Career
In 1994, al-Barrak and other Saudi clerics were mentioned by name and praised by Osama bin Laden for opposing then-Grand Mufti Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz in his Open Letter to Shaykh Bin Baz on the Invalidity of his Fatwa on Peace with the Jews. His website was banned in Saudi Arabia because it was “promoting bold ideas and theses.”
Al-Barrak has drawn attention for issuing controversial fatwas, or religious edicts. One such fatwa called for strict gender segregation.
The fatwa states, "Whoever allows this mixing . Either he retracts or he must be killed ... because he disavows and does not observe the Sharia."
In March 2008, al-Barrak issued a fatwa that two writers for the newspaper Al-Riyadh, Abdullah bin Bejad al-Otaibi and Yousef Aba al-Khail, should be tried for apostasy for their "heretical articles" regarding the categorization of "unbelievers" and put to death if they did not repent.
