Muslim Scholars and NGOs seek to create international administration for Holy Sites in Saudi Arabia

Muslim Scholars and NGOs seek to create international administration for Holy Sites in Saudi Arabia
The Great Mosque of Mecca.

International Commission to Monitor Saudi Administration of the Two Holy Mosques (Al Haramain Watch) has announced the launch of an international campaign targeting Islamic countries in order to establish an administration to monitor and manage the affairs of the Two Holy Mosques as a stand against the policies of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The new campaign relies on raising awareness in the Arab and Islamic countries and for Islamic communities across Europe and the US about their rights to administer and care for the affairs of the two holy mosques and other Islamic sentiments in the country of Hejaz. The petition has already gathered the support of around 100 Muslim scholars and Human rights activists.

According to Al Haramain Watch, Saudi Arabia is in violation of not only international law but also the principles of its founding fathers who agreed to protect the rights of Muslims' access to holy sites in the kingdom. However, the last few years has witnessed dramatic change where the Saudi government started to ban Muslim nations, religious groups, and individuals from visiting Saudi Arabia. Many of these groups were prevented from visiting the kingdom and in many cases people were jailed and deported.

The organisation argues that it takes a unified Muslim administration from all Muslim countries to come together to put a strategy in order to manage the holy sites in Saudi Arabia and ensure free full access to everyone, and end practices by the Saudi government which prevent many peoples and nations from performing their worshipping rights.

The petition demands that “due to the permanent failure of Saudi Arabia to manage the two holy mosques and the feelings and permanent politicisation and the absence of strategic development, we call on Islamic countries and governments to take the initiative and the media to form an interim framework that sets the first building blocks for a long-term plan for the process of managing the two holy sites and holy sites in the countries of Hejaz (Saudi Arabia)... Establishing an Islamic administration that takes upon itself the administration of the Two Holy Places and the Holy Bekaa, whose membership consists of all Muslim countries. Where these countries choose a high committee to be elected for a period of 4 years and subject to periodic review by a working association supervised by all member states.”

The Sheikh and the Malaysian scholar Azmi Abdul Hamid said that the campaign obtained an important historical document written by King Abdulaziz bin Saud, a supporter of the Hejaz and Najd countries, which was known as Saudi Arabia later. According to Abdul Hamid, the new document will be used to remind Muslims of their integral rights in the holy sites in Saudi Arabia.

This document states that Muslims have a clear right to administer the affairs of the two holy mosques without any obstacles, which was guaranteed by the founder Abdul Aziz Al Saud and that Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman repudiated him. The text of the document clearly says that the Hijaz for the Hijazis (Now known as Saudi Arabia) on the one hand and the Islamic world on the one hand have the rights that they have in these countries.

The petition furthermore calls on establishing a sovereign fund managed by Islamic countries in accordance with what is described in the second item, which depends mainly on income from the resources of Hajj and Umrah. It also demands establishing a supreme political committee within the second clause above, whose goal is to ensure that all Muslims may reach the holy sites and the Two Holy Places in order to perform the rituals and rituals. Such a committee would put an end to the Saudi indulgence in preventing Muslim countries, individuals, groups, and minorities from fulfilling their inherent rights that no one in the nation’s history has been able to fulfill.

International Commission to Monitor Saudi Administration of the Two Holy Mosques (Al Harmain Watch) is an institution established at the beginning of 2018, whose goal is to ensure that Saudi Arabia maintains good management of the holy sites, preserve Islamic historical sites, and don't politicise the holy sites.

The commission aims to ensure that Saudi Arabia manages the two holy mosques and Islamic sites in a correct way that preserves the past and present of Islam, by providing advice to Riyadh through an Islamic advisory council, and involving Muslim countries in the conversation.

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