 by Dr. Irfan Al-Alawi The hajj pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the five pillars of Islam - every adult Muslim who is physically able and can afford it is required to make the journey once before dying. For about two million people each year, the hajj is a supreme moment of devotion to the religion of the Prophet Muhammad. For the Wahhabi clerics who direct the official state sect in Saudi Arabia, however, the hajj is more an ideological than a spiritual observance.
The small number of Muslims allowed to make the journey - 2 million out of at least 1.3 billion Muslims around the world - is a giveaway: The Wahhabis carefully vet hajj pilgrims, to exclude those of whom they disapprove. Saudi-Wahhabi adherents prohibit and interfere with honours offered by hajjis to Muhammad, his family, his companions, his successors, and other Muslim holy people. In the perverse Wahhabi system - shared with the Deobandi sect in South Asia that leads the Taliban - expressing love for the Prophet and other distinguished Muslims is polytheism, setting up ‘partners’ alongside the creator. Today, Wahhabis and Deobandis condemn celebrating the Prophet’s birthday (mawlid) as an imitation of Christians, even though mawlid continues to be held wherever Muslims live - even, privately, in the Saudi kingdom. By contrast, traditional Islamic theologians praised the Christians for their love of their Prophet - as he is seen in Islam, although Muslims do not believe Jesus was the son of God. Traditional Muslims reply to the extremists that a religion that does not esteem its Prophet cannot bring fulfillment to its followers. Wahhabis also despise the preservation of historic religious architecture, including shrines, graves, tombs, and notable mosques and madrassas. To them, Muslim prayer at any such sites is, again, polytheism - making a gravestone or a house into an idol. During the nearly 150-year long effort, beginning in the 18th century, to establish the Saudi-Wahhabi regime, the fanatics banned any construction, visiting, or prayer at shrines, graves, and tombs. Today they remain especially avid to wipe out the structures in which Muhammad and his family lived, lest Muslims visit and pray at them. Since their seizure of Mecca in 1924, the Wahhabi mentors of the Saudi royal family have schemed to extirpate the very building in which Muhammad was born - it was first turned into a cattle market, then into a library, but remains under threat of replacement by a car park. They have demolished or otherwise covered over the grave of the Prophet’s mother, and the house in which Muhammad lived with his wife Khadijah and their children. They also destroyed the first Islamic school in which the Prophet taught. The Wahhabi mutawwa, or morals patrols (often miscalled a ‘religious police’) harass hajjis who visit the Prophet’s Shrine in Medina if pilgrims face the direction of Muhammad’s sarcophagus and utter blessings. But the intersection of naked vandalism and Wahhabi proscriptions against long-established Muslim customs is nowhere more dramatic than at Jannat-al-Baqi, the Medina cemetery of the Prophet’s family and companions. Jannat al-Baqi once included numerous domed shrines. But the Wahhabis tore down the monuments, turned the cemetery into a garbage dump, and prevented identification of any of the graves there. Recent Western media coverage has noted that Shia Muslims continue to visit the site of Jannat al-Baqi and to pray, recite blessings, and express their emotions at the sanctity of those buried there.
The mutawwa - including Arabs, Afghans, and Bangladeshis who understand the hajjis’ speech - not only tell them to lower their voices, but also confiscate their religious literature, and frequently detain and abuse them. The controversy over Jannat al-Baqi has been interpreted by some non-Muslim commentators as an expression of geopolitical rivalry between the Saudi kingdom, which proclaims its adherence to Sunnism, and Shia Iran. Iran, it is said, is using the issue of cultural devastation in Arabia to gain support for its political position among the world’s Muslims. To believe such a claim is a serious error. Sunnis, especially followers of Sufi spirituality, are no less outraged by the wanton destruction of Islamic heritage, as symbolized by the transformation of Jannat al-Baqi into a waste ground, than are Shias.
The rescue of Islamic heritage is not a political issue between states but a serious challenge to Muslims of any and all partisan views. Sunni Sufis who visit Jannat al-Baqi to express their affection for the Muslims interred there also suffer at the hands of the mutawwa: they are also pushed around and told how to pray, they see their religious books seized and torn up, and they have been arrested and beaten. In doctrinal terms, Sunni Sufis and Shias differ on many issues, but they are united in seeking to protect Islam’s physical legacy. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that officially rejects the concept of cultural preservation. While some archeological work goes on, it is typically hidden from the public or downgraded to minor facilities. Saudi King Abdullah has commenced various efforts to normalize his country, which is the sole state in the world to prevent women from driving, among other Wahhabi stupidities.
A bold step in the right direction would be the dissolution of the mutawwa and an end to interference with the spiritual habits of hajj pilgrims, Sunni and Shia, Sufi and non-Sufi, alike. If anybody believes the contention over cultural vandalism in Arabia favors Iran, an end to such irresponsible Saudi policies would certainly deprive the Iranians of a basis for their complaints. Hudson New York 
 A 13-year-old girl has been sentenced to 90 lashes and two months' prison in Saudi Arabia after she took a mobile phone to school.A court ordered the girl to be flogged in front of her classmates following an assault on the school principal, according to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan.
After the assault she was discovered to have concealed a mobile phone, breaking strict Saudi regulations banning the use of camera-equipped phones in girls' schools.
Brutal: public floggings, such as in this archive picture, are a common punishment handed down by religious courts in Saudi Arabia Al-Watan said a court in the northeastern Gulf port of Jubail had sentenced the girl to 90 lashes inside her school, followed by two months' detention.
The punishment is harsher than that dished out to some robbers and looters.
Saudi Arabia, a leading US ally in the Middle East, is an absolute monarchy controlled by the Al-Saud ruling tribe, and lacks any legal code.
Absolute monarchy: King Abdullah, ruler of the oil-rich state, meeting Gordon Brown on a 2007 visit to Downing Street King Abdullah has promoted some social reforms since taking the throne in 2005 but diplomats say he is held back by religious clerics and princes.
Cinemas and music concerts are banned, while many restaurants and even some shopping centres cater to families only, especially on holidays.
Religious police roam streets to make sure no unrelated men and women mix.
The Saudi court system is exclusively controlled Wahahbi/Salafi clerics, and bans the employment of non-Salafi citizens, especially as judges.
Saudi Arabia is the world's leading country in the use of torture-by-flogging, public beheadings and publically crucifying condemned prisoners.
The country crucified two people in 2009, including one in the capital Riyadh during President Barak Obama’s visit last April.
In September, twenty Saudi teenagers who ransacked shops and restaurants were publicly flogged.
