Tehran has announced that it plans to sue the Saudi regime for terrorist attacks against Iranian targets in the region. In making the announcement, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said Tehran had compiled and was continuing to compile evidence that would be presented at appropriate international organizations.
The Saudi regime has adopted a three-pronged strategy to deal with the storm that has erupted since the Islamic Awakening swept the Muslim East more than a year ago. Soon after two dictators — General Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and General Hosni Mubarak of Egypt — were driven from power in quick succession, Saudi King Abdullah announced billions of dollars in handouts to buy people’s loyalty.
The Saudi-ruled kingdom is heading for turbulent times. It faces challenges on both external and internal fronts. No, there is no imminent threat of a military invasion from abroad. It is the invasion of ideas that is scaring the living daylights out of members of the House of Saud.
Although not given much publicity in the Western media, Saudi Arabia has been brutally suppressing political dissidents. The monarchy does not allow any form of criticism and has instituted harsh measures to silence any critical voices. As a result of this many human rights activists, bloggers, reformists, academics and religious leaders have been detained by Saudi security forces.
Even before the full extent of reforms for women in Saudi Arabia announced by King Abullah was known, western media outlets led by the BBC had started drum beating about the “reformer” Saudi king.
Almost everything about Saudi Arabia is different from neighboring countries, starting with its opaque politics and secretive decision-making and the manner in which it treats people, especially women and foreigners.
The Muslim East (Middle East) has been in the throes of revolutionary fervor for more than six months. Two dictators have been driven from power; others are teetering on the brink while some are also fighting back with mixed results.
As Crescent was about to go to press, WikiLeaks released some 250,000 secret cables between US diplomats and the State Department up to the year 2009. Among them was one dealing with a plea to Washington from Saudi king Abdullah, currently undergoing medical treatment in the US, to attack Iran.
"Only they shall tend to the masjids of Allah that make a firm commitment to Him..." (9:18–19) Pondering over the above ayaat, it appears as if they were revealed specifically to describe the behaviour of the present rulers in the Arabian Peninsula.
Deep down inside the recesses of the Islamic movement there is what one may call a dichotomy — two mutually exclusive subclasses of the worldwide Islamic movement. One of them is centered on Islamic Iran and the other around what is today called “Saudi” Arabia.
If someone mentioned spiritual poverty in Saudi Arabia, it would surprise few given the rigid literalist Wahhabi ideology that is imposed on people in the archaic kingdom. After all, women are prohibited from driving and the mutawwa, religious police go around beating people for no apparent reason except that these religious zealots presume people are not following their literalist ideology.
There has always been something rotten about the manner in which the House of Saud conducts its affairs. Deeply secretive, its palace intrigues often seep into the public domain because there are so many competing interests vying for power and influence.
Egyptian politicians and intellectuals often claim that other Arabs borrow their ideas or attitudes from Egypt. It would not, therefore, be surprising if they claim that the Saudi rulers are copying president Husni Mubarak in their recent overtures to France, in an apparent attempt to distance themselves from the US, which has become very unpopular in the Muslim world.
When Saudi king Fahd died on August 1, the kingdom made a fine show of an orderly succession. Nonetheless, his successor, Abdullah, faces enormous challenges and uncertainties. NASR SALEM reports.
A week after the four bomb blasts in Riyadh which killed 24 people on May 12, the US, Britain and Germany shut down their embassies in Saudi Arabia after warnings that more deadly attacks could be expected.
The Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, was rocked by four massive explosions late on May 12, as Crescent was going to press. They were apparently aimed at Western targets in the city, including residential compounds where Western expatriates live, and the headquarters of an American-owned company, the Saudi Maintenance Company.
Wahhabism, a peculiar interpretation of Islamic doctrine and practice that first arose in mid-eighteenth century Arabia, is sometimes regarded as simply an extreme or uncompromising form of Sunni Islam. This is incorrect, for at the very outset the movement was stigmatized as aberrant by the leading Sunni scholars of the day, because it rejected many of the traditional beliefs and practices of Sunni Islam and declared permissible warfare against all Muslims that disputed Wahhabi teachings. Nor can Wahhabism be regarded as a movement of “purification” or “renewal,” as the source of the genuinely revivalist movements that were underway at the time. Not until Saudi oil money was placed at the disposal of its propagandists did Wahhabism find an echo outside the Arabian Peninsula.
1The Saudi ‘royal’ family rarely commits the error of publicly expressing anxiety or doubt about the durability of the House of Saud, or of openly criticising its US protectors’ backing for Israel.
The aftermath of September 11 has focused attention once more on the House of Saud and its ability to survive. There are growing indications that the genie of waning popularity, which the Saudi dynasty has long feared and tried to control by a legion of gimmicks, has again escaped.
As Muslims from all over the world begin to travel to the Hijaz for Hajj, ZAFAR BANGASH, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), discusses the true nature of the annual pilgrimage.
