Credit: Muslimpress

Prince Mohammed has fuelled expectations by fostering Islamic scholars who advocate a revision of Wahhabism as well as by lifting a ban on women’s driving and creating space for entertainment, including music, theatre, film, and, for conservatives, controversial sports events like wrestling.

The expectations were reinforced by the fact that King Salman and Prince Mohammed have called into question the degree to which the rule of the Al Sauds remains dependent on religious legitimization following the crown prince’s power grab that moved the kingdom from consensual family to two-man rule in which the monarch and his son’s legitimacy are anchored in their image as reformers.

To cement his power, Prince Mohammed has in the past year marginalized establishment religious scholars, detained critics and neutralized members of the elite by arresting relatives, prominent businessmen, and officials and stripping them of much of their assets.

In doing so, Prince Mohammed has subjugated the kingdom’s ultra-conservative religious leaders through a combination of intimidation, coercion and exploitation of religious dogma particular to a Saudi strain of ultra-conservatism that stipulates that Muslims should obey their ruler even if he is unjust. Islam “dictates that we should obey and hear the ruler,” Prince Mohammed said.

In an optimistic projection of Prince Mohammed’s changes, Saudi researcher Eman Alhussein argued that the crown prince’s embrace of more free-thinking scholars has encouraged the emergence of more “enlightened sheikhs,” allowed some ultra-conservatives to rethink their positions, enabled a greater diversity of opinion, and fundamentally altered the standing of members of the religious establishment.

“The conflicting and different opinions presented by these scholars helps demolish the aura of ‘holiness’ some of them enjoyed for years… The supposed holiness of religious scholars has elevated them beyond the point where they can be questioned or criticized. Ending this immunity will allow the population to regain trust in their own reasoning, refrain from being fully reliant on scholarly justifications, and bring scholars back to Earth,” Ms. Alhussein said.

The crown prince’s approach also involves a combination of rewriting the kingdom’s religious-political history rather than owning up to responsibility and suppression of religious and secular voices who link religious and social change to political reform.

Some Saudi scholars argue that the degree of change in the kingdom will depend on the range of opinion among religious scholars. They suggest that change will occur when scholars are divided and stall when they speak with one voice. The wide range of opinion among Islamic scholars coupled with Prince Mohammed’s autocratic approach would appear, according to the argument of these scholars, to largely give him a free hand. Reality, however, suggests there may be other limits.

“Prince Mohammed is unlikely to pull off a break with the Wahhabi religious establishment because the clerics have proved to be resilient and have displayed a great capacity to adapt to transitions and vagaries of power… The crown prince’s public denunciations of extremist ideas and promises to promote moderate Islam have been interpreted as a renewed desire to break with Wahhabism. A closer reading shows that Prince Mohammed primarily condemns the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadists and exonerates Wahhabism,” said Nabil Mouline, a historian of Saudi religious scholars and the monarchy.

Mr. Mouline went on to say that “the historical pact between the monarchy and the religious establishment has never been seriously challenged. It has been reinterpreted and redesigned during times of transition or crisis to better reflect changing power relations and enable partners to deal with challenges efficiently.”

Predicting that Wahhabism would likely remain a pillar of the kingdom in the medium term, Mr. Mouline cautioned that “any confrontation between the children of Saud and the heirs of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab will be destructive for both.”

Prince Mohammed has indeed in word and deed indicated that his reforms may not entail a clean break with Wahhabism and has been ambiguous about the degree of social change that he envisions.

He has yet to say a clear word about lifting Saudi Arabia’s system of male guardianship that gives male relatives control of women’s lives. Asked about guardianship, Prince Mohammed noted that “we want to move on it and figure out a way to treat this that doesn’t harm families and doesn’t harm the culture.”

Similarly, there is no indication that gender segregation in restaurants and other public places will be formally lifted any time soon. “Today, Saudi women still have not received their full rights. There are rights stipulated in Islam that they still don’t have. We have come a very long way and have a short way to go,” Prince Mohammed said.

Multiple incidents that illustrate contradictory attitudes in government policy as well as among the public suggest that liberalization and the restructuring of the elite’s relationship to Wahhabism could be a process that has only just begun. The incidents, moreover, suggest that Prince Mohammed’s top-down approach may rest on shaky ground.

Prince Mohammed last month sacked Ahmad al-Khatib, the head of the entertainment authority he had established after a controversial Russian circus performance in Riyadh, which included women wearing “indecent clothes,” sparked online protests.

Complaints of creeping immorality have in the last year returned the religious police, who have been barred by Prince Mohammed from making arrests or questioning people, to caution unrelated men and women from mixing.

The police, officially known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, said in a statement in 2017 that it was starting “to develop and strengthen fieldwork.” It said its officers would have a greater presence on “occasions that require it,” such as school holidays.

Saudi sports authorities in April shut down a female fitness centre in Riyadh over a contentious promotional video that appeared to show a woman in figure-hugging workout attire. “We are not going to tolerate this,” Saudi sports authority chief Turki al-Sheikh tweeted as he ordered that the centre’s license be withdrawn.

A Saudi beauty queen withdrew last December from a Miss Arab World contest after being attacked and threatened online.

