If asked, what was Jamal Khashoggi's sin?

We said that what appears to have befallen Cemal Khashoggi is not an action aimed only at his person, but also an operation aimed at Turkey. The new reality that has emerged in just two days is that this attack has been taken on by the whole free world, the whole honorable world.

As could be expected, this grave and savage act has caused great outrage all over the world. We had asked in which sack this spear would fit; the patched sacks hastily thrown over it in the first moments not only failed to cover anything but served only to lay everything bare all the more plainly, and his name and what has befallen him look set to become the symbol of a great demand for change in the world.

As he was entering the consulate, Khashoggi had instructed his fiancée, Ms. Hatice, to inform me and Turan Kışlakçı if he did not come out for a long time. Unfortunately, according to the data that has emerged so far, by the time word reached us it was already too late. We never had the chance to protect him, to do something for him while he was alive. Truly, this increases all the more the weight of the trust he placed upon us. We could not prevent the abduction, or (although we are still trying to preserve some optimism) the savage killing, of Khashoggi, whose ideas and stance I have been following with great appreciation and approval. The embarrassment he has put us in, in many respects, is beyond description. But what he left as a trust is not only his own life but his struggle, which he cared about even more than his life:

The strengthening of human rights in the Islamic world, the development of democracy, the securing of freedom of expression and of all freedoms, giving human dignity the importance it deserves, the ending of corruption and the establishment of transparency in state administration…

It is actually inevitable that speeches he made with all these values at the center would disturb some people. We have in fact always caused this discomfort, and we will continue to do so. He followed the distance Turkey has covered in these matters with great appreciation and joy, but he also did not hold back, when necessary, from criticizing the shortcomings in Turkey on these matters. But his criticisms never caused any discomfort. Because he was sincere, not malicious but constructive, not hostile but friendly. In fact his criticisms aimed at the rulers of his own country were of the same kind, but they were disturbed. This time the lack of sincerity, the malice and the hostility lay not in Khashoggi himself but in those he criticized.

Khashoggi's most disturbing criticisms were evidently those directed at the arbitrary arrests of intellectuals, scholars and journalists in his country in recent times. Since he knew that he too would be arrested if he stayed in his country, he said he was trying to pay, to some extent, the price of his freedom by telling the plight of those who were unjustly and arbitrarily arrested.

In fact, on the occasion of what has happened to him, as a trust from him, we need to speak more on this subject. Because he thought it was not permissible to remain silent about it.

The way in which Saudi Arabia's current administration silences its own opponents has become a serious global problem. The matter has ceased to be an internal problem of one country.

The arrests, one by one and without any reason being given, of great Islamic scholars who have become the common property of the Islamic world, and their being held in harsh prison conditions, torment the conscience of the entire Islamic world.

The imprisonment, without any grounds being shown, of leading scholars who are struggling with a host of illnesses, such as Salman al-Awda, Safar bin Abdurrahman al-Hawali, and others like them who are respected throughout the Islamic world, is not an internal matter of Saudi Arabia but a matter of the whole Islamic world.

The arrest of Prof. Abdulaziz al-Fawzan, himself one of the very great Islamic scholars, who criticized the arrest or silencing of scholars for criticizing the reforms that were carried out, and his being put in prison with his fate unknown, was also what Khashoggi criticized most in the administration of his country. His being made to pay the price of these criticisms in this way draws shocking attention to the fact that things in Saudi Arabia are not going at all well on this point.

Meanwhile, it appears that at the very start of the affair there was preparation in the Saudi media to tout Khashoggi's abduction at best, or his killing at worst, as a success of an intelligence operation. There too, of course, there was a sloppy situation in which falsehoods and truths were mixed together. News was released, in the hours Khashoggi disappeared, that a criminal had been packaged up in cooperation with Interpol.

First of all, Khashoggi had no wanted record at Interpol; second, there was no aspect of this incident that could be counted as an intelligence or operational success. Anything can be done at that moment to an unprotected person who has entered his own country's territory trusting the consulate officials, but nothing that was done can be called an intelligence success.

Khashoggi was not found hiding somewhere, quietly packaged up and transported somewhere. On the contrary, we are faced with the nonsensical, amateurish job of a team that was falling apart on every side and smearing everything on their own faces.

As a result of all this, if it is asked "What was Cemal Khashoggi's sin?", let us say: His sin was trusting.

First of all, he trusted that the people of his own country could not do this to him.

He trusted the level of the Saudi Arabian-Turkish relations, to whose development he had devoted enormous effort.

He trusted that the Saudi Arabian side could not risk spoiling these relations.

He trusted in the belief that even if such a thing were to happen everywhere else, it could not be done in Turkey.

More importantly, he trusted that no harm would be done to him when he entered his own country's territory as an unprotected guest.

Because he trusted his own country's traditions. He trusted that the people of his own country might not have been so corrupted, might not have decayed by drifting so far from their own customs and traditions.

Is trusting a sin?

Of course, even if its penalty has been paid in this way in this world, it is a penalty that is dispensed differently in the Divine Court.