Newspapers reported that the teenagers received at least 30 lashes each in a public square. Most of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks in 2001 came from Saudi Arabia. Mail Online
 You would be excused for thinking that the Wahabbi religious establishment of Saudi Arabia and the religion guarantees of our First Amendment have no more in common than fire and water.
But I think this oddest of odd couples helps to explain two recent events involving American Muslims and the rest of us -- instances of so-called “home-grown” Islamist terrorism, such as the Fort Hood murders, and the resentment being reported among American Muslims at FBI and other law-enforcement-agency activities at U.S. mosques. To be sure, the religious values the First Amendment protects -- freedom of worship, the nonestablishment of a state church -- are diametrically opposed to the religious dispensation in the Saudi state. There, the free exercise of religion is not only not guaranteed; it is scorned, banned, and prosecuted. Christianity is a crime, and don’t even ask about Judaism. There, by all accounts, Wahabbi Islam is not merely the established state religion but also an institution whose control of Saudi life more nearly resembles a totalitarian government than the Anglican establishment, whose like the First Amendment forbade.
The Saudi minister of the interior, His Royal Highness Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, who runs their religious establishment, recently ordered a 75-year-old woman flogged with 40 lashes for “prohibited mingling.”
But the First Amendment seems to be the Wahabbi establishment’s best friend here in the U.S. “First Amendment concerns” seem to be a principal reason why, for nearly 30 years, the U.S. government has turned a blind and even benign eye on the creation within the U.S. of a network of Wahabbist mosques and related Wahabbist entities paid for and frequently staffed by the Saudi establishment -- a network now bearing bitter fruit.
That such a network exists is beyond fair dispute. The website of the late King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz (Fayed’s brother) boasts of having funded mosques in prime and not so prime venues: New York; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles (two different ones); Chicago (three different ones); northern Virginia; Columbia, Mo.; Toledo, Ohio; and elsewhere.
The total number of Wahabbi-funded mosques in the U.S. is huge: Hussain Haqqani, a recent Carnegie Endowment scholar and now Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., estimates that Wahabbis with pro-Saudi leanings dominate 800 of the estimated 1,200 mosques in this country. Stephen Schwartz, an Islam expert (and no relation to me), estimates the total number of Wahabbi-financed mosques at “only” 600. Business Week editor Paul Barrett’s carefully reported -- and liberally oriented -- study American Islam demonstrates that the lavish Saudi expenditures have given Wahabbism a hold on many American mosques, which is either impressive or appalling, depending on how you feel about flogging 75-year-old women.
Moreover, ancillary organizations created or maintained by Wahabbist funders include the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, and others.
Even non-Saudi-financed mosques often employ Saudi or other Arab imams who have been sent here by the World Muslim League, a vehicle created and financed by Saudis for spreading Wahabbism around the world. Barrett’s book further reports that the Saudis pay American converts to Islam -- mostly African-Americans -- to go to Saudi Arabia, receive Wahabbist instruction, and come back here to serve as imams at U.S. mosques.
American law has treated the religious network created by this huge flow of Wahabbist money into the U.S. just as ut would treat mosques created and financed by U.S. citizens, with the full protection of the First Amendment.
The governing presumption is that their activities cannot be regulated -- or even monitored -- by government officials any more than those of an American mosque can. For example, because of First Amendment concerns, religious institutions do not have to receive advance approval from the IRS to claim tax-exempt status, as virtually all other charitable organizations do. For the same reason, religious institutions are exempt from filing the annual information return (Form 990) -- which reports on the institution’s sources and use of funds -- required of all other tax-exempts. “Mosques” are religious institutions for these purposes, and the law makes no distinction between mosques organized and paid for by Americans and those organized and paid for King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz or his whip-wielding brother.
Likewise, efforts by the FBI and other law-enforcement bodies to find out what is being said at public worship services in mosques have been condemned by the ACLU and sharply questioned in senatorial hearings as violating the guarantee of freedom of religion -- again, without any recognition of any distinction between King Fahd’s mosques and American mosques.
No effort is made to exclude Wahabbist imams from the rolls of those who preach to Muslims in our prisons –- a rather volatile population; to the contrary, for many years, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons relied on a Saudi-financed organization to pick Muslim chaplains. Just last summer, the U.S. attorney general chose as the venue for an “outreach” visit the Umar bin Al Khattab Mosque in San Francisco, one of the mosques financed by King Fahd.
This Wahabbi network has now been linked to incidents of “home-grown terrorism.” The Fort Hood murders are the most appalling case, in which an American citizen acted out in violent jihadist fashion after attending a Saudi-financed mosque.
Major Nidal Hasan was a congregant of the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, in Falls Church, Va. –- part of an area known to some as Northernvirginiastan, or the Wahabbi Corridor. Dar al-Hijrah’s membership rolls also include a rogues’ gallery of terrorist sympathizers and participants, at least two now serving long prison sentences, another deported, a third an unindicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center case, and two now fondling virgins in the hereafter -- two of the 9/11 perpetrators. The five Americans who were detained in Pakistan earlier this month on suspicion of aiding a Pakistani terrorist group worshiped at the I.C.N.A. Center in Alexandria, Va. One is not stunned to discover that that mosque is affiliated with the Islamic Center of North America, which in turn is closely affiliated with the Muslim American Society, described by Islam expert Schwartz as a “major component of the ‘Wahabbi lobby’” in the U.S.
No one can say for sure whether there is really a cause-and-effect relationship between attendance at a Saudi-financed or Saudi-affiliated mosque and recruitment to violence and terrorism. And it is also true that there have been instances –- like the Lackawanna Six –- of Americans who turned to jihadism not attending Saudi mosques.
But the questions we ought to be asking are these: Do we have to take the chance that imported Wahabbism is creating physical danger for Americans? Does something in our law require us to permit the Wahabbi religious establishment of Saudi Arabia to create Wahabbist institutions in the U.S.?
I think the answer is plain: absolutely not.
The assumption that American law cannot distinguish between Saudi mosques and American mosques is baseless. There is no case holding that a foreign religious establishment is entitled to claim the protections of the First Amendment.
Indeed, in all the voluminous jurisprudence that has grown up around the First Amendment, there is nothing that even suggests that its protections apply to the Wahabbist enterprise of planting on American soil mosques and affiliated organizations whose financing and organization are in the hands of a foreign religious establishment.
The words of Mr. Justice Jackson in a somewhat related context come to mind: “Such extraterritorial application of organic law would have been so significant an innovation in the practice of governments that, if intended or apprehended, it could scarcely have failed to excite contemporary comment. Not one word can be cited” (Johnson v. Eisentrager). More at Commentary Magazine H/T: David F.
 by Ryan Mauro Pajamas Media has a great article about a moderate Muslim organization called LIM in Norway that is reacting to the attack on one of the Prophet Mohammed cartoonists by organizing a demonstration for free speech.
