Saudi Connection to Wahhabi Bin Laden and 80% of USA Islamic Imam clerics...
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Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection
Stephen Schwartz on the extreme Islamic sect that inspires Osama bin Laden
as well as all Muslim suicide bombers — and is subsidised by Saudi Arabia
Washington
The first thing to do when trying to understand ‘Islamic suicide bombers’ is to
forget the clichés about the Muslim taste for martyrdom. It does exist, of
course, but the desire for paradise is not a safe guide to what motivated the
appalling suicide attacks on New York and Washington last week. Throughout
history, political extremists of all faiths have willingly given up their lives simply
in the belief that by doing so, whether in bombings or in other forms of terror,
they would change the course of history, or at least win an advantage for their
cause. Tamils are not Muslims, but they blow themselves up in their war on
the government of Sri Lanka; Japanese kamikaze pilots in the second world
war were not Muslims, but they flew their fighters into US aircraft carriers.
The Islamofascist ideology of Osama bin Laden and those closest to him,
such as the Egyptian and Algerian ‘Islamic Groups’, is no more intrinsically
linked to Islam or Islamic civilisation than Pearl Harbor was to Buddhism, or
Ulster terrorists — whatever they may profess — are to Christianity. Serious
Christians don’t go around killing and maiming the innocent; devout Muslims
do not prepare for paradise by hanging out in strip bars and getting drunk, as
one of last week’s terrorist pilots was reported to have done.
The attacks of 11 September are simply not compatible with orthodox Muslim
theology, which cautions soldiers ‘in the way of Allah’ to fight their enemies
face-to-face, without harming non-combatants, women or children. Most
Muslims, not only in America and Britain, but in the world, are clearly
law-abiding citizens of their countries — a point stressed by President Bush
and other American leaders, much to their credit. Nobody on this side of the
water wants a repeat of the lamented 1941 internment of Japanese
Americans.
Still, the numerical preponderance of Muslims as perpetrators of these
ghastly incidents is no coincidence. So we have to ask ourselves what has
made these men into the monsters they are? What has so galvanised violent
tendencies in the world’s second-largest religion (and, in America, the fastest
growing faith)? Can it really flow from a quarrel over a bit of land in the Middle
East?
For Westerners, it seems natural to look for answers in the distant past,
beginning with the Crusades. But if you ask educated, pious, traditional but
forward-looking Muslims what has driven their umma, or global community, in
this direction, many of them will answer you with one word: Wahhabism. This
is a strain of Islam that emerged not at the time of the Crusades, nor even at
the time of the anti-Turkish wars of the 17th century, but less than two
centuries ago. It is violent, it is intolerant, and it is fanatical beyond measure. It
originated in Arabia, and it is the official theology of the Gulf states.
Wahhabism is the most extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism, and its
followers are called Wahhabis.
Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but all Muslim suicide bombers are
Wahhabis — except, perhaps, for some disciples of atheist leftists posing as
Muslims in the interests of personal power, such as Yasser Arafat or Saddam
Hussein. Wahhabism is the Islamic equivalent of the most extreme Protestant
sectarianism. It is puritan, demanding punishment for those who enjoy any
form of music except the drum, and severe punishment up to death for
drinking or sexual transgressions. It condemns as unbelievers those who do
not pray, a view that never previously existed in mainstream Islam.
It is stripped-down Islam, calling for simple, short prayers, undecorated
mosques, and the uprooting of gravestones (since decorated mosques and
graveyards lend themselves to veneration, which is idolatry in the Wahhabi
mind). Wahhabis do not even permit the name of the Prophet Mohammed to
be inscribed in mosques, nor do they allow his birthday to be celebrated.
Above all, they hate ostentatious spirituality, much as Protestants detest the
veneration of miracles and saints in the Roman Church.
Ibn Abdul Wahhab (1703–92), the founder of this totalitarian Islamism, was
born in Uyaynah, in the part of Arabia known as Nejd, where Riyadh is today,
and which the Prophet himself notably warned would be a source of
corruption and confusion. (Anti-Wahhabi Muslims refer to Wahhabism as fitna
an Najdiyyah or ‘the trouble out of Nejd’.) From the beginning of Wahhab’s
dispensation, in the late 18th century, his cult was associated with the mass
murder of all who opposed it. For example, the Wahhabis fell upon the city of
Qarbala in 1801 and killed 2,000 ordinary citizens in the streets and markets.
In the 19th century, Wahhabism took the form of Arab nationalism v. the Turks.
The founder of the Saudi kingdom, Ibn Saud, established Wahhabism as its
official creed. Much has been made of the role of the US in ‘creating’ Osama
bin Laden through subsidies to the Afghan mujahedin, but as much or more
could be said in reproach of Britain which, three generations before,
supported the Wahhabi Arabs in their revolt against the Ottomans. Arab
hatred of the Turks fused with Wahhabi ranting against the ‘decadence’ of
Ottoman Islam. The truth is that the Ottoman khalifa reigned over a
multinational Islamic umma in which vast differences in local culture and
tradition were tolerated. No such tolerance exists in Wahhabism, which is why
the concept of US troops on Saudi soil so inflames bin Laden.
