8 Responses to “Ban Wahhabism in Sri Lanka – Save Muslims and Save Sri Lanka”

1. Lorenzo Says:
   March 30th, 2013 at 3:40 pm

   EVEN WITHOUT WAHABIS, Muslims have been very violent.

   e.g.

   Nalanda, Maldives Buddhist genocide by NON WAHABI Muslims
   1915 SL
   1985 AKKARAIPATTU anti-Tamil riots by Muslims
   1990 killing thousands of Tamils in Ampara by Jihad groups
   1999 destruction of Buddhist shrines in DIGGAWAPI
   2002 SLMC-LTTE pact to kill Sinhalese (Hack-him and VP signed it. Photos available in internet).
   2009 Beruwala violence on BOTH SIDES
   Shia-Sunni barbaric wars run for millennia (even without Wahabis).

   So what we now have is a FIGHT BETWEEN TWO VIOLENT GROUPS.

   We have to manage it to separate good Muslims from bad by creating a RIFT between Wahabis and other Muslims. Then the good ones will JOIN US. If we externally IMPOSE anti-Wahabi laws, then Muslims will get united. We should GET IT FROM THE Muslims by creating a RIFT between their sects.

   If we don’t create a RIFT among them, all Muslims will end up becoming Wahabis. We have to think STRATEGICALLY, not reactionary.

2. Lorenzo Says:
   March 30th, 2013 at 3:41 pm

   Divide and rule BOTH.

