WAHHABISM: STATE-SPONSORED EXTREMISM WORLDWIDE

As we near the second anniversary of 9/11, the U.S. war on terrorism has scored some impressive successes. After denying Afghanistan as a base of operations to Al Qaeda in the fall of 2001, the United States has been able to neutralize a number of its high-ranking operatives and disrupt its operations. The removal of the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Operation Iraqi Freedom has precluded that rogue regime from developing and using weapons of mass destruction or supplying them to fellow-terrorists. On the domestic front, significant strides have been made in shoring up homeland security and no serious terrorist incident has taken place on American soil since 9/11. Despite these very positive developments, it would be highly premature to claim that we're close to winning the war. Indeed, recent terrorist attacks in Riyadh and Casablanca, as well as the putative conspiracy to blow-up Brooklyn Bridge, have shown unmistakably that terrorist networks and groups retain considerable ability to wreak havoc.

This is the case because while the United States has been successful in inflicting strategic defeats on state sponsors of terrorism, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, it has not applied the same decisive strategic approach in dealing with the phenomenon of Islamic extremism, which is both the root cause and basic support structure of the terrorist phenomenon exemplified by Al Qaeda and others. It is worth reminding ourselves here, that Al Qaeda is not the cause, but rather the symptom of the malignancy called Islamic extremism and that even if we are able to defeat Al Qaeda totally, somebody else will almost certainly continue in its footsteps, as long as the underlying malignancy lives on.1

Thus, most of the measures taken to defeat Islamic terrorism to date have been essentially tactical in nature and therefore of transitory effect. We have, for instance, attempted to block financial inflows to the terrorist networks, but have avoided taking a critical look into the real magnitude and nature of terrorist finances, especially with respect to the evidence of state sponsorship. The result is that despite some $117 million of frozen assets, the terrorists do not appear to be lacking in funds at all.2 We have attempted to come to terms with the psychology behind the terrorists' murderous fury, yet refuse to examine systematically, let alone do something about, the effect and implications of daily indoctrination of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Muslims around the world into a hate-driven cult of violence. Similarly, we have tried and often succeeded in disrupting the terrorists' tactical organizational structures and communications networks, but have paid scant attention to the huge world-wide infrastructure of radical Islam which breeds and nourishes violence.

Yet, without a critical consideration of these realities and the formulation of a forceful strategic response based on it, it is unlikely that we'll make lasting progress in the war on terror. It is thus necessary to briefly examine the key factors that have made and sustained Islamic extremism as a daunting challenge to our liberal democratic order.

It is difficult, indeed, impossible to successfully defeat a violent ideological movement, such as radical Islam, without understanding the ideology motivating it. And there has been no lack of scholarly attention to the subject from both the liberal Western and the Muslim perspective recently.3 Nonetheless, it is worth encapsulating the main doctrinal tenets of Islamic extremism here because they are regularly and consciously obfuscated by the extremists themselves and continue to be misunderstood.

Islamic extremism as an ideology is hardly new with the first movement that resembles today's phenomenon, known as the Kharijites, appearing shortly after the birth of Islam in the 7th century. Later it was expounded on by various Islamic scholars, such as Ibn Taymiiya in the 13th century, but it did not become institutionalized until the mid-18th century when the theories promulgated by the radical cleric Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab were accepted and imposed as the state religion of his realm by the founder of the House of Saud. Wahhabism, as this creed got to be known, like most other extremist movements before it, believed that traditional Islamic virtues and beliefs have been corrupted and preached a return to the ostensibly pure Islam of the time of the Prophet and his companions.4 In reality, Wahhab's extreme doctrines contradicted and stood on their head major tenets of traditional Islam and in a real sense represent an outright falsification of the Muslim faith.5

To name just one egregious example, a key postulate of Wahhab's teaching asserts that Muslims who do not believe in his doctrines are ipso facto non-believers and apostates against whom violence and Jihad were not only permissible, but obligatory. This postulate alone transgresses against two fundamental tenets of the Quran - that invoking Jihad against fellow-Muslims is prohibited and that a Muslim's profession of faith should be taken at face value until God judges his/hers sincerity at judgment day. This extreme reactionary creed was then used as the religious justification for military conquest and violence against Muslim neighbors of the House of Saud. Already in 1746, just two years after Wahhabism became Saud's religion, the new Saudi-Wahhabi state proclaimed Jihad against all neighboring Muslim tribes that refused to subscribe to it. Indeed, well into the 1920s the history of the House of Saud is replete with violent campaigns to force other Muslims to submit politically and theologically, violating yet another fundamental Quranic principle that prohibits the use of compulsion in religion.

