Sheikh Sulaymān al-ʿAlwān or more fully known as, Sulaymān ibn Nāṣir ibn ʿAbdullāh al-ʿAlwān ( ar, سليمان بن ناصر بن عبد الله العلوان), is a theoretician of militant jihad. He is known to have memorised the 9 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 fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist i ...

endorsing the use of

suicide bombing A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

s against Israel, and in 2001 he supported the destruction of the

Buddhas of Bamiyan The Buddhas of Bamiyan (or Bamyan) were two 6th-century monumental statues carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of Hazarajat region in central Afghanistan, northwest of Kabul at an elevation of . Carbon dating of the structural ...

by the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

.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 ( ar, منطقة القصيم ' , 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 ha ...

was criticised by moderate Islamic scholars as a "terrorist factory". Among his students was

Abdulaziz al-Omari Abdulaziz al-Omari ( ar, عبد العزيز العُمري, , also transliterated as Alomari or al-Umari; May 28, 1979 – September 11, 2001) was a Saudi terrorist who was one of five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11 as part of the Sept ...

, one of the plane hijackers in the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

. 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 (; ar, جهاد, jihād ) is an Arabic word which literally means "striving" or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with Go ...

. In January 2002, Alwan and two other radical Saudi clerics,

Hamoud al-Aqla al-Shuebi Hamoud al-Aqla al-Shu'aybi (also Hamoud al-Oqala al-Shuebi, Humud b. ‘Uqala’ al-Shu‘aybi, ar, حمود العقلاء الشعيبي) (died late 2001) was a Saudi-born Islamic cleric.Ali al-Khudair Ali al-Khudair ( ar, علي الخُضير, translit=’Ali al-Khuḍayr, also known as Ali bin al-Khudair, or Ali bin al-Khudayr) is a Saudi Arabian thinker and scholar. He was arrested in 2003. He has been called a member of the “al-Shu’ayb ...

, wrote a letter to Taliban leader

Mullah Omar Mullah Muhammad Omar (; –April 2013) was an Afghan Islamic revolutionary who founded the Taliban and served as the supreme leader of Afghanistan from Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001), 1996 to 2001. Born into a religious family of ...

praising him and referred to him as the

Commander of the faithful Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

Prison

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

Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...

, 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 9 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