3. Nalliah Thayabharan Says:
   March 30th, 2013 at 5:00 pm

   Warlord Abdulaziz raided many places in Najd to feed his family. On the night of January 15, 1902, 26 years old warlord Abdulaziz led 40 men climbed over the walls of the city of Riyadh on tilted palm trees and took the city of Riyadh. The Rashidi governor of the city of Riyadh, Ajlan, was killed in front of his own fortress – Masmak fort. Beginning with the conquest city of Riyadh in 1902, Warlord Abdulaziz consolidated his control over the Najd in 1922, and then conquered the Hijaz in 1925. The Wahhabis and UK supported warlord Abdulaziz and legitimized warlord Abdulaziz and his fight against the Ottoman Empire. Having conquered almost all of central Arabia, UK supported warlord Abdulaziz united his dominions into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 and changed his name as King Saud bin Abdulaziz. Since then the House of Saud always supports UK and its allies including USA. Warlord Abdulaziz married more than twenty women and fathered over sixty eight children including all of the subsequent kings of Saudi Arabia.Today more than 7,000 princes in the House of Saud, the result of multiple wives and lots of progeny.
   In 1863 the Illuminati Ashkenazi Khazar Rothschilds used one of their agents in USA, John D. Rockefeller to form an oil business called Standard Oil which eventually took over all of its competition in USA. Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938 by US geologists working for Standard Oil. Standard Oil obtained a 50 year concession granted by Abdulaziz for an immediate payment of 30,000 gold sovereigns, veritably one of the greatest bargains in history. When the extent of huge oil reserves became evident in Saudi Arabia, Exxon, Texaco Mobil and others joined in Standard Oil to form the mighty Aramco consortium.
   In exchange for security of the House of Saud dynasty by USA, the Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth and revenues have been handed over for exploitation and benefit of the Zionists and their Wall Street Corporations. The House of Saud regime controls “the largest family business” in the world without any popular mandate or accountability.
   When Warlord Abdulaziz took control of the Holy Places in Arabia from the Ottoman Empire with British support, he destroyed 15 centuries of Islamic heritage, including the desecration of the tombs of the wives and companions of the Holy Prophet, in the iconoclastic imposition of Wahhabism. The iconoclastic Wahhabi House of Saud gradually destroyed several holy shrines, including historical places of Islam from the Prophet’s house in Mecca and companion Ayoob Ansari’s house in Medina and turned them into apartment buildings and hotels. They also turned the site of the Prophet’s wives’ houses into a parking lot. Art, Music, dancing, laughing and weeping (including at funerals) have been forbidden by the Wahhabis. For a Wahhabi listening to music or dancing is haram but detonating explosives and killing innocent human beings is permissible.
   To enforce Wahhabism morals enforcers known as mutawwiin have been integral to the Wahhabi movement since its inception. Mutawwiin serve as missionaries, as enforcers of public morals, and as “public ministers of the religion” who preach in the Friday mosque. In addition to enforcing male attendance at public prayer, the mutawwiin also have been responsible for supervising the closing of shops at prayer time, for looking out for infractions of public morality such as playing music, dancing, smoking, drinking alcohol, men having hair that is too long or women who are not fully covered and dressing immodestly.
   The Wahhabi-backed warlord Abdulaziz took full control of the Hijaz, Mecca and Medina, in 1924 and established the modern state of Saudi Arabia, with Wahhabism as its official religion. Since then the House of Saud has promoted Wahhabism as normative Islam throughout the Islamic world. The House of Saud was consolidated on massive oil wealth and has spent huge sums of money building Wahhabi mosques, publishing Wahhabi literature and funding Wahhabi organizations world-wide. Today, with Wahhabi control of the Holy Places intact, virtually every aspect and corner of modern Islam has been penetrated by Wahhabi influence through the agency of the House of Saud.
   Through the control of the Hajj – the beating heart of Islam – and through their vigorous publication and propaganda means, almost all the Muslims are infected with Wahhabism to some extent.
   In Saudi Arabia there is no Church, Synagogue, Buddhist or Hindu Temple is allowed. Wahhabism (pseudo Salafism) is NOT a religion of tolerance. Wahhabism provides the fundamental base for Jihadism which causes unending strife and misery. It is not Iran that should be bombed. In Iran there are still Jews living there and praying in their Synagogues. Muammar al-Gaddafi respected Christian and Jewish religions and their Churches, Synagogues in Libya but American, English, French, Saudi and Qatari financed terrorists destroyed Churches, Synagogues recently. Buddhist Temples including Bamiyan Buddha statues have survived in Islamic countries for centuries, but they could not survive under the Wahhabism.
   Washington and London are protecting Wahhabi extremists. In Syria Christians and their Churches were safe before the Westerners began sending their Wahhabi fanatics to kill innocent Syrian civilians.
   In Bosnia and Kosovo, under the guise of “reconstruction aid”, Saudi Arabia, Kuwaiti, and other Wahhabi organizations have demolished and removed major Islamic monuments (survived attacks by Serbian and Croatian militias) which were created by Muslims with an Islamic culture and tradition stretching back to 14th century long before Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab made his 1744 alliance with the warlord Muhammad Ibn Saud who founded the Saudi dynasty – House of Saud.
   In post- Muammar al-Gaddafi Libya,Wahhabi Jihadists bulldozed several Libyan Sufi mosques (including the Tripoli’s Al-Shaab Al-Dahman mosque) and Sufi graves (including the tombs of Libyan Sufi scholars Abdullah al-Sha’ab, Abdel Salam al-Asmar and of soldiers who fought Spanish colonialists). Wahhabi Jihadists also burned down several historic Sufi libraries in Libya recently.
   Since the start of the Arab Spring uprising by Wahhabi Jihadists, many Sufi sites have been attacked in Egypt, Mali and Libya by armed Wahhabi Jihadists.
   Because control of the world’s oil reserves also meant control of the world economy, Middle East was a vital prize for any power interested in world influence or domination. Because of the stupendous source of strategic power of Middle East oil and the immense wealth from this unparalleled material prize, UK and France reached a secret agreement in 1916 known as Asia Minor Agreement and divided the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East with UK cleverly keeping oil producing countries and even creating an artificial country like Kuwait. The 1945 signed memo between USA and UK says “US petroleum policy towards UK is predicated on a mutual recognition of a very extensive joint interest and upon control, at least for the moment, of the great bulk of the free petroleum resources of the world”. After the decline of UK and France, USA stepped in as the dominant neo-colonial power in the Middle East and elsewhere. Zionist policy is to keep the sources of oil in the Middle East under Zionist control. Zionist energy corporations have flourished with profits beyond the dreams of avarice with the Middle East their leading cash cow.
   The Sunnis- Shiites divide is too deep rooted and plays out daily in most Islamic countries. Shiites form the underclass in most Sunni ruled countries, but after 1979 have felt inspired and aided by Iran, have become empowered in Lebanon and elsewhere. The Sunnis-Shiites conflict which can be seen in daily blood bath in Iraq and in the Muslim world throughout its history cannot be stopped by “Fatwas”.
   Wahhabism is the only social structure in Saudi Arabia. There are no political parties, unions, or social organizations in Saudi Arabia. Wahhabi Saudi Arabia cannot stay at peace with the Shia Islamic Republic of Iran.
   Wahhabism is a desert cruelty used as a Muslim-Arab ideology to keep the House of Saud in power. The king of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah Aziz bin Saud, is 88 years old and the throne passes not from father to son but from brother to brother. Next in line to the throne Crown Prince Salman is already 77. While Saudi Arabia crumbles, massive oil revenues, which have long been used to buy public support, are being squeezed by sharply increased domestic demand and the Wahhabi Islamic establishment that supported the House of Saud is increasingly fractious and is losing credibility. High unemployment, corrupt bureaucracy, crippled economy, weak education system, and millions of frustrated youth are now battering Wahhabi Saudi Arabia.
   Pakistan President Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq was a pariah till 1979 for having ousted Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and hanged him. But suddenly Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq became the darling of the Western countries when he offered space, facilities and soul for the Jihad in Afghanistan. The great Jihad in Afghanistan was a big opportunity for Wahhabi Jihadists. Taliban was created with help and open recognition by Saudi Arabia and encouraged by USA to pacify Afghanistan after the chaos in the wake of withdrawal of Soviet troops. USA was interested in Zionists owned Union Oil using Afghanistan for petroleum pipe lines to transport central Asian energy to the Arabian Sea coast and beyond and to energy hungry fast developing India .Across Pakistan, the religious tenor has been correspondingly radicalised, the tolerant, Sufi-minded Barelvi form of Islam is now overtaken by the rise of the more hardliner and politicized Wahhabism. Remember Sri Lankan cricketers were ambushed in Lahore by armed Wahhabi Jihadists.
   Wahhabi cadres trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan on return to their countries in Middle East spread that culture, which now threatens most of them and has seeped even into Europe , which hosts tens of millions of Muslims .
   Present Zionist and Wahhabi doctrines foresee the fall of Iran, Belarus, and, ultimately Russia and China, after the fall of Damascus, to the combined forces of NATO and the Saudi- and Qatari-backed Wahhabis, who make up a large portion of the anti Syrian movement. Like Saudi Arabia, Qatar is also funds Wahhabi Jihadist movements world-wide. Saudi Arabia directly supported terrorist activities in several countries including Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Chechnya and Bosnia
   Sufism which is vigorously present throughout South Asia including Sri Lanka for several centuries, ia an entirely indigenous Islamic resistance movement to fundamentalism. Oil rich Saudi Arabia greatly began to penetrate Sri Lanka’s adherents to Islam in 70′s. With the increased funding by the Saudi Arabia with their petro dollars, Wahhabi followers have increased and are now responsible for the sectarian clashes that are slowly increasing among peace loving Sri Lankan Muslims especially in the Eastern Province. It is sadly true but there is a rising trend of Wahhabi Jihadism in Sri Lanka. Wahhabis are trying to take the peaceful Islamic community in Sri Lanka down the path of extremism and violence. Wahhabi fundamentalism has advanced so quickly in Sri Lanka partly because the House of Saud has financed the building of so many madrasas. The Wahhabis have already created deep divisions in among Sri Lankan Muslims and have formed gangs that intimidate moderate Muslims who speak out against Wahhabi fanatics. Like the Christian fundamentalist groups using NGOs to convert innocent poor families to Christianity, Wahhabis help poor Muslim families by providing cash and other material benefits to convert the innocent poor Muslim families into their cult. By building churches and madrasas all over the world to harvest the poor souls is truly very clever idea. Wahhabis even use Sri Lankan Government Cultural and Religious Affairs Departments to continue their nefarious activities.
   Wahhabis claim that moderate Sri Lankan Muslims do not know anything of Islam and only themselves are the real scholars of Islam. But Wahhabis preach only “dawah” of hatred, terror and murder. To understand the deranged mentality of Wahhabis look at the “fitna” the Wahhabis have caused in Pakistan. The Government authorities must investigate every Wahhabi school and propagandist in the Eastern Province to make sure they are not preaching things that are inimical to Sri Lanka. Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Wahhabi terrorist groups. Saudi Arabia spends 87 billion US dollar per year to spread Wahhabism world-wide. Scholarships are offered to our Muslims youths to go to Wahhabi institutions in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But those who completed their Wahhabi studies returned to Sri Lanka and propagate Wahhabism.
   Wahhabis have infiltrated Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC). Almost all the participants and staffers in the Muslim section of Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation are Wahabis and use the State radio to propagate Wahhabism. Not only Wahhabis run private unlicensed radio stations in the Eastern Province, also armed Wahhabis often attack mosques and leaders of the Sufi sect.
   Wahhabism in Srilanka is headquartered in Kattankudi is a new politico-religious movement that is sweeping the Eastern province of Sri Lanka with more than sixty Muslim Wahhabi organizations helping in propagating the movement throughout Sri Lanka and has raced ahead and taken control of the Jihadist and Al Fatah groups in Sri Lanka under their wings. Wahhabism is imported and planted in the midst of peace-loving Muslims in Sri Lanka, mostly through the lavish inflow of Saudi money pumped into Sri Lanka has overtaken other Islamic organizations by threats, intimidation and coercion.
   Remember Colonel Lateef was gun down by the prominent Wahhabi militant `Police` Faiz in Oddamavadi. CIA introduced Wahhabism in Sri Lanka through Saudi Arabia as a means of countering the growing support for Iran and Sufism among the Sri Lankan Muslims since CIA had calculated that Wahhabism would be an effective rival theology to prevent the spread of Iranian influence in Sri Lanka.
   Clashes between Sufis and Wahhabi Muslims in Kattankudi and Oddamavadi are regular occurrence. More than 200 homes of Sufi followers were burnt down by Wahhabi Jihadists in Kattankudi during similar clashes occurred in October 2004.
   One of the Sufi leaders Abdul Payilvan died in Colombo was buried at in Kattankudi the next day. Wahhabi Muslims observed a hartal and demanded the removal of the body from the burial grounds. Wahhabi Muslims claim Kattankudy soil is sacred and bodies belonging to those who preach views contradictory to Wahhabism should not be buried there. Wahhabis demanded that the body of Abdul Payilvan, who is from Maruthamunai in the Ampara district, should be exhumed and buried elsewhere.
   Wahhabis had dug up the buried body of another Sufi Muslim from Mosque burial grounds and dumped the body on a local road as an act of protest. Kattankudi Police recovered the body, re-buried it in the original burial ground and guarded burial ground for few days.
   In Kattankudi, the hatred between Wahhabis and Sufis has widened in the last few years and has grown in intensity, left many injured, and caused damage to several houses and vehicles. Though residing in Sri Lanka illegally, P Jainul Abedin – a powerful Wahhabi preacher from Tamil Nadu – is now leading the Wahhabi Jihadism in Kattankudi. A more recent 2009 clash in the south-western Muslim coastal town of Beruwala reflects similar religious tensions between a popular Sufi sheikh and a nearby Wahhabi congregation.
   Saudi agents have successfully penetrated Sri Lankan Muslims social fabric and have managed to defeat the Sufism in their game. Due to the training afforded by the House of Saud now the Wahhabis have prevailed over the Sufis. The Muslims in Sri Lanka have been subdued due to the Wahhabi influence while Buddhists have been agitating for the release of Rizana Naffek – teenage housemaid from Muthur who was sentenced to death by a Wahhabi Sharia Court in Saudi Arabia.
   The House of Saud pretending to be the leaders of the Islam promote their Wahhabi ideology world-wide. The result has been the birth of al-Qaida, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Wahhabi terrorist groups which are killing Sunni and Shia Muslims alike in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
   Wahhabism has been taking roots in Maldives from the days of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Abandoning its tolerant, syncretic brand of Islam, Maldives now moves towards an intolerant Wahhabi society. Recently two Maldives MPs – Dr Afrasheem Ali & Aishath Velezinee – were killed by Wahhabi Jihadists.
   Al-Qaida, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba are overseen by the CIA and Mossad who want to destabilise countries that are not friendly to them. Because the House of Saud depends on the Americans for its security it always obeys American orders. The constant demonization of Iran and now the war against Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad confirms a perception that Western Countries have joined with the Wahhabis in the Wahhabis’ war on the Shiites. Wahhabi Jihadism remains a long-term security risk to the civilized world. In particular, through the spread of Wahhabi education in tens of thousands of religious schools world-wide, the practitioners of Wahhabism are breeding tens of millions of youth who are certain to remain outside the productive economy, and as a consequence, seethe with resentment and anger against the rest of society.
   Even the forced exodus of the Hindu Pandit community from the Kashmir Valley in India during the early 1990s, and the destruction of several Hindu and Sikh temples by the Wahhabi Jihadists in Kashmir, failed to slow down the volume of laudatory coverage of what were portrayed Wahhabi Jihadists as freedom fighters battling cruel Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir State by the Western media. The “Kashmir Model” of using the language of democracy and human rights to win Western support, even while adhering to a contrary policy in practice was widely used to topple Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. Wahhabis hated Muammar al-Gaddafi for the fact that he ruled Libya, with no quarter given to Wahhabi demands as the imposition of Sharia law or the banning of women’s dress other than the abaya. After Muammar al-Gaddafi was defeated and killed, Wahhabi Jihadists who took over Libya as a result of huge help from Nicholas Sarkozy and David Cameron have lost no time in imposing a Wahhabi Sharia law in Libya and in killing and jailing those who disagree with extremist Wahhabi world-view. Fortunately for them, Western media channels that were once filled with news about Libya under Muammar al-Gaddafi are now silent about the immense human rights violations taking place in Libya after its “liberation” in 2011.
   Western governments and their media commentators now claim that the Wahhabi Jihadist “Muslim Brotherhood” is “moderate” and that the so-called “Wahhabi Salafis” in Egypt are merely “conservative.” Peace loving Muslims from the Balkans to Bengal have expressed their disagreement with this benign view.
   Seeing the success of such a pitch in Libya, Wahhabi Jihadists against the Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad, have begun cultivating the Western media and public opinion, the way the Wahhabi Jihadists in Kashmir used to do in the 1990s.
   So extreme has the identification with such elements become, that even the largest Western media outlets accept without question such “facts” as that Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad bombed his own troops and facilities in order “to blame it on the insurgents.” Since the armed uprising by Wahhabi Jihadists began in Syria several thousand members of the Syrian security forces and their family members have been killed by the Wahhabi insurgents, who themselves have lost thousands of their own.
   However, those relying on Western media are told that every such death has been caused by the Syrian security forces, ignoring the deadly violence that is being unleashed in Syria by groups of armed Wahhabi Jihadists.
   Today in Syria, women can dress as they please. Were the Wahhabi Jihadists to take control, this freedom might soon be replaced with the obligation to wear the full veil. Already in Egypt and in Tunisia, the secular ethos of the country is rapidly giving way to Wahhabism.
   While Western countries are opposed to Wahhabi Jihadism and Sharia law in their own countries, in the Arab countries they favor Wahhabi Jihadism over those who are secular. The result is a galloping Wahhabism and its Sharia law across the Arab countries.
   All the ‘Islamist’ terror attacks in South Asia including in Mumbai, Afghanistan and Pakistan had the hallmarks of Wahhabism. Wahhabi Jihadists are blinded by faith to believe that they have the mandate of Allah to rid the world of ‘infidels’ and ‘heretics’. Until this Wahhabism is thoroughly discredited,combating Wahhabi terrorism is impossible. Since the Western countries subterfuge to destabilise Sri Lanka, by surreptitiously supporting the LTTE failed, now the Western countries will promote Wahhabi Jihadism to cause strife and trouble to destabilize Sri Lanka. Wahhabi followers – al-Qaida, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Wahhabi terrorist groups – have caused untold misery in several countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Sri Lanka appears to be their next target. The Sri Lankan government must take immediate strict measures to control Wahhabi organizations and ban them. Wahhabis have already built several illegal Mosques in Sri Lanka using Saudi Arabia’s petro dollar. The overwhelming peace loving, tolerant and intensely patriotic Muslims of Sri Lanka will extend their support to the government in this matter. As the Wahhabis are even capable of starting ethnic riots between the peaceful Sinhalese and the Muslims, the Sri Lankan government must not be lethargic on this matter.
   Significant obstruction to Wahhabi aggression now appears in the peripheral Muslim communities, including the Balkans no less than Sri Lanka and India. Calling itself “the world’s largest democracy” and possessing the third largest Muslim population in the world, India has produced a stiffer resistance to Wahhabism than any of the lands of the “Arab Spring.” If Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar are bulwarks of extremism and tyranny, peace loving, tolerant and intensely patriotic Indian Muslims may provide a barrier to Wahhabi Jihadist ambitions. With their widely-respected intellectual heritage, their close link with spiritual Sufism, and their demonstrated loyalty to their mother land, the Indian Muslims have shown the world that Western governments are wrong to accommodate fanatic Wahhabism. The recent move by the Sri Lankan Controller of Immigration and Emigration Chulananda Perera in January 2012 to order a group of 161 foreign Wahhabi clerics who entered the country on tourism visas in small batches, without officially applying for permission to preach, to leave Sri Lanka highlights the role of Wahhabi Jihadists that is challenging the more moderate indigenous form of Sufi Islam in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s move against Wahhabi Jihadists was carefully nuanced, as it was also reported that both Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Minister Basil Rajapaksa agreed that the Wahhabis could re-apply for a religious visa to enter Sri Lanka.

