Wasim Yousef .. expelled from the utopian Emirati city

The hour was referring to three in the morning when Wassim Youssef went to his friend's car. He opened the "Snapchat" application to reveal some of his chest, as it appears that the Jordanian preacher, of Emirati nationality and affiliation, was living in a difficult psychological state that spilled his lying according to his description, and imposed on him He revealed many of his life's secrets.

In these video clips, Waseem revealed that he and his family were bullied by some Emirati citizens, and his son was beaten in school by his colleagues because of his father’s positions on some religious issues, which led him to ask the school’s teachers not to call his son Zayed in his full name, “Zayed Waseem Yousef” In the name of “Zayed Yusuf”, he avoided being hurt because of his father’s affiliation, adding that he avoided going out with his family for a walk because of his fear of being harassed by teenagers in public places - as he described it - who see him as an enemy of Islam and a servant of foreign agendas aiming to destroy the United Arab Emirates.

However, this disclosure and grumbling, apparently, did not impress the people of Abu Dhabi and those close to its leadership, as it was soon announced that Wasim Yusef was removed from his important position as the Imam of the Zayed Grand Mosque, and his inauguration as an alternate to the Sultan Bin Zayed Mosque with 4 other imams, before he continued Judicially charged with disseminating and promoting ideas that would "spread hatred and racism in society and harm national unity and social peace". Then, the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court issued a 5-year prison sentence, 4 of which are suspended and one year in effect, with a fine of 300,000 dirhams (1), to start the difficult days for the preacher who gave everything to prove his loyalty to "Ayal Zayed". Who is the preacher Wassim Youssef, and why did the Emirates expel him from her "paradise"?

"A first year radicalized"

Wasim Yousef bin Ahmed Shehata Al-Masry was born on June 26, 1982 in the Jordanian city of Irbid to a middle family who had two girls before him, and his association with religion began early through his religiously committed mother. However, his religiosity increased significantly in the fourth year of the elementary educational stage, during which he used to accompany his father to the neighborhood mosque, close to their home, which contributed to his religious formation later. During the secondary stage, get to know who he later called the "obscurantists". The obscurantists mean the Salafi current, not in general as we will discover - after that - but rather the current called the Salafi Salafism (*), which is the dynamic and revolutionary part of the salafi map.

Wasim tells during 4 episodes of his program "Nectar of Faith" entitled "I was an extremist" (1), which was transformed into a book with the same title, how he got acquainted with Islamic knowledge, sheikhs, and books, and the way in which extremism and extremism lived during the secondary and university levels .

The young preacher became involved in this trend by constantly attending the mosque near his new family home in Jordan, as the imam of the mosque began to bring him closer to him, enter his house, and appoint him to address in some mosques subject to the influence of the Syrian Salafi movement in Jordan. Through this stage, Wassim Youssef derived his initial concepts of Islamic science, and began adhering to the Salafi approach in shortening the garment and lengthening the beard with the emergence of his star - despite the age of his age - due to the strong sermons that he was throwing, which combined between what is religious and what is political, especially when he invaded The United States of America in Iraq in 2003, when this period was marked by the rise of the revolutionary religious trend close to the Muslim Brotherhood, along with the escalation of the religious movement calling for resistance and jihad whose influence grew after the victory of the "Afghan and Arab Mujahideen" over the Soviet army and then the US invasion of Iraq after the events of September 11 September 2001. 

Wasim says about this period: "I was very impressed with my Sheikh, with his huge library and his visitors who were not cut off, the Sheikh was that example that I followed, and I was hoping to reach what he reached from the well-known knowledge, but what I was surprised at is that the Sheikh lives in the love of He ordered him without going out to work an hour during the day. "This exclamation will go away, according to Wassim Youssef, when he discovers that his sheikh" was receiving funding from some external parties to serve her political agenda inside Jordan "(3).

Upon his arrival to the university stage, Wassim Youssef will find himself unable to study aviation engineering, which represented the dream of childhood, because the college that teaches this specialization lives on the impact of mixing, as girls are taught in it and some professors are taught there, so that the way is for the young Jordanian who is religiously committed to heading towards a university Balqa Applied to study the specialty of Quranic readings.

During this stage, Wassim Youssef says that he discovered that Islamists or devotees are not at the heart of one man, but are spectra and incompatible currents and sometimes conflicting currents. There, Salafists with their short shirts and long beards in isolation from everyone, everyone sees himself with the most understanding of religion, but my biggest surprise was when I found that inside the Salafi movement itself there are differences, currents and schools, this appears through the battles that students of science are engaged in, everyone defends His Sheikh according to the ideology he received "(4).

