When Friday comes around next week, it will be hard for me to shake off memories of what happened last Friday. On a day known to all Muslims for its spiritual nature, the day where they rest or go out with their families, a group of deranged individuals slaughtered a father and a husband in Riyadh.
Whilst they laid out their reasons, it doesn’t make them any more sane or understandable. The feelings that have been aroused in people all around the world were of disgust, of shock and of great sadness — all because of what some Muslims did on a Friday, on their holiest of days.
This wave of violence that has swept across Saudi Arabia does not surprise me. The sermons and behavior that have been a constant feature in our society were bound to lead to this if not more. How can you expect to convince a 30-year-old fanatic that what he is doing is wrong, unethical and pure madness when for the past 20 years of his existence he has been the subject of a long, highly intensive extremism course?
The course, along with its donations in cash and kind to gifted students and the high-level networking it presents are attractive to many of Saudi Arabia’s youth. Whilst not all of the participants are poor and uneducated, the potential the course offers them to advance their worldly status is rather attractive.
Disregarding the material benefits, the course does offer many spiritual rewards in the hereafter. The blessings one gets when dealing with a non-Muslim in the rudest and most violent ways are simply uncountable. As for killing him, infinite blessings and rewards await in paradise.
Teaching children from when they begin to interact with the world for over 12 years about Islam in a way that is confrontational and rigid only serves to fuel the fires of hatred. Further inflammation through the Friday prayers and evening sermons then whips up a fire so big that it will consume a huge area before it can be put out — just as we are seeing now.
Whilst there has been a massive and concerted effort to prove to the world our balanced and moderate approach to religion, our scholars should be more critical of what they have effected. What is needed isn’t just an apology or a justification of their positions but a stop to all such activities and taking a long and serious look at their actions.
The unaccountability of the self-appointed scholars in Saudi Arabia has to stop. Being a scholar should make one more accountable, rather than put one beyond criticism. How is it that someone who preaches fire and brimstone to thousands every week is free from wrong whilst anyone who questions him is vilified and maligned?
The taking of a life is something understood by every culture and humane religion as a gruesome and inhuman action. A further question would be how inhuman are those whose actions and pronouncements lead to such vile behavior.
Not all Saudis were gullible enough to believe the vitriol fed to them at schools, mosques and youth centers. Yet they have remained a silent majority. Now something has to be done and done quick. The reputation of Saudi Arabia as an exporter of terrorism, extremism and a rigid Islam around the world has to stop. The negative economic, social and political side effects of these events touch upon every single Saudi in and outside Saudi Arabia.
Students abroad, businessmen in the country, political affiliations and cooperation with other countries will all be at risk. Students will not be able to continue their studies, foreign investment will dry up and governments will look to alternative regional partners. Far more important to me than all of this is the hijacking of religion by people who are shortsighted, uneducated and have offered nothing to the development of Saudi Arabia.
It is painfully ironic, when looking back into the annals of Arab culture, to see how Arabs prided themselves and were known for their honor, generosity and hospitality. Now we are known for a completely different set of qualities, and our honor has been ground into the dust. Unless we all stand up and overturn the extremist hold on our country, then we can only expect more bloodshed. As a result our honor has been slaughtered along with the innocent lives that were taken and the innocent minds that were brainwashed to the point of no return.
(Abdurrahman Al-Shayyal is a research student based in Jeddah.)