4. Nalliah Thayabharan Says:
   March 30th, 2013 at 5:59 pm

   In 1953 Abdul Ibn Saud died. During his lifetime he had twenty-two wives that produced for him forty-five sons. He was able to take a land of feuding nomadic Bedouin tribes and in the span of few decades give them the country that became a religious and economic superpower.

   The eldest son of Ibn Saud also named Saud became the king, but his tenure was marred in controversy. He started spending lavishly on himself and his close circle while neglecting the basic needs of the country.His lifestyle did not always live up to his stature of the guardian of the holy places. Saud was also appointing his own sons to the most senior government positions surpassing the other more experienced members of the family.

   He took long tours of Europe with a huge entourage that cost enormous amounts of money. When Saud’s brother Faisal, who acted as the deputy Prime Minister, proposed an increased budget for the modernization of the Saudi army, the Saud family and ulama approved it. The new reform cut down substantially on Saud’s personal budget, infuriating him. The members of the Saud family and the ulama demanded King Saud to step dawn.

   He had no choice and in 1964 his brother Faisal Abdul Aziz became the third king of Saudi Arabia. Faisal was the son of Ibn Saud and the direct descendant of Abdul Wahhab, from his mother’ side. The Wahhabi creed was in his blood. He showed great interest in religious studies since he was a little boy and was able to forge strong relationships within the religious establishment.

   That served him well in his quest for the throne, as it was the ulama that played a major role in backing him against his deposed brother. During the Ibn Saud’s rule the religious establishment was playing a major role in internal politics of Saudi Arabia. But due to increased popularity of socialist ideas in Egypt, promoted by Gamal Abel Nasser, and other Arab countries including some circles in Saudi Arabia. Faisal decided to lean much more heavily on the ulama.

   He gave them the unprecedented powers including the complete control of the educational system. He also created additional ministries that ended up under the control of the Wahhabis. His desire to strengthen Islam within the Saudi society prompted him to reform the Committee for Encouragement of Virtue and Discouragement of Vice (also known as the Committee for Public Morality). He expanded the powers of mutawain, the religious police, who could now stop and arrest anyone who did not dress or act according to the religious rules put into the law.

   The mutawain has maintained these powers to this day. A very tragic example of their power was exhibited in 2002, when a girls’ school in Mecca caught on fire. First on the scene were muttawas who actually sent the girls back into the burning building to put on head scarves to preserve their modesty before they could be rescued. Fifteen girls were killed many more injured.

