Alarabiya (Saudi owned TV channel)

January 24, 2008

Translated from Arabic.

Saudi Prince Mohammad Al Abdallah Al Faisal called today,  in an interview with Turki El Dakheil, famous host for the popular Saudi Arabian (Arabiya channel) TV talk show Eda’at (Enlightment), for “changing the education philosophy in Saudi Arabia”. Adding “our curriculum produces terrorists”.  

Prince Al Faisal was the deputy Minister for education until he resigned in 1983.

“Education in Saudi Arabia suffers from a big problem. One day I went to the Minister of education Hassan El Sheikh, and told him, ‘The religious books we teach are the books of Sheikh Mohamed Ben Abdel Wahab (the founder of - Wahabism) and we should change their interpretations and  understanding for the student ” he told Al Dakheil.

He continued, “I am not happy with the level and results of education in the Kingdom, and I personally sent my children after their middle school to study abroad .. Since we realized from experience that our curriculums produced terrorists who went and blew themselves up ..  we have to find out how to get our students out of that path”.

Comment:

There is a widespread misconception in the minds of the Western public at large, that Wahabism is a Saudi invention of a new radicalized interpretation of Islam by Mohamed Ben Abdel Wahab in the 18^th century. This misconception was popularized by two groups of Western scholars. The first group acted out of good faith but based their conclusion on unsubstantiated differences between the Wahabi Islam and the fundamental Islamic texts.  The second group acted out of deception and diversion. To absolve mainstream Islam from any link with radical Muslim terrorists, and to divert people scrutiny away from Islam to the scapegoat of Wahabi Islam.

 So why is Wahabi Islam perceived as the most radicalized Islam? And where is the truth in this popularized confusion?

We’ll explain this in very simple terms based on Islamic history and sources.

After the 3^rd Caliphe Osman ebn Af’fan, Islam was spread in many countries due to the Islamic invasions and conquests. Through the years, two factors contributed, if we may say, in replacing the barbarity of the Shari’a laws with civil laws. The 1^st factor was the interaction of Islam with the civilizations and cultures that Islam conquered mainly Christians, and the natives that were forced to convert to Islam resisted the application of these barbaric laws as well. The second factor was the colonization of most of what used to be the Islamic countries of the defunct Ottoman Empire, except Saudi Arabia that held no interest for Western European powers at the time. We can consider the era of colonization, starting with Napoleon's expedition to be an era of a de facto moderate Islam in the major countries of the Middle-East like Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), etc… that adopted to a great degree a modernized lifestyle and democratic legislative institutions inherited from the colonizing power.

 Wahabism is a conservative 18th century reform movement of Sunni Islam founded by Muhamed ben Abd-al-Wahhab, after whom the movement is named. Wahhabism formed the creed upon which the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded and is the dominant form of Islam found in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar, as well as some pockets of Somalia, Algeria and Mauritania  

Wahhabi theology treats the Kuran and Hadith as fundamental texts, interpreted upon the understanding of the first three generations of Islam and further explained by many various commentaries and the works of the earlier scholar Ibn Taymiyya, who sought the return of Islam to its sources, the Qur'an and the Sunnah.

Ibn Taymiyyah strongly opposed borrowing (knowledge, customs, etc..) from Christianity or other non-Muslim religions. In his text On the Necessity of the Straight Path (kitab iqtida al-sirat al-mustaqim) he preached that the beginning of Muslim life was the point at which ` A perfect dissimilarity with the non-Muslims has been achieved.

In other words, Wahabism is nothing more than, as it is called in evangelism, a “Revival” of Islamic orthodoxy practiced as in the time of Mohammad and his first three companions", using the same interpretations of the historical Islamic interpreters which have been approved by every Sunni Islamic authority.  

You can challenge any Scholar to show you any Wahabi interpretation that would differ from what is taught now at any Sunni institution, starting by the most prominent Al Azhar University in Cairo.

Conclusion: Wahabism is the TRUE Islam.  

According to a tacit agreement that sealed the power sharing in Saudi Arabia between the founder of the dynasty Ebn Saud and Mohamed ebn Abdel Wahab, the educational system has been in the grip of the Wahabi religious authority.

Mr. Bush and his administration can talk about the reform progress of the Saudi educational curriculum with all the optimism they want. As long as the Wahabi Islam is the prerequisite cornerstone of that curriculum, not only for the Saudi’s consumption, but exported all over the world including in America’s madrasas and mosques, you can rest assured that we’ll never run out of suicide bombers. What more proof do we need than today’s declarations from a high profile member of the royal family and a former deputy Minister of education?