East-West Religious Conflict

Director’s Comment: The rise of religious fervor in Muslim communities in most parts of the world is seen by many non-sectarian Muslims and non-Muslims as a threat to democratic values, world peace, rights for women and minorities, and economic stability. This dangerous trend is attributed to excessive use of religion as a political and oppressive tool by many autocratic Arab and Muslim regimes, especially in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and home to two of its most holy shrines. The intense, international debates to find and analyze the root causes of religious intolerance in Muslim countries and find solutions to looming religious conflicts point to Saudi-Wahhabi-Salafi religious teachings and the exportation of their religious ideology, Wahhabism.

Given historical events, the safest way to reduce the possibilities of religious conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims is to take religion out of the hands of dictatorial Muslim theocrats and replace it with the rule of civil laws and non-sectarian constitutions in which peoples’ rights and obligations are codified in legal terms. This requires drastic transformation of religious, political, educational, social and economic institutions in places like Saudi Arabia, whose preachers are among the strongest advocates of wars against the infidels. Religion is personal and must be left to the individual to decide for him/herself how, when, or where to worship.

Many non-sectarian and tolerant Muslims are advocating reformation of Islam and elimination of the Shariah as a legal code. People like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and others are predicting dire consequences if the West does not change its attitude toward Muslim ideologues, autocratic regimes and institutions that feed intolerance, extremism and terrorism. Many people in the West and elsewhere may do what Ms. Ali and other Muslims are advocating. Tragically, due to the suppression of freedom of the press, speech and debate in Arab and Muslim countries, most Muslims do not know that they and their holy shrines could be reduced to ashes because of what is being done in their name and religion.

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Victories for Muslims

Director’s Comment: Saudi clerics gave fiery sermons to celebrate the end of fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. They urged Muslims to be optimistic because victories are coming just like in the past, referring to Muslim invasions of many parts of the world between the seventh and eleventh centuries. This is what the deadly ideologues are promising their followers and captive audiences. Islam has been made the center of every activity Muslims do, and consequently it has become the only element most Muslims identify with.

The international community, especially in the West, has not grasped the role Islam is playing in every aspect of Muslims’ lives, perceptions and understanding of the world around them. There is no place where people are more bombarded with unceasing emphasis on protecting Islam from its enemies than Saudi Arabia. Senior Saudi princes never miss an opportunity to stress the importance of serving and protecting Islam from its non-Muslim enemies, specifically Christians and Jews. Saudi clerics remind their captive followers of the Muslims’ glorious past, but for now they should celebrate and be happy because victory will surely follow. Unless the international community, particularly the West who is the target of Islamist ideologues, sees the dangers of religious indoctrination in the Muslim world, religious conflict on a much larger scale will be unavoidable.
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Saudi Mufti Misses the Target

Director’s Comment: The Saudi Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the highest religious authority in the country, is right when he describes Muslim youths as “a commodity, bought and sold by (Middle) Eastern and Western agencies...they have become instruments for carrying out heinous acts.” This statement makes specific reference to reports of Saudis taking part as suicide bombers in Iraq. By the time Saudi men (and women) reach the age of puberty, they have received enough religious indoctrination to the point where public statements by the Mufti or the king will go unheeded by confused, brainwashed, deprived and unemployed young Saudi men. These men are products of the Saudi educational institutions and mosques over which the Mufti and his family preside.

In order for Saudi young men to embrace life and make caring and constructive contributions, they have to be spared the intolerant religious teachings espoused by the Mufti’s clerics, schools and mosques. The Mufti should call for total transformation of all Saudi institutions, especially his, and replace the Shariah law with codified civil laws where people’s rights and obligations are protected from his agency and government abuses in the name of Allah and the Shariah.
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Islam is the Only Virtuous Religion

Director’s Comment: In an August 31, 2007 interview Saleh bin Fouzan Al-Fouzan, one of Saudi Arabia’s senior and highly respected fatwa (religious edict) clerics, decreed that those who are calling for co-existence between faiths are asking to harmonize true faith, Islam, and non-true faiths, namely all other religions. He argued that the only true religion is the religion of the messenger, Prophet Mohammed. Sadly and dangerously, Al-Fouzan represents the views and beliefs of Saudi clerics toward non-Muslim faiths. They do not recognize the legitimacy of any religion but theirs. This is what Saudi schools and mosques teach their people from cradle to grave. There are no courses taught in Saudi schools about other religions and their adherents’ contributions to world civilization.

Permitting Saudi religious, political, social, economic and educational intuitions to remain unchanged will only continue the monopolization over the interpretations and implementations of religious and other policies by religious extremists. These individuals use religion to isolate their people and to and maintain a total grip over every aspect of their lives, including turning them against other peoples.
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“Salafism's Simple Message Appeals to Muslim Youth”

Director’s Comment: The article below reads, “Salafism, which is based on puritanical Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia, is the sect of Islam that Osama bin Laden and its Dutch-Moroccan affiliates of the Hofstad Group adhere to.” Salafi ideologues are among the most rigid and dangerous of Muslim zealots. They believe in purifying Islam and going back to the days of its beginnings more than fourteen and a half centuries ago. Anyone who sees things differently than they do is considered a heretic, apostate and expendable. This is the ideology the Saudi-Wahhabi allies used in their quest to conquer most of the Arabian Peninsula in the middle of the eighteenth century. They used purification of Islam as their most effective and deadly weapon to eliminate anyone who opposed their methods of land confiscation, destruction of property and murder.

Oppressed and aimless young Muslims in Muslim societies and elsewhere are using the Salafi ideology to act out their aggression and oppression in very sophisticated and effective ways. They are using the internet and cell phones, and some are even said to be developing new means of communicating with each other through satellites. Muslim extremists link with each other easily and can execute plots anywhere in the world without knowing or seeing each other. These deadly Salafi ideologues pose a real and deadly threat which no one should ignore.
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Contact Us:

The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia
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Washington DC, 20036-USA

Phone: (202) 558-5552, (202) 413-0084

Fax: (202) 536-5210

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