Safar al‐Hawali: Saudi Islamist or Saudi nationalist?

Safar al‐Hawali's name came to prominence during the Gulf War due to the popularity of his taped sermons, which galvanized public debate inside Saudi Arabia on a range of issues of major concern for both the Saudis and the Muslim world. Because most Western writings on the Islamists discourse have depended on second‐hand material, Hawaii was presented in the Western media as a Saudi Shaykh who opposed the royal family of Saudi Arabia. Here I will attempt to give a more complete picture of the man and his discourse through an analysis of his written work and his cassette‐taped sermons. This portrayal will reveal that Hawaii is concerned with broad issues transcending the local Saudi setting. He debates such issues as Western domination of the Arab/Muslim world, the role of the US in the Gulf region, the implications of that domination for the Muslim community at large, and the role of Christian fundamentalists who, in Hawaii's view, work relentlessly to undermine the Muslim world. These fundamentalists and their millenarian views lend complete support to Israel at the expense of the Arabs and Muslims, Hawaii suggests, and his analysis of these Christian fundamentalists reveals a surprisingly solid knowledge of their writings, sermons and beliefs. Hawaii also discusses the problems associated with the current peace process between Arabs and Israelis and suggests an alternative framework. But who is Safar al‐Hawali?     

Ecumenical Hermeneutics through a Study of Missiological Typologies

This paper focuses on the hermeneutical recognition that happens during the cross‐cultural transmission of the gospel. The dynamics of mission are traced from hermeneutic through communication and the understanding of the Other, to action, and to the realization of gospel in community.