Holders of tickets for a concert in Jeddah by Egyptian pop sensation Tamer Hosny were surprised to receive vouchers that warned that “no dancing or swaying” would be allowed at the event. “No dancing or swaying in a concert! It’s like putting ice under the sun and asking it not to melt,” quipped a critic on Twitter.

Shireen al-Rifaie, a female television, was believed to have fled the kingdom in June after the General Commission for Audio-visual Media said she was being investigated for wearing “indecent” clothes during a report on the lifting of the driving ban for women. Ms. Al-Rifaie’s abaya, the garment that fully cloaks a woman’s body, was blown open as she was filming on a street a report on what the lifting of the ban meant for women.

While women celebrated last month’s lifting of the ban, many appeared apprehensive after activists who had campaign for an end to the ban were arrested calling into question Mohammed’s concept of liberalization. Many said they would stay off the streets and monitor reactions.
Police in Mecca said barely two weeks after the lifting of the ban that they were hunting for arsonists who had torched a woman’s car. Salma al-Sherif, a 31-year-old cashier, said the men were “opposed to women drivers.”

Ms. Al-Sherif said she faced abuse from men in her neighbourhood soon after she began driving in a bid to ease her financial pressures. “From the first day of driving I was subjected to insults from men,” she said. Ms. Al-Sherif was showered with messages of support on social media once the incident became public.

“While the lack of concerted resistance thus far towards women driving may in part speak to a more progressive and younger Saudi society, it would be remiss to assume that those opposing such policies have disappeared from view altogether,” cautioned Sara Masry, a Middle East analyst who attracted attention in 2015 for her blog detailing her experience as a Saudi woman living in Iran.

In adding speed and drama to the Al Saud and the government’s gradual restructuring of its relationship to Wahhabism, Prince Mohammed was building on a process that had been started in 2003 by then Crown Prince Abdullah.

At the time, Prince Abdullah organized the kingdom’s first national dialogue conference that brought together 30 religious scholars representing Wahhabi and non-Wahhabi Sunnis, Sufis, Ismaili, and Shiites.

Remarkably, the Wahhabi representatives did not include prominent members of the kingdom’s official religious establishment. Moreover, the presence of non-Wahhabis challenged Wahhabism’s principle of takfir or excommunication of those deemed to be apostates or non-Muslims that they often apply to Sufis and Shiites.

The conference adopted a charter that countered Wahhabi exclusivity by recognizing the kingdom’s intellectual and religious diversity and countering the principle of sadd al-dharai (the blocking of the means),a pillar of Wahhabism that stipulates that actions that could lead to the committing of a sin should be prohibited. Sadd al-dharai served as a justification for the ban on women’s driving.

Saudi Arabia scholar Stephane Lacroix sounded at the time a cautionary note that remains valid today.

“It…seems that part of the ruling elite now acknowledges the necessity for a revision of Wahhabism. It has indeed become clear that only such a move would permit the creation of a true Saudi nation, based on the modern and inclusive value of citizenship—a reality still missing and much needed in times of crisis. However, the sticking point is that this ideological shift must go hand in hand with a radical reformulation of old political alliances both at home and abroad. And therein lies the problem,” Mr. Lacroix said.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario,  Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and the forthcoming China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/

The post Whither Wahhabism? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Those who read the statement, expected a determined rebuke from Riyadh. It did not come. The sky did not fall. Lightning did not strike the Prince or the Post.

Clearly, not all that the Crown Prince declared appeared on the pages of the Washington Post, but what actually did, would be enough to bring down entire regimes in such places like Indonesia, Malaysia or Brunei.Or at least it would be enough under ‘normal circumstances’. That is, if the population there was not already hopelessly and thoroughly indoctrinated and programed, and if the rulers in those countries did not subscribe to, or tolerate, the most aggressive, chauvinistic and ritualistic (as opposed to the intellectual or spiritual) form of the religion.

Reading between the lines, the Saudi Prince suggested that it was actually the West which, while fighting an ‘ideological war’ against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, handpicked Islam and its ultra-orthodox and radical wing – Wahhabism – as an ally in destroying almost all the progressive, anti-imperialist and egalitarian aspirations in the countries with a Muslim majority.

As reported by RT on 28 March 2018:
“The Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism began as a result of Western countries asking Riyadh to help counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Washington Post.

Speaking to the paper, bin Salman said that Saudi Arabia’s Western allies urged the country to invest in mosques and madrassas overseas during the Cold War, in an effort to prevent encroachment in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union…

The interview with the crown prince was initially held ‘off the record’. However, the Saudi embassy later agreed to let the Washington Post publish specific portions of the meeting.”

Since the beginning of the spread of Wahhabism, one country after another had been falling; ruined by ignorance, fanatical zeal and fear, which have been preventing the people of countries such as post-1965 Indonesia or the post-Western-invasion Iraq, to move back (to the era before Western intervention) and at the same time forward,towards something that used to be so natural to their culture in not such a distant past – towards socialism or at least tolerant secularism.

*

In reality, Wahhabism does not have much to do with Islam. Or more precisely, it intercepts and derails the natural development of Islam, of its strife for an egalitarian arrangement of the world, and for socialism.

