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COVER STORY
Ground Zero and the Saudi connection
Stephen Schwartz on the extreme Islamic sect that
inspires Osama bin Laden as well as all Muslim suicide
bombers — and is subsidised by Saudi Arabia

Washington

The first thing to do when trying to understand ‘Islamic
suicide bombers’ is to forget the clichés about the
Muslim taste for martyrdom. It does exist, of course, but
the desire for paradise is not a safe guide to what
motivated the appalling suicide attacks on New York and
Washington last week. Throughout history, political
extremists of all faiths have willingly given up their
lives simply in the belief that by doing so, whether in
bombings or in other forms of terror, they would change
the course of history, or at least win an advantage for
their cause. Tamils are not Muslims, but they blow
themselves up in their war on the government of Sri
Lanka; Japanese kamikaze pilots in the second world war
were not Muslims, but they flew their fighters into US
aircraft carriers.

The Islamofascist ideology of Osama bin Laden and those
closest to him, such as the Egyptian and Algerian
‘Islamic Groups’, is no more intrinsically linked to
Islam or Islamic civilisation than Pearl Harbor was to
Buddhism, or Ulster terrorists — whatever they may
profess — are to Christianity. Serious Christians don’t
go around killing and maiming the innocent; devout
Muslims do not prepare for paradise by hanging out in
strip bars and getting drunk, as one of last week’s
terrorist pilots was reported to have done.

The attacks of 11 September are simply not compatible
with orthodox Muslim theology, which cautions soldiers
‘in the way of Allah’ to fight their enemies
face-to-face, without harming non-combatants, women or
children. Most Muslims, not only in America and Britain,
but in the world, are clearly law-abiding citizens of
their countries — a point stressed by President Bush and
other American leaders, much to their credit. Nobody on
this side of the water wants a repeat of the lamented
1941 internment of Japanese Americans.

Still, the numerical preponderance of Muslims as
perpetrators of these ghastly incidents is no
coincidence. So we have to ask ourselves what has made
these men into the monsters they are? What has so
galvanised violent tendencies in the world’s
second-largest religion (and, in America, the fastest
growing faith)? Can it really flow from a quarrel over a
bit of land in the Middle East?

For Westerners, it seems natural to look for answers in
the distant past, beginning with the Crusades. But if you
ask educated, pious, traditional but forward-looking
Muslims what has driven their umma, or global community,
in this direction, many of them will answer you with one
word: Wahhabism. This is a strain of Islam that emerged
not at the time of the Crusades, nor even at the time of
the anti-Turkish wars of the 17th century, but less than
two centuries ago. It is violent, it is intolerant, and
it is fanatical beyond measure. It originated in Arabia,
and it is the official theology of the Gulf states.
Wahhabism is the most extreme form of Islamic
fundamentalism, and its followers are called Wahhabis.

Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but all Muslim
suicide bombers are Wahhabis — except, perhaps, for some
disciples of atheist leftists posing as Muslims in the
interests of personal power, such as Yasser Arafat or
Saddam Hussein. Wahhabism is the Islamic equivalent of
the most extreme Protestant sectarianism. It is puritan,
demanding punishment for those who enjoy any form of
music except the drum, and severe punishment up to death
for drinking or sexual transgressions. It condemns as
unbelievers those who do not pray, a view that never
previously existed in mainstream Islam.

It is stripped-down Islam, calling for simple, short
prayers, undecorated mosques, and the uprooting of
gravestones (since decorated mosques and graveyards lend
themselves to veneration, which is idolatry in the
Wahhabi mind). Wahhabis do not even permit the name of
the Prophet Mohammed to be inscribed in mosques, nor do
they allow his birthday to be celebrated. Above all, they
hate ostentatious spirituality, much as Protestants
detest the veneration of miracles and saints in the Roman
Church.

Ibn Abdul Wahhab (1703–92), the founder of this
totalitarian Islamism, was born in Uyaynah, in the part
of Arabia known as Nejd, where Riyadh is today, and which
the Prophet himself notably warned would be a source of
corruption and confusion. (Anti-Wahhabi Muslims refer to
Wahhabism as fitna an Najdiyyah or ‘the trouble out of
Nejd’.) From the beginning of Wahhab’s dispensation, in
the late 18th century, his cult was associated with the
mass murder of all who opposed it. For example, the
Wahhabis fell upon the city of Qarbala in 1801 and killed
2,000 ordinary citizens in the streets and markets.

In the 19th century, Wahhabism took the form of Arab
nationalism v. the Turks. The founder of the Saudi
kingdom, Ibn Saud, established Wahhabism as its official
creed. Much has been made of the role of the US in
‘creating’ Osama bin Laden through subsidies to the
Afghan mujahedin, but as much or more could be said in
reproach of Britain which, three generations before,
supported the Wahhabi Arabs in their revolt against the
Ottomans. Arab hatred of the Turks fused with Wahhabi
ranting against the ‘decadence’ of Ottoman Islam. The
truth is that the Ottoman khalifa reigned over a
multinational Islamic umma in which vast differences in
local culture and tradition were tolerated. No such
tolerance exists in Wahhabism, which is why the concept
of US troops on Saudi soil so inflames bin Laden.

