JEDDAH, 1 December 2004 — Two weeks ago I received an SMS from a friend informing me that certain members of my family had pledged their allegiance to Saudi dissident Saad Al-Faqeeh on the Islah (Reform) satellite TV channel.
“Impossible, no one in my family would do that,” I told him. “We have a long standing relationship with the royal family.”
Wanting to see for myself, I called my satellite technician and asked him how to get the Islah channel. “You already have it. It’s free if you have the latest standard receiver,” he said.
I flipped through several hundred channels until I found it and sure enough, there it was with the Al-Ghalib family name displayed prominently across the top of the screen. Below it was a rolling list of 280 names that the channel claimed had joined the movement, calling for dissent within the country.
I watched with considerable interest and wrote down the names while simultaneously calling my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins to ask if we had all gone mad. The strange thing was that I didn’t recognize any of the names and neither did they. We didn’t even recognize the names of the fathers or grandfathers — a part of every Saudi’s full name.
Also listed under the Al-Ghalib name were the names of another family also descending from the line of the Prophet (peace be upon him) but not part of the Al-Ghalibs. What Islah did was create a link between the patriarch of the Al-Ghalibs, Al-Sharif Ghalib ibn Musaed Al-Zeid, the former Sharif of the Hijaz and a prominent figure in the region’s history, with another family descending from the Prophet, but not our family.
It has been reported in the Arabic press in the past that several of the names on Al-Faqeeh’s list have been taken from the telephone book without permission, and that some of the names were those of people who had long been dead or who had never been born, or names that had been submitted without the named person’s consent.
Meanwhile, Islah’s abuse of the Al-Ghalib name created quite a stir in my family. I met with Al-Sharif Ghali ibn Faisal Al-Ghalib, head of the Jeddah office of Al-Sharif Ghalib Endowment and Trust Fund, to discuss three large-sized ads in the local press clarifying our family’s position on this matter.
Part of the ad reads: “We the Sharifs of the Al-Ghalib family would like it to be known that the names appearing on a suspicious satellite channel are not descendants of Al-Sharif Ghalib ibn Musaed Al-Zeid as it was made to appear. Our grandfathers pledged their allegiance to King Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul Rahman Al-Saud as we pledge our continued allegiance to his sons. We pray that Allah will reward our country with safety and security under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.”
Al-Sharif Ghali told me: “Whether the names that appeared on the channel are genuine or not is not for us to decide. What we want to make clear is that the Al-Ghalibs that were listed are not descendants of Al-Sharif Ghalib ibn Musaed Al-Zeid, and are not members of our family nor are they beneficiaries of our family trust fund.”
A few days after the list appeared on Islah, representatives from the Al-Ghalib family visited Crown Prince Abdullah. We presented him with a historical document, a message from Imam Saud ibn Abdul Aziz detailing the first Saudi state, signed by Al-Sharif Ghalib ibn Musaed dated 1225H.
The crown prince was also presented with another historical document dated 1344H, a royal decree appointing Al-Sharif Sharaf ibn Ahmad Adnan Al-Ghalib, as head of the first Shoura Council and chairman of the first Islamic International Conference, at which he spoke in front of King Abdul Aziz.
Perhaps Saad Al-Faqeeh should reflect on the following: It takes a long time to earn the trust and the respect of the public, but it only takes an instant to lose it. In the meantime, I have positioned the Islah channel on my satellite receiver, between The Cartoon Network and the Paramount Comedy Channel. It is now exactly in position for those times when I need something light-hearted not to be taken too seriously.