Today, the Wahhabi ideology continues to be characterized by a set of doctrinal beliefs and behavior prescriptions that are often inimical to the values and interests of the vast majority of Muslims in the world to say nothing about those of non-Muslims. Non-Wahhabi Sunni Muslims (syncretic Muslims, Sufis, Barelvis, Bahai, Ahmadis, etc) are still considered illegitimate, at best, while the Shia religion is particularly despised as a "Jewish conspiracy" against Islam.6 The Wahhabis continue to believe and preach violence and Jihad as a pillar of Islamic virtue, rigid conformism of religious practice, institutionalized oppression of women, wholesale rejection of modernity, secularism and democracy as antithetical to Islam and militant proselytism. This jihadist ideology par excellence, is by and large, also the worldview of radical Islam and it is not at all an exaggeration to argue that Wahhabism has become the prototype ideology of all extremist and terrorist groups, even those that despise the House of Saud.

How did this obscurantist, pseudo-Islamic creed manage to become the dominant idiom not only among the extremists but increasingly the Islamic establishment? The short answer is money and an acute legitimacy crisis in the Muslim world in the last quarter of the 20th century.

Regarding the latter, the progressive, centuries-long, gradual decline of Islam as a dominant force and civilization reached its nadir in 1924, when Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) simultaneously did away with the Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire by overnight transforming the latter into a secular Turkish republic. The unceremonious discarding of the symbol of the Muslim community (ummah), coupled with the establishment of European colonial rule over much of the Muslim world gave rise to revivalist movements and ideologies seeking to come to terms with Islam's predicament and efforts to restore it to previous glories.

Beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood of Hassan el-Banna in 1928, followed by the movements founded by Islamist ideologues like Abul ala Maududi, Sayyid Qutb and the extremist Deobandi creed in South Asia, radical Islam established a strong presence in the Muslim world in the second half of the 20th century. Then in the 1970s and 1980s Islamic terrorist groups (Al Jihad and Gamaa Islamiya in Egypt, Front for National Salvation (FIS) in Algeria etc.) began appearing in the Middle East and South Asia, especially after the beginning of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. While none of these groups and movements were 100% Wahhabi originally, their ideological differences were insignificant.7

As these movements were violently suppressed in places like Egypt and Algeria, the Saudis were quickly able to co-opt them by providing sanctuary and financial assistance to their members in both Saudi Arabia and outside of it. Thus, the economic and logistical dependence of many of these extremists on the Saudis, coupled with the ongoing radicalization of Wahhabism itself, created a highly synergistic relationship between the practitioners of terror and their Wahhabi supporters and paymasters despite the fact that many practicing jihadists like Osama bin Laden resented the Saudi regime.

While this ideological affinity between the Wahhabis and modern day radical Islam is undoubtedly of key import, it was vast amounts of money more than anything else that made Wahhabism the chief enabler and dominant influence of the Islamist phenomenon.

Saudi financing of Islamic extremism plays such a huge role in its emergence as a global phenomenon that a proper understanding of it is impossible without coming to terms with its dimensions. Simply put, without the exorbitant sums of Saudi money spent on supporting extremist networks and activities, the terrorist threat we are facing today would be nowhere as acute as it is.

