[RC] Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi clerics condemn Islamic State but preach intolerance

[BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community]

 



 
Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi clerics condemn Islamic State  
but preach intolerance
(Reuters, September 10, 2014) 
Dubai, Sept 10 (Reuters) - When Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz 
 Al al-Sheikh described Islamic State and al Qaeda as "kharijites" last 
month, he  was casting them as the ultimate heretics of Muslim history, a sect 
that caused  the faith's first and most traumatic schism. 
That sort of rhetoric aimed at expelling militants from the Muslim 
mainstream  has grown increasingly common among top Saudi clerics in recent 
weeks as 
they  work to counter an ideology that threatens their political allies in 
the Al Saud  dynasty. 
But while Saudi Arabia's official Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam attacks  
Islamists as heretical and "deviant", many of its most senior and popular 
clergy  preach a doctrine that encourages intolerance against the very groups 
targeted  by IS in Iraq. 
The arch conservatives Abdulrahman al-Barrak and Nasser al-Omar, who has 
more  than a million followers on Twitter, have accused Shi'ites of sowing 
"strife,  corruption and destruction among Muslims". 
Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan was sacked as judiciary head in 2008 for saying  
owners of media that broadcast depravity have forsaken their faith, a crime  
punishable in Sharia law by death, but he remains a member of the kingdom's 
top  Muslim council. 
Abdulaziz al-Fawzan, a professor of Islamic law and frequent guest on the  
popular al-Majd religious television channel, has accused the West of being  
behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, saying "these 
criminals  want to take control over the world". 
Such opinions, which echo the views of militants in Iraq, are not unusual 
in  Saudi Arabia, which applies Sharia Muslim law, has beheaded 20 people in 
the  past month, and where clerics oversee a lavish state-funded religious  
infrastructure. 
Saudi Arabia and its ultra conservative Wahhabi school are often seen in 
the  West as the ideological wellspring of al Qaeda, which has staged attacks 
across  the world and of Islamic State, which has beheaded hostages in Syria 
and  Iraq. 
It is a viewpoint vociferously denied by the Saudi establishment, including 
 the ambassador to London, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf, who wrote last month 
that  it "does not even faintly correspond" with Wahhabi teachings. 
The Al Saud are sensitive to such criticism not only because of the costs 
of  suppressing a militant insurgency a decade ago that killed hundreds, but 
because  their legitimacy rests partly on religious credentials underwritten 
by Wahhabi  clerics. 
Saudi authorities point to the influence of the radical wing of the Muslim  
Brotherhood in developing modern jihadi thinking, but play down Riyadh's 
decades  of support for Islamists around the world as a counterweight to 
anti-royal  leftist ideology. 
The government's inability or reluctance to crack down on expressions of  
intolerance towards non-Sunnis has led some Saudi liberals and foreign 
analysts  to ask if the kingdom is committed to tackling radicalism's roots, or 
only its  symptoms. 
"It's their definition of extremism we may not agree with. It is still very 
 mainstream to call Shi'ites infidels. That's not seen as extremist," said  
Stephane Lacroix, author of Awakening Islam, a book about Islamism in Saudi 
 Arabia. 
JIHAD 
When the Al Saud first raised a state near Riyadh in the mid 18th century,  
they did so with the support of a local preacher, Mohammed ibn Abd 
al-Wahhab,  whose purist doctrine is often known as Wahhabism, a term rejected 
by 
those who  follow it. 
Wahhabi ideology is focused on eliminating incorrect doctrine, particularly 
 when it appears to undermines monotheism, a category that includes Shi'ite 
 reverence for the Prophet Mohammed's descendents and the Christian belief 
in a  trinity. 
Like Shi'ites, the Kharijites wanted Mohammed to be replaced as leader of 
the  Muslims by his son-in-law, Ali, but they later assassinated him for 
compromising  with the early Sunnis. That act won them the enmity of both 
Islam's main  sects. 
Wahhabi clergy offer legitimacy and public support to a king who styles  
himself "custodian of the two holy mosques", and leave all matters of 
governance  and foreign policy to him so long as his edicts do not contradict 
Muslim 
 law. 
In return, the ruling family has given them top government jobs, control 
