Safar al-Hawali

Safar al-Hawali
سفر بن عبدالرحمن الحوالي الغامدي
Born
Al Bahah, Saudi Arabia
Websitewww.alhawali.com

Safar bin Abd al-Rahman al-Hawali al-Ghamdi (Arabic: سفر بن عبدالرحمن الحوالي الغامدي) (born 1950) is a scholar who lives in Mecca. He came to prominence in 1991, as a leader of the Sahwah movement[1][2] which opposed the presence of US troops on the Arabian Peninsula. In 1993, al-Hawali and Salman al-Ouda were leaders in creating the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, a group that opposed the Saudi government,[3] for which both were imprisoned from 1994 to 1999.[4]

In July 2018, he was detained by the Saudi authorities, along with his four sons and brother, for writing a 3,000-page book titled Muslims and Western Civilisation.[5][6] The book is said to include "attacks on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and the ruling Saudi royal family over their ties to Israel."[7]

  1. ^ Ibrahim, Arwa. "What is Sahwa, the Awakening movement under pressure in Saudi?". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  2. ^ "Who are the key Sahwa figures Saudi Arabia is cracking down on?". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 2022-06-30.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference andkapis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference routledge was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference MEE_detention201807 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ "Who are the key Sahwa figures Saudi Arabia is cracking down on?", 5 June 2019, Al Jazeera. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
  7. ^ "Prominent Saudi scholar Ahmed al-Amari dies in prison: Activists", 21 January 2019, Al Jazeera. Retrieved 10 June 2019.