While the Wahhabis have always been sympathetic to Sunni Muslim extremists and evidence exists that they have supported such people financially as early as a century ago,8 the real Saudi offensive to spread Wahhabism aggressively and support kindred extremist groups world-wide began in the mid-1970s, when the kingdom reaped an incredible financial windfall with rocketing oil prices after Riaydh's imposition of an oil embargo in 1973.9 "It was only when oil revenues began to generate real wealth," says a government publication, that "the kingdom could fulfill its ambitions of spreading the word of Islam to every corner of the world."10

There are no published Western estimates of the numbers involved, which, in itself, is evidence of our failure to address this key issue, but even the occasional tidbits provided by official Saudi sources, indicate a campaign of unprecedented magnitude. Between 1975 and 1987, the Saudis admit to having spent $48 billion or $4 billion per year on "overseas development aid," a figure which by the end of 2002 grew to over $70 billion (281 billion Saudi rials).11 These sums are reported to be Saudi state aid and almost certainly do not include private donations which are also distributed by state-controlled charities. Such staggering amounts contrast starkly with the $5 million in terrorist accounts the Saudis claim to have frozen since 9/11. In another comparison, it is instructive to put these figures side by side with the $1 billion per year said to have been spent by the Soviet Union on external propaganda at the peak of Moscow's power in the 1970s.

Though it is claimed that this is "development aid" it is clear from the Saudi media and government statements alike that the vast majority of these funds support "Islamic activities", rather than real developmental projects. For example, a report on the yearly activities of the Al Haramain Foundation described as "keen on spreading the proper Islamic culture" are listed as follows: "it printed 13 million (Islamic) books, launched six internet sites, employed more than 3000 callers (proselytizers), founded 1100 mosques, schools and cultural Islamic centers and posted more than 350,000 letters of call (invitations to convert to Islam)" while the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), another key "charity," completed 3800 mosques, spent $45 million for Islamic education and employed 6000 proselytizers.12 Both of these organizations have been implicated in terrorist activities by U.S. authorities and both operate directly out of Saudi embassies in all countries in which they do not have their own offices.

The Saudi money is spent according to a carefully designed plan to enhance Wahhabi influence and control at the expense of mainstream Muslims. In Muslim countries, much of the aid goes to fund religious madrassas that teach little more than hatred of the infidels, while producing barely literate Jihadi cadres. There are now tens of thousands of these madrassas run by the Wahhabis' Deobandi allies in South Asia and also throughout Southeastern Asia. In Pakistan alone, foreign funding of these madrassas, most of which comes from Saudi Arabia, is estimated at no less than $350 million per year.13 The Saudis also directly support terrorist activities in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Chechnya, Bosnia and, as noticed above, most of the large Saudi foundations have been implicated in such involvement.

It needs to be emphasized here that contrary to Saudi claims that charities such as Al Haramain, the Muslim World League (MWL), the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) and the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) are independent and non-governmental, there is conclusive evidence from Saudi sources that they are tightly controlled by the government and more often than not run by government officials. It is also the case that as early as 1993, the kingdom passed a law stipulating that all donations to Muslim charities must be collected in a fund controlled by a Saudi Prince.14

Early on in the Wahhabi ideological campaign, the penetration of the Muslim communities in non-Muslim Western societies was made a key priority. The objective pursued there was slightly different and aimed to assure Wahhabi dominance in the local Muslim establishments by taking over or building new Wahhabi mosques, Islamic centers and educational institutions, including endowing Islamic chairs at various universities.15 Taking over a mosque, of course, means more than just the ability to impose the Wahhabi version of Islam. The imam and the leadership of the mosque are also responsible for the collection of zakat (the 2 ½ % yearly tithe Muslims must donate), which gives them the ability to contribute these funds to extremist organizations. Most Pakistani mosques in the United Kingdom, for instance, have reportedly been taken over by the Wahhabi/Deobandi group even though their members belong primarily to the moderate Barelvi creed. As a result, millions of their donations are said to be supporting terrorist groups in Pakistan.16

While nobody knows for sure how much the Saudis have spent on getting a foothold in non-Muslim regions and especially in Western Europe and North America, the sums are clearly huge. According to official information, the Saudis have built over 1500 mosques, 210 Islamic centers, 202 Islamic colleges and 2000 schools for educating Muslims in non-Muslim countries. Most of these institutions continue to be on the Saudi payroll for substantial yearly donations assuring that Wahhabi control is not likely to weaken any time soon.17