The Brits were behind the birth of the movement; the Brits and one of the most radical, fundamentalist and regressive preachers of all times – Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

The essence of the Wahabi/British alliance and dogma was and still is, extremely simple: “Religious leaders would force the people into terrible, irrational fear and consequent submission. No criticism of the religion is allowed;no questioning of its essence and particularly of the conservative and archaic interpretation of the Book. Once conditioned this way, people stopped questioning and criticizing first the feudalist, and later capitalist oppression; they also accepted without blinking the plunder of their natural resources by local and foreign masters. All attempts to build a socialist and egalitarian society got deterred, brutally, ‘in the name of Islam’ and ‘in the name of God’”.

Of course,as a result, the Western imperialists and the local servile ‘elites’ are laughing all the way to the bank, at the expense of those impoverished and duped millions in the countries that are controlled by the Wahhabi and Western dogmas.

Only a few in the devastated, colonized countries actually realize that Wahhabism does not serve God or the people; it is helping Western interests and greed.

Precisely this is what is right now happening in Indonesia, but also in several other countries that have been conquered by the West, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Destroyed Aleppo

Were Syria to fall, this historically secular and socially-oriented nation would be forced into the same horrid direction. People there are well aware of this, as they are educated. They also see what has happened to Libya and Iraq and they definitely do not want to end up like them. It is the Wahhabi terrorist fighters that both the West and its lackeys like Saudi Arabia unleashed against the Syrian state and its people.

*

Despite its hypocritical secular rhetoric, manufactured mainly for local consumption but not for the colonies, the West is glorifying or at least refusing to openly criticize its own brutal and ‘anti-people’ offspring – a concept which has already consumed and ruined both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. In fact, it is trying to convince the world that these two countries are ‘normal’, and in the case of Indonesia, both ‘democratic’ and ‘tolerant’. At the same time,it has consistently been antagonizing almost all the secular or relatively secular nations with substantial Muslim majorities, such as Syria (until now), but also Afghanistan, Iran (prior to the coup of 1953), Iraq and Libya before they were thoroughly and brutally smashed.

Extremist attacks against Indonesian churches 

It is because the state, in which the KSA, Indonesia and the present-day Afghanistan can be found, is the direct result of both Western interventions and indoctrination. The injected Wahhabi dogma is giving this Western ‘project’ a Muslim flavor, while justifying trillions of dollars on ‘defense spending’ for the so-called ‘War on Terror’ (a concept resembling an Asian fishing pond where fish are brought in and then fished out for a fee).

Obedience, even submissiveness – is where, for many reasons, the West wants its ‘client’ states and neo-colonies to be. The KSA is an important trophy because of its oil, and strategic position in the region. Saudi rulers are often going out of their way to please their masters in London and Washington, implementing the most aggressive pro-Western foreign policy. Afghanistan is ‘valued’ for its geographical location, which could potentially allow the West to intimidate and even eventually invade both Iran and Pakistan, while inserting extremist Muslim movements into China, Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian republics. Between 1 and 3 million Indonesian people ‘had to be’ massacred in 1965-66, in order to bring to power a corrupt turbo-capitalist clique which could guarantee that the initially bottomless (although now rapidly thinning) natural resources could flow, uninterrupted and often untaxed, into places such as North America, Europe, Japan and Australia.

Frankly, there is absolutely nothing ‘normal’ about countries such as Indonesia and the KSA. In fact, it would take decades, but most likely entire generations, in order to return them to at least some sort of nominal ‘normalcy’. Even if the process were to begin soon, the West hopes that by the time it ends, almost all of the natural resources of these countries would be gone.

But the process is not yet even beginning. The main reason for the intellectual stagnation and lack or resistance is obvious: people in countries such as Indonesia and KSA are conditioned so they are not able to see the brutal reality that surrounds them. They are indoctrinated and ‘pacified’. They have been told that socialism equals atheism and that atheism is evil, illegal and ‘sinful’.

Hence, Islam was modified by the Western and Saudi demagogues, and has been ‘sent to a battle’, against progress and a just, egalitarian arrangement of the world.

This version of religion is unapologetically defending Western imperialism, savage capitalism as well as the intellectual and creative collapse of the countries into which it was injected, including Indonesia. There, in turn, the West tolerates the thorough corruption, grotesque lack of social services, and even genocides and holocausts committed first against the Indonesians themselves, then against the people of East Timor, and to this day against the defenseless Papuan men, women and children. And it is not only a ‘tolerance’ – the West participates directly in these massacres and extermination campaigns, as it also takes part in spreading the vilest forms of Wahabi terrorism and dogmas to all corners of the world. . All this, while tens of millions of the followers of Wahhabism are filling the mosques daily, performing mechanical rituals without any deeper thought or soul searching.

Wahhabism works – it works for the mining companies and banks with their headquarters in London and New York. It also works extremely well for the rulers and the local ‘elites’ inside the ‘client’ states.

*

Ziauddin Sardar, a leading Muslim scholar from Pakistan, who is based in London, has no doubts that ‘Muslim fundamentalism’ is, to a great extent, the result of the Western imperialism and colonialism.

