The Saudi Connection Stephen Schwartz

The Saudi Connection Stephen Schwartz
Spectator (The Dominion 13 Oct 2001)

The first thing to do when trying to understand "Islamic suicide bombers" is to forget the cliches about the Muslim taste for martyrdom. It does exist, of course, but the desire for paradise is not a safe guide to what motivated last month's suicide attacks. 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 blow themselves up in their war on the government of Sri Lanka; Japanese kamikaze pilots in World War II flew their fighters into United States aircraft carriers.

The Islamic-fascist 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 month's terrorist pilots was reported to have done. However, numerical preponderance of Muslims as perpetrators of these ghastly incidents is no coincidence. So we have to ask what has made these men into the monsters they are'? What has so galvanised violent tendencies in the worId's second largest religion (and, in the US the fastest-growing faith)?

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 less than two centuries ago in Arabia and is the official theology of the Gulf states. It is violent, it is intolerant and it is fanatical beyond measure. 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 or 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 grave- stones (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 Muhammad to be inscribed in mosques or his birthday to be celebrated. Above all, they hate ostentatious spirituality, much as Protestants detest the veneration' of miracles and saints in the Catholic 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 Mohammed 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 2000 ordin- ary citizens in the streets and markets. In the 19th century, Wahhabism took the form of Arab nationalism versus 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 rhultinational Islamic umma in which vast differences in local culture and tra- dition were tolerated. No such tolerance exists in Wahhabism, which is why the concept of US troops on Saudi soil so inflames bin Laden.

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 month's terrorist pilots was reported to have done.

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. The Iranians are not Wahhabis, which partially explains their slow, but undeniable, movement toward moderation. 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 US 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. 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. 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 Islamo-fascists. 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 World War II.

They pretended to be allies in a common struggle against Saddam Hussein while they spread Wahhabi ideology,, just as Stalin promoted an "antifascist" coalition with the US while carrying out espionage and subversion on US territory. The motive was the same: the belief that the West was or is decadent and doomed.

ONE key question is never asked in US discussions of Arab terrorism: what is the role of Saudi Arabia? The question cannot be asked because US companies depend too much on the continued flow of Saudi oil, while US politicians have become too eosy 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, and so on) are less important in the radicalisation of Islam than Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the single most import- ant 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 Washing- ton. They were planted in the US 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. - The Spectator