What have the Saudis been able to buy with this unprecedented Islamic largesse? Quite a bit it would seem. For starters, the Wahhabi creed which is practiced by no more than 20 million people around the world, or less than 2% of the Muslim population, has become a dominant factor in the international Islamic establishment through an elaborate network of front organizations and charities, as well as in a great number of national establishments, including the United States. In just one example, the venerable Al Azhar mosque and university in Cairo, which not too long ago was a paragon of Islamic moderation has been taken over by the Wahhabis and spews extremist propaganda on a regular basis. Two of their recent fatwas make it a religious duty for Muslims to acquire nuclear weapons to fight the infidels and justify suicide attacks against American troops in Iraq.18 The Wahhabi project has contributed immeasurably to the Islamic radicalization and destabilization in a number of countries and continues to do so. Pakistan, for instance, an important U.S. ally, is facing the gradual talibanization of two of its key provinces under Wahhabi/Deobandi auspices and the prospect of large-scale sectarian strife and turmoil. Riyadh-financed extremist networks exist presently around the world providing terrorist groups and individuals with a protective environment and support and even the recent terrorist incidents in Saudi Arabia itself do not seem likely to bring about meaningful change.

Already Saudi officials have stated that they do not intend to either change their anti-Western curriculum or stop their "charitable" activities. Yet the evidence of conscious Saudi subversion of our societies and values as partly detailed above is so overwhelming that to tolerate it further would be unconscionable. Failure to confront it now will assure that we will not win the war on terror anytime soon.

1 For an example of an extremist Islamic organization that could easily succeed Al Qaeda and is already operating internationally see Ariel Cohen, Hizb ut-Tahrir: An Emerging Threat to U.S. Interests in Central Asia, Backgrounder #1656, The Heritage Foundation, June 2003.

2 This becomes easier to understand when we're told recently that a single mosque in Brooklyn has been able to transfer $20 million to Al Qaeda.

3 For a critique of radical Islam as exemplified by Wahhabism from the point of view of traditional Muslim scholarship see Hamid Algar, Wahhabism: A Critical Essay, Islamic Publications International, New York 2002. Recent book-length Western studies include Dore Gold, Hatred's Kingdom, Regnery Publishing, Wash. D.C., 2003 and Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam, Doubleday, New York 2002.

4 The Wahhabis themselves despise the term and never use it since they believe and claim that theirs is in fact the only true Islam.

1 To the extent that Wahhabism contradicts some of the fundamental tenets of Islam it is misleading to call it fundamentalist as many observers routinely do.

5 For instance, the establishment of an Islamic state based on Sharia'a in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini was seen as a real threat to Saudi/Wahhabi interests, rather than a victory for Islam, and treated with unmitigated hostility by Riyadh.

6 For example, while many of these movements considered the Muslim political leadership of their countries illegitimate and urged and conspired in its violent overthrow, most, though not all, of the Wahhabis supported the House of Saud.

7 The Islamist ideologue Rashid Rida was one of the first of those in 1909. See Apgar, op.cit.

10 See Saudi Aid to the Developing World, Nov. 2002, in www.saudinf.com/main/1102.htm and statement by Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf, Saudi Minister of Finance and National Economy as reported by Saudia Online, Jan.2, 2003 (www.saudia-online.com/news2003/newsjan03/news2.shtml.) 96% of these aid amounts are said to be grants.

12 For details on Saudi funding of the madrassas see Alex Alexiev, The Pakistani Time Bomb, Commentary, March 2003

14 The typical modus operandi in taking over a mosque or similar institution follows approximately the following pattern: Saudi representatives offer a community to subsidize the building of a new mosque, which usually includes an Islamic school and a community center. After completion of the project an annual maintenance subsidy is offered making the community dependent on Saudi largess in perpetuity. Saudi chosen board members are installed, a Wahhabi imam (prayer leader) and free wahhabi literature are brought in and the curriculum changed in accordance with Wahhabi precepts. Visiting speakers of extremist views are then regularly invited to lead Friday night prayers and further radicalize the members. The most promising candidates are selected for further religious education and indoctrination in Saudi Arabia to be sent back as Wahhabi missionaries as the circle is completed.

