Mohamad al-Arefe

Mohamad bin AbdelRahman al-ʿArefe (Arabic: محمد العريفي‎‎) (born 15 July 1970) is a Saudi author and scholar. He is a graduate of King Saud University, and Member of the Muslim World League and the Association of muslim scholars.

On Twitter, several million follow Al-Arefe.As of 9 December 2015, Al-Arefe had over 16 million likes on Facebook and 13.4 million followers on Twitter, which places his account in the top 100 worldwide, and #10 in the Arab world and in the Middle East. BBC claims that Al-Arefe is regarded as a clerical "Brad Pitt". A Syrian Jihad was announced by Arifi.

His official web site said he rejects "right-wing media allegations that he may have contributed to the radicalization of three British born Muslims seen in a recently released video by ISIS." However, the ideology he spreads is very similar if not an exact replica of the strict ideology of ISIS.

In an interview on Lebanese TV in 2007, al-Arefe explained the three ways a man should discipline his wife:

• He should first admonish her.
• If admonishing doesn’t work he should give her the silent treatment to show his anger.
• In the event that those two options fail, a husband may strike his wife (al-Arefe specifically referred to a Miswak as an appropriate weapon). "If he beats her," Al-Arefe said, "the beatings must be light and must not make her face ugly. He should beat her in some places where it will not cause any damage." 'Ali Al-'Alyani wrote an article responding to Al-Arefe's remarks. The Netherlands made Arifi persona non grata due to this.

Al-Arefe claimed that Danish women slept around so much that a majority do not know who their father of their children were, claiming a figure of 54%. He criticized the west for having magazines, websites, and legal organizations for bestiality and homosexuality and said that sex of all kinds and adultery were practiced by what he called "infidels" and compared "infidels" to animals. Al-Arefe said that there is no bottom limit for the marriageable age of girls.

Al-Arefe attacked and criticized the idea of car driving for women.

Al-Arefe engaged in a diatribe against Shias, referred to them as "evil", used the label of "infidel" against Shia cleric Ayatollah Sistani and boasted that there are no mausoleums, public statues, Christian crosses in Saudi Arabia. Al-Arefe described Jews as cowardly in battle and claimed that their tanks had urine and feces in them since they wouldn't get out of them. He also claimed they used bags or diapers in the tank. He described Jews as too cowardly to fight and said they were going to hide around the Gharqad trees they were allegedly planting.

Al-Arefe said that Muslims should either kill, extract jizya taxes from, or convert "infidels" upon invading their lands. He said that Muslims were distracted from "conquering" the lands of "infidels" by the US's war. He said that a "believer" should seek to cut people's legs and arms, break their skulls and cause bloodshed. This was a fatwa.

Either the destruction or reformation of Egyptian President Mubarak was prayed for by Al-Arefe.

Al-Arefe repudiated allegations that he said that "mujahideen" in the Syrian Civil War could have provided with sex by emigrant Muslim women.

Al-Arefe supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Al-Arefe was lauded by Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood President Mursi and al-Arefe and Salman al-Ouda were named as Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers. He is a known associated of them.

Muslim Brotherhood affiliation was denied for Arefe and Adil al-Kalbani by al-Kalbani, saying that they are affiliated with the Union of Muslim Scholars.

A video Al-Arefe was posted by Ibrahim al-Musalem on a tweet about the Charlie Hebdo shooting.

Holiday celebrations and greetings to Christians by Muslims was banned by Al-Arefe. He strictly explicitly banned religious greetings to non-Muslims. Al-Arefe forbade the usage of Christmas trees.

He said that Syria jihad is incumbent and did apologia for al-Nusra, visiting the Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab Mosque in Qatar.

In July 2015, Al-Arafe wrote a critique on Facebook of the Egyptian Ramadan TV series Jewish Quarter, complaining that it showed Jews in a positive light, when in reality Jews were terrible people. It was picked up by Arabic media.

In March 2014, he was banned by the Home Office from returning to Britain after a series of sermons in Cardiff, Birmingham and London. A Home Office spokesperson said: "We can confirm Mohammad Al-Arefe has been excluded from the United Kingdom. The Government makes no apologies for refusing people access to the UK if we believe they represent a threat to our society. Coming here is a privilege that we refuse to extend to those who seek to subvert our shared values."

al-Arefe had a discussion with Saudi Deputy crown prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud and then tweeted and posted a photo of them smiling together. The discussion was held on the same day as Saudi Vision 2030 began. He asked God to bless Prince Mohammad and posted his thanks. al-Arefe met with Prince Mohamed bin Salman again and talked with him and posted the photo of them smiling together on twitter. They talked about the Islamic world's and the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia's) future.

King Saud University employs Al-Arefe.

Arifi on Twitter vowed for Russia and Assad to be defeated over the Battle of Aleppo.

Condolences over the death of the son of Salman al-Ouda and his wife were given on Twitter by Mohamad al-Arefe.

Abdul Razzaq al-Mahdi, Nabil Al-Awadi, Tariq Abdelhaleem, and Hani al-Sibai who are linked to Al-Qaeda, in addition to others like Adnan al-Aroor, Abd Al-Aziz Al-Fawzan, Mohamad al-Arefe, Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al Shaykh and others were included on a death list by ISIS.

The 2013 Egyptian coup d'état

In July 2013, Al-Arefe was detained by the Saudi authorities for using YouTube to criticize the military coup d'état in Egypt, an ally of Saudi Arabia. It was speculated that the arrest was in response to a complaint filed by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to its Saudi counterpart. The complaint claimed that Al-Arefe was intervening in Egyptian domestic affairs. Before his release, he signed a pledge not to interfere in Egyptian affairs and was released afterwards but placed under house arrest. He was also banned from traveling to Doha, where he was scheduled to deliver a religious lecture there. The Saudi authorities never announced the reason behind Al-Arefe's arrest.

In October 2014, he was jailed for 40 days for stating that the train linking Mecca and other holy sites was "one of the worst in the world". Al-Arefe was banned from entering Switzerland for holding extreme views, Switzerland said.