Access to utopia

After graduation, Wassim Youssef began the journey of searching for a stable to absorb his dreams and hopes and offer him the opportunity to shine in the advocacy and media field, and he saw in the Emirates the best destination for such a large project, which is the age project without doubt, especially since he was hearing - as he describes with his tongue - that Sheikh Zayed He was an "age" sultan of the country, walking in the markets, inspecting the conditions of the parish, and not needing protection for his great popularity and the great love that he enjoyed among his "children." This was how Wasim was telling about the Emirates, before everything changed overnight.

After arriving in the Emirates after his father sold his only car to secure the ticket price for his son, Wassim Youssef worked as a warehouse keeper, then he found a job for him in summarizing the books, and during this last work he got acquainted with the world of "interpretation of dreams" that he took as a field for him inside the media field after he presented Specialized program in this regard, such as "Roya" and "Aftoni Roya". Interpretation of dreams was the gateway from which Wassim Youssef entered the media field, and after that he set out to offer a number of religious programs that were promoting an Emirati version of Islam, such as the program "Nectar of Faith" (5) and the program "Do not overwhelm the balance" (6).

Emirati channels opened their doors in the face of Wassim Youssef, and he became acquainted with his followers through his own programs or as a controversial guest always on channels in other Arab countries because of his religious and political views. As for the content, it was a mixture between fatwas, religious lessons, marital advice, and human development courses with a lot of attacks on the Islamic trend, its symbols and references. The determinants of the version that the UAE wanted to promote from Islam were compatible with the ideas of the young preacher, between removing any trait of resistance from the Islamic religion, along with hatred. The hostility of the currents of political Islam in all their forms. (7)

This was not surprising, and the rise of Wasim Yousef was not arbitrary either. By analyzing Abu Dhabi's strategy to fight the political Islam stream, it can be said that it was based on two main pillars:

First: Supporting political regimes that owe hostility to the currents of political Islam and representatives of counter-revolutions, as is the case in Libya Haftar and in Sisi Egypt. (8)

Second: Establishing a religious network to publish the Emirati version of Islam in line with Abu Dhabi’s political agenda internally and externally (9), through a number of religious organizations such as the Sufi Taba Foundation and the Council of Muslim Wise Men alongside other bodies such as the Forum for the Promotion of Peace and the Faithful Without Borders Foundation, as well as choosing influential symbols within the current Religious as ambassadors of this approach, such as the famous Sufi Sheikh Habib Ali Al-Jafri, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, Sheikh of Al-Azhar, and then after that Wasim Yusuf, who was directed more to the category of young people who may not care much about doctrinal, intellectual and ideological battles, but are looking for a flexible youth speech that is close to the form of human development From religious lessons.

Emirati Islam was walking

Lucim Youssef is a great rivalry with the Muslim Brotherhood, a rivalry that you may only realize when you read the words of the former British ambassador to the UAE Sir John Jenkins who said: “The Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed may be the one who hates the Muslim Brotherhood in the world.” Looking at a handsome account on Twitter, and he is the one who puts the image of Mohamed bin Zayed as a personal image, and by following what he writes, you will soon discover to what extent Yusuf Poli is following his blessing in Islam’s hatred of Islamists, including the Brotherhood. This rivalry made the group always present whenever a guest or an audience stood before the camera, as the Brotherhood is considered "a group of lost Kharijites who fight governments, spread wars and internal fighting, and mislead people from the path of God." Why? Because they criticize the rulers, this is how the Emirati preacher simply answered when asked about the reason why he considers the Muslim Brotherhood not to abide by Islamic law (10).

Wasim recounts that his first contact with the Brotherhood was in childhood, when the group controlled the neighborhood mosque and "spread its ideas in it, but at that time he was not affected by these people because of their actions that contradict their sayings," citing the example of the Imam of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had a device as A video in which youths of the neighborhood watch some films, and he did not go out to pray on the day of the holiday because there is no prayer on the day of the holiday (11).

As for the second opponent, Wasim, or for the UAE, so to speak, it is the Salafi movement, more precisely, the Islamic Awakening movement that was launched from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the seventies of the last century by symbols, the majority of whom are now living behind bars of the kingdom’s prisons, such as Sheikh Safar al-Hawali, Sheikh Salman al-Awda and Sheikh Awad The cornea.