15 International Crisis Group (ICG) Report, "Pakistan: Madrassas, Extremism and the Military," Asia Report #36, July 29, 2002, p. 16

16 Although information on this aspect is rather scarce, figures provided from time to time in the Saudi media indicate yearly payments to Islamic centers in the range of $1.5 million to $7 million.

17 See Suicide Attacks Permitted: Al Azhar, Dawn, April 6, 2003 (www.dawn.com/2003/04/06int10.htm)

Joe, here is related info
Special Dispatch - Egypt/Saudi Arabia/Jihad & Terrorism
June 20, 2003
No. 526

To view this Special Dispatch in HTML format, please visit:
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD52603

An Egyptian Journalist on the Connection Between Wahhabism and Terrorism

Following the bombings in Riyadh on May 12, 2003, the deputy editor of the independent Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yousef, Wael Al-Abrashi, who is also an expert on Sunni terrorist movements, wrote several articles on Saudi Wahhabism and the development of Islamist terror. The following are excerpts from Al-Abrashi’s article:

A Wahhabi World View

In an article published on May 31, 2003 in Roz Al-Yousef, Al-Abrashi wrote: "A Wahhabi Saudi sheikh warned young people not to speak English and not to try to study it. He swallowed his saliva, wet his lips, and screamed: 'This is the language of the infidels, to the point where it has the word 'blease' ['please'], which is derived from iblis [Satan]. This is the language of the devil...'"

"Anyone can come and say that this sheikh does not represent all Wahhabis, but I will reply that most of the Wahhabi sheikhs have in the past forbidden the study of geography, English, philosophy, and drawing; besides that, what is the difference between what this Wahhabi sheikh said and the Fatwa of [Sheikh] Bin Baz - the [late] leader of Wahhabism - which stated that the planet Earth does not rotate?"

Al-Qa'ida - A Saudi Wahhabi Organization

"Wahhabism prohibits the woman from working, forbids her to drive a car, and bans democracy, treating it as a religion in addition to the religion of Allah. Wahhabism attributes great importance to the [outward] forms of Islam - growing a beard, ankle-length garments for men, and the requirement to use toothpicks instead of the satanic Western toothbrush. One Wahhabi leader, Sheikh bin 'Athimein, prohibited smoking, praying behind a smoker, shaving one's beard, praying behind a clean-shaven man, and wearing European clothing because it is polytheists' clothing..."

"I say that this Wahhabism is incapable of establishing a modern state and incapable of spreading the values of tolerance that Islam has set out. On the contrary, this Wahhabism leads, as we have seen, to the birth of extremist, closed, and fanatical streams, that accuse others of heresy, abolish them, and destroy them. The extremist religious groups have moved from the stage of Takfir(1) to the stage of 'annihilation and destruction,' in accordance with the strategy of Al-Qa'ida - which Saudi authorities must admit is a local Saudi organization that drew other organizations into it, and not the other way around. All the organizations emerged from under the robe of Wahhabism."

'Saudi Arabia Helped Perpetrators of Terror Attacks in Egypt, Beginning with Sadat's Assassination'

"I can state with certainly that after a very careful reading of all the documents and texts of the official investigations linked to all acts of terror that have taken place in Egypt, from the assassination of the late president Anwar Sadat in October 1981, up to the Luxor massacre in 1997, Saudi Arabia was the main station through which most of the Egyptian extremists passed, and emerged bearing with them terrorist thought regarding Takfir - thought that they drew from the sheikhs of Wahhabism. They also bore with them funds they received from the Saudi charities."

"Apparently, we had to wait all these years and the September 11 explosions had to happen, and many other explosions that harmed Saudi Arabia's stability, for the Saudi authorities to understand the two dangers: 'The danger of Wahhabi Takfir Fatwas [and] the danger of charities, most of whose money ultimately flows to the treasuries of extremists..."

"...Based on the documents and the investigations in all cases of terror that harmed Egypt [in the 1980s and 1990s], I determined that there was not a single case in which Saudi Arabia was not the main station for the extremists..."

