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EDITORS NOTE:

GulfWire is once again indebted to Dr. Anthony Cordesman for providing a detailed, authoritative analysis of issues of the day that are of keen interest to you. This exhaustive report on the role of Islam in Saudi Arabia is timely in view of the most recent flood of negative reporting on the Kingdom.

Dr. Cordesman's report does not exonerate Saudi Arabia against some of the charges it faces, but it does put Saudi religious practices in perspective, notes that Saudi Arabia has done a great deal to fight terrorism already, and stresses the need for reforms that strike at the sources of the problems, not just serving as new efforts at counter-terrorism.

The report is a comprehensive analysis of the issue and provides more discussion than we can reprint here. This issue of Perspectives provides the table of contents and an excerpt from the report and we have made the complete report available to you in the GulfWire on-line archive. See below for the web link.

Patrick W. Ryan
Editor-in-Chief, GulfWire

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Saudi Arabia:
Opposition, Islamic Extremism, And Terrorism

by Dr. Anthony Cordesman

Contents

� Opposition and Islamic Extremism
� Working Within the System: The Role of Saudi "Modernizers"
� The Character and Impact of Saudi Puritanism
� Putting Saudi Wahhabi and Salafi Beliefs into Perspective
� Most Islamic Puritanism and Extremism is Not "Wahhabism"
� Islamic Extremism and Saudi Youth
� Trying to Co-opt Islamic Extremism: The Rising at the Grand Mosque
� Islamic Extremism and the Failure of Co-option in the 1980s and 1990s
� Education as a Self-Inflicted Wound
� Making Women Part of the Problem, Rather than Part of the Solution
� Religious Extremism and Active Political Opposition
� Moderate Opposition: Religious Fundamentalism
� Hardline Peaceful Opposition: Sheikh Safar al-Hawali
� Non-Violent Islamist Opposition: Salman al-Auda
� "Quasi-Violent" Islamist Opposition: The Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR) and Mohammed al-Mas'ari
� Violent Islamic Opposition: The Saudi National Guard Bombing
� Militant Islamist Opposition: The Al Khobar Tragedy
� The Initial Course of the Al Khobar Investigation
� Serious Progress in the Khobar Investigation
� The US Issues an Indictment
� The Role of the Saudi Hezbollah
� The Detailed History of the Attack
� The Role of Iran and the Threat of An American Follow Up
� A Continuing Problem
� Sunni versus Shi'ite
� Militant Saudi Extremists: Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida
� Militant Saudi Extremists: Other Threats
� Opposition, Extremism, Terrorism and the Future
� Endnotes
[For the complete report see the web link below]

OPPOSITION AND ISLAMIC EXTREMISM

Saudi Arabia does not face major political challenges from the mix of progressives, democratic reformers, human rights advocates, Arab socialists, Marxists or other secular political movements that shape the political debate in many other Arab countries. Saudi Arabia has political advocates in all of these areas, and some are quite active as individuals. There are many progressive Saudi individual businessmen, academics, journalists and technocrats who actively seek evolutionary reform. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries in the world where the vast majority of politically conscious adult citizens are more conservative than a conservative regime.

Saudi politics still center around religious legitimacy, and the commitment of the Al Sauds to the teachings of Mohamed ibn Abd Al Wahhab, and to preserving the regime's religious legitimacy, is as important today as during the first rise of the Al Sauds to power. Much of Saudi political stability is shaped by popular perceptions of the aspect of the regime's commitment to Islam rather than the elections and pluralism that shape legitimacy by Western standards. Even the most reform-minded technocrats, businessmen, and members of the royal family normally make Islamic values part of all their decision-making, speeches, laws, decrees, and public life.

While the Saudi regime did face serious "popular" challenges from Nasser and Arab socialism in the past, there is little evidence that such movements retain any political strength today. Modern Saudi society is focused on the values of puritanical Islamic beliefs. While there are elements of Arab nationalism in this Saudi belief structure, they are bound by the traditions ingrained in Saudi society. As a result, most advocates of reform must work through the Saudi royal family, the government, and the Kingdom's technocrats. In fact, it is this elite that has led virtually all of the Kingdom's efforts to modernize and reform Saudi politics and society.