The spokesperson, Sheikh Rehman, is challenging the Islamic Council of Norway to do the same, but says he thinks they won’t do it because they worry they will “lose face in the Muslim world.” Rehman even supports the publication of the cartoons, saying: Muhammed didn’t want to be depicted, because he didn’t want to be turned into a false god. When Muslims believe that depictions of the prophet insult him, then they are turning him into just such a false god. There should thus be no reason not to caricature him. I would go so far as to say that Muslim leaders are unqualified. The second article comes from the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada.
Twenty imams that are patrt of the group published a fatwa on January 8 saying any attack on the U.S. or Canada is an attack on all the Muslims living there, and “Islam requires Muslims to stand up to this evil.” And there’s also this very important line in the fatwa: In fact, the constitutions of the United States and Canada are very close to the Islamic guiding principles of human rights and freedom. There is no conflict between the Islamic values of freedom and justice and the Canadian /US values of freedom and justice. Irfan al-Alawi and Stephen Schwartz in The Weekly Standard write about the All-India Ulema Mashaikh Board, and how the group’s secretary-general has called for Wahhabist control of the country’s Islamic institutions to be ended. They write that the majority of Sunni Muslims in India and Pakistan “are conservative but adhere to the spiritual Islam of Sufism.” He even puts a number on it, saying 80% of India’s Muslims practice Sufi traditions. World Threats 
 If this anonymous piece is accurate, maybe he was just practicing damage control when he notified the authorities about his son's "extremism" -- as Creeping Sharia puts it, daddy "threw his son under the bus to protect himself and his own Islamist interests." But it looks as if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is a chip off the old block. It's overheated, yes, and the English is faulty, but the most important question here is, Are these charges true?
"Nigerian Muslim Jihadist and Al Qaida Ties Started Long Ago with Alhaji Mutallab,,.The Father As a Leader of Sharia Movement In Nigeria," from Africa Today, January 1 (thanks to Creeping Sharia): Let the world not be fooled by the diguised of Northern Nigerian Religious extremism muslim as represented by their leaders like Yaradua Family, Mutallab Family, Sanusi Family, Bayero Families, Yerima family, Babangida family, Abdulsalam, family, Abacha, Jubril Aminu family, Atiku Family etc. and all of the emires and Ulamas and Northern Nigeria leaders and muslim families AND FOLLOWERS for they all have ties to Muslim Wahabism extremisism in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Dubai, Yemen, Egytp etc and with the world jihadist movement and the world is just now waking up to it and the facts has been there for a long time and now they are exporting terrorism, jihadism, wahabism and Al Qaida to the world. They are all part and parcel of this problem because they planted this it but it is now known and let the world not be fooled. Like all of the muslim Northern Nigerian leaders, DR. Mutallab the father of the terrorist who is now shedding crocodile tears because he is one of the leaders who groom the Wahabism in Nigeria.
Alhaji Dr. Mutallab the father also groomed Sharia law in Katsina State, Alhaji DR. Mutallab Groom Sharia in Kaduna State,Alhaji Dr. Mutallab groomed Sharia in Kano State, Most of the extremism Ulama in Northern Muslim Nigeria are benefactors of Alhaji Mutallab, Dr. Mutallab groomed extreme Muslim businesses in Saudi Arabia, He has extreme business in Dubai and he has extreme religious business in Yemen and he has business and property in Yemen.
Alhaji Mutallab is the owner of the only Islamic Bank in Nigeria, Alhaji Mutallab has ties and interest in almost all the extremist muslim religious groups in Nigeria. He is a top leader of the Sharia movement COUNCIL in Nigeria. This guy is dangerous and he has gotten it hot and thats why he is running from pillar to post because he destroyed Nigeria with his corrupt ways and his muslim jihadist ideas for long time. Dr. Mutallab the father of the terrorist was just covering his ass because he does not want to loose his investment in the Westen World and he does not want his family to be place on the no fly list as he wants to still enjoy his vacation and western women and western wine and drinks in Engalnd, Europe and America while still using extremism and corruption to maintain their corrupt hold in Nigeria by stealing from their people, thats thats why he reported his son to America, because he and most of the Muslim leaders in Nigeria knows more and they are part of the sponsors of world wide jihadism wahabism from Saudi Arabia, Sudan,Dubai, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan etc.... With thanks to JihadWatch
 by Dr. Irfan Al-Alawi
International Director, Center for Islamic Pluralism, UK Within its borders, extraordinary sophistication in technology and medicine, financed by energy wealth, are found alongside such retrograde practices as a ban on women driving. (That prohibition will, we are told, be lifted within the 15 square-mile precincts of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology [KAUST], (pictured) the preeminent current reform project.) Forbidding women drivers, aside from its primitive nature, conflicts with realities on the ground: 80,000 Saudi women own motor vehicles but cannot operate them. Two recent media interviews with mayors from the cities of Mecca and Jeddah emphasise how a corrupt and chaotic approach to supposed modernisation discredits the future benefits Saudi subjects trust King Abdullah to deliver for them. First, the kingdom continues with an ambitious and confused campaign for the transformation of Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, into a megalopolis. The stated object of this effort is to improve services for the annual hajj pilgrimage to the city – one of five duties incumbent on all Muslims if they possess the means and physical capacity to perform it. Hajj began November 25 with the participation of more than 1.5 million Saudi and foreign pilgrims, and continued for five days. At the commencement of the hajj, the Al-Jazeera English service produced a cheerful feature in which Osama Al-Bar, the mayor of Mecca, anticipated spending $125 million over the next ten years on 40 urban improvement projects. These include expansion of the Grand Mosque in Mecca as well as new roads and “megaprojects” involving housing and other infrastructure. Unfortunately, a grandiose “Manhattanisation of Mecca” would devastate the architectural heritage of the sacred city. Mayor Al-Bar was asked, “There’re some criticisms with all of this development that Mecca is losing some of its history, that maybe everything is becoming too modern. Do you think that criticism is fair?” The mayor answered with unexpected candor. Yes, he admitted, the area of the Grand Mosque happens to occupy “the area of Mecca in older days – for centuries,” meaning, the part of the city that a municipal officer in any other country, presumably charged with preservation of cultural legacy, would first seek to protect. But in the outlook of Mecca’s mayor, a new system of transport for hajj pilgrims comes before the spiritual character of the city the hajjis have come to visit. Al-Bar declared baldly, “You have to balance how you can accommodate more people, more hajjis coming to Mecca to do the fifth pillar of Islam. With these very narrow roads and very historical areas, you cannot.” Such is the cultural posture of Wahhabism, the official sect in Saudi Arabia: the cultural birthright of Islamic Arabia is secondary to accommodation of ever-expanding crowds. The hajj will take place in an environment from which its traditions will be absent. But this year’s hajj also exposed the inconsistency between the Saudi obsession with extravagant expansion as proof of progress and the bad conditions suffered in their daily lives by Saudi subjects. The first day of the pilgrimage, exceptionally heavy rains fell on Jeddah, the city north of Mecca where most hajjis come from abroad by air. Thirteen people were drowned by floods in Jeddah, main roads were obstructed, and bridges collapsed. In Mecca itself, power failed in some districts. Adel Faqih, the mayor of Jeddah, interviewed by the English-language