Author: NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Publication: The New York Times
Date: May 25, 2003
When he was a teenager issuing his
own fatwas, Mansour al-Nogaidan ordered his followers to blow up a video
store in downtown Riyadh because it was spreading Western corruption. Now,
years later, a completely changed man has dropped a philosophical bombshell
in the fervent national discussion swirling around the suicide attacks
this month against residential compounds here.
Mr. Nogaidan said in print that
the Wahhabi doctrine prevalent in Saudi Arabia was the root cause of the
violence fomented in the name of Islam here and around the world.
"The main problem is that these
radical groups draw their justification from Wahhabi thoughts," Mr. Nogaidan,
now 33 and a newspaper columnist, said in an interview this week, referring
to the teachings of Muhammad bin Abd al- Wahhab, which have been prevalent
for over 200 years.
"They think the only religiously
sanctioned way to spread Islam is through jihad," he said, using the term
in the sense of "holy war." "It's a huge problem. It's an octopus with
its arms everywhere, building these thoughts in everyone's mind."
Public debate has undergone a transformation
since the bombings on May 12 that killed 25 people, including seven Saudis,
at three residential compounds in the Saudi capital. It used to be taboo
to even mention the word Wahhabi in print, and if you said it in conversation
almost any Saudi would deny it existed as a separate school of thought.
That still happens, of course. But
the terrorist attacks in the heart of Riyadh have, at least for the moment,
transformed the discussion about the religious roots of Islamic militancy
and how it spreads through mosques, schools, state television and other
official institutions.
The religious establishment has
been thrown on the defensive by repeated accusations that denigrating anything
they don't like as "infidel" has helped breed a generation of Saudis whose
radical fringe thinks it acceptable to kill Westerners and even Muslims
who get in the way.
Still, support for the bombings
flows through the Web sites favored by those on the religious fringe and
even among Islamic militants, some of whom refuse to condemn the attacks
outright. The conservative establishment has also been trying to fight
back by contending that the liberals are trying to exploit the bombings
to undermine the faith, the very pillar upon which the country was built.
The ruling Saud dynasty basically
established its kingdom early in the last century through the zealotry
of Wahhabi warriors. So it is unclear how far they will go in allowing
the Wahhabi teachings to be attacked, much less changed.
In its essence, Wahhabism sought
to simplify Islam to its purest form, rejecting the once prevalent worship
of things like rocks and saints' tombs. It also supported a permanent jihad
to spread the faith to other lands, and much of the current debate centers
on whether violence should be part of that effort.
"Wahhabism is an extremist dialogue,"
said Abdel Aziz Qasim, a young former judge and Islamic scholar. "The challenge
is whether the government is willing to disregard the Wahhabi teachings
or not."
Signs are mixed. Prince Nayef bin
Abdel Aziz, the longtime interior minister and one of the surviving sons
of the founding monarch, denies that Saudi Arabia faces a particular problem.
The prince said at a news conference
that the kingdom faced a terrorism problem just like any other country.
"Why so much concentration on Saudis?" he said.
But the younger Saudi generation,
even if they did not accept all the criticism, said they believed that
the kingdom had reached a turning point.
"This is no joke; we are not just
fighting crime," Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington,
said during a six-hour dinner for visiting correspondents held in a 10-lantern
Bedouin tent on the grounds of his residence. "This is a defining moment
in Saudi political life."
There were timid attempts to discuss
local sources of violence after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York
and Washington, given that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi natives, but
they were drowned out by a wave of denial.
The official line has long been
that any deviants with false notions about jihad learned them outside Saudi
Arabia. Some of that continues, but the explosions in downtown Riyadh brought
home the fact that Al Qaeda, the prime suspect behind the bombings, probably
wants to change the Saudi leadership.
The renewed debate does not label
religion the sole source of the problem. Young Saudis are frustrated by
falling living standards and their inability to find jobs. "If you have
15 percent unemployment, this is a recipe for people to be deviant," said
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a prominent investor.
Beyond that, many Saudi intellectuals
contend that the country needs political liberalization, a means for people
to express dissent. Broadly they seek an elected assembly, a constitution
and more rights for women.