Bin Laden is a Wahhabi. So are the suicide bombers in
Israel. So are his Egyptian allies, who exulted as they
stabbed foreign tourists to death at Luxor not many years
ago, bathing in blood up to their elbows and emitting
blasphemous cries of ecstasy. So are the Algerian
Islamist terrorists whose contribution to the
purification of the world consisted of murdering people
for such sins as running a movie projector or reading
secular newspapers. So are the Taleban-style guerrillas
in Kashmir who murder Hindus. The Iranians are not
Wahhabis, which partially explains their slow but
undeniable movement towards moderation and normality
after a period of utopian and puritan revivalism. But the
Taleban practise a variant of Wahhabism. In the Wahhabi
fashion they employ ancient punishments — such as
execution for moral offences — and they have a primitive
and fearful view of women. The same is true of Saudi
Arabia’s rulers. None of this extremism has been inspired
by American fumblings in the world, and it has little to
do with the tragedies that have beset Israelis and
Palestinians.

But the Wahhabis have two weaknesses of which the West is
largely unaware; an Achilles’ heel on each foot, so to
speak. The first is that the vast majority of Muslims in
the world are peaceful people who would prefer the
installation of Western democracy in their own countries.
They loathe Wahhabism for the same reason any patriarchal
culture rejects a violent break with tradition. And that
is the point that must be understood: bin Laden and other
Wahhabis are not defending Islamic tradition; they
represent an ultra-radical break in the direction of a
sectarian utopia. Thus, they are best described as
Islamofascists, although they have much in common with
Bolsheviks.

The Bengali Sufi writer Zeeshan Ali has described the
situation touchingly: ‘Muslims from Bangladesh in the US,
just like any other place in the world, uphold the
traditional beliefs of Islam but, due to lack of
instruction, keep quiet when their beliefs are attacked
by Wahhabis in the US who all of a sudden become “better”
Muslims than others. These Wahhabis go even further and
accuse their own fathers of heresy, sin and unbelief. And
the young children of the immigrants, when they grow up
in this country, get exposed only to this one-sided
version of Islam and are led to think that this is the
only Islam. Naturally a big gap is being created every
day that silence is only widening.’ The young, divided
between tradition and the call of the new, opt for
‘Islamic revolution’ and commit themselves to their
self-destruction, combined with mass murder.

The same influences are brought to bear throughout the
ten-million-strong Muslim community in America, as well
as those in Europe. In the US, 80 per cent of mosques are
estimated by the Sufi Hisham al-Kabbani, born in Lebanon
and now living in the US, to be under the control of
Wahhabi imams, who preach extremism, and this leads to
the other point of vulnerability: Wahhabism is subsidised
by Saudi Arabia, even though bin Laden has sworn to
destroy the Saudi royal family. The Saudis have played a
double game for years, more or less as Stalin did with
the West during the second world war. They pretended to
be allies in a common struggle against Saddam Hussein
while they spread Wahhabi ideology everywhere Muslims are
to be found, just as Stalin promoted an ‘antifascist’
coalition with the US while carrying out espionage and
subversion on American territory. The motive was the
same: the belief that the West was or is decadent and
doomed.

One major question is never asked in American discussions
of Arab terrorism: what is the role of Saudi Arabia? The
question cannot be asked because American companies
depend too much on the continued flow of Saudi oil, while
American politicians have become too cosy with the Saudi
rulers.

Another reason it is not asked is that to expose the
extent of Saudi and Wahhabi influence on American Muslims
would deeply compromise many Islamic clerics in the US.
But it is the most significant question Americans should
be asking themselves today. If we get rid of bin Laden,
who do we then have to deal with? The answer was
eloquently put by Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, professor of
political science at the University of California at San
Diego, and author of an authoritative volume on Islamic
extremism in Pakistan, when he said: ‘If the US wants to
do something about radical Islam, it has to deal with
Saudi Arabia. The “rogue states” [Iraq, Libya, etc.] are
less important in the radicalisation of Islam than Saudi
Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the single most important cause
and supporter of radicalisation, ideologisation, and the
general fanaticisation of Islam.’

From what we now know, it appears not a single one of the
suicide pilots in New York and Washington was
Palestinian. They all seem to have been Saudis, citizens
of the Gulf states, Egyptian or Algerian. Two are
reported to have been the sons of the former second
secretary of the Saudi embassy in Washington. They were
planted in America long before the outbreak of the latest
Palestinian intifada; in fact, they seem to have begun
their conspiracy while the Middle East peace process was
in full, if short, bloom. Anti-terror experts and
politicians in the West must now consider the Saudi
connection.

Stephen Schwartz is the author of Intellectuals and
Assassins, published by Anthem Press.