daily Saudi Gazette on November 29, disclosed that his administration, serving the main gateway to the kingdom for business and other travelers as well as hajj pilgrims, was utterly unprepared for the natural disaster. Saudi Gazette reporter Abdulaziz Ghazzawi hammered the mayor of Jeddah, who blamed the deadly floods on the limited capacity of the drainage system. The questioning went like this: Saudi Gazette reporter: “The situation is terrible in flood-hit districts, the Haramain Highway, and the road to Misk Lake where the sewage tankers dump their cargo. How are you going to deal with this?” Mayor of Jeddah: “The Jeddah Mayoralty has completed an emergency plan with a package of temporary solutions…” Saudi Gazette reporter: “Excuse me. Did you say temporary while the city is drowning?” Jeddah mayor Faqih then sputtered through more excuses, declaring the situation was under examination, and that neighbourhoods where floodwater had not been pumped out “are unplanned and most of the buildings there violate basic construction engineering.” In plain words, the mayor blamed the failure of the city administration to anticipate disasters on residents living without proper regulation, when the anomalous situation of the people would better be laid at the door of corrupt municipal officials.
Mayor Faqih had to contend with further, shocking facts from reporter Ghazzawi, who warned that the polluted Misk Lake was close to overflowing its sand barriers. The mayor replied blandly that such an outcome was impossible. But the reporter kept up a rapid fire of challenges, noting that a flooded highway underpass had apparently been erected without adequate provision for drainage, and that “The government has pumped billions of riyals into the infrastructure of this city, but it is still shaky. Where did the money go? Where are the projects?” the reporter insisted. Jeddah’s mayor was reduced to blaming his own administration’s failings, which resulted in loss of life as well as serious disruption of the city, on his predecessors. These two interviews, appearing almost simultaneously, with two Saudi mayors, illuminate the crisis of the kingdom. The mayor of Mecca is prepared to devastate the historic quarters of the holy city in the name of improved transport; the mayor of Jeddah blames the devastation of his city by flood on uncontrolled, unrealized promises of development. Both offer the people of their country fantasies of rapid transformation that contain within them more problems and worse consequences. Until the people of the kingdom attain the full right to assess, approve, and disapprove policies governing development, spiritual values as well as human lives will be vulnerable to corruption and whim. Hudson New York
 There is of course a great deal of talk about reforming Islam these days, and just about anyone from Tariq Ramadan to the Saudi King, to people who actually see what is wrong with Islam and want to reform it, can legitimately claim the title of the reformer of Islam. But that is because the question of what exactly "Reforming Islam" means remains open. To begin with "Reforming Islam" means one thing to Western audiences and another thing entirely to Muslims. To Westerners "Reforming Islam" means bringing it into compliance with civilized norms of conduct. To Muslims it means stripping away the corruption of later eras and returning it to the pure Islam of Mohammed. The most successful reformers of Islam within the Muslim world are not Wafa Sultan, Ali Sina or Irshad Manji... but Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab who created Wahhabism, Hassan al Banna who founded the Muslim Brotherhood and Osama bin Laden. And while that may seem insane or absurd from a Western perspective, after all three men inspired orgies of mass murder and horrifying brutality-- they did indubitably try to bring Islam closer to its roots. The problem is that Islam's roots are more rotten and darker than its branches. From the Islamic perspective, reforming Islam requires a purer Islam. From the Western perspective, reforming Islam actually requires a less pure Islam that is capable of implementing such foreign to it ideas as tolerance and co-existence. By contrast Muslims believe that whatever problems there are in Islam are the result of human corruption and innovations added to Islam over the centuries. A pure Islam is their final solution for ending the constant corruption in Muslim countries and creating a Caliphate run under Islamic law. The question then comes down to just what is it about Islam that needs reforming. From the Western point of view, Islam's expansiveness, aggression, violence and intolerance are what need reforming. From the Islamist point of view, they are the hallmarks of what a pure Islam should be, intolerant of any intellectual miscegenation and unwilling to accept anything less than absolute dominance in the name of Allah. There is talk that Islam needs its own Martin Luther, but that is exactly what Islam does not need. Islam already had its own Martin Luther in the 18th century and the Salafist bloodshed that was unleashed then still echoes in the suicide bombings today. Nor does that kind of religious reform usher in peace, so much as more war. And Islam certainly does not need to move any closer to its roots when Mohammed's bandits pillaged, looted and raped their way across what is modern day Saudi Arabia in pursuit of anyone who did not believe in Islam, or in the exact same form of Islam as they did. No reform of Islam that leaves in place the absolutism of Islamic law will be at all helpful to the Muslim and non-Muslim world. And it is precisely Islam's claim on temporal power by way of Sharia that is at the root of the Islamic problem. Because there is no such thing as a private Islam, only a collective Islam. The Islam of the Ummah. A Muslim alone either assimilates for a time or goes insane, both of which can be seen from the interrogator's logs of captured Al Queda terrorists. Islam is not a private faith, but a public one. Its piety is in its outward displays of obeisance to Islamic law hide private corruption that is against the law. Because of its claim to temporal power, Islam is in constant conflict with both the Muslim and the non-Muslim world. Its scholars ever present themselves as candidates for revolution, their fatwas key for legitimizing murder or tyranny. Wars, rebellions and brutal crackdowns are all routinely provided with the imprimatur of Islam, with a Fatwa or two to legitimize the notion that a ruler or a rebel or a terrorist is acting in order to impose Islamic law on whoever he happens to be killing at the moment. While devout Muslims insist that corruption in the Muslim world is produced by a lack of Islam-- in fact it is produced by a surplus of Islam. Islamic law, reformed or otherwise, is not the solution to their problems, and polishing the codex down to the naked edge of a blade that Mohammed would supposedly approve of, and then slitting the throats of everyone who disagrees will solve nothing. Religious law is not the solution to human corruption, political transparency and democracy will always work much better than a dozen Imams poring over the Hadiths at checking corruption. More Muslims were murdered in the name of reforming Islam, than were ever killed by American or Israeli warplanes. And each attempt at reforming Islam only perpetuates that mad cycle. As the Saudi promoters of Wahhabism and the Islamist terrorists of Hamas have been declared inadequately pure in turn by Al Queda, so too Al Queda and the Taliban can and will be judged impure by other Muslim reformers still believing that the key to paradise is a bomb belt and a truly pure Islam.To truly reform Islam... Muslim clerics must do the impossible. They must give up power in the name of true purity. As long as Islam is tied to temporal power, it will remain innately corrupt, as will any institution that attempts to exercise power. When Mosque becomes detached from State, then Islam will cease to become a political tool and can actually be purified. But it is precisely because Islam is a useful political tool for claiming temporal power, back to its roots in the desert when Mohammed built an empire by claiming to have received prophecies from an angel, that it can never be reformed and remains intermingled with violence. Only if Muslims were forced to choose between participation in the civilized world and Sharia, could Islam ever truly be reformed.
