Abdul-Rahman bin Nasir al-Barrak (, born 1933 or 1934) is a

Saudi Saudi or Saudi Arabian may refer to: * Saudi Arabia * Saudis, people from Saudi Arabia * Saudi culture, the culture of Saudi Arabia * House of Saud, the ruling family of Saudi Arabia See also *Saud (disambiguation) The House of Saud The H ...

Salafi The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a fundamentalist revival movement within Sunni Islam, originating in the late 19th century and influential in the Islamic world to this day. The name "''Salafiyya''" is a self-designation, claiming a retu ...

cleric. In 1994, al-Barrak and other Saudi clerics were mentioned by name and praised by

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...

for opposing then-

Grand Mufti A Grand Mufti (also called Chief Mufti, State Mufti and Supreme Mufti) is a title for the leading Faqīh, Islamic jurist of a country, typically Sunni, who may oversee other muftis. Not all countries with large Sunni Muslim populations have Gra ...

Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al Baz (; 21 November 1912 – 13 May 1999), known as Ibn Baz or Bin Baz, was a Saudi Islamic scholar who served as the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia from 1993 until his death in 1999. According to French political scientis ...

in his Open Letter to Shaykh Bin Baz on the Invalidity of his Fatwa on Peace with the Jews. His

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

was banned in Saudi Arabia because it was “promoting bold ideas and theses”.

Fatwas

Al-Barrak has drawn attention for issuing controversial

fatwa A fatwa (; ; ; ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ('' faqih'') in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', ...

s, or religious edicts. One such fatwa called for strict

gender segregation Sex segregation, sex separation, sex partition, gender segregation, gender separation, or gender partition is the physical, legal, or cultural separation of people according to their gender or biological sex at any age. Sex segregation can si ...

. The fatwa states, "Whoever allows this mixing ... allows forbidden things, and whoever allows them is a

kafir ''Kāfir'' (; , , or ; ; or ) is an Arabic-language term used by Muslims to refer to a non-Muslim, more specifically referring to someone who disbelieves in the Islamic God, denies his authority, and rejects the message of Islam as ...

and this means defection from Islam ... Either he retracts or he must be killed ... because he disavows and does not observe the

Sharia Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...

." In March 2008, al-Barrak issued a fatwa that two writers for the newspaper '' Al Riyadh'', Abdullah bin Bejad al-Otaibi and Yousef Aba al-Khail, should be tried for

apostasy Apostasy (; ) is the formal religious disaffiliation, disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous re ...

for their "heretical articles" regarding the categorization of "unbelievers" and put to death if they did not repent.Top Saudi cleric calls for writers' deaths
Reuters, 2008-03-15

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barrak, Abdul-Rahman 1930s births Living people Saudi Arabian Sunni clerics Fatwas Sex segregation and Islam Critics of Shia Islam Saudi Arabian Salafis People from Al Bukayriah Academic staff of Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University Saudi Arabian imams Saudi Arabian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam Year of birth missing (living people)