In a conversation which we had several years ago, he explained:
“Trust between Islam and the West has indeed been broken… We need to realize that colonialism did much more than simply damage Muslim nations and cultures. It played a major part in the suppression and eventual disappearance of knowledge and learning, thought and creativity, from Muslim cultures. The colonial encounter began by appropriating the knowledge and learning of Islam, which became the basis of the ‘European Renaissance’ and ‘the Enlightenment’ and ended by eradicating this knowledge and learning from both from Muslim societies and from history itself. It did that both by physical elimination – destroying and closing down institutions of learning, banning certain types of indigenous knowledge, killing off local thinkers and scholars – and by rewriting history as the history of western civilization into which all minor histories of other civilization are subsumed.”

“As a consequence, Muslim cultures were de-linked from their own history with many serious consequences. For example, the colonial suppression of Islamic science led to the displacement of scientific culture from Muslim society. It did this by introducing new systems of administration, law, education and economy all of which were designed to impart dependence, compliance and subservience to the colonial powers. The decline of Islamic science and learning is one aspect of the general economic and political decay and deterioration of Muslim societies. Islam has thus been transformed from a dynamic culture and a holistic way of life to mere rhetoric. Islamic education has become a cul-de-sac, a one-way ticket to marginality. It also led to the conceptual reduction of Muslim civilization. By which I mean concepts that shaped and gave direction to Muslim societies became divorced from the actual daily lives of Muslims – leading to the kind of intellectual impasse that we find in Muslim societies today.  Western neo-colonialism perpetuates that system.”

*

In Indonesia, after the Western-sponsored military coup of 1965, which destroyed the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and brought to power an extreme pro-market and pro-Western regime, things are deteriorating with a frightening predictability, consistency and speed.
 
While the fascist dictator Suharto, a Western implant after 1965, was said to be ‘suspicious of Islam’, he actually used all major religions on his archipelago with great precision and fatal impact. During his pro-market despotism, all left-wing movements and ‘-isms’ were banned, and so were most of the progressive forms of arts and thought.The Chinese language was made illegal. Atheism was also banned. Indonesia rapidly became one of the most religious countries on Earth.

At least one million people, including members of the PKI, were brutally massacred in one of the most monstrous genocides of the 20^th century.

The fascist dictatorship of General Suharto often played the Islamic card for its political ends. As described by John Pilger in his book,“The New Rulers of The World”:

“In the pogroms of 1965-66, Suharto’s generals often used Islamicist groups to attack communists and anybody who got in the way. A pattern emerged; whenever the army wanted to assert its political authority, it would use Islamicists in acts of violence and sabotage, so that sectarianism could be blamed and justify the inevitable ‘crackdown’ – by the army…”

‘A fine example’ of cooperation between the murderous right-wing dictatorship and radical Islam.

After Suharto stepped down, the trend towards a grotesque and fundamentalist interpretation of the monotheist religions continued. Saudi Arabia and the Western-favored and sponsored Wahhabism has been playing an increasingly significant role. And so has Christianity, often preached by radical right-wing former exiles from Communist China and their offspring; mainly in the city of Surabaya but also elsewhere.

From a secular and progressive nation under the leadership of President Sukarno, Indonesia has gradually descended into an increasingly radically backward-looking and bigoted Wahhabi-style/Christian Pentecostal state.

After being forced to resign as the President of Indonesia during what many considered a constitutional coup, a progressive Muslim cleric and undoubtedly a closet socialist, Abdurrahman Wahid (known in Indonesia by his nickname Gus Dur), shared with me his thoughts, on the record:
“These days, most of Indonesian people do not care or think about God. They only follow rituals. If God would descend and tell them that their interpretation of Islam is wrong, they’d continue following this form of Islam and ignore the God.”

‘Gus Dur’ also clearly saw through all the tricks of the military and pro-Western elites. He told me, among other things, that the 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta was organized by the Indonesian security forces, and later blamed on the Islamists, who were actually only executing the orders given to them by their political bosses from the pro-Western military regime, which until nowis being disguised as a, ‘multi-party democracy’.

In Indonesia, an extreme and unquestioning obedience to the religions has led to a blind acceptance of a fascist capitalist system, and of Western imperialism and its propaganda. Creativity and intellectual pluralism have been thoroughly liquidated.

The 4^th most populous nation on the planet, Indonesia, has presently no scientists, architects, philosophers or artists of any international standing. Its economy is fueled exclusively by the unbridled plunder of the natural resources of the vast, and in the past, pristine parts of the country, such as Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan), as well as on the brutally-occupied Western part of Papua. The scale of the environmental destruction is monumental; something that I am presently trying to capture in two documentary films and a book.

Awareness of the state of things, even among the victims, is minimal or out rightly nonexistent.

In a country that has been robbed of its riches; identity, culture and future, religions now playthe most important role. There is simply nothing else left for the majority. Nihilism, cynicism, corruption and thuggery are ruling unopposed. In the cities with no theatres, galleries, art cinemas, but also no public transportation or even sidewalks, in the monstrous urban centers abandoned to the ‘markets’ with hardly any greenery or public parks, religions are readily filling the emptiness. Being themselves regressive, pro-market oriented and greedy, the results are easily predictable.

In the city of Surabaya, during the capturing of footage for my documentary film produced for a South American television network TeleSur (Surabaya – Eaten Alive by Capitalism), I stumbled over an enormous Protestant Christian gathering at a mall, where thousands of people were in an absolute trance, yelling and lifting their eyes towards the ceiling. A female preacher was shouting into a microphone:
“God loves the rich, and that is why they are rich! God hates the poor, and that’s why they are poor!”

