Politics portal Madkhalism is a strain of quietist thought within the larger Salafi movement characterised by monarchism and loyalty to secular and authoritarian governments in the Arab world,[1][2][3][4] based on the writings of Sheikh Rabee al-Madkhali.
Some critics accuse Madkhalism of being overly submissive to authority and potentially apolitical to the point of ignoring important social issues.
[7] In addition to Arab regimes, U.S. policymakers and senior advisors to the U.S. Department of State have also reportedly advised the U.S. government to fund al-Madkhali and his strain of thought.
[12] Rabee al-Madkhali was incredibly influential, most of it through Saudi support, in the early 1990s, during and after the time period the Gulf War was taking place.
[citation needed] Senior US policy makers Will McCants and Jarret Brachman have also advised the US to discreetly fund figures like al-Madkhali to siphon off support for jihadis who advocate for violence against the US military.
[23] On Friday, 24 August 2012, Islamists loyal to Muhammad al-Madkhali, demolished Sufi shrines in Zliten in Libya with construction equipment and bulldozers.
[24] The act was condemned by twenty-two NGOs, in addition to the post-war Libyan government's top religious official and UNESCO General Director Irina Bokova.
[18] Unlike other Islamist groups which often oppose totalitarian, mostly secular governments in the Middle East, the Madkhalist movement is openly supportive of such regimes.
Both Madkhali brothers actively encouraged Muslims inside and outside of Indonesia to join the armed Maluku sectarian conflict which continued from the late 1990s until the early 2000s.
[34][35] In the year 2000, Muhammad al-Madkhali went so far as to declare the prohibition of jihad by then Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, himself an internationally recognized Islamic scholar, as being contrary to sharia law.