The Arab world was shocked this weekend when a senior religious figure in Saudi Arabia, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and president of the General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais gave a sermon that was interpreted as a call for normalization with Israel.
According to news reports from across the Arab world, the sermon dealt with the prophet Muhammad's first days in Mecca and the ties he formed with members of other religions, particularly Jews. The bottom line was that Muslims must practice religious tolerance, especially toward Jews.
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"We must clean and purify Islam from the doubt and superstition that has stuck to it," the imam said, referring to the hatred for members of other religions espoused by some members of radical schools of Islam.
In the past, Sudais has spoken to foreign news outlets about tolerance and accepting others, but the timing of this weekend's sermon, in which he clearly referenced Jews, caused many media outlets to treat the sermon as a call for normalization.
While Saudi Arabia is insisting that it will establish diplomatic ties with Israel only after the latter signs a peace deal with the Palestinians, Riyadh welcomed normalization between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and even helped the process by allowing Israeli flights to the UAE to cross Saudi airspace.
Social media was especially atwitter with discussion of the sermon. The Moroccan news site Morocco World News published a selection of comments from Moroccan social media users who criticized the Saudi imam.
"He speaks like a rabbi, not an imam," one user wrote. Another said, "The Zionists are tweeting praise of the Mecca imam."
Still, Sudais has made blatantly anti-Semitic comments in the past. In 2002, he called the Jews "the sickness of the world … rats ... sons of monkeys and pigs." As a result of these comments, he was banned from the US and Canada.
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