Ground Zero and Saudi Arabia by Stephen Schwartz

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.

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