Yasser Al-Habib

He was abducted on a Kuwait City street on the afternoon of 30 November 2003 by unknown individuals and taken away in an unmarked vehicle. His family was not informed that he had been detained by security forces until the following day. Al-Habib was reportedly arrested in connection with an audio cassette recording of a lecture he gave to an audience of 10 to 20 people in a closed environment on Islamic historical issues. His research is believed to have relied heavily on Wahhabi references and texts, and is said to have angered hardline Wahhabi groups who have used their influence within the establishment to bring about the maximum punishment against al-Habib. On 20 January 2004, he was reportedly convicted of “questioning the conduct and integrity of some of the ‘companions’ of the prophet Muhammad” in a lecture he had delivered, and sentenced to 10 years in prison in Kuwait. He has reportedly been subject to several orchestrated violent attacks in prison by Wahhabi inmates.[4]

However, his imprisonment was cut short in 2004 by a royal pardon on the occasion of the country's National Day, but his rearrest was ordered a few days later as his name was included in the royal pardon through a clerical error. He fled the country first to Iraq, then to Iran. Then he went to London where Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini Shirazi, younger brother of Ayatollah Sadiq Shirazi, has lived for forty years. Finally he could get asylum in Britain.[5]

Now he lives in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire, and had started his religious and political activity such as founding Al Muhassin Mosque and setting up Fadak (TV channel).[6]

Al-Habib said:

Wahhabism is a criminal and violent ideology, founded by a mentally ill man named Muhammad Ibn Abdul-Wahhab about three centuries ago. Its main principle is that all Muslims who perform Tawassul and visit their graves are regarded as apostates and infidels. Therefore, the seizure of their life, property and women would, like that of the infidels, be religiously lawful and permissible![9]

Sheikh al-Habib refers to Sunnis as Bakris, meaning the followers of Abu Bakr. He says that the real Sunnis (Ahlul Sunnah) are the ones who follow the Sunnah of Muhammad, that is Shia Muslims. He continues that Sunnis today follow the Sunnah and teachings of Abu Bakr instead, having rejected Ali ibn Abi Talib and Ahlulbayt. He explains in one of his lectures titled Bakris think they are Sunnis, but in reality are not that when people wanted to distance themselves from the Shia, and follow Muawiyya, they started calling themselves the Jama'ah. He explains that the reality behind why people called themselves Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama'ah only began after the Umayyad ruler Umar bin Abdul Aziz forbade the Sunnah (tradition) of cursing Ali ibn Abi Talib publicly (as previously invented by Muawiyah). It was upon then that people protested to this new prohibition, declaring that Umar bin Abdul Aziz had prohibited the Sunnah of cursing Ali ibn Abi Talib. Thus they began calling themselves Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama'ah; stressing that they adhere to the Sunnah of cursing Ali ibn Abi Talib, and that they are the Jama'ah of Muawiyah.

He also refers to those people who claim to be Shi'a but fail to disassociate themselves from the likes of Abu bakr, Omar ibn khattab, Aisha and other controversial historical personalities such as Khalid ibn Walid, as Batris.

He described Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (the Lebanese marja who died on 4 July 2010)[10] as Batri. Al-Habib said that Fadlallah left a great number of doctrinal deviations, ignorant views and bad conduct which he introduced to the religion of Islam.[11]