds to just anyone who asks and to parties with shabby reputations or unknown backing," the mufti said in a statement carried by the daily Al Okaz, which is deemed close to the government.
"It's even worse to give it to an organisation that's known for its evil and for hurting Islam and its followers," he added in an apparent reference to Al Qaida, which has carried out attacks on foreigners in Saudi Arabia.
Though the Saudi government has waged a crackdown on the group since 2003, individual citizens are widely believed to be supporting it and allied organisations through private donations to Islamic charities.
Many reports carry evidence that private Saudi money has been funnelled into known terrorist groups, prompting pressures on the Saudi government to monitor the traffic of charitable funds.
Some US lawmakers had also insisted that oil money from the royal family itself has been diverted into numerous nonprofit organisations supporting terror activity.
Young 'zealots'
The Interior Ministry found Al Zawahiri's message on the memory card of a mobile phone of one of 28 militants whose arrest was announced on March 3 for allegedly being tasked with rebuilding Al Qaida's network in Saudi Arabia.
In October, the government-appointed mufti asked wealthy people to exercise vigilance on where they donate their money. He also warned young "religious zealots" against becoming tools in the hands of foreign groups "which play with their feelings in the name of holy war".
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