Bin Laden is a Wahhabi. So are the suicide bombers in Israel. So are his
Egyptian allies, who exulted as they stabbed foreign tourists to death at Luxor
not many years ago, bathing in blood up to their elbows and emitting
blasphemous cries of ecstasy. So are the Algerian Islamist terrorists whose
contribution to the purification of the world consisted of murdering people for
such sins as running a movie projector or reading secular newspapers. So
are the Taleban-style guerrillas in Kashmir who murder Hindus. The Iranians
are not Wahhabis, which partially explains their slow but undeniable
movement towards moderation and normality after a period of utopian and
puritan revivalism. But the Taleban practise a variant of Wahhabism. In the
Wahhabi fashion they employ ancient punishments — such as execution for
moral offences — and they have a primitive and fearful view of women. The
same is true of Saudi Arabia’s rulers. None of this extremism has been
inspired by American fumblings in the world, and it has little to do with the
tragedies that have beset Israelis and Palestinians.
But the Wahhabis have two weaknesses of which the West is largely
unaware; an Achilles’ heel on each foot, so to speak. The first is that the vast
majority of Muslims in the world are peaceful people who would prefer the
installation of Western democracy in their own countries. They loathe
Wahhabism for the same reason any patriarchal culture rejects a violent
break with tradition. And that is the point that must be understood: bin Laden
and other Wahhabis are not defending Islamic tradition; they represent an
ultra-radical break in the direction of a sectarian utopia. Thus, they are best
described as Islamofascists, although they have much in common with
Bolsheviks.
The Bengali Sufi writer Zeeshan Ali has described the situation touchingly:
‘Muslims from Bangladesh in the US, just like any other place in the world,
uphold the traditional beliefs of Islam but, due to lack of instruction, keep quiet
when their beliefs are attacked by Wahhabis in the US who all of a sudden
become “better” Muslims than others. These Wahhabis go even further and
accuse their own fathers of heresy, sin and unbelief. And the young children of
the immigrants, when they grow up in this country, get exposed only to this
one-sided version of Islam and are led to think that this is the only Islam.
Naturally a big gap is being created every day that silence is only widening.’
The young, divided between tradition and the call of the new, opt for ‘Islamic
revolution’ and commit themselves to their self-destruction, combined with
mass murder.
The same influences are brought to bear throughout the ten-million-strong
Muslim community in America, as well as those in Europe. In the US, 80 per
cent of mosques are estimated by the Sufi Hisham al-Kabbani, born in
Lebanon and now living in the US, to be under the control of Wahhabi imams,
who preach extremism, and this leads to the other point of vulnerability:
Wahhabism is subsidised by Saudi Arabia, even though bin Laden has
sworn to destroy the Saudi royal family. The Saudis have played a double
game for years, more or less as Stalin did with the West during the second
world war. They pretended to be allies in a common struggle against Saddam
Hussein while they spread Wahhabi ideology everywhere Muslims are to be
found, just as Stalin promoted an ‘antifascist’ coalition with the US while
carrying out espionage and subversion on American territory. The motive was
the same: the belief that the West was or is decadent and doomed.
One major question is never asked in American discussions of Arab
terrorism: what is the role of Saudi Arabia? The question cannot be asked
because American companies depend too much on the continued flow of
Saudi oil, while American politicians have become too cosy with the Saudi
rulers.
Another reason it is not asked is that to expose the extent of Saudi and
Wahhabi influence on American Muslims would deeply compromise many
Islamic clerics in the US. But it is the most significant question Americans
should be asking themselves today. If we get rid of bin Laden, who do we
then have to deal with? The answer was eloquently put by Seyyed Vali Reza
Nasr, professor of political science at the University of California at San
Diego, and author of an authoritative volume on Islamic extremism in
Pakistan, when he said: ‘If the US wants to do something about radical Islam,
it has to deal with Saudi Arabia. The “rogue states” [Iraq, Libya, etc.] are less
important in the radicalisation of Islam than Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the
single most important cause and supporter of radicalisation, ideologisation,
and the general fanaticisation of Islam.’
From what we now know, it appears not a single one of the suicide pilots in
New York and Washington was Palestinian. They all seem to have been
Saudis, citizens of the Gulf states, Egyptian or Algerian. Two are reported to
have been the sons of the former second secretary of the Saudi embassy in
Washington. They were planted in America long before the outbreak of the
latest Palestinian intifada; in fact, they seem to have begun their conspiracy
while the Middle East peace process was in full, if short, bloom. Anti-terror
experts and politicians in the West must now consider the Saudi connection.
Stephen Schwartz is the author of Intellectuals and Assassins, published by
Anthem Press.
© 2001 The Spectator.co.uk
spectator.co.uk
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