As one experienced observer, who served as a senior US diplomat in Saudi Arabia, puts it,

"The rulers of Saudi Arabia today do not face major political challenges from domestic progressives, human rights advocates, or democratic reformers�nor from the local versions of socialists, Marxists, ethnic or liberal political groupings that inhabit other Arab landscapes.

"Saudi ruling challenges come, instead, from an Islamic environment that the rulers themselves have created, shaped, and maintained. It is a remarkable Saudi phenomenon that a regime unrivalled across the Islamic world in its conservatism presides over a body politic that for the most part is even more conservative."

"Saudi society today is, and has been for several hundred years, built on the values of what we in the West call 'Wahhabi' Islam. Relative to Islamic cultures elsewhere, that of the Saudi Kingdom is strict, even harsh, in its insistence on public observance of fundamental principles of Islam. Our own history has a weak parallel, the age of the Puritans, but the extent of Puritan control never matched that of "Wahhabi" Islam in Saudi Arabia. Within the Saudi environment�and while seeking to keep it intact�Saudi royals and western-educated elites and technocrats lead efforts to reform and modernize their society, politics, education and the infrastructure of modern global development."

"Within this environment too, there exists a culture that is inward-looking, traditional and insular, a culture itself challenged by world and regional events it cannot control or adequately understand. This is an environment that gives rise to shaykhs and men of religion who rebuke their leaders on Islamic grounds, and who assess the shortcomings of alien cultures by a peculiarly high standard of Islamic principle. It is an environment where young men who are true believers strain to see threats from outside through the lens of a strict Islam, and then dare to fight accordingly, even while violating precepts observed by Muslims everywhere."

Working Within the System: The Role of Saudi "Modernizers"

Saudi Arabia does have its "modernizers." Many Saudi princes, educators, technocrats, businessmen, Western educated citizens and more progressive Islamists have favored more rapid social change than has been possible in the face of from Saudi Islamic extremists and conservatives can influence large elements of Saudi society has often delayed progress. Such elements in Saudi society differ significantly over their vision of Saudi Arabia's future, but most reject an ultra-conservative or radical interpretation of Islam. They support educational and economic reform, and Saudi Arabia's opening to the outside world � both Arab and Western spheres. Many favor the creation of a more representative and active Majlis, and the eventual creation of an elected assembly. Many complain about nepotism and the abuse of power and legal rights by members of the royal family, other leading families, and officials.

Many also support the liberalization of current religious restraints on subjects such as commerce, the role of women, and soother practices. For example, such modernists and reformers petitioned the King at the time of the Gulf War, and Saudi women have carried out protests for women's rights by driving their own cars.

Yet most Saudi "modernizers"�which include significant numbers of deeply religious Saudis�recognize that Saudi religious practices and traditions can only evolve slowly over time. A few businessmen, technocrats, and Western-educated professionals have been arrested, or have had difficulties with the authorities, for such activities. However, such incidents are relatively rare. Most "modernizers" understand that the Royal family and Saudi technocrats offer a far more practical evolutionary road toward change than opposition to the regime. Intelligent "modernizers" understand they are in a minority, and must work within the system.

The Character and Impact of Saudi Puritanism

The Islamic practices of the vast majority of Saudis are puritanical, involve a conservative form of Hanbali jurisprudence, and are bound by conservative tribal social customs. The Saudi interpretation of Islam, and the actions Saudi clergy, reflect the teaching of Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a conservative and fundamentalist reformer who reshaped the worship and social practices of virtually all elements of Sunni society in the mid-1700s. Saudis generally regard Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab as the kind of key reformer called for in Islamic Hadith (tradition), who is called a Mujaddid. This is a voice that God sends at the head of each century to call upon Muslims to return to the true revelations of the Koran, and bring moral restoration to the umma (Muslim community).

Abd al-Wahhab's descendents�the Al Shaykh�still have great influence in the clergy as well as in managing the pilgrimage (Hajj) and pious endowments (Awqaf). They also play a role in shaping the policies of key Ministries including Education and Justice. Abd al-Wahhab's teaching about Islamic practices and legal interpretations dominate the legal system and must be considered in shaping virtually every major public policy decision. While Saudis generally do not use the name of a religious teacher or individual like Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab to describe such religious practices�in fact Al-Wahhab is one of the ninety-nine names of Allah�this has led outsiders to use the term Wahhabi Islam or "Wahhabism."

