"The King Who Would Be Reformer; Is There a Silver Lining Behind the New Saud?

"The King Who Would Be Reformer; Is There a Silver Lining Behind the New Saud? ," By Stephen Schwartz.

ON AUGUST 2, CROWN Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, a man in his early 80s, ascended the throne of Saudi Arabia--and all hopes for reform in the Saudi kingdom began to be put to the test. For years, Saudi dissidents had speculated that Abdullah alone among the sons of Ibn Saud (1880-1953), founder of the kingdom, understood the dangers to Arabian society represented by Wahhabism, the extreme Islamic sect that Ibn Saud made the state religion. No tyranny lasts forever, and it was inevitable that economic and social development in the peninsula would undermine the alliance, based on intermarriage, of the governing House of Saud and the House of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, responsible for ideology and religion.

Popular opinion had it that one of Abdullah's four wives (out of some 30 he has married over the years) was Syrian, cosmopolitan, and had influenced him to tolerate Islamic and other intellectual unorthodoxy. It was further said that Abdullah encouraged the private practice of Sufism, or Islamic spirituality, and various traditional Islamic customs rigorously suppressed since the Wahhabi takeover in the 1920s. One forbidden observance--common among Muslims from West Africa to Indonesia--is the commemoration of the birthday of Muhammad, which the Wahhabis and Saudis reject on the ground that it resembles the Christian celebration of Jesus' birth.

Late last year when he was still only crown prince, Abdullah lent credence to speculation about his sympathies when he appeared at the funeral of Seyed Mohammad Alawi Al-Maliki, a non-Wahhabi cleric and leading Sufi teacher.

Al-Maliki, before his death, had been a prominent victim of Saudi repression; yet Abdullah praised him for his religious and patriotic fervor.

But aside from his reputed interest in Sufi mysticism, Abdullah had other incentives to follow a different road than that of his predecessor, King Fahd, and of Fahd's powerful brothers, Princes Sultan and Nayef. As Saudi defense minister, Sultan personally enriched himself on military contracts with the United States, and Nayef, the interior minister and an extreme Wahhabi, was the first leading figure in the kingdom to blame the atrocities of September 11, 2001, on Zionism. Fahd, Sultan, and Nayef were all members of the "Sudairi Seven," born of old Ibn Saud's favorite wife, Hussah bint Sudair. Abdullah, their half-brother, was outside the Sudairi circle.

All these men, admittedly, are old. Nevertheless, Abdullah may have just the necessary window to begin a transition to normality for his country, from its present standing as the richest but most backward ideological state in the world, a kind of Middle Eastern North Korea or Cuba.

Abdullah lent encouragement to those seeking reform only a week into his reign, when he ordered pardons for three liberal dissidents who had been framed for allegedly seeking to overthrow the monarchy. The trio, Drs. Abdullah Al-Hamed and Matrook Al-Faleh and the poet Ali Al-Domaini, were sentenced to six to nine years' imprisonment in mid-May. Their real offense was to have circulated a petition calling for a written constitution, in a state whose only basis for governance has always been the Wahhabi interpretation of the Koran.

Western observers have joined Arab and other Muslim Saudi-watchers in seeking to read the signs coming out of the kingdom. Some note that pardoning political prisoners is an old royal custom on taking control, and dismiss the release of the three dissidents as perfunctory. And recent religious pronouncements have also been subjected to analysis. One fascinating example is a series of citations from writings and interviews given by Sheikh Abd Al-Muhsin Al-Abikan, a leading state cleric, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and accessible on its website.

A religious conservative, Al-Abikan has recently delivered himself of commentaries that are not unknown in the broader Islamic world, but which have previously lacked real support from the Saudi/Wahhabi ruling class. He asserts, for example, that there is no basis for jihad in Iraq; that Sunni terrorists in Iraq are using resistance to occupation as a pretext for corruption and the abuse of women; that suicide terrorism is a crime against civilians; and that the al Qaeda terror offensive has been a catastrophe for the world's Muslims. In his most arresting comment, he says that Arabs began the war with Israel and that Israel established peace in the areas it occupied. He also repeatedly declared his willingness to confront bin Laden or any of his supporters, and called on the terrorist chief to surrender and repent. (This is, after all, a man of religion, not a government official or antiterrorist investigator, speaking.)

Dealing with another central issue little understood by non-Muslims, Al-Abikan called for banning the practice of takfir, the excommunication of nonextremists from Islam. The sig-nificance of this is potentially immense. The Wahhabis and other radicals have, for centuries, declared that those who do not share their fanatical doctrines are apostates from Islam. This has been their excuse for murder and pillage against Shias and non-Wahhabi Sunnis. And it is important for another reason.

