Yesterday, few places felt more vulnerable than the Central Line, as I sat with my son, deep under London’s streets. The train stopped suddenly around Queensway and we both looked at each other, indeed everyone looked at each other. No one needed to say anything; everyone understood what everyone else was thinking. This is what terrorism does, it terrorises; and, if not quite terrorise, it puts doubts in your head where there weren’t any before. That’s enough.
London is full of mosques, the vast majority of them frequented by people who have no truck with those who murdered so callously in Brussels, but some people who go to some mosques obviously do. This is the only conclusion that you can draw.
Young men and young women become radicalised because someone else teaches them. It doesn’t happen on its own. People who once were happy to be barmen don’t turn into soldiers of Allah overnight. It is a process.
If you talk to Muslims, particularly older ones, they will tell you that this process of radicalisation is relatively new. It is the product of the past 30 or 40 years. If this is the case, what has happened? What has happened is that after the revolution in Iran in 1979, the West decided that Iran was the enemy and that our new best friend, Saudi Arabia could do no wrong. Saudi Arabia was the strong counterbalance to Iran in the Middle East and, therefore, anything it did was sanctioned.
We looked the other way, so much that we didn’t even bother to understand the extreme form of Islam that Saudi Arabia practised and, worse still, fomented abroad.
Saudi Arabia practises Wahhabism. If you want to understand the region, it’s critical to understand this strain of Islam that is preferred by – and exported by – Saudi Arabia.
You can’t understand Isil and those people that carried out yesterday’s attacks without understanding Saudi Arabia’s role in all of this. What drives Isil to blow up ancient Roman, Persian and Buddhist monuments is rooted in Wahhabism. Nor can you understand what perverted logic drives them to kill innocents without learning about this type of strict Islam.
It all begins a long time ago.
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab was born not far from Riyadh in 1703. He trained as a holy man and was, like many religious people, constantly torn between a purist adherence to the original scriptures and a more tolerant accommodation of the word of God leavened with the reality of day-to-day living. This schism is not unusual. The fight between puritanism and pragmatism is, after all, at the heart of the great split in the western Christian Church too – what we called the Reformation.
Al Wahhab called for the purification of Islam and a return to pristine Islam. When the young Imam called for the beheading of women in his local town for adultery, the people knew this guy meant business. However, it is likely that this form of extremism wouldn’t have caught on in what was, by the standards of the time, a reasonably tolerant place had it not been for local insurrection against the unpopular Ottoman Empire which ran the Arabian Peninsula and taxed the locals mercilessly.
Possibly, in an effort to get God on his side in his fight against Istanbul, the local leader of a small oasis, Mohammad ibn Saud, threw his lot in with the renegade preacher, Al Wahhab, in 1745. The link between the House of Saud and Wahhabi was forged there and then; and they have been allies ever since.
At the time, Islam, like lots of religions, was a concoction of bits of other religions, beliefs and practices. These had been borrowed and customised along the way. Remember, this part of the world was the crucible of civilisation, the epicentre of the world’s great trading routes and a place where the three main monotheist religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – had been founded; Judaism and Christianity literally a few yards from each other, Islam a few hundred miles down the road.
Al Wahhab objected to this evolutionary, almost ‘hand-me-down’ approach to Islam. As a purist, he wanted to go back to basics, to make pristine the religion. Possibly the most important tenet of Wahhabis is that they believe in what they call “the oneness of God”. As a result, association with lesser gods, other gods, mysticism, shrines, temples, saints or holy men amounts to idolatry and must be stamped out.
This put Wahhabis on a collision course with the other strains of Islam, such as Shi’as or, even worse in the eyes of the Wahhabis, Sufism. Shi’as and Sufis were the enemy within and, of course, Judaism and Christianity were the enemies at the door. Wahhabis called for jihad against all these infidels.
For a century, the march, and reach, of the Wahhabis was limited to the Arabian Peninsula. Then the game changed, Saudi Arabia struck oil and the politics of the region altered forever, so too did geo-politics and Western economic expedience. Once the Saudis discovered oil, the West snuggled up to Riyadh, no questions asked.
