PhotoDude.com

Sat. Jan 04, 2003

Riyadh: Linchpin To A New Religious Order

Riyadh: Linchpin To A New Religious Order – Syed Saleem Shahzad, in Asia Times: “The fact is, whether or not the US overthrows Saddam Hussein, its armed forces will remain face to face with the country at the ideological center of fundamentalist Islam. That country is not Iraq; it is Saudi Arabia. And it is this divide – between Western-style democracy and Saudi-style Wahhabi Islam – that remains at the heart of the coming conflict. The majority of Saudi citizens are Sunni Muslims predominantly adhering to the strict interpretation of Islam taught by the Salafi or Wahhabi school that is the official state religion…

Islamist organizations such as al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world, the Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, the Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan, the Jamaat-i-Islami Afghanistan, the Islamic political parties of Indonesia, Malaysia and Algeria, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines, Hamas in Palestine, Chechen fighters etc – all belong to the Salafi branch and all are, or have been, the recipients of Saudi aid in one form or another. It is a fact that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been the vanguard of this Salafi branch of Islam.”

In addition to explaining the roots of the two primary branches of Islam, Salafism and Sufism, the article concludes with a bit of an echo of my sad fantasy yesterday. “In the presence of these realities, laying the foundation stone of Western democracy and civil society in a country like Saudi Arabia under the shadow of US guns would jolt the foundation of the House of Saud, its patron religious forces and their ideologies.”