Sheikh al-Wadii’s Will Appoints Leader for Salfyah Movement [Archives:2001/31/Front Page]

The late Sheikh Hadi Moqbil al-Wadii, leader of the Salafyah movement in Yemen, entrusted by a will the leadership of the movement to Sheikh Yahya Ali al-Hajuri. The will further entrusted Sheikh Ahmed al-Osabi to run the Hadeth Center, established by him for the teaching of the Islamic sciences. Moreover, in his will Sheikh al-Wadii appointed several religious scholars as authoritative sources for the Salafyah movement, including Mohammed Abdulwahab, Abu al-Hassan al-Mari, Abdulaziz al-Bura’ei, Abdulah Bin Othman, Yahya al-Alhagurah, Abdurahman al-Adani and Mohammed al-Sumali. Sheikh al-Wadii stressed in his will the importance of rendering care to foreign students studying at his center.
It is noteworthy that the late Sheikh Moqbil Bin Hadi al-wadii, founder of the Salafyah movement in Yemen passed away at the age of seventy at eight o’clock last Sunday in Gedah, Saudi Arabia after having suffered at length from cirrhosis. Sheikh al-Wadii was laid to rest in al-A’adal Cemetery in the city of Mekah, Saudi Arabia close to the grave of the late Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin Baz the former mufti (provincial religious head in the Ottoman Empire) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Sheikh al-Wadii was a prominent leader of the Wahabite movement in Yemen and the founder of the Salafiyah movement in Yemen as well. He was a graduate of al-Madenah University in Saudi Arabia.
Following the so-called Juhaiman incident in 1979 he was imprisoned for three months and then deported to Yemen. After leaving Saudi Arabia he established the first center for the Salafiyah movement in Yemen in the district of Wada’ah, Sa’adah Governorate. Sheikh Mouqbil has succeeded in spreading the Salafiyah movement nationwide. More than three thousand students from all over the world are learning at his center in Wade’ah, Sa’adah.Sheikh al-Wadii was one of the leading opponents of democracy, since he believed that it should be prohibited because it treats men and women, the educated and the ignorant as equals. In his opinion, this is inconsistent with the principles of Islam. Moreover, he considered both democracy and political pluralism to be among the greatest evils of the modern age. Sheikh al-Wadii wrote several controversial books, the most recent being “The Bankrupt Ikhwan ” and “The Volcano for Demolishing Al-Eman University”. The Salafyah movement, which was led by the late al-Wadii, receives about SR 200000 in support from the Two-Holy Mosques’ Foundation, in addition to numerous books and publications on the Wahabite doctrine.
Sheikh al-Wadii adopted a hostile attitude towards the United States and other Western countries but thought it would be impossible to oppose them without a strong enough umah (Islamic community). Barbara Bodine, formerly the US Ambassador to Yemen, had visited the al-Wadii center in Sa’adah to become acquainted with the situation prevailing there.
It is worth mentioning that the internal security authorities have recently arrested nine members of the Salafiyah movement in connection with the Cole bombing incident. However, in a statement to the London-based newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, the President of the Republic of Yemen said that to his knowledge the Salafiyah movement had nothing to do with politics. He added that the nine suspects were all Yemeni citizens affiliated to the Salafiyah movement, but were probably not involved in the Cole bombing incident.

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