By labeling all nonradicals apostates from the religion, and blessing as the only faithful Muslims the adherents of their own violent ideology, the practitioners of takfir bind their followers together as an elite, but also as a pliable human mass, convinced their brutal urges are sacred and worthy. Many if not most Muslim terrorist recruits are weak in their religious belief and knowledge, and the power they assume by expelling a billion people from the religion fills the intellectual and spiritual void within them.

Takfir has always been a principle of Saudi rule and Wahhabi preaching. If, as some Saudi subjects think, Abdullah is inclined to end the practice, the formal authority of the religious radicals will be instantly abolished. A movement against takfir has taken hold elsewhere in Sunni Islam, in which many clerics now appear deeply repelled by the horrific events in Iraq. In July, an international Islamic conference in Jordan produced a statement opposing the Sunni use of takfir against Shias, a practice enunciated time and again in the bloodthirsty manifestos of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, as well as condemning takfir against Sufis. The Amman declaration called for the restoration of pluralistic debate in Islam, banned in Mecca and Medina by the Wahhabis, and for the affirmation of liberty as a principle.

What next? Will Abdullah seize the initiative and do away with the ideological state over which he has been handed rule? If the new Saudi king is to carry out a rational transition to popular sovereignty--to a written constitution, parliamentary government, a free press, an independent and modernized judiciary, and broad religious freedom--he must find a way to assert authority over, or otherwise neutralize, Sultan and Nayef. He must then, step by step, bring the kingdom into the contemporary world, borrowing positive experiences from other Muslim nations, including, in the first instance, Turkey and Malaysia.

Such a process does not require violence, much less the overthrow of the monarchy. There is no reason that, at least for now, the House of Saud cannot, like the House of Windsor in Britain, retain its wealth and even its status as heads of state. But their direct governance of the country according to Wahhabi prejudices must end.

And what should the United States do? First, consolidate popular government in Iraq, and indicate that there will be no retreat from that commitment. Second, continue demanding from Abdullah a full accounting of Saudi involvement in terrorism, and the arrest of the al Qaeda founders who continue prancing around the kingdom with impunity. Third, proclaim our right to assist and even help finance the blooming of civil society in Saudi Arabia, a country with a large middle class, access to the Internet and satellite media, . . . and a ban on women's driving.

Under Abdullah, a Saudi transition could be as easy as those seen in the last 15 years in countries as diverse as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia (the largest Muslim country on earth), Mexico, Chile, and Ukraine. The time has come for the Wahhabi dictatorship to be dismantled and for the people of the Arabian peninsula to join the rest of the world.

. He asserts, for example, that there is no basis for jihad in Iraq; that Sunni terrorists in Iraq are using resistance to occupation as a pretext for corruption and the abuse of women; that suicide terrorism is a crime against civilians; and that the al Qaeda terror offensive has been a catastrophe for the world's Muslims. In his most arresting comment, he says that Arabs began the war with Israel and that Israel established peace in the areas it occupied.

Things I love to hear. Let's hope Abdullah gives guys like this official recognition and support, as that could go a long way towards stopping terrorism.

Until he (a) starts rounding up and executing terrorists and (b) admits that Mohammedism is an organized criminal activity from the 7th Century that Mohammed wanted to use as a vehicle to subjugate the world, he will not be a reformer.

Mr. Schwartz is well meaning but confused.

The problem is not with the leader of the sands of Saud, but with the terrorists standing behind him with evil intent, money, power, and a knife.

Azis will be allowed to say anything he wants, and even do a bit of what he says, but the terrorist thugs who wait to rule in Arabia will never change, never relent, and never accept peace with the rest of the world. They must be killed and their property taken from them for the benefit of the people in the area.

I vote for India to take over the oil fields and leave the sand to the Islamo-nazis who live there.

http://www.historyofjihad.org/ (snip)

Islamic theology (sic) absolved all crimes if they were committed while fighting non-Muslims

While every nation has credited a penal code, the criminal mind of Mohammed devised a penal code in such a way that if a Muslim did anything against Islam, he was a Murtad (Apostate) and apostasy had only one punishment in Islam - death. But if a Muslim gangster committed any foul and heinous deed in order to bring victory to his gang (of Muslims), Islamic law forgave all those deeds in the name of they being the Jihad against the Non-Muslims (Kafirs) . Mohammed preached contempt for all non-Muslim and told his gangsters that the non-Muslims were living in ignorance (Jahiliyaa) and that he would lead his followers to enlightenment (Ailm or ilm). This enlightenment forgave all acts of rape, murder, torture, as long as they were committed against the non-Muslims (Kafirs). In all of Islam's existence of 1400 years very few have been able to recognize this heinous nature of Islam. Today those who are fighting the Muslims need to get an understanding of what they are up against, if they are to defeat the Muslim and destroy the threat of Islam once and forever.

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