   Yet Faisal was also able to push through some economic reforms and carefully began introducing new technologies that greatly benefited the Saudi oil industry. That resulted in much improved economic conditions in the kingdom and the growing stature of Faisal himself. But Nasserism continued to be a major threat to Saudi interests.

   As a counterbalance to that threat the Saudis in 1962 established an international organization called Muslim World League. Its main goal was to promote Islam, and Wahhabism in particular, throughout the world. Even though the organization was called the World League, Saudis played a dominant role within the organization and they were the ones who financed it.

   The cold war between Saudi Arabia and Egypt has continued for a while, as both sides were heavily involved in the Yemeni civil war, Egypt on the side of pro-Nasser elements within Yemeni society and Saudis on the side of Islamic pro-Wahhabi segment of the population.

   The Arab-Israeli conflict and Six Day War completely changed the outcome of that conflict. Nasser had to withdraw a lot of his troops from Yemen and place them in the Sinai as Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq were preparing themselves for war with the Israelis. After the devastating loss to in Six Day War, Yemen was the last thing on Nasser’s mind and in the aftermath of this crushing defeat the Arab disputes had to take second place to the Zionist threat.

   In 1973 King Faisal imposed an oil embargo against the US and some other Western Countries in the aftermath of yet another war initiated by Egypt and Syria against Israel on the day of the Yom Kippur. The Saudi regime blamed the US for it’s support for Israel. He totally ignored the fact that it’s recent enemy Nasser and Syria were fully equipped by the Soviet block and the Americans had their own cold war to fight and could not afford the pro-Soviet Arab regimes become the dominant force in the Middle East. In 1975 King Faisal was shot and killed by one of his nephews during a reception.

   Faisal tried to modernize Saudi Arabia while giving the Wahhabis much greater power at the price of that modernization. His left a legacy of Saudi Arabia much stronger economically and militarily, while failing to bring about any social reforms. In fact the powers he gave to the religious establishment started the wheels of the radicalization of the Saudi society that eventually led to emergence of the world Map of Saudi Arabia wide Islamic militancy we are witnessing today that is not only threatening the West, but also craves the destruction of the House of Saud itself.
   Muslim Brotherhood

   During the 1960s Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser was trying very hard to wield his own influence on the Arab world. Nasser saw himself as the champion of the Arab revival, which he sought through Pan Arab solidarity and social reforms. But his socialist ideas of modernizing the Arab societies were a direct threat to the Saudi regime and created a lot of tension between the two countries. That period in Saudi-Egyptian relationship was called an Arab Cold War.

   But Nasser himself has found resistance for his reforms in his own back yard from the local Egyptian Islamic organization called Muslim Brotherhood, which grew independently from the Wahhabi movement. None-the less they were a lot of similarities between the two. Just like the Wahhabies the Muslim Brotherhood saw the revival of Arab culture through jihad and return to the Islam of the days of the prophet.

   The motto of the Brotherhood was: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope”.

   The Brotherhood was founded in 1929 by an Egyptian schoolteacher Hasan Al-Banna, and by the 1960s it grew to thousands of members in many Arab countries. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood initially supported the government but Nasser’s socialist inclinations eventually turned the Brotherhood against him. A Muslim Brother assassinated Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Nokrashi in December 1948.

   The Brotherhood was banned, and Al Banna himself was killed by Egyptian Government agents in 1949. In 1954 they tried to assassinate Nasser but their attempt failed and the Brotherhood was outlawed and thousands of it’s members imprisoned. Many were tortured and eventually executed by Nasser’s regime, others fled into exile with many prominent members of the Brotherhood finding a welcome in Saudi Arabia.

   The most prominent member of the Brotherhood executed by Nasser was the Sayyied Qutb, considered by many to be the father of modern Islamic extremism. Qutb was born in a remote village in Upper Egypt. As a child he received a religious education but later studied many other disciplines eventually becoming a schoolteacher.

   A talented man he was hired by the Egyptian Ministry of Public Instruction. From 1948 to 1951 he traveled to America on a scholarship to study the educational system, receiving a Master’s from the Colorado State College of Education. It is that experience that drastically altered his views of the Western world. American materialism and the freedoms its citizens enjoyed, especially women, was deeply disturbing to Qutb. He felt that American society was soulless and immoral.

   Upon his return to Egypt he resigned from the ministry of Education and devoted himself to promotion of the Islamic values, which he felt were totally superior to those of the Western world. He became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and after the assassination of Hasan Al-Banna its chief spokesman. Qutb became convinced that besides the West, the main enemies of Islam were the secular Arab leaders, like Egypt’s own Nasser.

   He considered Nasser’s regime corrupt and illegitimate, as it completely deviated from the Islamic values of prophet Mohammed. He advocated the establishment of the Islamic state first so then Islam could be imposed from above on Egyptian society. In his writings he provided an explanation of how a Muslim might justly assassinate a ruler. Killing political rulers under Islamic law was prohibited as even an unjust ruler was regarded as better than the complete state of anarchy. According to him, the ruler of a Muslim nation who doesn’t implement Islamic law is not really a Muslim.

   That being the case, they aren’t really a Muslim rulers any more, but rather infidels and jihad against Muslim unbelievers was a legitimate means for protecting the faith. For Qutb Islam was not just a religion but also a political weapon to bring about the changes into Arab society.

   According to Qutb the rulers of the Muslim courtiers were not the only ones to blame for the demise of once powerful Muslims societies. It was the Western civilization that dominated the world through technological advances that initially originated in the Islamic culture during the middle ages. It was that dominant military technology that allowed the Europeans to conquer immense territories around the world. He saw with his own eyes the technological superiority of the west during his visit to America.

   That’s how, in his view, the west exerted their domination over the Muslim world. He felt that the Christians completely deviated form the teachings of Jesus, and therefore no longer were considered to be the people of the Book, to whom prophet Mohammed refers to in the Koran. In fact he felt that the crusades were still ongoing and jihad against the west was not only legitimate but also necessary if Muslims were ever to regain their old glory.

   And of course there were Jews to whom Qutb devoted a lot of material. He describes them as a greedy and hateful people who conspire against the Muslims since the days of prophet Mohammed, and the creation of the state of Israel was just part of their campaign to destroy Islam. Qutb wrote several books, some of them in prison, until he was executed in August 1966. His ideas eventually found a huge following and his books are widely read in the Muslim world today. If one wants to find the source of inspiration for the modern Jihadi movements around the world, look no further. Sayyid Qutb is to the Islamist movement what Karl Marx was to Communism or Nietzsche to Fascism.

   His ideas came to life with the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat by an Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is ironic that it was Sadat who gave the Muslim Brotherhood more religious freedom as the weapon against the communists, but was not forgiven for signing the peace treaty with Israel. One of the individuals arrested for his assassination was Ayman Al Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor who eventually became Osama Bin Laden’s right hand man. The other well known students of Qutb’s ideology are Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and of course Al-Qaeda.

   It was this period in 1960’s that the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood found its home in Wahhabi dominated universities. Sayyid’s brother, Mohammed Qutb, exiled from Egypt came to Saudi Arabia where he published his brother’s books and taught in Islamic schools. Pakistani born Mawlana Abu Mawdudi, a journalist turned Islamic scholar and an ideological mentor to Sayyid Qutb, was also invited to teach the Saudi youth an ideology of jihad.

   Another notable radical teaching in Saudi schools was the blind Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for his role in 1993 World Trade Center bombing. During the 1980’s Ayman Al Zawahiri was welcomed to Saudi Arabia despite his involvement in the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Islamic intellectuals from Egypt poured into Saudi Arabia taking a prominent role in the country’s academia. In 1961 the Saudis unveiled the University of Medina which, unlike other colleges, was not under the jurisdiction of Ministry of the Education but rather under the control of the grand mufti of the kingdom, Sheikh Mohammed ibn Ibrahim Al al-Sheikh.