Von Hayek, Friedmann, Rockefeller, Wahab and Lloyd George combined could hardly define their ‘ideals’in more precise way.

*

What exactly did the Saudi Prince say, during his memorable and ground-breaking interview with The Washington Post? And why is it so relevant to places like Indonesia?

In essence, he said that the West asked the Saudis to make the ‘client’ states more and more religious, by building madrassahs and mosques. He also added:
“I believe Islam is sensible, Islam is simple, and people are trying to hijack it.”

People? The Saudi themselves? Clerics in such places like Indonesia? The Western rulers?

In Teheran, Iran, while discussing the problem with numerous religious leaders, I was told, repeatedly:
“The West managed to create a totally new and strange religion, and then it injected it into various countries. It calls it Islam, but we can’t recognize it… It is not Islam, not Islam at all.”

*

In May 2018, in Indonesia, members of outlawed terrorist groups rioted in jail, took hostages, then brutally murdered prison guards. After the rebellion was crushed, several explosions shook East Java. Churches and police stations went up in flames. People died.

The killers used their family members, even children, to perpetrate the attacks. The men in charge were actually inspired by the Indonesian fighters who were implanted into in Syria –the terrorists and murderers who were apprehended and deported by Damascus back to their large and confused country.

Many Indonesian terrorists who fought in Syria are now on their home turf, igniting and ‘inspiring’ their fellow citizens. The same situation as in the past – the Indonesian jihadi cadres who fought against the pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan later returned and killed hundreds and thousands in Poso, Ambon and other parts of Indonesia.

Indonesian extremists are becoming world-famous, fighting the battles of the West as legionnaires, in Afghanistan, Syria, Philippines and elsewhere.

Their influence at home is also growing. It is now impossible to even mention any social or god forbid, socialist reforms in public. Meetings are broken up, participants beaten, and even people’s representatives (MP’s)intimidated, accused of being “communists”, in a country where Communism is still banned by the regime.

The progressive and extremely popular Jakarta governor, Ahok, first lost elections and was then put on trial and thrown into jail for “insulting Islam”, clearly fabricated charges. His main sin – cleaning Jakarta’s polluted rivers, constructing a public transportation network, and improving the lives of ordinary people. That was clearly ‘un-Islamic’, at least from the point of view of Wahhabism and the Western global regime.

Radical Indonesian Islam is now feared. It goes unchallenged. It is gaining ground, as almost no one would dare to openly criticize it. It will soon overwhelm and suppress the entire society.

And in the West ‘political correctness’ is used. It is lately simply ‘impolite’ to criticize Indonesian or even the Saudi form of ‘Islam’, out of ‘respect’ for the people and their ‘culture’. In reality, it is not the Saudi or Indonesian people who get ‘protected’ – it is the West and its imperialist policies; policies and manipulations that are used against both the people and the essence of Muslim religion.

*

While the Wahhabi/Western dogma is getting stronger and stronger, what is left of the Indonesian forests is burning. The country is literally being plundered by the Western multi-national companies and by its local corrupt elites.

Religions, the Indonesian fascist regime and Western imperialism are marching forward, hand in hand. But forward – where? Most likely towards the total collapse of the Indonesian state. Towards the misery that will come soon, when everything is logged out and mined out.

It is the same, as when Wahhabism used to march hand in hand with the British imperialists and plunderers. Except that the Saudis found their huge oil fields, plenty of oil to sustain themselves (or at least their elites and the middle class, as the poor still live in misery there) and their bizarre, British-inspired and sponsored interpretation of Islam.

Indonesia and other countries that have fallen victims to this dogma are not and will not be so ‘lucky’.

It is lovely that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke publicly and clarified the situation. But who will listen?

For the Indonesian people, his statements came too late. They did not open many eyes, caused no uprising, no revolution. To understand what he said would require at least some basic knowledge of both the local, and world history, and at least some ability to think logically. All this is lacking, desperately, in the countries that have found themselves squashed by the destructive imperialist embrace.

The former President of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid, was correct: “If God would come and say… people would not follow God…”

Indonesia will continue following Mr. Wahab, and the capitalist dogma and the Western imperialists who ‘arranged it all’. They will do it for years to come, feeling righteous, blasting old North American tunes in order to fill the silence, in order not to think and not to question what is happening around them. There will be no doubts. There will be no change, no awakening and no revolution.

Until the last tree falls,until the last river and stream gets poisoned, until there is nothing left for the people. Until there is total, absolute submission:until everything is burned down, black and grey. Maybe then, few tiny, humble roots of awakening and resistance would begin to grow.

*

[First published by New Eastern Outlook – NEO]

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are his tribute to “The Great October Socialist Revolution” a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org
 

The post Saudi Wahabbism Serves Western Imperialism appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This is not the only incident. Such incidents occur every day in all parts of Islamic world, but only a few are reported. When the incident of Coptic priest’s murder was reported, it sparked debate on the change of religious opinions. This is a complicated debate, as the sermons of the mosques located in parts of Egypt are not completed without cursing the Jews and Christians. In the 1970s when Wahhabism entered Egypt and Islamic world, such sermons and incidents started spreading. Saudi Arabia hosted al-Azhar’s religious clerics on official expenses, honoured and awarded them. After returning, these clerics polluted al-Azhar with the poison of Wahhabism, and thereby its theology spread across the country.