The attack on this current, according to some sources, was a major reason for Wasim Yusef obtaining Emirati citizenship by order of State Security, according to secret documents leaked from within the apparatus (12). Wasim Youssef intensified his attack on the Awakening Movement sheikhs in Saudi Arabia who were arrested by Ibn Salman because of their incompatibility with the vision of the Saudi crown prince aiming to modernize the kingdom and thus reducing the power of the religious movement socially and culturally to a minimum, as is the case in the neighboring UAE. But what is interesting here is the confidence that the Emirati preacher talks about these preachers, a confidence that made him predict the arrest of Sheikh Al-Fawzan even before the regime in Saudi Arabia put him in prison. In a dialogue with one of the Saudi callers, Wassim Youssef protested the correctness of his approach and the invalidity of his opponents ’approach that All those who criticized them are now in prison, the caller replied: "No, Sheikh Al-Fawzan is still free," and Wasim Yusef added, "Wait and you will see" (13), which raises more than a question mark about the sources of the information of the young preacher.

However, despite this hostility to the Salafi movement, and its consideration of spreading ignorance, backwardness, hatred and atonement, the Emirati preacher did not hesitate to assert that the scholars who benefited from them were Sheikh Al-Uthaymeen, Sheikh Nasser Al-Din Al-Albani and Sheikh Rabie Hadi Al-Madkhali, and they are symbols of the Saudi Salafist movement, and even of the most important aspects Classic Salafism whose ideas spread inside the Arab world.

Attacking the Brotherhood and the Awakening Movement was not the only service that the young preacher was providing to Abu Dhabi, as he responded to the attack on the Arab Spring revolutions, and praised the Emirati-backed Sisi, but also Bashar al-Assad, who the Emirates is working to restore diplomatic relations with his regime, as it is better than the Islamists in any case ( 14), while hosting a caller who was fighting with Bashar Al-Assad against the Syrian people, Wassim considered that he was deceived by what the media says about Syria before it became clear to him the fact that everything that was happening there was no more than a conspiracy aimed at destroying the Arab countries, and that the Syrian regime was Injustice, just as in the case of China, which was considered to be handsome Yusuf in its war against the Muslim Uighurs defending itself in front of extremists who are not talking about their crime, and the extremists here mean the Muslims of China (15).

Security of punishment offended literature

Nothing lasts, especially those relationships based on mutual interest, and Wasim Yusuf, who benefited from one of the fastest naturalization processes with high orders, finds himself today demanding to appear before the same bodies with which he was associated with relations of friendliness and understanding as accused of inciting racial prejudices and spreading hatred despite all that he provided to the political system over there.

Since he obtained Emirati citizenship in 2014, Wasim Yusuf has not been immune from criticism, criticisms that did not come from outside the Emirates due to his often religious rude offering, but from within the Emirates itself, specifically from citizens who find that the Jordanian preacher will not help to improve the image of the Emirates, Rather, it harms her because of some of his controversial stances, but Wasim Youssef managed with his usual flexibility to overcome these waves, and he continued to climb the steps of the steps with confidence and steadfastness, to become the owner of media programs and preacher to the Zayed Grand Mosque, which gave him an additional "favor".

The messages were clear more than once, but the Islamic preacher did not grab it for his misfortune, and it suddenly exploded in his face after questioning Sahih Al-Bukhari and asked to return some hadiths, not because of a bug in the conditions of their authenticity but "because they contradict the human mind", the proposition was so provocative I made Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan, Deputy Chief of Police and Public Security in Dubai, condemn what the Emirati preacher put forward in a tweet in which he said: "All I tell brother is handsome, not a sheikh or doctor ... Brother I ask God to guide you ... vanity is shin ... see you handsome you hate people in us ... because people count you On us and you, as I suspect, are not from us .. If you are from us, keep our security. ”(16)

Because of the major attack by a number of Emirati citizens on Twitter, Wassim Youssef decided to resort to the judiciary and file complaints on 163 Twitter accounts with people who accused him of his intent and religion and considered him a tool of demolishing the UAE and our traitor to its leaders and people (17), the issue that will develop after Wassem Youssef left an application "Snapchat" to complain of being bullied and racist by his family due to his religious thought and opinions, as the young preacher did not expect that everything would be transformed after this recording, and he himself would be accused of the same charges that he was fed up with.

Despite the years Waseem spent in the Emirates, he did not understand the lesson well, and he thought that the devices he deals with are able to provide diplomatic protection to him and oppression of those who disagree with him (18).

The foregoing was in short the journey of the free fall that ended with the sentencing of Wasim Yusuf to imprisonment and fine, which began as we indicated his removal from the Imam of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, and prevented his program Nectar of Faith from appearing on the Abu Dhabi Channel again until further notice (19), the naturalized young man belonging to the heart With passion and passion for the UAE, he is confidently taking his first steps on the road to oblivion, a path that started with imprisonment and fine and may end in exile and expulsion from the utopia of Abu Dhabi.

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(*) A stream founded by Sheikh Muhammad Surur Zain al-Abidin, a Syrian from Houran, who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood before he defected from the organization, after which he settled in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the Salafi movement presented a vision that combined the Salafi approach with the Brotherhood movement.