Now the most extreme form of Islam was wedded to the richest country on earth and the Saudis have set about exporting not just oil, but a radical, intolerant form of Islam which drives Isil and various other jihadi groups. Saudi Arabia has spent some of its vast oil wealth on financing madrassas from Malaysia to Manchester – some of which are projecting Wahhabi ideas far from the Gulf.
Isil, with its murder of innocents, its desecration of ancient monuments and its subjugation of women, is the latest incarnation of extreme Wahhabism, and Saudi Arabia – the West’s biggest ally in the region – is Isil’s biggest external financier. It costs money to wage war and Isil gets money from oil, local racketeering, hostage-taking and external private donations. The private donations come from donors, many of whom are Saudi.
When you follow the money, all radical roads lead back to Saudi Arabia, not states that are supposedly the West’s enemies such as Libya, Iraq or even Assad’s Syria.
The majority of the 9/11 hijackers, Bin Laden, his al-Qa’ida chief lieutenants and all five regional Isil commanders in Syria and Iraq are Saudis. Each of these extremist organisations are the 21st century offspring of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, the cleric who came out of the desert in the 1730s and the institution he allied with in 1745: the House of Saud.
The sooner the West admits this, the better.
The West finally needs to admit all radical roads lead back to Israel.
History can’t be changed but the analysis of history can.
And therein lies the problem.
You can only learn from history if you’ve got your analysis right.
A better approach might be “We are where we are” but we need to identify what mistakes we are still making and correct/stop digging.
We also need to get our analysis of the current situation correct so that we can come up with the right solutions.
David another road map similar to your last property article might be more useful and perhaps a lot more of a challenge.
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“Each of these extremist organisations are the 21st century offspring of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, the cleric who came out of the desert in the 1730s and the institution he allied with in 1745: the House of Saud.The sooner the West admits this, the better” What makes you think they don’t know that? The mistrust of the West by Iran goes back to 1953; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat It suits the west to have nihilist bonbon type corrupt head cases in control in Saudi; They can be controlled by bribery, their lunatic interpretations of scripture and subsequent implementation cause no end of… Read more »
America is long aware of all this.One can only presume that as long as Isis and Saudia Arabia do not start making nuclear bombs their mad Mullahs will be left alone foment hatred worldwide.
Muslims are reconquering all Europe again,and the EU are allowing it to happen by stealth.
When Turkey joins ??
Only fortress Israel is relatively safe now.
America does not give a shit about the troubles in Europe.
They have their own Great Wall to keep out the victims of their regime change policies in South America during the past 50 Years.
Bin Ladin – a spoiled brat who developed a persecution complex, at one point had a theory about that the West should be sued for billions for getting cheap Saudi oil. With the proceeds to be given to his religious friends. No mention of the fact that the oil was located under a subdued, and restless province, inhabited by a religiuous minority who are treated as third class citizens in their own country. And this is the essence of hardline Wahabbi radicalism. Very eager to imagine moral outrage, at the West. But completely dishonest about their own moral flaws. In… Read more »
Excelent article David. Similar to the output of another chap called David, in the Asian Times (Spengler). In a similar vein to Michael Moore’s documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11”. I am also reminded of the documentary “Bitter Lake” by Adam Curtis. Lenin declared that the capitalists would sell the Bolsheviks the rope upon which they Bolsheviks would hang the capitalists. Of course, Lenin was an extremely sarcastic individual. Did Lenin touch upon the excess of greed that exists in monetary ambitions of many in positions of leadership in present-day Western society ? I think he might have. That is our weakpoint. Leaders… Read more »
It was not the Saudis who destroyed the secular Arab states in North Africa, Arabia, parts of Europe and the Eurasian area or painting Russia as a monster. It was NATO. Us.
Yes, the barbarous medieval kingdom in the Arabian peninsula is the source of the cancer known as Wahhabism
And standing behind the Saudi regime is the Washington regime
The Washington regime supports Wahhabism too
+1
Agree
Concerning the West, some interesting thoughts from President Obama in the NY Times recently.
President Obama holds a similar perspective to David. In other words he knows where the damage is coming from.
Interestingly enough, it seems that the Politburo in China and Kremlin in Moscow, seems to have similar suspicions.
But in Europe, there are no suspicions, in officialdom. Just complete bafflement as to why it keeps occurring.