Putting Saudi Wahhabi and Salafi Beliefs into Perspective

Saudi Muslims think of themselves as "Muwahiddun" or "Unitarians." Muslims who believe Allah is the one and only one, and is the only legitimate derivation of correct Islamic beliefs. This consensus has been a basic part of Saudi society and culture since the founding of the first Al Saud state. Mainstream "Wahhabi" practices act as a binding force that holds Saudi Arabia together. Saudi Arabia is generally a remarkably non-violent and polite society, where hospitality and good manners are the rule in dealing with foreigners as well as fellow Saudis. Mainstream Wahhabi preaching and thought rarely advocates the use of violence or terrorism in the name of politico-religious disputes. The only major exception has been Saudi support for the Palestinian cause in the Second Intifada.

Even mainstream "Wahhabi" religious practices do limit critical aspects of the Kingdom's progress, such as modernizing the financial services sector, improving the quality of education, and expanding the role of women in the Saudi economy. Religious practices affect human rights and the modernization of the legal system as well. While there are progressive Wahhabi thinkers, there are others who find it difficult to think beyond the concerns of the Islam and Arab world, or to come to grips with the realities of modern science and technology. The Saudi inability to come to grips with population growth and birth rates is also at least partly a result religious conservatism.

More significantly, there are darker undercurrents in Saudi religious practices that advocate religious hatred and help encourage terrorism. Some Saudi sermons do preach hatred and xenophobia. Some Saudi textbooks and religious books attack Christians and Jews, and the practices of other Muslims. The fact that they rarely motivate the ordinary Saudi reader into action is no excuse for their existence � any more than there is an excuse for the similarly bigoted forms of Judaism or Christianity.

A minority of Saudi religious hard-liners and extremists go beyond words and either carry out terrorist and violent acts or support and fund them. Most such extremists not only are hostile to the outside world and non-believers, they oppose the Al Saud regime and virtually all efforts by Saudi technocrats and businessmen to modernize the Kingdom. They perceive the Saudi royal family as corrupt in religious as well as political and social terms, and as being hypocritical in its professed religious beliefs and claims to be the guardian of the Islamic holy places. They see Saudi technocrats and the more cosmopolitan members of the Saudi business community as near apostates from Islam and as being driven by Western or non-Islamic values. In fact, this minority of violent religious extremists currently poses the only serious political challenge to Saudi stability.

Many such extremists are strongly anti-Shi'ite, condemn many of the practices of Sunnis in other Islamic countries and fear that there are vast Judeo-Christian conspiracies against Islam. For them, Western society is fundamentally corrupt, degrading, and leading Saudi society away from the true faith of Islam. It has spawned equally corrupt Arab secular political beliefs, all of which are betrayals of Islam regardless of whether they are right or left wing. To such extremists, the US is a co-conspirator with a Zionist enemy that has seized the third-most important Islamic holy place�the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif. These extremists also believe the US military is not securing Saudi Arabia but rather occupying it.

A number of different influences have helped politicize virtually all Saudi extremists, and give them a potential broader base of public support to draw upon. These influences include the Arab-Israeli conflict, the social costs of changes like hyper-urbanization, the educational system, the failure of Arab socialism and nationalism. They also include the long history of militancy that helped make the Ikwan, such a potent military force under Ibn Saud as well as the kind of marginal movement that led to the attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

Other influences include outside groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, and the example of Khomeini and the Iranian revolution. More recently, they include the constant images in Arab media of Palestinian suffering as a result of the Second Intifada. So has the continuing US and British Arab military presence in Saudi Arabia since the Gulf War, and the Liberation of Kuwait.

As has been the case in many other Islamic countries, the Saudi regime has inadvertently helped support such extremism even while it has made efforts to suppress it. The continuing need of the Saudi monarchy to maintain its political legitimacy by stressing its role as an "Islamic government" has led the royal family to try to prove itself to be a worthy inheritor of the Wahhabi legacy by fostering religious education, and by funding Islamic charities and Arab causes. Far too often, it has done so while paying little attention to such educators, charities and causes are actually doing.

Fortunately for Saudi Arabia, most Saudi extremists have had little unity, although some have formed loose organizational links, and a few have created formal organizations, and even serious terrorist bodies like Al Qaida. Most leading extremist Ulema do little more that give sermons that attack the royal family and Saudi government�often by indirection. Extremist believers circulate cassettes, faxes, or Xeroxed sermons and other writings, or communicate through the Internet. However, while such extremists often test the limits of government tolerance, only a few have even gone to plan or commit acts of violence.