 In recent weeks, a renewed epidemic of suicide bombings has swept Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, climaxing in huge blasts in Baghdad that killed 130 innocents on Tuesday. The Obama administration says these bombings have nothing to do with religion. It's purely coincidental that the perps preach severe Islam. The attacks are merely meant to destabilize governments. Once again, we grasp at a comforting explanation, deceiving ourselves. Yes, Islamist fanatics want to disrupt Pakistani society and Iraq's upcoming elections. But they're not butchering thousands of Muslims just over ward politics. Our make-nice president and even our generals refuse to accept the core motivation for mass atrocities committed by al Qaeda, the Taliban and affiliates: It's about punishing imperfect believers and infidels. But "punishment" isn't even in our vocabulary. When a bomb strikes a government ministry, that's one thing. But attacks that routinely turn public markets, clinics or schools into bloody craters aren't just about political rivalries. True fanatics don't really want to reform or convert you. They need to make you suffer to please their god — and for their own psychological needs. Aztecs without the architecture, fanatics always crave an angry god. They may preach the kingdom of heaven, but long to burn others in hell. Religious fanatics delight in killing and torturing the imperfect and impure. It's not about justice or redemption. The fanatic's joy lies in the deed itself, in the god-like thrill of inflicting pain. Religious butchers really love their work. This is "unthinkable" to us — because we refuse to think it. Like children, we want the world to be a certain way, so we insist that it is that way — lovely, innocent and darkened only by responsible parents. But the world is cruel, and no portion of this earth is crueler than the collapsed civilization of the Middle East. Underdevelopment is not the core problem. Poverty and injustice are symptoms. The region's catastrophic state is rooted in Wahhabi Islam — in the rise, three centuries ago, of a desert-dweller extremism that squeezed a once-great faith into a tribal cult. Now we stand on the side of the most destructive elements within the Muslim world, the Saudis and their fanaticism. The greatest modern tragedy for the Arab world wasn't Israel's triumph, but who got the oil money: It wasn't the sophisticates of Cairo or Damascus, but illiterate Bedouins whose god likes to hurt people. The combination of oil wealth and the Wahhabi cult created al Qaeda and internationalized violent jihad. The current tiff between the Saudi royal family and al Qaeda is a family quarrel over who gets to dictate the terms of Islamist tyranny. Yet, one American president after another imagines that the Saudis are our buddies, even bowing to Saudi royalty — thus doing a terrible disservice to those Muslims who promote worthier forms of their faith. When we lie and deny that religion has anything to do with Islamist terrorism, we're not doing Muslims a favor. We empower the worst elements in the Islamic world. But we don't want to hurt the feelings of fanatics. So we insist that Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood avenger for Allah, was upset. And the deeds of Gitmo inmates had nothing to do with religion (although we rush to pander to their beliefs). Al Qaeda and the Taliban just want political power. And so on. But men don't rush to die to achieve political power they won't live to exercise. The current epidemic of massacres is about faith gone homicidal. It's about uncompromising hatred in Allah's name, a hatred unappeasable on this earth. And it's about punishment, that word we no longer dare think. Wahhabi Islam delights in tormenting women (paging Dr. Ali bin Freud). Our response to the general deprivation, enforced masking, lifelong imprisonment, random beating and cult murder of a half-billion human beings? "What right do we have to judge the culture of others?" We're not only fools, but cowards, too. The worst jihad isn't against us or the governments we back, but against a half-billion women. Think you'll ever get Washington to admit that? Faced with supremely dedicated enemies blazing with faith, we make excuses for their love of death. Then we wonder why we don't make progress. The recent bombings in Baghdad, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Kabul and elsewhere were committed by uncompromising believers. Compromise is our false god, not theirs. Ralph Peters' latest book is "The War After Armageddon." NYPost
 Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche reports on an a study of Swiss imams.
Switzerland has about 200 mosques, but nobody really knows what is preached in them.
Neither does the government, who investigated the issue. The study was presented to the parliamentary security committee. The media asked for it to be published, but the government classified it as confidential. The Federal Council says that it's not being published since it doesn't include anything which hasn't been dealt with in the media before.
The 17 page study "Islamist Imams", is dated from Jan. 29, 2008. It apparently contains several controversial findings.
The study begins by saying that most Muslims can practice their faith while following the constitution. Religion is rarely the main reason for integration problems.
A minority of imams, however, preach radically, in a way which prevents the integration of Muslims. At least 8 imams in a dozen mosques preach a radical interpretation of Islam. These mosques are located in the cantons of Geneva, Neuenburg (2), Vaud (2), Valais, Bern, Basel (2), Lucerne and Zurich (2). These mosques are mostly Arab mosques, and seven of the eight imams are North Africans. This corresponds to the known pattern that most of the Islamist activists in Switzerland are Arabs.
It's possible that these eight imams are just the tip of the iceberg, since there is a shortage of data and resources. The report says that it isn't possible to know how many imams carry on extremist and violent propaganda, or in how many mosques such an Islamist vision is being preached. The reason is legal barriers for intelligence gathering and lack of specific studies.
The report notes that the DAP, the Swiss Security Service, has no concrete information about preaching ongoing in the 200 Swiss mosques. There is only one exception: an imam in the Canton of Bern (apparently in Biel), who 'voluntarily' handed in to the authorities eight of his sermons made in 2000 to 2004.