"The ideas of the Wahhabi sheikhs and the funds of the charities turned into rifle bullets in the breasts of the innocent. An official memo by the Egyptian Interior Ministry immediately after the assassination of the late president Anwar Sadat enumerated the reasons for the buildup in extremist religious activity in Egypt. It was written there - and first published here - that the investigations and the confessions of the terror organization members showed that Sheikh Omar Abd Al-Rahman, the mufti of the [Al-Gam'ah Al-Islamiyya] organization, brought a tape-duplicating machine from Saudi Arabia and, from his home in Al-Fayoum, recorded and disseminated numerous cassettes of lectures and sermons expressing the ideology of the organization and serving its strategy and its plans. The cassettes accused the ruler of heresy and said there must be a coup against him..."

'Arab Leaders are Always Infidels - Except in Saudi Arabia'

"The Wahhabi sheikhs used the Fatwas of Ibn Taymiyyah dealing with the Mongols and the conquerors for disseminating the ideology of Takfir and Jihad against the ruler. What is strange is that while the Wahhabis accused the rulers of heresy and called to fight Jihad against them in countries such as Egypt, Algieria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan, they ruled that cooperating with the government in Saudi Arabia was a binding religious commandment and that the ruler is the [only] one authorized to declare Jihad, implement punishments, collect alms, and [enforce] the imperative of promoting virtue and preventing vice, and that it was an obligation to cooperate with it and obey it as long as it applied Islamic law."

"We used to ask the Wahhabi sheikhs and the members of extremist Egyptian religious groups: 'You demand obedience to the Saudi ruler and refraining from rising up against him, while you call for Jihad against the ruler and toppling the regime in Egypt and in other Arab countries. What is the meaning of this contradiction?' Their answer was: 'The difference is that Islamic religious law is implemented in Saudi Arabia, and not implemented in the other Arab countries.' But the day came when Saudi youth accused the Saudi authorities too of heresy, called for [Jihad] against them, and accused them of defiling the places holy to Islam via the American forces. Anyone who adopts the Takfir ideology and uses it for his own interests will be burned in its fire, because no one can control it..."

'Today, Saudi Arabia Has Become the Biggest Arena for Extremist Ideology’

"Today, Saudi Arabia has become the biggest arena for extremist ideology and [provided] the broadest scope for the development of its viruses. As a result, the Saudi authorities have, for the first time, begun to carry out security detention of 'inciters to violence' among the Wahhabi sheikhs."

'Egyptian Workers' Passports Confiscated in Saudi Arabia End Up With Terrorists'

"I call for an attempt to protect Egyptians from the old-new terror coming from Saudi Arabia. Egypt must be fortified ideologically and through security against Wahhabi ideas. In this framework, I call for an investigation of what I call 'the phenomenon of the disappearance and theft of Egyptian passports from Saudi Arabia,' and I use the term 'phenomenon' accurately. According to [Egyptian] Foreign and Interior Ministry sources, Saudi Arabia [is the number one country from] where passports of Egyptian workers are stolen and disappear. This phenomenon has been on the rise from the early 1990s, the period of the large terror operations [in Egypt], until today."

"In accordance with the method of guaranty - a method no less backward than Wahhabism itself and which contains all the seeds of racism, hatred, and repression - the Saudi 'guarantor' holds the passports of the [foreign] workers, and if the Egyptian or other worker wants to travel, [it is easy for] the guarantor not to give him his passport; he can even throw him into jail. If the Egyptian complains, the guarantor can say he already gave him his passport but the Egyptian lost it. The [Egyptian] Foreign and Interior Ministry files hold dozens of complaints connected to the disappearance or theft of the passports of Egyptians working in Saudi Arabia, primarily in the last 15 years."

"It is suspected that the lost and stolen passports find their way to extremist religious organizations. Nine Egyptians complained about a Saudi guarantor named Muhammad Haroun several years ago, because he stole their passports and fled with them to Afghanistan..."

Wahhabi Terror and U.S. Bases in Saudi Arabia

"All that is left to say is that the Saudi leaders sought to gain religious protection, so they took Wahhabism as a shield; they sought to gain military protection, so they opened their land to the American forces. But it is odd that Saudi Arabia was burned by the fire of both Wahhabism and the American bases. Those who fight, sabotage, and destroy do so in accordance with the Wahhabi Fatwas, and justify their deeds by the presence of American bases. The only solution for the Saudi crisis is to trim the claws of Wahhabism, and to purify it and empty it of its content, so that it can become mainstream, moderate Islam. That is, Wahhabism should be gotten rid of, and then the American bases that provide a pretext for the armed violence should be gotten rid of."

