THE SAUDI TIME BOMB Very interesting TV documentary show in PBS about Saudi Arabia ---- Very very chilling and frightening. Do not miss it reading between the lines very important.
Should I say we are doomed ????? Well judge for yourself
pbs.org
For more than two centuries, Wahhabism has been Saudi Arabia's dominant faith. It is
an austere form of Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran. Strict
Wahhabis believe that all those who don't practice their form of Islam are heathens and
enemies. Critics say that Wahhabism's rigidity has led it to misinterpret and distort
Islam, pointing to extremists such as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Wahhabism's
explosive growth began in the 1970s when Saudi charities started funding Wahhabi
schools (madrassas) and mosques from Islamabad to Culver City, California. Here are
excerpts from FRONTLINE's interviews with Mai Yamani, an anthropologist who studies
Saudi society; Vali Nasr, an authority on Islamic fundamentalism; Maher Hathout,
spokesperson for the Islamic Center of Southern California; and Ahmed Ali, a Shi'a
Muslim from Saudi Arabia. (Also see the Links and Readings section of this site for more
analyses of Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia.)
Here are two extracts from Ministry of Education textbooks used by middle school
students in Saudi Arabia. The books were published in 2000. The first extract, "The
Victory of Muslims Over Jews," is from the prophet Mohammed's sayings, HADITHS. The
second extract is from EXPLANATIONS [of the Koran]. It also deals with Muslims and
Jews and presents an interpretation of part of a Sura from the Koran, which says
"murder" is a form of punishment for those who acted in opposition to Allah. (For more
on Saudi religious education, see FRONTLINE's interviews with Ali al-Ahmed and Mai
Yamani.)
A madrassa is an Islamic religious school. Many of the Taliban were educated in
Saudi-financed madrassas in Pakistan that teach Wahhabism. Around the world, Saudi
wealth and charities contributed to an explosive growth of madrassas during the Afghan
jihad against the Soviets. During that war (1979-1989), a new kind of madrassa
emerged in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region -- not so much concerned about scholarship
as making war on infidels. The enemy then was the Soviet Union, today it's America.
Here are analyses of the madrassas from interviews with Vali Nasr, an authority on
Islamic fundamentalism, and Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
(For more on the role of madrassas in producing militant Islamists, see the story of
Haroun Fazul.)
pbs.org
Haroun Fazul comes from the impoverished Comoros Islands off East Africa where he attended a
Wahhabi madrassa (religious school) and, at the age of sixteen, received a scholarship to study
at a Wahhabi madrassa in Pakistan. From there he went to Afghanistan, to join the Al Qaeda
terrorist network.
In August 1998, Fazul, together with two Saudi men, blew up the U.S. embassy in Nairobi,
Kenya. To this day, he remains a fugitive and is on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list along
with many others in Al Qaeda.
For over three years, FRONTLINE has followed Fazul's story. The first time was in its 1999
report on Osama bin Laden and the 1998 embassy bombing in which FRONTLINE examined
how life in Fazul's homeland, the Comoros Islands, made young men like him susceptible to
Islamic extremism.
Now, three years later, FRONTLINE has returned to Fazul's story, taking a closer look at the
religious school Fazul attended as a boy on the Comoros Islands--the Wahhabi madrassa funded
with Saudi money, and his later schooling at another madrassa in Pakistan. There--as happened
in many madrassas which exploded in number during the Islamic jihad in Afghanistan
(1979-1989)--Islamic militancy and military training were emphasized more than religious
scholarship. |