The imam, who preaches a Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, supports suicide attacks in the occupied areas of the Muslim world. He also says regularly that Jihadists in these regions should be encouraged and asked his flock for financial support for Jihadists.
According to the report, the sermons were usually explosive. He preached about the eternal irreconcilability between the Christian 'crusaders' and the Muslims. The imam told his listeners that violent Jihad against non-Muslims could also be practiced in the West, once converts to Islam will achieve a critical mass.
Quoting the Koran, the imam taught that Muslims were called for violence against Christians and Jews to get them to submit to Islamic domination. The Muslims were urged not to submit to a non-Islamic secular order. It was necessary to champion violent Jihad in order to establish an Islamic state in the Arab world and to re-establish the Caliphate. The preacher called specifically for violent Jihad against the Crusaders in the Arab world, particularly in Iraq. The moderate Muslims were branded the 'worst enemies of Islam'.
This imam was also one of the organizers of the protest against the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which took place on Feb. 2006 in the Bundesplatz. About 600 people attended, almost all Arabs, and a few dozen Salafists, according to the report.
The hate preaching of the imams has an effect. A young Tunisian, who was radicalized under the influence of the imam, went to Syria in 2005 and then to Iraq to join the Jihad. In Iraq he joined the 'martyr's brigade', fighting for the local al-Qaeda. Apparently the Tunisian from the Bern mosque couldn't achieve his wish for an act of martyrdom, and he was killed by the coalition forces in April 2006.
In addition to the imam from Biel, the report mentions other examples of hate preachers. In the mosque of Kriens, a Libyan with a permanent residence permit incites his followers to violence. The report says that it's said that he calls the Swiss apes and infidel pigs and supports their extermination. While the report was being written the man was still active in calling for violence in occupied Muslim areas, whether perceived or real.
The information about the Kriens imam is based on 'hearsay'. Which indicates a basic problem for Swiss intelligence: by law their work ends at the door to the mosque. The Muslim mosques are considered private areas, and the intelligence services have their hands tied. They cannot tape the sermons, neither video nor audio. In order to know what is being taught in the mosques, the intelligence services need a person who is continuously in the mosque, who knows the language and who memorizes the sermons.
Once an imam is identified as a hate preacher, there are means to confront him, which are described in the report as 'adequate'. These only apply if the imam is officially registered in Switzerland. For 'unofficial' imams, who come to Switzerland for a limited amount of time and then move on, the available resources to confront them are 'limited'.
The report suggests several ways to deal with the phenomenon of Islamist imams. The Federal Office for Migration was commissioned to check the possibility by the end of 2008 of a Swiss university project to study the number, original and theological bent of official Swiss imams. The Justice Ministry was asked to submit proposals by mid-2009, on how to better control the entry of hate preachers. And the Ministry of Internal Affairs was asked to develop imam training following the example of other European countries.
When Weltwoche tried to check on whether these proposals were followed, they got the run-around.
An attempt to change the law and allow for intelligence gathering in the private space did not pass parliament.
Source: Weltwoche (German), h/t PI Thanks to Islam in Europe
 RESIDENTS are fighting a mosque and cultural centre they believe will become a headquarters for the strict Wahhabi sect of Islam in Sydney. Auburn Council, in Sydney's west, has outraged residents by approving the three-storey mosque with dome and minarets on a site occupied by a Depression-era Art Deco fire station. The Australian Islamic Cultural Centre, which has links to Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism, plans to demolish existing buildings - including the fire station - and construct a mosque for up to 1000 worshippers, a library and a youth cultural centre with two levels of basement. A petition demanding the council reverse its decision and preserve the heritage fire station in Harrow Rd is circulating in the suburb. Activities planned for the complex include cultural and religious lectures, weddings, prayers, cultural, religious and language classes, fundraising, public speaking, Ramadan festivities and counselling, welfare and rehabilitation services. "There is a chamber for 1000 worshippers at a time, a dome and minarets with the sign of the crescent moon," he said. "It's an opportunity for the Australian Islamic Cultural Centre to house its operations. The $9 million for it will come from overseas." Mr Walsh said residents aimed to collect 8000 to 9000 signatures on a petition demanding Auburn Council preserve the fire station or its facade. Islamic Cultural Centre spokesman Shafiq Khan runs nearby Al-Faisal College at Auburn and is known to have connections in the Saudi Government, which has spent an estimated $120 million bankrolling mosques, schools, clerical salaries and Islamic scholarships in Australia. He was not available to comment. Councillors have voted 7-3 to approve the mosque with conditions, but will consider a rescission motion at a meeting in January. Labor councillor Patrick Curtin said concerns surrounded a lack of information about the proposal relating to noise, drainage, overshadowing, hours of operation, height, traffic and parking. Mr Curtin refused to comment on the applicant but said he had not been impressed by its presentation. "The recommendation (to approve the development) is based on insufficient information," he said. The development application was accompanied by a petition with 1800 names supporting the complex. Daily Telegraph
 The "anti-Islam" remarks by former law minister Ram Jethmalani who linked Wahhabis, a conservative Muslim sect, with terrorism, is a closed chapter for him, but Saudi envoy to India Faisal Hassan Trad says Muslims have a long way to go and work hard to rid their faith of the Islamic terror stigma. "Despite all the humanistic teachings of the religion, Islam is still linked with terrorism. It is an irony. It has turned out to be a global phenomenon and is a dilemma for the Muslim world," he said.
"I believe it is a long way and we have to work hard to rid our faith of this stigma. I agree terrorists have hijacked Islam, but Islam is not what they propagate and what they are killing for.
In fact, it is all un-Islamic," he said, days after he staged a walkout following Jethmalani's comments that "India had friendly relations with a country that supported Wahhabi terrorism". Wahhabism is a sect attributed to Mohammad ibne Abdul Wahhab, an 18th century Arab scholar, who believed in puritanic Islam and launched a movement against what he considered innovations in Islam.
Jethmalani angered the Saudi envoy with his remarks at an international conference on terrorism here Saturday.
"I found his utterances bad as he was directly blaming Islam and my country (Saudi Arabia) for terrorism. I did what I should have done as a Muslim and also as a Saudi ambassador.
I walked out in protest but offered my apologies to President Pratibha Patil who was on the panel in the conference. I didn't want to create an impression that I was protesting against her," Trad said.
"And can you believe he was speaking in his own country which has some 140 million Muslim population?
"He was targeting the centre of Islam. We Saudis are proud to be from the birthplace of Islam. We have a huge responsibility of serving the Muslim world, and accusing Saudi Arabia or the Muslim world of breeding terror is just unacceptable, I repeat just unacceptable."
