Tareq Al-Suwaidan


Tareq Mohammed Al-Suwaidan is a Kuwaiti writer, historian, businessman, and Muslim scholar. He is chairman of the Gulf Innovation Group. He is well known in the Middle East and in Muslim communities throughout the world for his management/strategic planning training, and television shows and appearances. According to Forbes magazine, Al-Suwaidan ranks second in annual net income among Islamic speakers in the Muslim world with an estimated net profit of $1 million in 2007.

Childhood and education

Al-Suwaidan was trained in the classical Islamic sciences in his youth and lived and studied in the United States from the age of 17 and remained for in the US for 20 years. He graduated from high, and receiving a BS in petroleum and natural gas engineering from Penn State University in 1975. He earned an MSc and subsequently PhD in 1990 in petroleum engineering from the University of Tulsa.

Media and management

Al-Suwaidan is a TV personality who has prepared and presented numerous Islamic television shows on Islamic subjects ranging from broadcasting of the Quran, stories of Muhammad, notable women and Andalusian history. His shows have aired on Kuwait television, First Channel, Space Channel and MBC.
Al-Suwaidan was formerly the general manager of Al-Resalah Satellite TV, the brainchild of Saudi businessman Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. In August 2013, Prince Talal fired Suwaidan for his role as the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait. Prince Talal wrote on his Twitter account that he sacked Tarek Al-Suwaidan "for admitting he belongs to the Brotherhood movement." In a letter to Al-Suwaidan, Prince Al Waleed wrote that there was no place for a Muslim Brotherhood member on the channel. Prince Alaweed bin Talal criticized him as having "extremist inclinations".

Educational initiatives

Al-Suwaidan was one of the founders of the American Creativity Academy in Kuwait, a private institution that offers an American college-preparatory education within the context of Islamic values.
He is also one of the founders of Advanced Generations School in Saudi Arabia, a "Canadian school with an Islamic identity." Students study English under the Canadian curriculum, and take Islamic and Arabic classes as well.
Al-Suwaidan has been responsible for the preparation and submission of several courses and lectures to tens of entities in Kuwait, the Persian Gulf and the Arab world, Malaysia, Europe, America and Australia, and has trained more than 70 thousand people in a variety of topics relating to management in an Islamic context.

Productions

Al-Suwaidan is the author of 54 best-selling books, his most popular being: Iidad Alkada, and spoken word audio tape albums. His album, Qasas al Anbiyaa is the highest-selling Islamic album in the world with well over 2 million copies sold. Additionally, over 3.4 million listeners have downloaded his lectures on the popular Islamic broadcast website "Islamway".

Management books

Islamic books

  1. Summary of the Islamic belief
  2. Secrets of Fasting
  3. Secrets of Hajj and Umrah
  4. Fasting
  5. The Jews: The Illustrated Encyclopedia

    Awards

Views and ideology

He supported Muslim Brotherhood against the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état. He is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait and has been described in US State Department cables as a "moderate Islamist". In 2012 he said "If Islamists start to become tyrants in the countries that were hit by the Arab Spring, we will revolt against them just like we did against their predecessors." and that "Freedom is a holy right and is one of the principles in Islam... Freedom is to do and say what a person wishes but in a polite manner and without hurting others." In 2006 he demanded that the European Union, as well as the rest of the world, enact "a law that forbids the insult to religious figures and religious sacred opinions." He has supported women's rights within Islamic sharia law and advocated for reforming traditional understanding of Islam. Al-Suwaidan is one of the signatories of A Common Word Between Us and You, an open letter by Islamic scholars to Christian leaders, calling for peace and understanding. Al-Suwaidan has condemned the 9/11 terrorists saying "these people are very dangerous to themselves, to the Arab world, to the Islamic world itself, and to Islam itself."

