PBS has collected interviews from various experts on Islam about the fundamentalist sect, Wahhabism, popular in Saudi Arabia. The descriptions of Wahhabism are terrifying in their implications. When Ali Al-Ahmed, a Shia and executive director of the Saudi Institute was asked to describe Wahhabism, here’s what he said, with my emphasis in bold:
The religious curriculum in Saudi Arabia teaches you that people are basically two sides: Salafis [Wahhabis], who are the winners, the chosen ones, who will go to heaven, and the rest. The rest are Muslims and Christians and Jews and others….
And all of these people are not accepted by Salafi as Muslims. As I said, “claimant to Islam.” And all of these people are supposed to be hated, to be persecuted, even killed.
Perhaps the most frightening part of Wahhabism is that, historically it has been contained to the Arabian Peninsula, but increasingly it is being exported via Saudi funded Madrasas to Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond. Vali Nasr, an associate professor at the University of San Diego who specializes in the politics of Islamic Extremism told PBS of the growing connecting between the Taliban (located in Pakistan and Afghanistan) and Wahhabism:
The connection has been growing very, very strong in the past 20 years, and particularly in the past ten years. The dominant school of Islam with which the Taliban associate — which is known as the Deobandi school — is very prominent in Afghanistan and also in wide areas of Pakistan. Northern India has increasingly gravitated toward Wahhabi teaching, and has very, very strong organizational ties with various Wahhabi religious leaders.
Now, if you’ll remember, the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11 were nearly all Saudis, and they were given space to train and prepare in Afghanistan by the Taliban. The growth of extremist Wahhabism isn’t good for America, and empowering the Saudis with weapons sales and support may further the expansion of Wahhabism across the Middle East, and beyond.
You can help spread the “good word” by getting this post into the hands of your U.S. Congressmen, Governors and local newspaper editors. Without a ground swell of opposition to U.S. meddling in the Middle East, nothing is going to change here.
The clock is ticking for America. I’ll point you to Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations for a look at the frightening future facing America if its citizens do not take the country back from the elites (follow the money). This means adopting something like ‘The Swiss Way,’ my preferred form over bottom-up governance. There is no other option. Patrick Henry and the anti-federalists were right after all.
Only an America run from the bottom up will be able to avoid the foreign entanglements that favor the elites and their counterparts in Saudi Arabia ahead of everyday Americans.
Samuel Huntington on the ‘Clash of Civilizations’
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