   It was sheikh Mohammed, the direct descendant of Abdul Wahhab, who provided major backing to King Faisal during his power struggle with his brother King Saud. Ever since then sheikh was the closest adviser to the King Faisal and was greatly influential in turning Faisal from the ruler who promised major reforms to someone who became the most stout propagandist and supporter of Wahhabi ideology.

   The University of Medina would invite students from all over the Muslim world to study the Wahhabi brand of Islam. In fact, eventually the majority of the student body of the university would be non-Saudi. Saudis were not known for their extreme hospitality for the fellow Muslims from the other countries but these foreign students would take their newly acquired knowledge to their own countries to spread the Wahhabi creed beyond the Saudi borders.

   Mawlana Mawdudi, has become the trustee of the new university. Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz was appointed as vice president of the university. Sheikh bin Baz would himself become a grand mufti in the 1990s. In 1967 King Faisal established King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, with main emphases on the Islamic studies. Both universities produced thousands of graduates who, over the next 20-30 years, spread the militant Islam all over the world.

   Well, what exactly did they study and why upon their graduation they would be so radicalized? We do not need to dig very far but rather look at some of the ideas their teachers advocated:
   – Mawlana Mawdudi – “Islam is a revolutionary doctrine and the system that overthrows the governments. It seeks to overturn the whole universal social order and establish it anew. Islam seeks the world. It’s not satisfied by peace of land but demands the whole universe.
   – Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz – “According to the Koran it is a requirement of the Muslims to be hostile to Jews, Christians. Hindus, Buddhists and other polytheists. Only through jihad against infidels could Muslims remove all obstacles and spread Islam worldwide”.

   It’s is chilling to read these words, as they were spoken many years ago, when Usama bin Laden was still a young boy and not the warrior for jihad he is today. The chilling part is how familiar these words are. Familiar because we hear them time and again today coming out of mouths and the pens of the Islamic extremists. So bin Laden did not write the book on hate. It was already written and not necessarily for him. There were thousands of graduates of this ideology and somebody was bound to pick up the sword of jihad. It was just a matter of time.

   King Faisal was succeeded by his brother Khalid who served as a king between 1975 and 1982. Two major events took place during those seven years that had a great impact on the path the Saudi Arabia took over the next twenty years. The first event took place in November of 1979, when Juhaiman al-Utaibi, a Wahhabi extremist who graduated from the University of Medina, and 250 of his followers took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca by force and held a few hundred people hostage for two weeks.

   After consulting with ulama the decision was made by King Khalid to deal with the assailants by force. There were hundreds of casualties on the both sides and it was rumored that French commandos helped in putting down this revolt. The incident exposed the vulnerability of the Saudi regime. Juhaiman al-Utaibi’s main purpose was to topple the Saud family as he believed that they were a corrupt entity.

   He called them infidels who deviated from teachings of the Koran and sold their soul to the West. He denounced the personal behavior of Saudi princes, such as drinking, gambling and womanizing, as unacceptable for the rulers of an Islamic state. It’s important to note that the ulama condemned the actions of al-Utaibi, but refused to condemn his message.

   The most troubling for King Khalid was the fact that the militants were originally from the Najd province the birthplace of the Wahhabi movement. Even though al-Utaibi and almost 60 of his followers were arrested and eventually publicly executed, his death was not in vain. Right after the revolt was dealt with, the Saudi regime cracked down on the very limited freedoms of their citizens in the very harsh way, adapting the very ideas of the executed al-Utaibi. Women were no longer allowed to appear on TV, music was forbidden in the media, stores were required to be closed during the mandatory daily prayers and criticisms of the West and US in particular was not discouraged.

   The other event that took place around the same time, the Saudis had no control over. It was the Iranian Revolution.

   If February 1979 the seemingly stable regime of the Iranian Shah Resa Pachlavi has collapsed. Just like Saudi Arabia, Iran was one of the major producers of oil in the world. The Iranian economy that grew with oil revenues was dependant on the huge mass of Iranian workers who served the oil industry.

   But the problem was that Shah spent a big portion of the oil revenues on the modernization of the army and maintaining the lavish lifestyles of his family and the Iranian elite at the expense of the impoverished working class. The corruption was rampant. Savak, the secret police, could arrest and torture people with impunity. The Disconnect between the ruling class and the masses grew wider and wider until it got to the point that even the peasants and the intelligentsia took to the streets. When Iranian army’s loyalties split between Shah and sympathy for the people the Shah’s regime was finished.

   Ayatollah Khomeini returned from his Parisian exile as the savior who would bring Iran from the ruins of the Pachlavi regime and the anarchy that ensued after his departure into the new society that lived under the Islamic law.
   The mullahs did not waste a lot of time and concentrated the power in the hands of the members of the religious consul that chooses it’s Supreme Leader and has the last word on any internal or external issues. It closely resembled the way the Soviet Politburo used to select their leaders.

   The revolution provided a great inspiration to jihadists of every creed. Now there was a blueprint on how to bring about an Islamic revolution in their countries For Saudis the Iranian revolution was a huge shock. Now there was another Muslim country that claimed to be living under the Islamic law and rival the Saudis influence on the Muslim world. It had it’s own ideology, it’s own oil and the wherewithal to export their own brand of Islam to the other Muslim countries. In addition, the Wahhabies deeply despise Shiites.

   They do not even consider Shiites to be Muslims and it was not too long ago that Wahhabies used to invade and plunder Shiite populated areas of the Arabian Peninsula killing as many people in the process as they could. When in September of 1980, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, the Saudis supported the Sunni dominated regime of Saddam Hussein, even though Saddam’s Baath Party was anti-religious, pan-Arabist entity in the mold of late president of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser, the sworn enemy of the Saudi regime.

   Like Nasser, Saddam Hussein saw himself as a new leader of the Arab world and was not shy when it came invading his neighbors. The Iran-Iraq war lasted for 8 brutal years taking millions of lives. When it ended in 1988 neither side has made any significant gains and only few years later Saddam invaded Kuwait with his eye on the big prize, the Saudi Arabia.

   The Saudis could not just sit back and allow Khomeini to be the face of Islam to the rest of the world and especially to the other Muslims. In 1987 they called the Muslim World League conference attended by representatives of over one hundred countries. They wanted to show the Muslim world that they are still the major religious and geopolitical power. The Saudis used the conference to condemn the Khomeini regime. Khomeini in turn countered by calling the Saudis the “vile and ungodly Wahhabies”. The new Middle East cold war between the Sunni and Shiia Islam has began and it is still alive today with Iraq as new battlefield.

   In 1982, after the death of King Khalid, his brother Fahd came to power. He understood early on that in the neighborhood where the likes of ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein were in power, he needed a strong ally he could rely on for protection. The U.S. was such an ally. But in the country where any fraternity with Christians would be highly unpopular, the new king needed to convince the religious authority to accept the increased presence of American power.

   The ulama complied but, at the price. The price was even stricter religious laws enforced in the country that already was one of the most repressive in the world. But Saudis did not just hire themselves a powerful bodyguard. They went a step further. The decision was made to export the Wahhabi ideology to the rest of the world on a massive scale and doing it by using the most effective weapon ever created by men – MONEY.

   The turmoil of the Iran-Iraq war, which involved the two major oil producers, pushed prices of oil to the record highs. The oil revenues were pouring in the Saudi treasury. It was Sheik bin Baz who advocated that that this wealth needed to be spent wisely. He advocated a financial jihad. The huge sums of money would be spent on advancing the Wahhabi ideology all over the world including the United States. But the biggest donations went to Muslim countries, especially Pakistan, a Sunni dominated Muslim State, that also happened to be bordering Iran.

   Thousands upon thousands of religious schools, or madrassas, began to open up to the impoverished populations of countries like Afghanistan and Indonesia, where these schools would be the only shot for a lot of children at any kind of education. Of course they did not learn there any skills that would help them to better their lives. What they did study was just the Koran and how to fight polytheists, infidels and the like. And of course the all-encompassing concept of jihad that needed to be waged on unbelievers.

   The staggering amounts of petro-dollars were spent to open up madrassas, mosques and Islamic centers in dozens of countries including Sri Lanka. But at the end of the day the goal was not to improve the lives of those peoples but to have the armies of newly brainwashed young men to wage a jihad on the rest of the world to advance the interests of the Wahhabi creed.