He said his country -- itself "a victim of terrorism" -- has always expressed a will to wage a fight against the menace.
"Saudi Arabia has even volunteered to host a centre for global fight against terror -- an idea which was mooted in an international conference on counter terrorism in 2005, in which India also participated," he said.
"It (the Jethmalani controversy) is a closed chapter now. I have nothing against Ram (Jethmalani) personally. I don't want to drag this issue on and on," Trad said, adding the lawyer was speaking for himself and not representing India.
"King Abdullah (of Saudi Arabia) has initiated a movement to start a dialogue between different faiths and civilisations. That is what Islam teaches us," he said.
"Islam is the religion of humanity. You see any great human value and belief ends up to be a part of Islamic teachings. Islam stresses on justice, transparency, love, respect and freedom for each other, love for family and women's rights," he said, while expressing concern that people "misread and misinterpret Islam".
Quoting the Quran, Trad said: "The holy book says he who kills a person without a legal trial is like he killed the whole humanity. What more do you need to prove Islam is for brotherhood, peace and love? It is a religion that doesn't even allow suicide. Killing your own self is a big sin in Islam.
"Prophet Mohammed's wife Khadija is the first business woman in Islamic history. The Prophet used to work for her. And even continued to work for her after getting married to her. This is an example to explain how Islam respects and ensures women's rights and freedom."
"Islam," the envoy told, "has no justification for terrorism".
"What is not human is forbidden in Islam. Allah says we have created mankind and given it dignity. Islam cannot accept anybody in its fold who trashes human dignity," he said, adding terrorists have "no identity, no religion and no border. You cannot attribute it to Islam in any case".
 These photos show what happens to real women who wear the Islamic Veil. The photos depict horrifying hate and the unbearable suffering it inflicts upon female innocents. The photos were taken by Emilio Morenatti of the Associated Press. The text is based on work done by Nicholas Kristof—one of the few people at the New York Times whose work I am proud to quote. You may find them HERE. (Thanks to Yehuda for calling this to my attention). What are we seeing? The Arabization or the Saudi-ization of Muslims in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan is the hidden hand behind these acid attacks upon women. These poor girls and women have had their lives ruined; some have been forced to undergo surgery 20-30 times in order that they may see a little, or breathe a bit, hear something, perhaps in order to eat or make themselves understood. They look like…monsters. That was what their attackers wanted to accomplish. To render their faces into self-portraits of their attackers. Why was acid thrown into their faces? The main reasons are because they dared to reject someone in marriage or because they wanted a divorce.
The “jilted” suitors (or husbands) took their revenge in this fashion. If he can’t have her, no man will; I will make sure that no man will ever want her.” One young girl was gang-raped aftger which her rapists threw acid on her face. Another committed the “crime” of disappointing her father by being born female, not male. Many were disfigured as a result of a “family dispute.” Thus, the punishment for being born female, for exercising any will of one’s own is, Saudi-style, the most horrible punishment. The men tried to make the women loathsome to humanity, to sentence them to painful surgeries, self-hatred, perhaps to lives lived in isolation. Make no mistake. This tendency to disfigure women–even those who wear the Islamic Veil–is real. And, it might be coming our way if we do not stop the Wahhabi and Salafi influence which is funding our universities in North America as well as the Islamic religious schools. For once, I will leave aside the question of what must be done and allow the photos to speak to you. To continue reading this article, click here. More at FPM
 by Tarek Heggy The Fuel of Intolerant Islam
Many have attributed the spread of religious extremism today in countries like Egypt, for example, to external factors, such as foreign incitement and foreign financing of extremist movements in general, and of fundamentalist Islamic groups in particular.
This attribution is extremely dangerous: by presenting the issue of religious extremism as a security problem - to be dealt with by the police and other security bodies – it removes it from the realm of problems amenable to political solutions.
Those who are quick to point an accusing finger at external forces should realize that if Egypt had been a haven of social tolerance, brotherhood and peace, it would not have been susceptible to interference from abroad. This means that other local factors have created a favorable climate for such attempts to succeed.
Over the last few decades, many societies in Islamic countries were subjected to various types of despotic rulers, governing their countries with an iron fist in a setting of widespread autocracy. The most dangerous of the many negative effects of political oppression is the impediment of social mobility: it impairs the opportunity for the most qualified citizens to rise to leading positions in various fields.
The disappearance of a healthy process of social mobility makes for a static situation in which inept and mediocre persons come to occupy top positions by dint of accepting, indeed, of supporting, oppression through unquestioning loyalty to their superiors.
 New Delhi: The former Union Law Minister and senior lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, caused a flutter at an international conference on terrorism here on Saturday by alleging that Wahabism was responsible for terrorism, provoking a walkout by Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to India Faisal-al-Trad. In his address, Mr. Jethmalani, who is president of the All-India Senior Advocates Association, said:
“Unfortunately in the 17th century, they produced an evil man in Saudi Arabia by the name of Wahab, who was concerned about the decline of the Muslim world, but he hit upon a wrong remedy.” He alleged that the Wahabi terrorism instilled rubbish in the minds of young people to carry out terrorist attacks. When he said “India had friendly relations with a country that supported Wahabi terrorism,” Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador Faisal-al-Trad was seen walking out of the conference held at Vigyan Bhavan. Adish C. Aggarwala, chairman, All-India Bar Association and joint organiser of the conference, said the Ambassador returned after Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily clarified that Mr. Jethmalani’s views were not those of the government. Mr. Jethmalani said: “It was unfortunate that entire Islam as a religion was being blamed for terrorism. There are also Hindu terrorists and Buddhist terrorists.”
