Mansour Alnogaidan

Mansour al-Nogaidan is a Saudi-Emirati writer, columnist, reformist and journalist. He resides in the UAE and was born in 1970 in Buraidah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. al-Nogaidan is divorced and has two children.

Fundamentalist and Extremist

In his teenage years, al-Nogaidan was influenced by the ideas of Buraidah Brothers, a group of Wahhabi austerity who were advocating more commitment towards the teachings of Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab; he consequently abandoned academic school and joined the Wahhabi austerity cult. al-Nogaidan studied principles of Sharia science by classical Islamic way under the guidance of scholars in his city Buraidah from 1985 to 1991.

In 1990, al-Nogaidan was affected by the transformation Saudi Arabia was going through, after Iraq's occupation of Kuwait and the presence of international coalition forces on Saudi territory. Political Islamic preachers raised opposition against the government. In mid-1991, along with a group of jihadists, al-Nogaidan took a part in burning video shops in the capital Riyadh; as a result he was sentenced for two years and eight months in prison.

Liberal and Activist

al-Nogaidan's ideological transformation started in the mid-nineties when he been introduced to the heritage of Islamic rationalists and writings of contemporary Muslim thinkers from Morocco and Jordan. and worse gained a fatwa of blasphemy and call for waste of blood or announcement of his repentance publicly. In the eyes of Saudi liberals, al-Nogaidan, through his transition from ex-bomber to liberal and activist, represents the hope of transformation in Saudi Arabia.