Today Al-Azhar and the Egyptian Ministry of Awqaf are willing to stop the history of the Wahhabi Islamic theology and reform the sermons. However the Takfiri thought after the three-quarter century has become so widespread that its end is not possible in any traditional way. In most Arab countries, including Egypt, people are accustomed to hearing not only the sermons cursing non-Muslims but also consider it their duty to utter “Aameen”. Almost from the pulpits of all mosques the cursing sermons are broadcasted. While doing so, the orators of these mosques do not even think for a moment that they are insulting the religion of five and a half billion people of this world and defaming Islam throughout the globe. In their sermons they have also started cursing all sects and schools of thought of Islam, other than Wahhabism.    

Such curses [bad Dua] are mentioned in the books of Sirah narrating the Prophet’s biography (peace be upon him), while the same books also narrate and witness that the beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) never cursed any Jews or Christian. There is a contradiction in such a narration, but Muslims are or have been made accustomed to living in such contradictions. The elimination of such contradictions is not possible unless the hateful thoughts are expelled from these books. Such hateful thoughts are harmful for the Quran and Sunnah. Hence it is important to note that we can’t end terrorism unless we eliminate such thoughts.  

However, the followers of Wahhabism insist that “the righteous Salafs” have narrated these curses from the beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) and thus they consider their duty to repeat such curses at the end of every Friday’s sermon. One of such curses is translated as, “Oh, Allah! Blind and deafen the polytheists, Jews and Christians, make their leaders poor, their women widows and their children orphans…” 

The repetition of such a frightening and immoral speech in the minds of people increases hatred for non-Muslims so much that it becomes impossible to bring them towards moderation and toleration. While making their sermons, the Wahhabi orators also curse all other sects and schools of thought of Islam such as Shiites, seculars, nationalists, Sufis and so on.

Instead the orators should have prayed for guidance and progress of the non-Muslims, as the Quran says, “Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes – from being kind toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly.” (60:8) It is clear that in this verse the mention of kindness and justness towards those non-Muslims who are not involved in fighting Muslims is like a command, otherwise it should not have been mentioned in this verse. We can see what a huge difference there is between this universal message—which calls for kindness towards non-Muslims—and the act of cursing that displays intellectual deterioration of Muslims and defames Islam!!    

This sort of curse does not categorically harmonize with the universal message of Islam. The essence of Islam is peace and brotherhood. There is no place for arrogance in Islam. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) always prayed for guidance of his opponents. It is mentioned in the books of Sirah themselves that even after the people of Ta’if attacked the Prophet by throwing rocks and stones at him, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, “Oh, Allah! Guide Thaqeef” and also “Oh, Allah! Guide the tribe of Daus”. Removing the discrimination between Muslims and non-Muslims on the occasion of Hajjat ul Wida’ the Prophet said “O people, undoubtedly your Lord is one”. He could have said “O believers” but he cared for depth of harmony and coexistence. The holy Quran has also mentioned and praised good jobs of non-Muslims, as it says, “All of them are not alike; among the People given the Book(s) are some who are firm on the truth – they recite the verses of Allah in the night hours and prostrate (before Him). They accept faith in Allah and the Last Day, and enjoin good deeds and forbid immorality, and hasten to perform good deeds; and they are the righteous. And they will not be denied the reward of whatever good they do; and Allah knows the pious”. (The Quran 3:113-115)

Indeed long arguments can be presented in this regard that Allah does not want Muslims to curse non-Muslims. But what will happen, if Muslims accept that it is the will of Allah to curse non-Muslims? If that is so, then after becoming powerful, they will start massacring non-Muslims, create the history of another holocaust, and then non-Muslims will be denied their rights it is such crimes that the ISIS is perpetrating. If it is Islam, then will we have the right to say that the majority of Muslims condemn the terrorist organizations like ISIS, while they internally support them? It is impossible for one to attain nearness of Allah and His Prophet, if one adopts such an anti-human behaviour. One should know that Islam has not come to ruin the world but to settle it. Hence it is necessary to identify the symptom of ISIS and then eliminate it. It is important to note that you will need a ‘Kafir’ in order to attain the reward of converting one to Islam.     

Courtesy: The New Age Islam
 

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ISIS publication Dabiq says base in Bangladesh will launch guerilla attacks in India to "avenge the persecution on Muslims."

Hailing the July 1 Gulshan terror attack, international terrorist group Islamic State has now released a video calling for jihad in Bangladesh and threatening more attacks on “crusaders” and “crusader nations.”

The video message believed to be issued from Raqqa in Bangla was first found in an IS-affiliate website and then released on YouTube early Wednesday.

It comes as a follow-up to the dreadful attack on a Gulshan eatery in Dhaka last Friday that killed at least 22 people including 17 foreigners. The five others include two police officers. Police say six of the attackers were killed in “Operation Thunderbolt” carried out the next morning to end a 12-hour hostage crisis at O' Kitchen.

