Al Jazeera host under fire for provocative tweet

A political talk show host with Qatar-based Al Jazeerachannel has come under heavy criticism from angry social media users after he posted a highly controversial tweet.

Posting a picture of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims praying at Mount Arafat in the suburbs of Makkah one day before Eid Al Adha, Faysal Al Kasim who hosts the weekly programme “Both Views” used part of a verse from the Quran out of its context to describe the praying Muslims: “You think they are together, but their hearts are divided.”

The expression, taken from verse 14 of Al Hashr Chapter in the Quran, refers to hypocrites and non-believers.

“They will not fight you all except within fortified cities or from behind walls. Their violence among themselves is severe. You think they are together, but their hearts are divided. That is because they are people who do not reason”, the verse says.

The tweet was immediately assailed as outrageously shocking as it compared Muslims supplicating to God on one of the Islam’s most sacred occasions to hypocrites and non-believers whose hearts do not beat together.

“He must be held accountable for insulting Muslims and their rituals,” Saud Al Ofi posted on Twitter.

Thamer said he had to change his view about Al Kasim.

“Before the crisis with Qatar, I honestly considered you an intellectual. However, following the crisis, I understood that you are rather a shallow person with keenness on the Qatari Riyal to the point that you no longer discern right from wrong,” he posted.

For Sami, Qatar will continue to suffer “as long as some mercenaries bent on spreading lies and fuelling seditions live among them.”

“Qatar will not see any positive developments as long as such people live among them. They have torn at the fabric of the Gulf with their destructive ideas and spread sedition and lies. They are just mercenaries without values or morals to rein them in,” Sami posted.

In his defence, Al Kasim resorted to challenging his detractors.

“They became angry over a tweet, but they do not get upset that the Rohingya Muslims are being exterminated in crematoria in Myanmar. Save them if ye are true to your claims,” he posted.

Al Kasim, a Syrian, is the second well-known figure on Al Jazeera to wade into controversy in as many days after Khadija Bin Guennah, an Algerian anchor woman, was criticised for posting a tweet denigrating Prince Khalid Al Faisal, the Emir of Makkah and Advisor to King Salman, saying he was senile.

Addressing a press conference in Makkah, Al Faisal said that 1,564 Qataris had arrived in Saudi Arabia to perform Haj.

The figure represents a clear increase over last year when 1,210 Qataris attended the Haj rituals last year.

However, Bin Guennah doubted the figure and attributed it to the emir’s “cognitive decline.”

“Weak memory and focus in old age,” she posted, unleashing the wrath of Saudis and other Muslims.

source: Gulf News