"I will be even more frank. The Wahhabis and the Saudi princes hate Muhammad 'Ali, and have a complex because of him, because he sent his forces against them, eliminated them, invaded their capital, and scattered them from the Arabian Peninsula. Some historians and commentators, and even residents of the Arabian Peninsula, think Muhammad 'Ali's attack on the Wahhabis was an attack on terror and terrorism. The British commisioner of Kuwait, Dixon, who was responsible for Saudi matters, wrote at the time: 'Ibrahim Pasha, commander of the army of Muhammad 'Ali, gained the admiration and trust of the public in Najjd. He was received at Mount Shamar, Al-Qassim, and Al-Ahsaa as a deliverer from the Wahhabi fire, not as a foreign conqueror.'"

'An Attack on Wahabbism is Needed'

"Wahhabism needs now an attack of another kind that will be like the attack of Muhammad 'Ali, but will be this time an ideological, cultural, religious, and political attack that will be led by the Saudi authorities themselves, and will not be forced from without. The attack must be Saudi, and not American, it must be more ideological and political than [based on] security. The attack on Wahhabism is an attack on terror, backwardness, and fanaticism. Wahhabism has moved from Takfir to destruction, and we do not want it ultimately destroying Saudi Arabia."(2)

'The Roots of Terror are in Saudi Arabia, Not Egypt'

In another article, Al-Abrashi wrote: "...Following the September 11 attacks, everyone was stunned by the reversal in Saudi Arabia's attitude towards the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, despite the close strategic relations they had maintained since the days of Abd Al-Nasser when dozens of [Muslim Brotherhood members] fled to Saudi Arabia. But we quickly realized, based on special sources, that the Saudi authorities aspired to rescue Wahhabism and exonerate it of charges of terror. The only way to do so, they thought, was to place the blame on one of the branches [of Wahhabism] - the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood."

"But this trick did not succeed, and the Americans continued to claim that the ideology of Al-Qa'ida and bin Laden had been formed in the Saudi atmosphere. So some Saudi princes and top officials used another trick, spreading the claim that Egyptian extremists had taken over bin Laden and changed his ideological thought. According to them, 'Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the leader of the extremist Egyptian Jihad organization, was the brain and the ideologue of the Al-Qa'ida organization, and it is he who leads bin Laden. With this claim, they tried to eradicate the Saudi color from the Al-Qa'ida organization and state that the organization was no more than a continuation of the Egyptian Takfir organization..."

"Saudi Arabia supported the closed Wahhabi religious and ideological extremism and created the Al-Qa'ida organization. It persecuted the Shi'ite minority and permitted the deployment of the American presence on its land, in a way that contradicts its religious position and its national sovereignty. Thus began the catastrophe, and when it will end we do not know."(3)

In another article, Al-Abrashi wrote: "...Although Saudi Arabia has adopted a strategy of exporting Wahhabism to the rest of the world, it has continued in recent years to claim that the ideology of the extremist Takfir was imported from abroad and was brought into Saudi Arabia, primarily from Egypt, and that it has no roots of any kind in Saudi culture. Saudi Arabia created the monster, exported it abroad, and then lost control of it. Then, the monster turned on it..."

"Saudi Arabia is in danger. It can neither relinquish Wahhabism nor leave it as it is; it can neither keep the American presence nor get rid of it. I say again, Saudi Arabia is in danger, since the Al-Saud family has placed it between the Wahhabi hammer and the anvil of the American bases."(4)

Endnotes:
(1) Accusing Muslims of heresy in Islam
(2) Roz Al-Yousef (Egypt), May 31, 2003.
(3) Roz Al-Yousef (Egypt), May 17, 2003, as cited in Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), May 19, 2003.
(4) Roz Al-Yousef (Egypt), May 24, 2003, as cited in Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), May 26, 2003.

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