It is difficult to define the goals of Saudi Islamic extremists in terms of the practical changes that wish to make in the Saudi government, society, and economy. There are many diverse voices, and most focus on what they oppose rather than what they want. However, many extremists do believe that the nation's wealth should be shared more broadly and that religious charities and taxes should be a key factor shaping Saudi society. Most claim that a true return to a "pure" faith requires laws and social standards that are far more stringent and demanding than are now the practice in Saudi society.

Saudi extremists also divide over how to deal with the West. Some openly reject the West. Others are willing to exploit Western concerns for human rights and "democracy" in seeking their own freedom of action without showing any concern for the rights of their opposition. The end result is more a matrix of critical ultraconservative voices, whose key members are known to each other and to most religious Saudis, rather than a coherent movement.

Charity and Extremism: The Flow of Money

Osama Bin Laden has shown all too clearly that the impact of Saudi religious thought can lead to extremism and violence outside Saudi Arabia as well as within it. However, once again, there is a need for perspective. The poorly controlled flow of Saudi money outside the Kingdom has probably done more to influence Islamic extremism outside Saudi Arabia than has Saudi religious thinking and missionary efforts. A clear distinction must also be made between the deliberate Saudi support of Islamic extremism and violence, and the fact that many Saudis have contributed to what appeared to be Islamic charities or gave money to what they felt were legitimate Islamic causes � such as the struggles in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo � without knowing the true character of the groups involved or where them money ultimately went.

One of the strengths of Saudi culture also proved to be a weakness. Saudi Arabia has a long tradition of public and private charity, much of which is given informally on a personal basis. Those Muslims that can afford it have a religious obligation to charity called "Zakhat," which is a nominal 1.5% of their income, but their actual contribution is often far higher and sometimes closer to 10%. In the case of public figures, charity is combined with patronage, and constant personal requests are made by those in need or seeking funding for good causes. In many cases, the money is given with minimal investigation, if any. Virtually any type of personal contact, petition, or reference is often enough. In the case of senior princes and wealthy businessmen, major contributions are often made to religious organizations outside Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom has long been seen as the key source of Islamic charity, particularly to conservative Islamic causes. These customs have aided many Saudis and legitimate causes outside the Kingdom. At the same time, they have made it easy to exploit the situation, and Saudi giving to charities, and freedom fighters in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Second Intifada has blurred the often uncertain distinction between freedom fighter and terrorist.

Very senior Saudis privately admit that the Saudi Ministry of the Interior, Saudi Foreign Ministry, and Saudi intelligence failed to properly characterize many of the "Islamic" causes that have received Saudi money. Even funds transferred to very reputable causes like the Saudi Red Crescent seem to have been misused in some cases. The Muslim World League is a heavily funded group whose missionary efforts are reported to have moved money to elements of Al Qaida and different extremists groups like Gamiat Islamiya and the Islamic Jihad in Egypt, and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. Money also went to causes with hardline or extremist elements like the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan or Hamas in the Gaza.

Even though the Saudi government put strict controls on Osama Bin Laden's over sources of funding after 1994, Senior Saudi officials admit that money went from members of the royal family and senior Saudi businessmen to charities and causes that were extremist in character. The Saudi government did not begin to properly analyze and control the flow of funds to movements like the Taliban and extremist groups in South Asia, Central Asia, and the rest of the world until 1998. Even after 1988, the flow of Islamic charity and funds, even from royal offices like those of King Fahd, was allocated with remarkable carelessness to what was really being funded � not only in terms of extremism but in terms of whether the money was properly being spent and managed and actually served the claimed purpose.

At the same time, at least some Saudi businessmen did fund such organizations knowing they were extremist or violent in character. The problem of controlling such funds was made still worse by the fact that so much Saudi private capital is held and invested outside Saudi Arabia and is beyond the government's control.

Most Islamic Puritanism and Extremism is not "Wahhabism"

The West, however, has shown signs of its own form of extremism in reacting to the situation. Some Western writing since "9/11" has blamed Saudi Arabia for most of the region's Islamic fundamentalism, and used the term Wahhabi carelessly to describe all such movements. In fact, most such extremism is not based on Saudi Islamic beliefs. It is based on a much broader stream of thought in Islam, known as the Salafi interpretation, which literally means a return to Islam's original state, and by a long tradition of movements in Islam that call for islah (reform) and tajdid (renewal).

