Salman Al Ouda

IslamPreacherPropagandistSunni IslamSalafism

Jul 19

**DOB:** 14 December 1956

**Nationality:** Saudi

**Location:** Saudi Arabia
**Ideology/Affiliation:** Salafi

**Type of Leader:** Preacher/ Propagandist

Biography

Salman Bin Fahd bin Abdullah al-Ouda is a Saudi Muslim preacher and scholar born in 1956 in in Al-Qassim in central Saudi Arabia. Al-Ouda spent six years studying Arabic grammar and Hanbali jurisprudence at the Educational Institute in Buraydah under scholars such as Abd al-Aziz ibn Baaz, Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen, and Abdullah Abdul Rahman Jibreen. He then earned a Bachelor and Master’s degree before pursuing a PhD in Islamic jurisprudence at Imam Muhammad bin Saud University. He graduated from the Faculty of Sharia and Religious Principles in Qassim, Saudi Arabia and became a teacher at the Scientific Institute in the same faculty. In addition, he taught at the main Mosque in Buraydah, a city north of the Saudi capital Riyadh, where he gave weekly lessons as well as daily lessons after morning prayer. His lectures were mostly about the collections of Hadith (the sayings and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad).

He is a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, the director of the Arabic edition of the website Islam Today. Al Ouda was also a presenter of several TV shows before his arrest by the Saudi authorities for "terrorism and conspiracy against the state" in September 2017. He is currently imprisoned in solitary confinement in Saudi Arabia, following a fallout with Saudi authorities. In December 2020, his son, Abdullah Al-Ouda said his father had “lost almost half of his ability to hear and see” in prison. He mentioned his deteriorating physical and mental condition in an op-ed in The New York Times and also appealed to the U.S. President-elect, Joe Biden, to put pressure on the Saudi government to release his father and some other political prisoners.

In May 2017, he was banned along with Bilal Philips and four others from entering Denmark for two years due to their supposedly hate speech towards Danish society and influencing others to commit violence against women and children. Less than two years after and just before the expiration of the list, his name was removed from the list without any further explanation. Since the rise of Mohamed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, Al-Ouda and a significant number of other Salafi preachers became less advocative of hate against other faiths. Bin Salman’s pressure on religious figures pushed them to focus more on spiritual affairs rather than Jihad and geopolitics.

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Evidence of Hate Speech/Incitement:

June 2014: In an article entitled “they will be defeated” on his website on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Al Oudah stated that the war with Zionism and its allies extends in time and space until the end of times. He justified his statement by mentioning a Hadith attributed arguably to the prophet Muhammed on the necessity to kill Jews at the final battle at the end of times in Palestine.

October 2013: In response to a question on the religion’s position regarding some youth's willingness to join the war in Syria, Al Oudah called the armed struggle Jihad. He also added that it is totally normal for people from abroad to attempt to join the “resistance” against the Syrian regime.