over  Saudi Arabia's Sharia Muslim law, great influence over social issues and 
public  morality, and funds for foreign evangelism and massive Wahhabi 
seminaries. 
Riyadh, which sees itself as a protector of Sunnis against Shi'ite factions 
 manipulated by an expansionist Iran, has given arms and cash to Syrian 
rebels  fighting President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the Alawite sect close 
to  Shi'ites. 
But it also sees militant groups among the rebels, including IS and the 
Nusra  Front, as a threat to its own security, fearing that thousands of Saudi  
nationals who have gone to fight there will be radicalised and target their 
own  country. 
It has declared both groups illegal and imposed long prison terms for any 
who  offer them support, help them raise money or join them to fight. 
That position is backed by the Wahhabi establishment, which has declared 
the  struggle in Syria a jihad, or holy war, for the Syrian people, but not 
for  Saudis, and repeatedly urged citizens not to go to fight. 
"Peace and war have to be directed by the government and the king himself. 
As  for those encouraging others to go and fight, I don't agree with it at 
all. It  doesn't comply with our religion and it's not legal," said Sheikh 
Abdulmohsen Al  al-Sheikh, a former member of the Sharia faculty at Mecca's 
Umm al-Qura  seminary. 
The militants, in turn, often cite Wahhabi clerics from the 18th and 19th  
century, but they regard their modern successors as tools of the Saudi  
government, which they have vowed to topple with the slogan "kadimoun" or "we  
are coming". 
"The jihadis stopped citing senior mainstream Saudi clerics many years 
ago,"  said Thomas Hegghammer, a research fellow at the Norwegian Defence 
Research  Establishment and author of Jihad in Saudi Arabia. 
Even the few Saudi clerics who once supported al Qaeda, and are now in 
prison  in the kingdom, are shunned by IS because of its own rift with the 
older 
 militant group, he said. 
However, there are clearly contacts between some lower-level clerics and  
militants in Iraq and Syria. The authorities said last month they had 
detained  mosque imams who urged people to go and join the fight and prepared 
sermons for  use by IS fighters. 
Another cleric was sentenced to five years in prison in August for  
"glorifying" extremist ideology and urging others to go to Syria to fight.  
Thousands of Saudis are believed to have joined militant groups in Syria and  
Iraq. 
LIBERAL SAUDIS 
Over the past decade, the authorities have tried to hem in radical clergy 
by  imprisoning or sacking those who overtly support militancy. They have 
vetted  Friday sermons and restricted the power to issue fatwas (religious 
rulings) to  the 21 members of the Council of Senior Scholars. 
This does not go far enough for liberal Saudis. They believe the clergy's  
willingness to use highly sectarian language and voice contempt or hatred 
for  non-Muslims fuels radical ideology. 
"The only way to fight al Qaeda and Islamic State is by being transparent 
and  open about it. We have a problem: some of our teachings promote 
militancy and we  don't need those teachings any more," said Jamal Khashoggi, 
head 
of a television  news channel owned by a prince. 
Some school textbooks, many of which are written by clerics, still feature  
strong sentiments against non-Muslims despite Riyadh's pledge to purge the  
curriculum of intolerant language. 
King Abdullah has pushed more tolerant interpretations of Wahhabi thought,  
appointing Shi'ites to the Shoura Council which advises on policy and 
calling  for a new centre to study Islam's sects to be built in Riyadh, to the 
chagrin of  some Wahhabis. 
However, he has also been quoted in a 2006 U.S. embassy cable released by  
WikiLeaks as attacking Shi'ites for "worshipping stones, domes and statues" 
and  has done little to rein in clerical attacks on the sect. 
"Anti-Shi'ism in Saudi religious discourse is extremely strong. So Saudis 
are  open to understanding and accepting those justifications for militancy," 
said  Lacroix. 
Supporters of the Al Saud argue they have to tread carefully when dealing  
with conservative clerics. They say the ruling family is more liberal than 
most  Saudi citizens, and is wary of provoking public anger. 
But liberal Saudis and some foreign analysts say that is not the case, and  
argue that if the government really wanted to reduce intolerant religious  
discourse, it could readily do so. 
"When the government wants things to be done, they will be done," said  
Mohammed al-Zulfa, a former member of the Shoura Council and an early public  
advocate of allowing women to drive.

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