Sulaymān al-ʿAlwān (, ''Sulaymān bin Nāṣir bin ʿAbdillāh al-ʿAlwān'', born 1969) is a Saudi islamic scholar and jihadist preacher. He is known to have memorised the nine books of Hadith with the chain of narrations known as 'Isnaad'. At a young age, he memorised a lot of texts in different Islamic sciences alongside the explanations of these texts.

Fatwa

In 2000, he issued a

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'', ...

endorsing the use of suicide bombings against Israel, and in 2001 he supported the destruction of the

Buddhas of Bamiyan The Buddhas of Bamiyan (, ) were two monumental Buddhist statues in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan, built possibly around the 6th-century. Located to the northwest of Kabul, at an elevation of , carbon dating of the structural components o ...

by the

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

.From 9/11 to Iraq: The Long Arm of Saudi Arabia’s Suliman al-Elwan
By Murad Batal al-Shishani, Jamestown Militant Leadership Monitor Volume 2 Issue 2, 28 February 2011 Al-Alwan's mosque in

Al-Qassim Province The Qassim Province ( ' , Najdi Arabic: ), also known as the Qassim Region, is one of the 13 provinces of Saudi Arabia. Located at the heart of the country near the geographic center of the Arabian Peninsula, it has a population of 1,336,179 and ...

was criticised by moderate Islamic scholars as a "terrorist factory". Among his students was Abdulaziz al-Omari, one of the plane hijackers in the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. After the September 11 attacks, Al-Alwan issued two fatwas (21 September 2001 and 19 October 2001), in which he declared that any Muslim who supported the Americans in Afghanistan was an infidel, and called on all Muslims to support the Afghans and Taliban by any means, including

jihad ''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...

. In January 2002, Alwan and two other radical Saudi clerics, Hamoud al-Aqla al-Shuebi and Ali al-Khudair, wrote a letter to Taliban leader

Mullah Omar Muhammad Umar Mujahid (196023 April 2013), commonly known as Mullah Omar or Muhammad Omar, was an Afghan militant leader and founder and the first leader of the Taliban from 1994 until his death in 2013. During the Third Afghan Civil War, the T ...

praising him and referred to him as the Commander of the faithful.

Prison

On 31 March 2003, 11 days after the start of the

Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...

, al-Alwan published an open letter in which he called on the Iraqi people to fight the American soldiers and use suicide bombings against them. On 28 April 2004, Saudi authorities arrested al-Alwan and after being held for nine years without trial, he was released on 5 December 2012. In October 2013, Alwan was sentenced to a 15-year prison term; charges included questioning the legitimacy of the country's rulers. He was due to be released in 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alwan, Sulaiman Saudi Arabian prisoners and detainees Saudi Arabian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam Living people Salafi jihadists Saudi Arabian Qutbists Critics of Shia Islam People from Buraidah Saudi Arabian imams Prisoners and detainees of Saudi Arabia 1969 births

Fatwa

Prison

See also

References