Another terrorist in the Kingdom has turned himself in. Another sigh of relief went through the Kingdom.
But that does not mean the battle is over. Those terrorists have followers all over the Kingdom. According to the media advisor to the Saudi Ambassador in London, their numbers range between 400 and 500. In an interview with National Public Radio, he said, it was a problem here in the Kingdom but “has not reached the level of a crisis”.
I agree that the problem has not reached crisis level in the Kingdom. However, he did not mention a very important point that was touched on by another guest: Radicalism in the country. Extremism breeds terrorism. There’s nothing new about that. All the terrorists who have been killed since last year and those who are still at large are the products of extremism; all of them have a radical ideology and mindset.
In 1979, a group of extremists seized the Grand Mosque in Makkah. They were on a rampage and they revolted against the government, accusing our leaders of being false Muslims and the state of being un-Islamic. For almost a week, there were no prayers or calls for prayers in the Grand Mosque, putting a stop to a ritual that has been going on nonstop since it was built. Saudi forces later stormed the Grand Mosque and the radicals were killed.
Twenty-five years later, another group of extremists pop up. They follow the same ideology as the Juhaiman group, but break new ground by killing anyone who supports the government. They accuse other Muslims of being infidels and want to kick all non-Muslims out of the country. Even though we wiped out the entire Juhaiman group in principle, by allowing the flow of extreme ideas in the country through our culture, another, much larger group has emerged.
Very few Saudi writers in the local press are asking the right questions. Some tend to beat around the bush, but you rarely read an article commenting on the need to stop the flow of extreme ideas in the country to put an end to terrorism here. Someone has yet to ask how it is that three of the most radical sheikhs in the Kingdom, Sheikh Nasir Al-Fahd, Sheikh Ali Al-Khudairi, and Sheikh Ahmed Al-Khaldi, who all surrendered and recanted their fatwas, ever managed to issue their edicts in the first place? Those same sheikhs adopted the takfeer ideology (accusing other Muslims of being infidels). Some of their fatwas said it was permissible to kill security officers since they were puppets of the government. This venom, which was responsible for brainwashing hundreds of innocent youth, spread in the 90s under everyone’s nose.
One of those fatwas, which were everywhere in the 80s and 90s, issued by a well-known name, said that a certain female Saudi singer’s blood was “mahdoor”, meaning it is all right to kill her — presumably because she had committed the ultimate sin of singing, thus bringing shame on her country.
The culture of booklets and Islamic tapes back then helped spread extremism. It was also common in those days for any “pious” Saudi to walk up to a clean-shaven Saudi in the street and tell him that he was sinful for shaving his beard. Before satellite dishes became popular, common fatwas would say that a person who watches television, listens to music, or whose female family do not cover their faces, is corrupt and a sinner.
The Ministry of Islamic Affairs should have stopped these extremists. But that did not happen. The fatwas went on, and so did the silence.
Extreme fatwas were not the only reason behind the spread of intolerance and extremism. University teachers doing a little preaching on the side were another problem. A friend of mine, a university graduate, told me that during his college years his university teachers told the class not to greet non-Muslims. When he asked why, the response came, “So they can feel humiliated and hence afterward embrace Islam.”
I do not think that the Iraqis who were tortured or humiliated in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison will convert to Christianity. Islam spread to Granada and all the way to the borders of China through a universal message of acceptance, peace, harmony, and respect for others, not through accusing others of being infidels, humiliating them, and damning them to hell for not being followers of our own faith.
In my opinion, terrorism will not end with the rounding up or killings of those hundreds of terrorists. Another group could re-emerge after some decades. It will end when we decide to end our extremism.
Cut the flow of water that feeds the plant.
