What Muslims Should Learn From Khashoggi

Late Jamal Khashoggi

World media has become inundated with name Jamal Khashoggi; an American resident Journalist from Saudi Arabia who was murdered by his own country. People have asked, what could it be about this man that made Saudi Arabia take the step of assassinating him?

Jamal Khashoggi was born to Ahmad Khashoggi and Esaaf Daftar in Madina in Saudi Arabia on 13th October 1958. 

Khashoggi received his elementary and secondary education in Saudi Arabia and obtained a BBA degree from Indiana State University in America in 1982. His religious views are mainstream Islamic views devoid of sectarian bias.

Khashoggi’s career as a journalist started in 1983 working as the regional Manager of Tihama Bookstores, his popularity in media surged in September 2017 when he became a columnist for the Washington post.

The upgrading of the status of Mohammed bin Salman to crown prince saw a dramatic change in Saudi policies from covert to overt. Relationships, deals and policies that were maintained and implemented in secrecy are now being exhibited for the world’s cameras. 

The massacres in Yemen intensified, arrests of Islamic clerics started, an Islamic scholar, Sheikh Suleiman Dweesh, was tortured to death in a Saudi prison to mention a few.

Jamal Khashoggi took to his duties as a Journalist which include speaking on behalf of those who cannot. In an article published on 11th September 2018 titled 'Saudi Arabia’s crown prince must restore dignity to his country — by ending Yemen’s cruel war', Khashoggi criticized the Saudi-led war on the people of Yemen. 

In another article titled 'Saudi Arabia wasn’t always this repressive. Now it’s unbearable' published on 18th September 2017, Khashoggi showed disdain for the state of freedom of expression in his country, Saudi Arabia.

On October 2^nd 2018, Jamal Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain papers for his upcoming wedding; he never came out. On October 25th 2018 the Saudis finally admitted that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate.

What they have refused to admit publicly is that he was assassinated on the orders of the King himself, Salman bin Saud, with his son MBS in position to take the fall.

Jamal Khashoggi was ardently abiding by the command of Allah: "O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest you swerve, and if you distort justice or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well-acquainted with all that you do." Suratul Nisa (4:135)

Khashoggi showed that being from a people, race, or nation should never be a reason to justify atrocities committed by them. Muhammad (SAW) said, "Whoever supports his people in oppression is like a dead camel that falls into a well and is pulled out by its tail".

Khashoggi didn’t even choose the option of silence, he stood his ground which had and still has solid scriptural backing even with knowledge that his life was in danger. 

Jamal Khashoggi was a soldier with a pen, a martyr. May Allah grant him the highest place in Jannah.

Tariq ibn Shihab reported: A man asked Muhammad (SAW) “What is the best jihad?” 

The Prophet said, “A word of truth in front of a tyrannical ruler.”