EFL
U.S. authorities have revoked the diplomatic visa of an influential Islamic cleric, and the Saudi government has decided it will no longer sponsor an Islamic institute in Virginia where he sometimes lectured, moves that reflect both nations’ increasing efforts to curb the spread of extremist Islamic rhetoric, according to U.S. and Saudi officials. Jaafar Iblis Idris, who was affiliated with the Fairfax-based Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America, left the United States two weeks ago after his visa was revoked. Idris is a native of Sudan, but was sponsored as a diplomat here by the Saudi embassy and had an office in that embassy’s Islamic affairs section, according to a lawyer associated with him.
| "Hey, guys! I'm lost and hungry and from another country, but I'm Islamic. Could you accredit me as one of your diplos?" |
Idris’s departure follows a decision by the Saudi government to stop providing diplomatic status to Islamic clerics and educators teaching overseas, according to a senior Saudi official who declined to be identified. "We are going to shut down the Islamic affairs section in every embassy," the officials said. "That’s the objective."
| I'll certainly sleep better tonight... |
In comments in Arabic posted Wednesday by Islamtoday.net, a Saudi-based Web site, Idris said he was questioned repeatedly by FBI agents about his lectures and travels to Europe. He said U.S. authorities asked him to leave the country. Idris, whose lectures are published on Islamic Web sites around the world, has been a leading figure among Washington-area adherents of Wahhabism. He is president of American Open University in Alexandria and a founder of the Islamic Foundation of America in Springfield, institutions that also promote a very orthodox brand of Islam.
| So does that mean I can get a Samoan passport and be accredited as one of their diplos in Soddy Arabia and start my own university? And the Agnostic Foundation of Soddy Arabia? |
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