Salman Al-Ouda - Activities

Activities

Among the roughly fifty books that he has published are:

• The First Strangers,
• Characteristics of the Strangers,
• Withdrawing from Society and Participating in It',
• A Discussion with Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazâlî,
• Who has the Right to Engage in Independent Juristic Reasoning?, and
• Guidelines for Studying Islamic Law.

These publications are all currently available on the Arabic-language pages of the Islam Today website.

He used to give weekly lessons for the general public in the main mosque of Buraydah as well as other lessons where he taught the commentary of the book Bulûgh al-Marâm. He also gave daily lessons after the Morning Prayer, where he gave a commentary on the authoritative collections of Hadith - Sahîh al-Bukhârî, Sahîh Muslim, and some commentary on the Qur'an. In addition, he taught such books as Kitâb al-Tawhîd, al-Usûl al-Thalâthah, and Nukhbah al-Fikr. These lessons were lost, along with other works of the Sheikh, during the crisis that had to endure along with a number of other Islamic activists.

Dr. al-Ouda was imprisoned for five years, from 1994 until the end of 1999 due to the anti-regime content of some of his books and some of the lessons that he had given. He was quoted by Osama bin Laden in his 1994 Open Letter to Shaykh Bin Baz on the Invalidity of his Fatwa on Peace with the Jews. He was released along with his colleagues and resumed his activities from his home, giving lessons after the Sunset Prayer from Wednesday to Friday weekly on topics such as Qur'anic commentary, ethics, education, and personal reform.

Al-Ouda has stated that he is currently supporting peace and coexistence with other religions. He announced that this was a result of deeper understanding of Islamic teachings.

Dr. al-Ouda is in charge of the popular website Islam Today, which offers a wide variety of subject matter and material. He gives classes and lectures over the Internet and by phone to a wide range of listeners.

He works daily in answering the questions that people send to him in addition to compiling and preparing a number of his writings for publication. He used to have a show on MBC TV.

His fame had become sufficiently widespread by 2006 to draw a crowd of around 20,000 young British Muslims in London's East End whom he addressed in a speech. "Dr. al-Ouda is well known by all the youth. It's almost a celebrity culture out there," according to one British Imam. Sheikh Salman has over 4,000 Facebook friends and over One million fans through the site.