   When people in the West think about the one person most responsible for taking the idea of the jihad or the holly war to the global arena, the name that pops to mind is Osama bin Laden. Yet it was a man called Abdullah Azzam who is mostly responsible for taking the fight against the non-believers to their own backyard. Abdullah Azzam was born near the West Bank Palestinian town of Jenin. He grew up idolizing Sayyied Qutb and showed a lot of dedication in mastering the Islamic studies. He ended up going to some of the best universities the Arab countries had to offer, including the University of Damascus and famous Al-Aznar University in Egypt. It was during that period that Azzam joined the Muslim Brotherhood. He started teaching in the University of Jordan in Amman, but was dismissed due to his Muslim Brotherhood ties.

   He fled to Saudi Arabia where became a professor in the University of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. There he worked with the brother of his idol Sayyied Qutb. Mohammed Qutb has lived in Saudi Arabia for years publishing his brother’s books and teaching his philosophy to Saudi youth. The most famous student Mohammed Qutb and Abdullah Azzam shared was the tall young Saudi named Osama bin Laden. Even though Abdullah Azzam was a lifelong member of the Muslim Brotherhood he was greatly influenced by Wahhabi teachings while living in Saudi Arabia.

   He developed a great relationship with Sheik bin Baz who put his stamp of approval on Azzam’s writings and ideas. Not surprisingly the main theme of Azzam’s writings were centered around the idea of jihad. What separated Azzam from many others who promoted jihad is that he put his ideas into practice. In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Abdulla Azzam was the first notable Muslim who called to arms.

   With the blessing of his Saudi patrons he moved to Peshawar Pakistan, closer to the action, where by early 1980’s he was running the offices of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Muslim World League out of a modest storefront raising money and recruiting volunteers to flight against the Soviets. Even though the fighters came from all over the Muslim world, the majority of the financial backing came from the Saudis and the charitable organizations. Abdullah Azzam became the point man in supporting the Afghan resistance against the Soviets.

   He established close relationships with Gubbaldin Hikmetyar, the leader of one the multiple Afghan resistance factions and Abdul Sayyaf an Afghan Islamic scholar whom the Saudis sent to Peshawar to promote Wahhabism. In 1984 Azzam was joined by Osama bin Laden. The two of them established an organization called Maktab al-Khidamat or MAC. They opened branches in thirty countries, including Europe and United States, where they were raising money and distributed propaganda material amongst local Muslim populations.

   Abdullah Azzam himself visited the US on numerous occasions in the 1980s. Azzam, who was known for his great oratorical skills, would deliver fiery speeches in the local mosques. In 1988 in Al-Farook Mosque in Brooklyn Azzam called on carrying out the jihad on infidels even in America. His associate Osama bin-Laden eventually followed up on that call striking the World Trade Center located only few miles away from where Azzam was delivering his speech.

   The US was pretty active in Afghanistan during those years, as Afghanistan became the major battlefield of the Cold War. It was the introduction of the Stinger missiles by CIA to Afghan fighters and the training they provided that turned the tide of war if favor of the Afghan resistance. Of course the jihadists, claiming that by the time the Stingers were provided to the Afghans the war was already won, later vehemently denied it. But the facts tell a different story.

   It was Soviet air power that operated all over Afghan territory with impunity, inflicting massive casualties, numbering in tens of thousands, on Afghan fighters and the civilians. Afghan resistance had very limited ability to fight against it until they got their hands on Stingers. Afghan fighters learned pretty quickly how to use this shoulder carried missile launcher with deadly precision. The Soviet Air Force began losing a lot of their fighter planes and military helicopters. The war for Soviet Army had became costly not only in human life but also very expensive financially.

   It has been argued that Soviet Union never fully recovered from the Afghan war and that is what eventually brought about the collapse of the Soviet regime. During his recruitment speeches, Azzam told the stories of the incredible fighting spirit of Mujaheddin warriors attributing to them almost mystical powers in their fight against much stronger enemy because God was on their side. And even though Afghan resistance fought fiercely against the Soviets, it was the combination of their relentless resolve, the collapse of the morale of the Soviet army and the “Stingers” that forced the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan in 1989.

   By the late 1980s, when it became apparent that the Afghan war was near its end, Azzam was already thinking about expending his jihad throughout the world. The money was pouring into MAC from international charities, the Saudi Intelligence, Muslim World League and other sources. There was no lack of volunteers ether. These men would become known as Afghan Arabs. Years later these men could be found fighting wars from Bosnia to Chechnya and committing acts of terror from the Philippines to Spain. Azzam’s dream of worldwide jihad was becoming reality. Nothing short of the old Muslim glory and the defeat of infidels all over the world would suffice.

   In 1989 Azzam and two of his sons were assassinated in Peshawar. Nobody claimed responsibility. Some speculate that Soviet Intelligence took revenge on him. Others say it was the rival Islamic groups wary of Azzam’s growing power and popularity who were responsible for it. Azzam left behind the legacy of how to take the theory of jihad and actually practice it. He also left behind the powerful financial and recruiting infrastructure, that later would be used by his student Osama bin Laden to built Al Qaeda and wage a jihad against the only remaining superpower, the US.

5. Nalliah Thayabharan Says:
   March 30th, 2013 at 7:04 pm

   The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has created millions of Afghan refugees’ the majority of whom fled to Pakistan and lived in poverty stricken refugee camps along the Afghan-Pakistani border. After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan some of the refugees began to return to their homeland only to find it still at war, except this time amongst the Afghans themselves.

   Even though in 1992 an alliance of Mujahideen has set up an interim government with Burhaneddin Rabbani as the president, the new government could hardly control Kabul, with the rest of the country being divided into arias of control amongst the warlords. That division was religious and ethnic based. While the majority of the Afghans are ethnic Pushtus, there are other nationalities such as Tajics, Uzbeks, Hazaras and Turkmens that have lived in Afghanistan for hundreds of years.

   The areas of control would change hands sometimes on a weekly basis, with the civilian population getting the worst of these exchanges. Banditry and lawlessness became the norm. So it was not surprising that the religious student movement that emerged from the rural areas of Afghanistan and the refugee camps in Pakistan found support amongst the Afghan population exhausted from the years of war.

   In 1994 under the leadership of a Kandahar based mullah named Mohammed Omar, the Taliban movement began. Taliban took over the country by promising the citizens to end the anarchy and chaos brought about by the civil war. But the emergence of the Taliban as the major power in the country began with most modest goals, none of which had anything to do with religion. Afghanistan for centuries was used as the major trading route for Pakistani businessman and Pakistani trucking mafia, which contributed heavily to Pakistan’s economy.

   Due to the anarchy and all out fighting between the Afghan warlords and banditry along the trucking convoy routes the trading business for Pakistan all but stopped. Pakistani intelligence made a deal with about 200 Taliban fighters to clear the roads near the Pakistani border from the bandits with the offer of a permanent stipend. Taliban fighters routed the local bandits and with the help of Pakistani advisers took over huge arms depot where they seized as many as 18,000 Kalashnikov rifles and ammunition left over by the Soviet Army.

   As the Taliban took over the areas of control from local warlords they established the Sharia Law in the areas of their control. The word spread amongst the Afghan refugees in Pakistan that an Islamic movement has emerged in Kandahar under Mullah Omar’s leadership with the goal of uniting the country. Volunteers poured from refugee camps and the religious schools from all over Pakistan to fill the swelling ranks of the emerging Taliban army. Within a couple of years Taliban had the majority of the country under its control.

   Even though they originally promised to treat all ethnic and religious minorities with respect, that notion soon disappeared. Taliban represented primarily the majority ethnic group of Pushtuns and at the end were pursuing their own ethnic interests as well as an agenda to instill their own form of Islam on all citizens of Afghanistan. Religion has always played an important role in Afghanistan. For the most part Afghans were historically pretty tolerant when it came to the practice of Islam. Ninety percent of Afghans belong to the Sunni Hanafi sect, considered to be the most liberal of the four Sunni schools of thought.