IS' Amaq news agency released the photos of five of their members several hours after the attack broke claiming responsibilities. Police, however, claim that most of the attackers were linked to local outlawed militant groups.

In the video, three of the speakers are of Bangladesh origin, but they could not be identified immediately.

One of them said they would not stop until establishing Shariah law all over the world. “The Jihad that has come to Bangladesh now has been promised by Prophet Mohammed,” he said.

“We will not stop killing the crusaders till then; we will win or die for our religion as martyrs and achieve shahadaat [martyrdom] … we don't have anything to lose.”

He termed the current form of democracy a shirk [deification or worship of anyone or anything other than Allah] or unforgivable crime.

“I want to ask you a question: how do you support this 'Shirk' notion of democracy? Don’t you know that it gives power to people to enforce law and have power whereas the power belongs to Alllah only? [according to the Qur'an]”

The second speaker labelled the government as kafir [non-believer].

“Since the govt has changed Allah’s law and has implied man-made law they are all 'kafirs' now. It is our religious duty to fight against it. Crusaders are killing innocents Muslims globally with planes and bomb attacks.

“So the Holey Artisan incident is our revenge to the lost blood of the hundreds and hundreds of Muslims who were killed,” he said.

The other speaker urged Muslim brothers and sisters to join the jihad saying it was what they had been dreaming of. “InshaAllah, Allah will accept our jihad.”

They all want Islamic rule

In its 14th edition of Dabiq magazine published on April 13, IS claimed that they have organisational base in Bangladesh (they term it Bengal), from where they have plans to attack on India and Myanmar to "avenge the persecution on Muslims."

“We believe the Shariah in Bengal won’t be achieved until the local Hindus are targeted in mass numbers,” said Sheikh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, the man leading the operations in Bangladesh, in an interview.

Bangladesh is referred to as “Bengal” throughout the interview and its members as “Soldiers of the Khalifah in Bengal.”

Abu Ibrahim said Bangladesh was important for global jihad because of its geographic position and proximity to India.

“Having a strong jihad base in Bengal will facilitate guerilla attacks inside India simultaneously from both sides [east and west],” he said in the interview.

Since September last year, IS has claimed responsibilities for at least 25 attacks killing foreigners, non-Muslim and non-Sunni preachers and police. They also launched bomb and gun attacks on Shia and Ahmadiyya mosques.

Meanwhile, Ansar Al Islam (believed to be outlawed group Ansarullah Bangla Team) which is representing al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in Bangladesh has claimed credit for 13 attacks since 2013 killing a dozen of war crimes trial campaigners, secular bloggers, writers, publishers and LGBT rights activists. 

Police say another banned group Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh or JMB is also responsible for some recent murders and bomb attacks across the country. The outfit has been working in concert with other banned groups and IS with a view to establishing Islamic rule in the country by 2020 incorporating some parts of Myanmar and India, according to detectives. JMB joined the international jihadist platform in 2012.

On the other hand, two intelligence reports recently mentioned the name of banned international group Hizb ut-Tahrir for their involvement in the series of targeted killings, saying over 450 of its leaders and activists have remaind absconding after getting bail.

One of its members Ghulam Faizullah Fahim was caught by the locals last month while fleeing after hacking a Hindu college teacher in Madaripur. He was later killed in an alleged gunfight between his cohorts and the police.

The group, banned in 2009 for anti-state activities, called for the army to take over power and put them at the helm to establish Caliphate from an online political conference on September 4 last year.

In a video message on June 17, only two weeks before the Gulshan terror attack, Hizb ut-Tahrir urged the Muslims to join their Islamic revolution by uprooting the government terming it tyrant, corrupt and anti-Islam.

Republished with permission from Dhaka Tribune.
 

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To combat growing terrorism in Bangladesh the PM's lament over, 'What kind of Muslims are these people?' is not enough. 

The heinous massacre of innocent men and women peacefully eating their dinner at an up-market café in Dhaka this weekend has at last woken up Sheikh Hasina Wajed to the continuing reign of terror – in Allah’s name – in the country of which she has been prime minister (for the second time) since 2009. Or so we hope.

Eyewitness survivors have said the killers stormed the popular Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s posh Gulshan area on Friday evening shouting “Allah-o-Akbar”. “What kind of Muslims are these people? They don’t have any religion… terrorism is their religion,” the prime minister is reported to have stated while announcing the end of the siege which claimed 20 lives.

Begum Hasina would do better to ask herself the question that millions of Bangladeshi citizens have been asking in their own manner for many months now: What kind of Prime Minister are you, Begum Hasina? What kind of Islam do you profess and what does it demand of you?

For the past year-and-a-half her government and police have been mute witness as terrorists have picked their targets at will, one at a time, killing Hindu priests, Shias, Ahmeddiyas, Sufis, Pirs, secular activists, atheists, bloggers, writers, professors, students… One of them was a young student named Nazimuddin Samad. His crime? Organising campaigns for secularism on Facebook.

In an article published on this platform less than two months ago, Bangladesh’s feminist activist Khushi Kabir had pointed to her country’s dangerous drift towards extremist Islam: “The message that there is only one form, a form alien to this land, of belief and practice, that of the Wahabi/Salafis who are not part of the four Mazhabs of the Islamic Sunni belief is now being pushed with full force as the current agenda. Many killed in brutal manner have been believers, Pirs, Shias, Ahmedias, followers of the Sufi tradition, priests from other religions, writers who were not necessarily atheists”.