He said he was a student of all religions, including Islam, and had the highest respect for the Prophet, who he said was a man of peace. Describing the Non-Aligned Movement and Panchsheel as evil, he said India should align with the forces of good to combat evil forces. “India and its Foreign Ministers must learn to reassess the doctrines of the past. India’s foreign policy establishment should be courageous to shun the country’s relationships with its enemies.” Mr. Jethmalani, who is representing the Anil Ambani group RNRL in the Ambani brothers’ gas dispute in the Supreme Court, said the government, in its arguments, had said it intended bringing gas from the country which supported terrorism, an apparent reference to the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project. Taking exception to Mr. Jethmalani’s remarks, Mr. Moily said: “India’s commitment to the Non-Aligned Movement would not be shaken by any country or any individual. The views expressed by my senior colleague Mr. Jethmalani are not the views of the government.” He said: “Terrorism cannot be attributed to any particular religion, as no religion teaches terrorism.” The government was against any attempt to link terrorism to a particular religious community, but it stood for “inclusive development” of all. In July, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposed a comprehensive convention on international terrorism at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Egypt, and the government was committed to dealing with trans-border terrorism in that spirit, he said. Singapore Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong described the Mumbai terror attacks as a “grave tragedy” against humanity. He called for better coordination among nations to deal with the menace, because no individual nation could fight it on its own. “The countries must exchange and share information with each other to tackle terrorism.” Justice Awn S. Al-Khasawneh, judge of the International Court of Justice, asked Mr. Jethmalani not to make sweeping statements. He decried any attempt to link terrorism to any religion, thus creating a fear psychosis. “The message from this conference must not be fear-mongering, but tackling terrorism within the framework of law. Combat it with methods such as combination of cooperation among countries by preaching the message of law and peace rather than fear mongering.” The Hindu
 This month, hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims from around the globe are converging upon the Saudi Arabian holy cities of Mecca and Medina to perform the hajj, the pilgrimage that believers are supposed to make at least once in their lives as long as they have the health and the means to manage it. The hajj takes place this year from Nov. 25 to 29, but many of the faithful are already thronging the airport and docks of Jeddah, the main entry point for pilgrims. It's an event of huge religious significance. Some three million Muslims from all around the world -- Indians and Pakistanis, Nigerians and Bosnians, Arabs and non-Arabs, rich and poor, Sunni and Shia -- will commune, worship, and celebrate the global unity of Islam.
They'll be performing the same set of ritual acts, dressed in exactly the same clothes, all equal in the sight of God. For those who've completed the hajj, it's a lifetime landmark, a transformative religious experience. In reality, though, there's another reason why the hajj is important -- even if most Muslims would rather it weren't the case.
Today's hajj -- given the widening sectarian rifts within Islam -- is also very much about politics. To some extent, of course, it's always been that way. The royals in Riyadh have always taken their guardianship of the Two Holy Places in Mecca and Medina as a key to the spiritual and political guidance of the global community of believers. (It should be said, by the way, that though the Saudis invariably evoke the "nonpolitical" character of the hajj, they've also been known to shower pilgrims with literature espousing the benefits of the sere Wahhabi version of Islam that holds inside the kingdom.) Given this potentially explosive mix of politics and religion, the recent war of words between the governments of Iran and the hajj's Saudi Arabian hosts deserves to be taken seriously.
On Oct. 26, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, met with officials from the Iranian hajj organizing committee and seized the occasion to rail against alleged past mistreatment of his compatriots during the pilgrimage. "Such acts are against the unity of Muslims and contribute to the goals and wishes of the U.S. and foreign intelligence services," he said. "The Saudi government should fulfill its duty in confronting these acts." More at Foreign Policy
 Saudi Arabia is one of the most authoritarian regimes in the world. It has a policy of discrimination toward women, a complete disregard for human rights and a total lack of democracy. Rigid application of Shari'a - Islamic law - leads to such atrocities as putting women to death by stoning, cutting off the hands of thieves and widespread use of the death penalty. The country is the center of ultra-conservative
Wahhabi Islam, and it contributes large sums of money to the creation of mosques and Islamic cultural centers throughout the world which teach the most extreme forms of the religion. Finally, the Saudis supported the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hamas in Gaza, only ceasing such support when they realized that both groups also posed an enormous domestic threat. All of the above did nothing to improve the image of Saudi Arabia in the world, an image which was further tarnished when it was revealed that 16 of the 19 terrorists who launched the 9/11 attacks in New York were Saudi nationals. Following the discovery, many US officials called for a drastic cooling in relations with the kingdom. Today King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz is desperately trying to improve his country's image abroad and introduce much needed reforms. But he is doing so while facing two very real threats to the stability of his kingdom: AlQaida and the subversive activities of Iran. Oil rich Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. According to the Basic Law of 1992, it must be ruled by the descendants of King Abdel Aziz Al Saud. Further, as the Koran is the country's constitution, it must be governed according to Islamic law. Both factors should have made the kingdom less vulnerable to modern influences than any other Arab or Islamic country. But current global culture being as pervasive as it is, changes were inevitable. King Abdullah was wise enough to understand that his family would ultimately pay a price if he did not initiate some of the reforms so desperately wanted by the younger generations - and by women, who are still subject to discrimination and repression.
As soon as he acceded to the throne in 2005, he attempted to reform religious, cultural and judicial institutions to loosen the stranglehold of the Wahhabi religious establishment. One of his first decisions was to appoint younger and more liberal officials to the Ministry of Education to modernize school curriculums. It is unclear what - if any - progress was made. Princess Adala, one of the king's daughters, has also been active in promoting better conditions for women. Under her guidance, gymnastics has been introduced into all public and private schools for girls. Sports and health clubs for women have been established, and women have been granted the right to take part in both domestic and international competitions. Read more here,,,, Source: JPost
 By: Michael van der Galien If this report is correct, calling it an interesting development would be the understatement of the century: INTELLIGENCE chief Sir John Scarlett has been told that Saudi Arabia is ready to allow Israel to bomb Iran’s new nuclear site. The head of MI6 discussed the issue in London with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi officials after British intelligence officers helped to uncover the plant, in the side of a mountain near the ancient city of Qom. The site is seen as a major threat by Tel Aviv and Riyadh.
Details of the talks emerged after John Bolton, America’s former UN ambassador, told a meeting of intelligence analysts that “Riyadh certainly approves” of Israel’s use of Saudi airspace. Perceptive readers have undoubtedly noticed I called the report “important” but not “shocking.” The reason? It’s not. Although Saudi Arabia pretends Israel to be its main enemy for domestic purposes, the royal family knows full well that the real danger for its rule comes from Iran. Iran and Saudi Arabia are archenemies. Iran is ruled by Shiite extremists, Saudi Arabia by Sunni extremists. They consider each other ‘traitors.’ Both want to replace each others ideology – Saudi Arabia wants to spread its Wahabbi extremism, Iran its Shiite extremism through the region and eventually the world. They basically have the same radical agenda and consider themselves to be the only ‘real muslims’ in the world. It isn’t exactly surprising therefore that the Saudis want Israel to do its dirty work. It can give quiet, secret permission for an Israeli strike yet publicly condemn Jerusalem for its “aggression.” It’s a game the Saudis have played for years, if not decades. The West and Israel are wise to get Sunni countries that support / tolerate strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities to voice their support in public. If they do not, the latter will continue to do what they have done for years now, thereby radicalizing their peoples and turning them even more against the West than they already are. Source: PoliGazette
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
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by Dr. Irfan Al-Alawi
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