   Another factor for the practice of moderate Islam is the popularity of Sufism. The Sufis built their faith on prayers, dances, music and sessions of physical shaking in a permanent quest for truth. Islamic extremism in Afghanistan emerged with the Taliban’s rise to power. Even though the tradition of religious schools in Afghanistan dates back to the seventh century, it was the way the religious schools taught their students in the impoverished refugee camps of Pakistan that brought about the way Taliban interpreted Islam. Originally the religious schools in refugee camps were established in the tradition of Deobandi philosophy.

   The Deobandi tradition originated in India with the aim of rejuvenating Islamic society under British colonial rule. It remained prevalent in Pakistan even after the partition from India. The extreme form of Deobandi Islam was heavily preached in refugee camps by Pakistani Islamic parties and since a lot of these schools were in the rural areas the teachers for the most part were semi-literate mullahs who themselves were not religious scholars by a long shot.

   The finished product was very far from the original reformist agenda of Deobandi School. In addition, the Saudis poured tons of money into these madrassas (the religious schools) and because of it greatly influenced the schools curricula. The type of Islam that ended up being taught there was based very little on Deobandi and very much on the traditional extremist Wahhabi school of thought. It should come as no surprise that the new Taliban regime was recognized only by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

   Saudi Support for the Taliban regime and their military campaign was very substantial. Member of the Saudi Royal Family, prince Turki, visited Kandahar regularly, providing financial as well as material support. Saudi Wahhabi ulema (the religious counsel) along with Saudi Intelligence developed a close relationship with the Taliban. The two key players who pushed the Royal Family to support the Taliban were Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Juber, the Minister of Justice of Saudi Arabia.

   In return for Saudi support, Taliban adapted some Wahhabi practices such as an establishment of religious police, which brutally suppressed any freedoms enjoyed by the Afghan people prior to the Taliban. Taliban took their fanaticism to another level. Soccer games were forbidden and the stadiums used for public executions instead. Television, radio and Internet were all forbidden. Men were required to wear beards and were punished if they did not.

   But the most vicious repression Taliban had saved for women. Girls were banned from attending the schools. Women could not leave home without being accompanied by a male relative and when they were out on the street they were supposed to wear burka that covered them from head to toe. Any woman that was caught breaking these rules was subjected to beatings, or even execution, at the hands of “Ministry for the protection of virtue and prevention of vice”. In 1997 one of the Taliban leaders, mullah Rabbani, met in Riyadh with King Fadh of Saudi Arabia.

   The king praised Taliban for imposing the Sharia law in areas of their control and Rabbani in turn sang praises for the king and the support the Saudis provided for the Taliban. “The Saudis have promised us as much as we need ” boasted another Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Stanakzai. There was also another reason why the Wahhabi ideas were gaining influence within the Taliban leadership. In 1996 Osama bin Laden moved his residence to Kandahar, close to the Taliban leaders.

   He greatly influenced how the Taliban perceived the world, as most of them had never been outside Afghanistan. In fact mullah Omar married one of bin Laden’s daughters to seal their union in the same way Abdul Wahhab and Ibn Saud did a couple of centuries earlier. In 1996, with the support of the Pakistani Intelligence agency ISI, Taliban overthrew the legitimate regime of president Burhanuddin Rabbani and established their own regime that was based on the narrowest interpretation of Sharia law.

   Pakistan’s support of the Taliban was very substantial. It included the funding, diplomatic support, military training, recruiting fighters from Pakistan and other countries. Pakistan’s support was not limited to logistics only. Pakistani army officers helped Taliban with the planning and directing major military operations and on several occasions directly providing combat support. As many as thirty trucks a day were reported crossing the Afghan border from Pakistan, carrying ammunition for the Taliban fighters.

   Such deliveries were in direct violation of U.N. sanctions. It was estimated that up to 25-30 % of the Taliban army was made up of Pakistanis and volunteers from Arab states and North Africa. By 2001 Taliban controlled almost the entire country with the exception of a small region in the north under the control of Ahmad Shah Masud.

   On September 9th 2001 Shah Masud was assassinated. Two men from Algeria posing as journalists apparently hid the explosive device in their camera while interviewing Masud at his headquarters. Masud had repeatedly accused the Taliban of using foreign warriors, particularly from Arab countries and neighboring Pakistan. Mullah Omar did not have connections stretching as far as Algiers, but Osama bin Laden did. The support of most vicious terrorism in the name of God was an integral part of the union between the Taliban and Wahhabi ideology represented by bin Laden.

   By 2001 bin Laden had thousands of jihadists from all over the world training in his camps in Afghanistan with the blessing of their Taliban hosts and financial and moral support of many millions of Muslims all over the world. Even after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the attack on Cole the activities of bin Laden and his Taliban hosts were primarily viewed as law enforcement issues. The caricature-like figures of the Taliban fighters shown by the Western media evoked more of a smile then a fear. Public declaration of the holy war by Usama bin Laden against the US was met by many as nothing more than an empty threat.

   The US have urged the Saudis to exert pressure on the Taliban to deport Osama bin Laden. But it was an event of much lesser importance that eventually led the Saudis to sever diplomatic relationships with the Taliban. The event was an insult directed by Mullah Omar against the visiting member of the Royal family, prince Turki. So much for the foreign policy based on the national interests of Saudi Arabia. Official Saudi aid reportedly stopped, but Saudi money and support continued to find its way to the Taliban in the form of private contributions.

   After the 9/11 Taliban was given an ultimatum by the US ether to give-up bin Laden or face extermination. Taliban chose extermination. Conversely the new Pakistani leader, Pervez Musharif, understood the gravity of the September 11th event immediately. Rather then face the grave consequences, he chose to cooperate with US. The other major Taliban ally, the Saudis, initially looked like they escaped unharmed by all the Taliban and Osama bin Laden fiasco. Unfortunately for them everything in the world has a price.

   Bin Laden today is viewed by many as some kind of Muslim Robin Hood who was fighting for the dignity of his people and was protecting Islam from the infidels who are out to destroy the Muslim civilization. bin Laden proclaimed many times to the world that he was at war with the West . His emergence was not accidental. He did not just appear out of the thin air to announce his hatred for the West.

   Even though he did not show extremist tendencies as an adolescent, his environment of growing up in the Whahhabi-dominated society eventually caught up with him. His complete transformation took place under the tutelage of his college professors such as: Mohammed Qutb, Abdullah Azzam and others in the University of Jedda. His professors were put in those universities with the blessing and money provided by the Saudi Royal Family.

   The curriculum of Wahhabi doctrine was developed and approved by Saudi Religious Consul or “ulema”. Incidentally that curriculum did not change since 9/11. The scary part is that thousands upon thousands of young men graduate from Islamic Universities in Saudi Arabia, just like bin Laden did, and a lot of them no doubt share his views. And yet like bin Laden they are the product of the society that leads a dual life and lies to itself and the world and seems to exist with one desire in mind – to survive for as long as possible.

   Bin Laden was able to support terrorist camps in Somalia, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan. Even with his considerable resources, After 9/11 dozens of Muslim charities that were implicated in supporting terrorism were shut down in United States alone.

   The Saudi government-ran telethon in April of 2002. The Saudis organized a two-day telethon in support of the Palestinian Intifada, which raised over 100 million dollars. Callers to Saudi telethon said they were donating money to ensure the continuation of suicide bombings. The host of the telethon Shaikh Saad Al-Burak, a Wahhabi cleric close to the Royal family, a few days later was recorded preaching in the Riyadh government mosque. Here are just a couple of samples of what his sermon was about:

   “Which is better to suffer a slow death or die as the martyr on your way to heaven? A death that you will be forgiven on the first drop of your blood” “I am against America until this life ends, until the day of Judgement” “Muslim Brothers in Palestine do not have any mercy or compassion on Jews, their blood, their money, and their flesh. Their women are yours to take legitimately. God made them yours. Why don’t you enslave their women? Why don’t you wage jihad. Why don’t you pillage them?”

