Yemeni scholar Ibrahim Al-Ubeidi delivered a sermon on Friday in which he claimed that Jews and Americans created COVID-19 with the intention of closing down the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina.
Friday Sermon by Yemeni Scholar Ibrahim Al-Ubeidi: Coronavirus Is Part of a Plan by the Jews, Israel, U.S. to Control Mecca, Medina; The Saud Clan Is a Jewish Family Brought into Power in Order to Judaize These Cities pic.twitter.com/YXzAaJ4P0s
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 29, 2020
He went on to say that not only is the pandemic because of this secret plot, but the Saudi Royal family is secretly Jewish and that they are all descendants of a Jew called Mordechai who lived in Iraq, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported in a tweet on Sunday.
Al-Ubeidi went on to praise the late Hussein Badreddin Al-Houti for allegedly being “the only one in the Islamic world” to warn of the possibility that Jews and Americans could use viruses and germs to shut down holy sites.
Saudi authorities ordered an end to mass events across the kingdom in an attempt to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The same step has been taken by other religious leaders and organizations around the world, including the Vatican in Rome and the Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel.
The sight of the Kaaba in Mecca being almost empty is painful for many Muslims, leading some to feel as if God had rejected them.
Al-Ubeidi went on to ridicule the Saudi policies of seeking better ties with Israel and the US, which include a new openness to some aspects of Western culture, by cynically asking if the virus is not present in dance halls where women and men dance together and only in holy sites of religious worship. The Kaaba in Mecca and the Mosque built by the Prophet of Islam, Muhamad, in Medina are the two holiest sites in Islam, the third being the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Saudi Arabia views itself as the guardian of these two holy sites, Jordan sees itself as the guardian of the third.