Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud



Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud (1934, Taif – 16 June 2012) was the interior minister of Saudi Arabia from 1975 to 2012.

Quotes

 * There were "evil people", who "wanted to make the kingdom a place for chaos and marches that are void of noble goals".
 * At a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in March 2011


 * The Saudis are brought [to Iraq] in order to carry out bombings. Either they strap on explosives belts and blow up in public places, or else they drive a car, crash into some place, and blow it up.
 * Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abd Al-Aziz to Saudi Preachers: Saudis Who Go to Iraq Are Used for Suicide Bombings, video clip, June 2007

Quotes about

 * The House of Saud had barely survived this double challenge to its legitimacy. To maintain their grip on power, they knew it was time to deliver on the deal they had struck with the clerics during the Juhayman crisis. When the minister of interior Prince Nayef was asked during a press conference in January 1980 whether the kingdom would now clamp down on men who appeared zealous because they sported a beard, for example, he scoffed. “If we did this most Saudis would be in prison by now,” he said. Even before the attack in Mecca, Prince Nayef had been amenable to the blind sheikh’s implorations on trivial matters. Bin Baz had complained about “violations of Islamic morality” in Riyadh, like foreign women eating in public, Christians wearing visible crosses, Western music being played in stores, and the apparently corrupting game of foosball, idolatrous because of the little statuettes. Directives were promptly sent to address Bin Baz’s complaints—but only in Riyadh and the province of Najd.
 * Kim Ghattas Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East (2020)