Monday, Jun 28, 2004
Saudi crackdown raises internal tensions
By Atul Aneja
MANAMA, JUNE 27. As Saudi Arabia battles the Al-Qaeda and opens debate on reforms, the country's powerful religious establishment has begun speaking in different voices, with one senior cleric saying in his sermon on Friday that Saudi citizens should be wary of foreign ideas.
Saleh-Al-Budair, an Imam of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina urged followers not to be carried away by "deviant ideas" of "infidel nations."
"It is extremely regrettable that many Muslims have opened their countries, their businesses, their homes and their hearts to those alien trends and handed over their societies to the infidel nations who deviated from the right path," he told thousands of people who had thronged the mosque complex.
Many Saudis reportedly resent the Kingdom's close ties with the United States, especially after it invaded Iraq and pictures of the prisoners abuse in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail surfaced.
Contrary to the tenor of Imam Al -Budair's sermon, Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh condemned killings of foreigners including the U.S. engineer, Paul M. Johnson, who was beheaded by his kidnappers in Riyadh earlier this month, and opposed suicide bombings that Saudi Arabia has witnessed over the last one year. He also sought support for the government's drive against Al-Qaeda, and praised the recent amnesty offer by the Saudi monarch, King Fahd, to militants who wished to surrender.
"This is a blessing for which you should thank God and comply with," the Grand Mufti told worshippers on Friday in Riyadh.
As the Saudi regime clashes with Al-Qaeda, analysts say that the challenge posed by extremists is formidable. Anti-establishment forces in the Kingdom, they say, are deeply entrenched, and have been growing in recent years.
With the influence of the teachings of Mohammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, the charismatic eighteenth century Islamic religious reformer, already pervasive, Saudi youth have also been exposed to the teachings of the "Muslim Brotherhood." The Islamic group had its origins in Egypt, but its members fled to neighbouring countries after secular regimes, headed by leaders such as Gemal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and Hafez Al Assad in Syria emerged.
"Many of these preachers came to Saudi Arabia and proliferated as teachers in schools, colleges and universities and permeated their influence," Issac Al Sheikh, a Saudi commentator and columnist for the Arabic daily Al Ayam told The Hindu .
Observers say that the estimated 12,000 Saudi fighters, who returned to the Kingdom after combat with former Soviet troops in Afghanistan was over, also contributed to the growing radicalisation of the country's youth. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the first stopover for many veterans of the Afghan campaign, before their return to the Kingdom added to the growth in extremist ideas in the Kingdom, Mr. Al Sheikh said.
The decision of the ruling Al Saud dynasty to allow stationing of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, the fountainhead of Islam, after the first Gulf war in 1991, also became a symbol that generated anti-regime sentiments. The Government finally recognised the unpopularity of its decision, resulting in the pullout of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia last year, and their repositioning in neighbouring Qatar.
Copyright © 2004, The Hindu.