Blaming Saudi beliefs, or "Wahhabism," for the views and actions of most of today's Salafi extremists is a little like blaming Calvin for today's Christian extremists or Elijah for today's Jewish extremists. In practice, it is more modern Islamist thinkers like the Egyptians Sayyid Qutb and Hassam al-Banna (the founder of the Moslem Brotherhood) who laid the foundation of modern Islamic puritanical politics and who called for Jihad (struggle) to achieve their goals. Other figures like Aiman al-Zawahiri and Muhammad al-Farag helped create movements like the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and an approach to violence that helped shape Islamic extremism in Afghanistan � although some Saudi clerics like Shaikh Abdul-Aziz bin Baz played a role.

No one can ignore the fact that Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi and Al Qaida has Saudi roots. Nevertheless, outside Islamists like Shaikh Abdullah Azzam�a Jordanian-born Palestinian and a bitter, violent critic of the Saudi regime�did more to shape the beliefs of men like Osama Bin Laden than mainstream Wahhabi thinking. So did figures like Shaikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, who founded the Egyptian Islamic Group and helped transform modern Salafi beliefs into Islamic terrorism, and had a powerful influence on Bin Laden.

The use of the word "Wahhabi" to describe Islamic extremist movements in other countries is equally misleading. The Deobandi seminary movement in Pakistan, and parties like the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (Party of Religious Scholarship) did more to shape Islamic extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan than "Wahhabi" missionaries. While Saudi and US money made much of the Afghan resistance possible, the Pakistani ISI controlled the flow of much of this money and helped fund Afghan extremists like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hizb-e-Islami, Pakistani intelligence then provided direct Pakistani support to the Taliban, although the initial rise of the movement led by Mullah Muhammad Omar Akhund seems to have been a largely Afghan phenomena with little ties to any outside Salafi movements.

Other Salafi movements have arisen in Yemen with few ties to Saudi Wahhabi beliefs and practices. These have included the Islamic Army of Aden, led by Zein Abu Bakr al-Mihdar (Abu Hassan). There have been Kurdish Salafi groups like the Jund al-Islam (Ansar al-Islam). The Syrian Muslim Brothers have been a significant political force in Syria in the past and are still active. Sunni Palestinian religious groups are equally independent of Saudi influence, as are most Sudanese and Somali groups and key figures like Hassan al-Turabi and the Sudanese Islamic People's Congress.

Iran's various hard-line Shi'ite groups have backed Saudi Shi'ites in carrying out terrorist acts in Saudi Arabia, but such movements have no ties to Saudi Sunni extremism. The most violent Islamic extremist groups in the world -- Algeria's Armed Islamic Group (AIG) and Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) �are homegrown products of Algeria's corrupt military junta and violent domestic political traditions. Virtually every country in Central Asia has its own Salafi movements and extremists, and while many have benefited from Saudi Arabia's careless funding of Islamic causes and charities, none are Wahhabi in any meaningful sense of being tied to Saudi teaching and tradition and virtually all of the Madrassas in South and Central Asia teach interpretations and practices that differ from mainstream Wahhabi teaching. Lumping all of these diverse elements together is like calling all Protestants Baptists.

Similarly, the fact some Saudi money has gone to Islamic extremists -- both indirectly and directly � scarcely means that Saudi Arabia is the only or even principle source of such funding. The other Southern Gulf states have been equally careless in managing their charitable efforts in foreign countries and the flow of funds to "charitable" causes. A great deal of money from Muslims around the world that was intended to aid Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia ended up in the hands of Bin Laden and other terrorist/extremist groups. Most of the extremist groups in North Africa are largely self-financing, and drug money, Iranian and Pakistani government funds and arms, have played a major role in supporting Islamic violence in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and South Asia. The flow of money to the Palestinian cause since the beginning of the Second Intifada also presents the problem that for most Arabs and Muslims that Palestinian cause is legitimate, as are violent Palestinian tactics, while Israel is seen as a violent occupying power that attacks Palestinian civilians. This inevitably means that most Muslims and Arabs � including Saudis � do not see movements like Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or the Fatah Hawks as terrorists but rather as freedom fighters.