The religious establishment paints
those demands largely as an assault on its role by Westernized liberals.
"They are trying to use this event
to attack the entire religious establishment, which is completely unacceptable,"
said Mohsen Awaji, a lawyer active in conservative Islamic causes, referring
to the bombings.
"Without Islam this regime could
not exist for more than a few minutes," he said. "Wahhabism is not a corrupted
sect in need of reform."
In a closed society like Saudi Arabia,
it is impossible to gauge how much support various views garner. Saudi
analysts maintain that at least 20 percent of the population believe that
non-Muslims should be driven out of the Arabian peninsula, the heartland
of Islam. Those resorting to violence are believed to be a tiny fraction
of that.
Prince Bandar puts their number
at 50, probably veterans of Afghanistan's wars, who have recruited several
hundred others. Everyone sees the Arab-Israeli conflict, and lately the
American-led invasion of Iraq, as a recruiting tool.
Sympathizers appear reticent to
voice their views, seemingly because of the death of Saudis and other Muslims
horrified many people here. They dance around the topic.
"We are obliged to force the infidels
out of the Arabian peninsula," said Sheik Abdullah Sadoun, a 35-year-old
religious activist.
How should they be driven out?
"By jihad."
Were the attacks on the compounds
jihad?
"Those who committed the blasts
meant to force the foreigners out."
Asked directly if the bombings constituted
jihad, Sheik Abdullah demurred, saying more needed to be known about the
attackers.
In general, the religious establishment
believes that only a small, fanatical faction needs to be tackled. The
problem is how to do it.
"What is the news among the infidels?"
Mr. Qasim asks of a Western reporter, joking about the Saudi propensity
to see all non-Muslims as the "other."
Mr. Qasim thinks the way to counter
those who advocate violence is to counter their religious arguments. He
is in the midst of a major research project to publish the most tolerant
sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and his early followers. He believes Saudis
are ready for it.
"You can feel an unease in the community
that wasn't there after attacks like the one on the Cole," he said, referring
to the attack on the American destroyer in Yemen in 2000 in which 17 United
States servicemen were killed and 39 others were injured. "These men are
seen as criminals, not Islamic fighters."
But given that extremists believe
they have had religious justification for their actions for centuries,
they say a more open political system remains the only solution.
Crown Prince Abdullah, the country's
de facto ruler, said in a rare, nationally televised speech after the bombings
that violence in the name of Islam would not be tolerated. But besides
making promises of reform, the government has yet to say how it would be
dealt with.
Younger princes admit that they
see the need for action, and fast.
"I don't believe the problem is
deeply rooted in Saudi Arabia, but we have to hit with an iron fist," said
Prince Alwaleed, citing Egypt's suppression of hard-liners as a model.
The religious establishment must
maintain its role, he believes, because the violence is "more associated
with bin Ladenism rather than Wahhabism."
"People at the lower echelon are
hijacking Islam and saying you cannot do this, you cannot do that, we have
to kill Jews, we have to kill Christians," the prince said in an interview.
"I am telling you they are a minority,
but they are a vocal minority. They are a very harsh and violent minority.
These people have to be stopped and put to bed completely."
But there is no apparent consensus
among Saudi princes about how to confront the extremism.
"That kind of thinking ought to
be attacked, ought to be eradicated, but you won't do it by throwing everyone
in jail," said another prominent younger prince. "It would be naïve
to think you can eradicate them completely, what you want to do is marginalize
their influence."
Mr. Nogaidan believes what happened
to him could prove instructive.
He said that extremist discussions
and fanatical readings in his public high school's Islam Club led him to
drop out of school, open his own mosque and issue fatwas labeling virtually
anything Western as "infidel," including the video store that his
followers blew up.
That led to various stints in jail,
where he began reading outside the Wahhabi canon. Eventually he was convinced
that the concept of permanent jihad was incompatible with modern life.
"Before, I wanted to make Wahhabi
ideology active, and the sheiks were not doing it," Mr. Nogaidan said.
"I thought change was the priority, and even if you use violence, it's
legal, because you are trying to build a city of God."
