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On September 4, 2022, pro-Islamic State (ISIS) Sawt Al-Iman Wal-Hikmah (Voice of Faith and Wisdom) released a nine-minute video titled "Where are You, People of Jealousy?" calling on Muslims in Saudi Arabia to rise up and wage jihad against the government for its mistreatment of Muslim women.[1] The video was released following the August 31 online publication of a two-minute video clip showing police and officials in plainclothes assaulting girls and women at a government orphanage in Khamis Mushait, in Saudi Arabia's southwestern 'Asir Region. The Twitter user claiming to have edited the videos wrote that the girls had been staging a "strike against corruption and injustice" after they "demanded their rights from the orphanage and were rejected."[2]
The clip caused widespread outrage within and outside Saudi Arabia, as the hashtag #Khamis_Mushait_Orphans quickly trended, with many commenting that if women were treated so brutally by the authorities while being filmed, female prisoners must be treated even worse. The authorities of the 'Asir Region announced on August 31 that they had formed a committee to investigate the incident and would prosecute those responsible.[3]
Pro-ISIS Video Calls On Saudi Youth To Wage Jihad Against Their Government To Avenge Women's Honor
The video opens with an image of the Kaaba in Mecca depicted behind barbed wire, with Saudi Arabia's King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman standing in front, accompanied by the caption "The captive land of the [Arabian] Peninsula." As excerpts from the raid on the Khamis Mushait orphanage run, a nasheed [composition of vocal music, popular among jihadis] in an Arabian dialect plays, with lyrics calling for Muslims to avenge the "honor" of their "sisters" against those who assault them.
The pro-ISIS video then shows excerpts from a 2013 video clip in which several veiled Saudi women whose husbands and brothers had been imprisoned describe their own experiences, claiming they were assaulted and strip-searched by prison authorities. One of the women, addressing "every free, zealous one," urges them to "move" to avenge the rape of women, and says they are not men if they do not act. In another archival video clip, a veiled woman calls on mujahideen in Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria to come to her aid and that of other women imprisoned in Saudi Arabia.
Footage from an archival ISIS video shows a fighter urging Saudi youth not to let the government distract them with entertainment that will cause them to neglect the causes of the ummah [Islamic nation], including "the chaste women in the prisons" in their country. A second fighter urging Saudi youth to take action to avenge the women in Saudi prisons under 24-hour video surveillance, asks them: "Where are you, people of jealousy?"
Echoing this question, the video's narrator asks: "So where are you, youths of the Land of the Two Holy Sites? Has your only concern become ball, amusement, playing, films, clubs, and dancing?" He calls on Saudi youth to "expel the polytheists from the Arabian Peninsula, [and] light the ground on fire under the feet of Aal Saloul [a pejorative term for the Saudi royal family]," as "the holy sites today are in the hands of the crusaders and the Jews." Asking whether they "are more pleased with the life of this world than the Hereafter" and if they want "women to stay in prison," the narrator scolds: "Where is your manhood, sons of the tribes?"
In footage from the same archival ISIS video, one of the fighters sings a nasheed in an Arabian dialect asking Saudis "where are the men who will free the captives?" and declaring that explosive-rigged vehicles and beheadings have a "role" to play in securing their release. The fighter then advises his audience to search the internet for "the collaboration of Aal Saloul" to discover the extent to which the Saudis have provided money and weapons to the West, and waged war on Islam and mujahideen. After singing another nasheed, threatening the "collaborator of the West" that "soon you will disappear, and you will pay the price dearly," the fighter urges Saudi youth to "sell their souls to Allah" and "rise up" against their government. The video concludes with the first fighter threatening the Saudi government: "The armies of the Islamic State are continuing their march toward you, to crush your fortresses, lower your thrones, and cut your throats. So be on the lookout."
ISIS Supporters Declare Saudi Rulers Apostate Enemies Of Islam, Urge Saudi Muslims To Rise Up Against Them
In recent days, similar calls for jihad against Saudi Arabia and threats to its rulers have been made by other ISIS supporters. On August 31, pro-ISIS Telegram channel Sawt Al-Zarqawi (Voice of [Abu Mus'ab] Al-Zarqawi) posted the video clip of the raid on the Khamis Mushait orphanage, commenting: "O people of monotheism in the peninsula of Muhammad, save yourselves and your honor from the hands of the unbelievers, and wash the clothing of your manhood from shame." The channel added stanzas from a well-known medieval poem: "If Muslim women are captured on every frontier / Can the lives of the Muslim men then be pleasant? / By Allah, Islam has rights / Which must be defended by youths and old men / Tell those who can see, wherever they are / Heed Allah's call, heed it!"[4]
On September 1, prominent ISIS supporter Abu 'Imad Al-Nayrabi published a Telegram post against the Saudi regime, asserting that the "dogs of Aal Saloul have reached a greater level of unbelief than anyone before them." The post argues that while the Saudi royal family claims Islamic legitimacy by managing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and providing for the needs of pilgrims, "their unbelief and hypocrisy is greater than those who wanted to demolish the Kaaba." Al-Nayrabi asks: "Where are the people of my nation to wage war on these taghouts [literally "false deities," a reference to rulers who govern by manmade law] and their lackeys, and to drag their dogs like they drag Muslim women?!" Commending Saudis for having contributed financially to jihad in the past, he declares: "The time has come for you to open the doors of jihad where you are, because that is where the disease is, so be the cure for it and take revenge on your symptoms."[5]
[1] Telegram, September 4, 2022.
[2] Bbc.com, September 2, 2022.
[3] Twitter, August 31, 2022.
[4] Telegram, August 31, 2022.
[5] Telegram, September 1, 2022.
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