Al-Suwaidan is a strong supporter of women's rights in the Middle East and has participated in the Doha Debates arguing in favor of women's political and social rights. He spoke out against forced marriages calling it "un-Islamic."
Al-Suwaidan has also been a harsh critic of the US and the West and at conference of the Islamic Circle of North America in 2000, Al-Suwaidan said: "We must tell the West that we are extending a hand of peace now, but it will not be so for long." "Even if a civilization is ready to crumble – like the West, with all the characteristics of deterioration of past fallen empires – it will not fall until we, the Muslims, strive to give it that last push, the last straw that will break the camel's back.
At a meeting of the Islamic Association of Palestine in Chicago in 2000 Al-Suwiadan said "Palestine will not be liberated but through Jihad. Nothing can be achieved without sacrificing blood. The Jews will meet their end at our hands." He was subsequently banned from the US. In May 2007, Al-Suwaidan was listed by U.S. federal prosecutors, along with a group of U.S. Muslim Brotherhood members, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism financing case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development which was convicted along with its leaders of financing Hamas. A Federal court subsequently ruled that the list of unindicted co-conspirators should not have been released to the public.

In an April 2012 interview for Al-Quds, a TV station affiliated with Hamas, he claimed that since politicians were controlled by money and the media which are controlled by the Jews, only "armed resistance" and not Western aid or Western popular sympathy could change the situation in Palestine and Jerusalem. He also said in the interview that the most dangerous thing facing Muslims is the Jews calling them "the greatest enemy." Al-Suwaidan subsequently denied charges of antisemitism stating, "We are not against the Jews, let this be very clear." He alleged that the comments were based on a report by MEMRI which he called a "Zionist organization".
In a sermon to Hamas which was later posted on the internet on 14 July 2014, Al-Suwaidan described Israel as "a deviant country... is destined to be eradicated in its entirety," explaining that "We do not demand a ceasefire. Rather, we demand that the rockets continue to be launched until they bow before us." Al-Suwaidan further stated that:
In November 2014, Al-Suwaidan was banned by the Belgium government from attending a Muslim Fair in Brussels on the basis of the comments made in this sermon. On his Twitter account, Al-Suwaidan wrote, "Under pressure from the Zionist Lobby, the Belgium government decided to prevent me from entering the country despite holding a valid visa." He claims that the reason they denied him entry was his "candid position regarding Zionism and the barbaric crimes of the Israeli occupation".
The Belgium government announced that it had decided to prevent Al-Suwaidan from visiting Brussels, because of his "anti-Semitic" remarks in the past. The Belgian Prime Minister and Interior Minister said "This preacher has unacceptable anti-Semitic beliefs and his presence here is a threat to public order."
Al-Suwaidan used his Twitter account to promote what he calls electronic Jihad. On 17 January 2012, Al Suwaidan tweeted: "I see the need in uniting the efforts of the hackers within the electronic jihad project against the Zionist enemy, and it is an effective and important jihad, and its reward is great – Allah willing." AlSuwaidan: "I Strongly Encourage Young People To Undertake Electronic Jihad... I View This As Better Than 20 Jihad Operations."
In a 4 June 2011 interview on AlQuds TV, AlSuwaidan called for armed resistance and electronic jihad against Israel: "The other day, I was asking myself: Why shouldn't I personally go on jihad? First of all, my body cannot tolerate it. Secondly, is what I am doing any less important than jihad? I would like us all to feel that we are in the same trench. There is such a thing as media jihad, political jihad, and a form of jihad that I strongly encourage young people to undertake – electronic jihad. Some of our youth are extremely clever. I hope that a group of hackers will get together, and will wage resistance over the Internet, targeting Israeli and Zionist sites and destroying them electronically.”

Clashes with [Arab States of the Persian Gulf]

In November 2012 a UAE police official said that suspects arrested in UAE had met with Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood members who are the ‘mentors of other groups’. He said "They hold courses and teach members how to act and resist, such as Tareq Al-Suwaidan. His anti-regime attitude is very clear."
In October 2013, Al-Suwaidan tweeted that he had been barred from performing the lesser Umrah pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, stating "I have been banned from entering Saudi Arabia solely for my views and my position against the coup in Egypt and I say that my love for Saudi Arabia and its people is unshaken and that ideas can be banned."

Popularity

Al-Suwaidan has authored over 30 books, but his popularity is largely a result of his widespread social media activity– including: YouTube, Vimeo, iTunes, Facebook, Twitter.
He has over 9 million followers on Twitter, as of 12 November 2017.
Hundreds of Arabic and English speeches by Al Suwaidan can be found on YouTube where there are excerpts from his appearances on Arab TV channels, as well as speeches delivered in the Middle East and in the West.