Salman al-Ouda

Salman bin Fahd bin Abdullah al-Ouda (سلمان بن فهد بن عبد الله العودة) or Salman al-Ouda (سلمان العودة), Salman al-Oadah, Salman al-Audah, or Salman al-Awdah (سلمان بن فهد العودة) - kunya: Abu Mu'ad (أبو معاذ)- (born December 14, 1956) is a Saudi Muslim scholar.

Al-Ouda is a member of the International Union for Muslim Scholars and on its board of trustees.

He is a director of the Arabic edition of the website Islam Today and appears on a number of TV shows and authors newspaper articles.

Al-Ouda was born in 1956 in al-Basr, near the city of Burayda in Al-Qassim in central Saudi Arabia.

He spent his early years in al-Basr, then moved to Burayda.

Al-Ouda was married to Haya al-Sayari.

His eldest son is named Maaz, or Mu`âdh.

In 1990 Salman al-Ouda was a teacher at the main mosque in Burayda.

He gave weekly lessons for the general public at the mosque and other lessons where he gave commentary on the book Bulûgh al-Marâm.

He gave daily lessons after the Morning Prayer, where he talked about the authoritative collections of Hadith - Sahîh al-Bukhârî, Sahîh Muslim and discussed the Qur'an.

He described the content of the books Kitâb al-Tawhîd by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, al-Usûl al-Thalâthah, and Nukhbah al-Fikr.

The 1990–1991 Gulf Crisis and War, in which an American-led coalition of forces aligned against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in response to its seizure of Kuwait, proved an opportunity for al-Ouda and others to tap into an already-existing current of discontent within the Kingdom.

When the then-Grand Mufti Abd al-Aziz bin Baz issued a fatwa lending Islamic justification for the regime to invite American forces to defend Saudi Arabia from Hussein, al-Ouda raised questions about the ability of the Saudi military to defend the Kingdom with so much investment in U.S. armaments.

During the war, al-Ouda was a moving force behind two reform petitions addressed to the King.

The first, in 1991, was known as the Letter of Demands and was signed by leading Saudi religious, mercantile, and socially prominent figures seeking changes in the form of government, notably the establishment of a Shura (consultative) Council.

A year later, the second petition, known as the Memorandum of Advice, which was signed by more than one hundred religious scholars, including establishment Ulama, called for a Shura Council as well as media censorship under religious guidance and review of all the kingdom's laws to insure their conformity with Shari'a. Both petitions expressed loyalty to the house of Sa'ud while opposing the lack of representation in the existing government.

Meanwhile, audiotapes of al-Ouda's sermons gained wide circulation and encouraged to other opposition voices after the first Gulf War, as the United States military settled in for a long stay at an airbase outside the capital.

In 1993 al-Ouda was one of the leaders of the dissident group Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR) that challenged the Saudi government, for which he was imprisoned during 1994–1999.

Al-Ouda was one of the leaders of the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR) that was a Saudi dissident group created in 1993 and was the first ever opposition organization in the Kingdom openly challenging the absolute monarchy, accusing the government and senior Saudi scholars of not doing enough to protect the legitimate Islamic rights of the Muslims.

In September 1994 Salman al-Ouda was imprisoned for alleged "anti-government activities."

He and Safar al-Hawali were arrested together with a large number of their followers in the city of Burayda, Qasim region.

Following his five years of imprisonment for having incited opposition to the Saudi government, al-Ouda emerged "rehabilitated" in 1999 to become one of the kingdom's most prominent religious spokespersons.

In 2007 he was viewed as a government supporter.

With a television program and a website in four languages, he was viewed in 2007 as a supporter of the Saudi government, operating under its protection and in competition with the government-sponsored establishment Ulama (clergy).

He was also an advocate for Sunni-Shia dialogue, calling for a more inclusive society that would end the marginalization of Saudi Shia citizens.

He was detained by the Saudi authorities in September 2017.

, he remained in solitary confinement without charge or trial.

Officials imposed travel bans on members of his family.

He was arrested for his refusal to comply with an order by Saudi authorities to tweet a specific text to support the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar.

In January 2017, a traffic accident killed al Ouda's son Hisham and his wife Haya.

Condolences to al-Ouda over this accident were given on Twitter by Mohamad al-Arefe, Aid al-Qarni, Ibrahim al-Dawish, Hassan al-Husseini, Ziyad al-Shahri, Nayef al-Sahfe, Moussa al-Omar, and Muhammad al-Yaqoubi.

Al-Ouda joined an educational institute in Burayda, where he spent six years.

He studied under scholars such as Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baaz, Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen, Abdullah Abdal Rahman Jibreen, and Saleh Al-bleahy.

In Burayda, he studied Arabic grammar, Hanbali jurisprudence and hadith under the guidance of local sheikhs.

He completed a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in Islamic jurisprudence at Imam Muhammad bin Sa'ud University.

He graduated from the Faculty of Sharia and Religious Principles in Qassim, then became a teacher at the Scientific Institutes there.

He wrote the book (أفعل ولا حرج) (Do No Wrong), which became well-known.

In May 2017 he was banned along with Bilal Philips and four others from entering Denmark for a period of two years over concerns that they would preach hate towards Danish society and indoctrinate others to commit violence against women and children and disseminate ideas about a caliphate.

In a 4 September 2018 legal hearing, prosecutors applied for al-Ouda to be sentenced to death.

The name was removed from the list shortly before its expiration (2 May 2019), without explanation.