   How is what Mr. Al-Burak wass saying is so different from what bin Laden and Al Zawahiri had been saying all those years? It sounds like a song written by the same composer and this particular singer, was sitting pretty in his comfortable home in Riyadh, while bin Laden was freezing his bones in the mountains of Afghanistan. Bin Laden’s sin was not killing the enemies of Islam or organizing the terrorist activities around the world. His mistake was that he accused the Saudi Royal Family of treason, corruption and squandering of the country’s resources on personal lavish lifestyles. The Saudi ruling elite with its Western education and Western friends enjoys a lifestyle very few in this world can even dream about and yet it’s legitimacy and survival depends on conservative fundamentalism Wahhabi style.

   The alliance forged between Abdul Wahhab and Mohammed ibn Saud in 1744 is the cornerstone of existence of the Saudi Kingdom and that is not going to change. It’s like a death dance out of which there is no escape.

   It’s funny to hear the world leaders appealing to the Saudi regime to curtail their support for terrorist movements around the world and stop teaching their young people the ideology of hate. The moment the Royal family stops supporting the Wahhabi lobby its days would be numbered. At the same time the Wahhabi lobby will never give up what is most sacred to them, their brand of Islam. Their devotion to it is fanatical.

   Saudi Arabia, who bankrolled the Wahhabi movement over the last three decades with their oil revenues, are not exactly feeling safe these days. The Saudi regime is not worried about their outside enemies. The infidel West, who is taught to be hated in Saudi schools, would never allow anyone to harm the biggest oil producer in the world. It’s the enemy from within that would eventually bring dawn the house of Saud. Saudi Arabia’s export of Wahhabism has eventually boomeranged back home.

   These days a lot more people inside the Saudi Arabia are beginning to question the legitimacy of Royal family. In fact it went much farther then just asking questions. 2004 marked the first suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia. These days the terrorist activity in the kingdom is a norm. Terrorists primarily target the foreign workers without whose presence the oil industry in the Kingdom would come to a standstill. But just like bin Laden preached, the jihadists want all non-Muslims to leave the land of Prophet.

   Billions of dollars spent on education in the Saudi Arabia have produced, for the most part, the religious clergy rather then doctors and engineers. There is hardly a week that goes by that someone is not killed by home grown terrorists. Saudis publicly joined the war on terror, except they are the biggest sponsors of it.

   The goal of militant Islam is to dominate the world. It is also becoming pretty clear that they will stop at nothing to accomplish that goal. Nothing is off the table. On February 23, 1998 at the meeting of International Islamic Front for jihad against Jews and Crusaders bin Laden issued a fatwa ( a religious ruling): “To kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is a duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to” It’s worth noting that bin Laden does not distinguish between government, military or civilians.

   On September 3, 2004 the Chechen terrorists took the lives of at least 338 people after they seized a school building with over 1000 students and adults in Beslan, Russia. Amongst the dead were 156 children. As children ran for their lives, these warriors of God were shooting them in the back. Enemy has no gender, no color and no age. Their leader, a former officer in the Soviet Army and a recently Wahhabized warlord, Shamil Basaev, sent them there to start the war that would spread all over the Caucasus.

   For years the leaders of the Muslim countries have been telling their populations that it’s the West that is responsible for all their ills and not their own dictatorial regimes that been sucking the blood out of their peoples for decades. Add to that the full-scale religious propaganda campaign depicting Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists as monsters that kill and abuse Muslims and have a secret plan to keep them down for eternity.

   It was the Islam’s golden age between 750 and 1250 C.E. that produced the great gains in science, art and philosophy. It was far from perfect as Jews, Christians and other religious minorities were obligated to pay a special tax for belonging to a different faith, but in most cases civilizations conquered by Islam remained administratively and intellectually intact.

   Christians and Jews were able to coexist in an atmosphere of tolerance learning from each other and incorporating into their lives the best the other side had to offer. It was during that period that algebra was born. Industries like ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles and woodwork flourished. Medicine was developed as a science based on observation and experiment, rather than on conjecture. Works of Greek philosophers were translated into Arabic and taught in universities.

   The reason for that explosion of thought was because that civilization was multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic. People who made the largest contributions were Muslim Arabs and Persians, Jews and Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. The influences on each other’s cultures were immeasurable. It’s the period that produced Avicenna, Maimonides and ibn Rashid, just to name few, who greatly contributed to the progress of all humanity.

   What a drop from above mentioned names to Abdul Wahhab, Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden. From the days when there were as many scientists as they were mullahs to the days when one of the richest countries in the world like Saudi Arabia can not operate without importing foreign workers. From enlightenment and progress to culture that promotes hatred and suicide bombings. Most Muslims today live under dictatorship ether military or religious.

   The biggest export of the last 50 years coming out of these countries besides oil is religious fundamentalism. Thanks to unlimited amounts of money coming out of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, jihadist movements can be found today around the globe from the Philippines to Chechnya. Some perfect examples are the recently created countries of Central Asia like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

   These countries found independence after the disintegration of the Soviet Union more then a decade ago. The people, that for centuries practiced the tolerant version of Islam, were wahhabized almost overnight. The formula was already in place:

   – Find a country that has a poor Muslim population dissatisfied with their current condition and their rulers
   – Find a charismatic leader that would take it upon himself to educate his people about benefits of living under Sharia Law
   – Throw thousands of free Korans and propaganda books, If you throw enough money around, you’ll find a lot converts rather quickly
   – Give it some time and you’ll find that a lot of these people, that only recently were engaged in all the sins known to men, are now driven by the belief in their divine purpose to change the world

   Some of these countries ended up with prolonged civil wars that brought nothing but death, poverty and misery to its populations. This was a present from the Wahhabis to their fellow Muslims. The militant Islam declared a war on the world. There is not a day that passes by without a carnage taking place somewhere in the world like suicide bombings in Iraq, Shiite mosques in Pakistan, tourist resorts in Egypt, schools in Russia and trains in India.

6. Ben Silva Says:
   March 31st, 2013 at 2:45 am

   Wahhabism IS A very DANGEROUS MIND VIRUS AFFECTING THE BELIEVERS AND SHOULD BE BANNED. Religions which preach non believers should be killed should be banned. Why have we not learnt lessons from Nalanda debacle ? Also should be banned are Indian myths such as Nirvana, promoting extinction and giving up desires. Desires is the driving force in modern economics. If Sinhalese give up desires, as suggested by the Indian religion, they will end up as the poorest of the poor and that is what has taken place.

7. Senevirath Says:
   March 31st, 2013 at 2:27 pm

   B.B.S HAS NEVER KILLED A SNIGLE MUSLIM BUT MUSLIMS ARE KILLING MUSLIMS . BUT THESE MUSLIMS FIGHT WITH SINHALESE. Where there are muslims there is unrest. all non muslim countries are 100 times peaceful civilised and disciplined than islamic countries

   But the problem in sri lanka is no body trying to educate the majority about these facts given by NALLIAH.
   SL. newspapers will not publish these articles– not even”” JATIKA PATHTHARA—“‘

   I sent so many articles to sinhahala newspapers but they never published them . Then i had to publish them on my own.

   B.B.S should do this. Mahanayakas are not bothered .

   My bro
   just send these articles to the papers and see what happens. just try it for sake of mankind and please let us know

8. Voice123 Says:
   April 2nd, 2013 at 2:04 am

   “Remember Colonel Lateef was gun down by the prominent Wahhabi militant `Police` Faiz in Oddamavadi. CIA introduced Wahhabism in Sri Lanka through Saudi Arabia as a means of countering the growing support for Iran and Sufism among the Sri Lankan Muslims since CIA had calculated that Wahhabism would be an effective rival theology to prevent the spread of Iranian influence in Sri Lanka.”

   I think Nalliah is correct. The CIA is promoting Wahabist extremism in Sri Lanka, via Saudi Arabia: a) to counter Shiite Iranian influence; and b) use it for “Plan C” if Plan B for regime change in SL fails. America can directly attack SL on the pretext of Islamic fundamentalism. The West fights Wahabism only in their “pure and free” societies. They want to plunge the third world into Wahabist mayhem as a pretext for invading. It worked like a charm in the Middle East.

   Sri Lanka must declare ALL Wahabist institutions, schools, NHOs etc terrorists and enemies of the stare, the same as the LTTE.

   Lorenzo, I think you have been misled on this issue.

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