Kabir had lamented the Hasina government’s myopia over the dark clouds gathering over Bangladesh and the state’s callous naming of the victims as the accused: “Those feeling outraged at this [ongoing] barbarism are asked that one should be careful not to hurt the sentiment of the believers? Whose sentiment are we talking about? Which believers? The misogynists, communalists who preach and breed obscurantism, a group financially strong, having the backing of the powers that be, misrepresenting and misquoting for their own vested interests?”

Kabir had concluded her article with the words: “1971 has taught us that killing cannot stop freedom. It did not then, it will not now”. Her brave words, sadly, have not stopped the Islamists from their murderous misdeeds.

Social activists like Kabir are not the only ones concerned over the cancerous growth of extremism in the country’s body polity. The Dhaka Tribune reported on June 6 (2016) that over 1,00,000 ulema from Bangladesh had issued a joint fatwa against terrorism.

ISIS and the Al Qaeda are currently engaged in a fierce competition across our sub-continent aiming to outdo each other in spreading their terror tentacles. That’s now. But the malignant growth of Islamist extremism in Bangladesh can be easily traced back to the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEB) and its militant student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir.

The Islamic State which has claimed “credit” for the latest mass murder at Holey Artisa Bakery has also boasted of targeting others in recent months. It and the Al Qaeda are currently engaged in a fierce competition across our sub-continent aiming to outdo each other in spreading their terror tentacles. That’s now. But the malignant growth of Islamist extremism in Bangladesh can be easily traced back to the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEB) and its militant student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir.

The official website of the JEB continues to protest its innocence, claiming that “Islamists are the most principled, pious, god-fearing and kind people on the earth”. Facts on the ground tell a different tale.

• In March 2013, Amnesty International issued a press statement on the countrywide attack on Hindus in which more than 40 temples were vanadalised and scores of shops and homes were burnt down. Survivors told Amnesty International that the attackers were participants in rallies organised by the opposition Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami (JIB) and its student group Chhatra Shibir.
• In April the same month, an entire galaxy of maulanas affiliated to the Imam Ulema Somonnoy Oikyo Parishad, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (Bangladesh) and other religious bodies in Bangladesh publicly denounced the Jamaat-Shibir for their link with terrorist Islamist organisations. “People who believe in Wahabism and Moududism (Maulana Abul Ala Maududi was the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami) are enemies of Islam as they misinterpret Quran and Sunnah”, the Ahle Sunnat (Bangladesh) secretary general Syed Muhammad Masiuddoula had thundered at a Sunni Ulema-Mashayekh Conference on March 17.   
• In December 2013, the well-known human rights organisation Ain O Salish Kendra (AIN) documented 276 major incidents of attack by the Jamaat-Shibir extremists during the year in which a total of 492 people including 15 police members were killed and around 2,200 others were injured.

The demands of the terrorists in the latest carnage included the release of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) activists who were sentenced to a 10-year jail term in January this year for their role in a string of bomb attacks in the country in 2005. The JMB which is now a local ISIS affiliate is committed to converting Bangladesh into an Islamic state through armed struggle. On August 17, 2005 it had detonated some 500 bombs, simultaneously across 300 locations in 50 Bangladeshi cities.

While the origin of the JMB in the late 1990s is shrouded in some mystery, the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh (JIB) has been accused of patronising the former while it was part of the coalition government headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). In November 2005, a BNP MP, Abu Hena alleged that the JEB was directly involved in the emergence of the JMB. He even named two JEB ministers in the BNP-led coalition who he claimed "are doing everything for the militants". Hena’s expulsion from the party did not stop BNP’s former minister Oli Ahmed and BNP whip Ashraf Hossain from speaking out and implicating the Jamaat-e-Islami in the rise of extremism in the country.

Recall the vibrant ‘Shahbag movement’ of 2013 (many at the time drew parallels to the ‘Arab Uprising’) which started as a vehement rejection of the International Crime Tribunal’s (ICT) verdict to condemn Abdul Quader Mollah, assistant general secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami, to life in prison. Protestors wanted Mollah, who was convicted for killing hundreds of people and raping a young girl, to be put to death. But the movement soon took the form of a mass civil society awakening which demanded an end to all religion-based politics.

Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Prime Minister of Bangladesh (since 2009) has been leader since 1981 of the Awami Party which spearheaded the country’s 1971 breakaway from Pakistan, rejected the two-nations theory and espoused the ideal of a secular nation and state. Even in this dark moment it should be clear that there are millions of Bangladeshis – from students, professors and activists to a wide spectrum of maulanas wedded to a tolerant Islam – who are staunchly opposed to the Wahhabis/Salafi and the Maududian “enemies of Islam” determined to push the country towards a totalitarian Islamic state. In 2013, the Supreme Court declared the JEB as “illegal” and barred the party from contesting polls. In the past it had never managed more than 4 per cent of the votes in any election in Bangladesh.  

So, to return to where this article began, before the terrorists claim their next victim(s), Sheikh Hasina would do well to ask herself: What kind of a Prime Minister am I? What does my Islam demand of me?           
 

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