Great article, but not explicit enough. The Saudis have sent out Wahhabi missionaries who have converted the Taliban, ISIS, and Boko Haram to that fanatical cult. Ad long as the Saudi royal family, descended from Wahhabi’s founder, supports the Wahhabis the Wahhabi clergy will overlook the non-Muslim behavior (drinking alcohol, for instance) of the Saudis. If the Saudis cease supporting the Wahhabi clergy and missionaries, that royal family will be overthrown. The Saudis are using the old strategy of the Christian Byzantines. They bribed the invading barbarians to leave them alone and attack Rome and the rest of western Christianity.… Read more »
Then of course behind the destruction of nations in the name of democracy comes the new world order in the guise of agribusiness. GMO seeds and crops are foisted on the local farmers. Terminator seeds are supplied so the indigenous farmer cannot save his own seed but must buy again from the cartel. Herbicides must be bought to be sprayed on the crops.. Glyphosate is the chemical in the spray known as Agent Orange, or Roundup. It is absorbed into the plant and passed to those that eat the food. It is a rabid carcinogen imparted to wide sectors of… Read more »
ISIS, like Al Quaeda which is Arabic for the network, were both set up by funding from the CIA to pursue US and NATO interests in the middle east. The western allies in the region namely Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey Jordan and others have openly helped to fund and train these bloodthirsty mercenaries. ISIS was created with the specific goal of removing the Assad regime. There never has been a civil war in Syria but there has been a relentless push towards regime change using the paid for mercenaries of Al Nusra and ISIS. The moderate rebel story is simply… Read more »
jihad was actually in hibernation for centuries till the cia of all people revived it and fostered it quickly in Afghanistan, to proxy fight the commies, and then like the genie it escaped rapidly and uncontrollably, thanks again uncle sam , more chickens coming to roost
http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/blair-to-eradicate-european-culture-to-create-a-united-states-of-europe/
Beware the internationalist, the destroyer of culture.
Correction: “The West finally needs to admit all radical roads lead back to THE KORAN” Christopher Hitchens: “The Koran is a declaration of war on humanity” A dim-witted man reads a gibberish hate-filled book that guarantees him a place in paradise should he die in battle defending the integrity of the aforementioned gibberish hate-filled book against those perceived enemies who object against his gibberish hate. He straps on an explosive belt and gets two birds with one stone, everlasting life and a blow against his imaginary enemies. Who supplied him the weapons, the logistics and the money is of secondary… Read more »
All radical roads? Certainly not. But does radical Islam have its roots where the article has explained possibly, it is not something I can offer an informed comment on. But let’s not lose sight of the real issue here. This perpetual war is not about a clash of civilisations, religious or political ideals. It is a systematic execution. It is the natural expression of the corporate ideal of efficiency in the management of resources taken to its horrific logical conclusions. Chopping down the dead wood. As time has progressed regardless of which faction versus the other or which empire expands… Read more »
Every person in the world of whatever religion, race or creed wants to live a good life free of violence and want. It is not Islam or Christianity that causes all this terror it is our leaders who do that through their various organisations and control of the media. I live in New Zealand and I have a young Saudi student boarding with me. He is a lovely young man and a very caring person. Yes he is a Muslim and is a practising Muslim. Yes, he has his prejudices but he is seeing how things work here. But we… Read more »
I love the sort of double-think we see in the Western mainstream media about Syria. On the one hand we’re told IS are the greatest evil we’ve ever witnessed, then in the next breath we’re told that the most effective force fighting these terrorists (the Syrian military/state) must also be destroyed & overthrown! The US, French, Brits & Israelis have been trying to keep the Middle East divided and fighting amongst itself for a century or so and this is just the latest chapter. Saudi provides weapons, cash and Jihadists. Meanwhile the likes of Obama, Cameron and Netanyahu can give… Read more »
All radical roads lead to weakness. Europe is weak. Europe has lost its’ moral compass. Europe is no longer a christian continent. As a result Europe is up for grabs. The arab nations now know that where 1 million of their people go more can follow. Our weak, pc leaders are destroying our culture far more quickly and successfully than any historical conquest has ever managed. So what advice can history give us. Two of the most important things history can tell us are- 1. Negotiate from a position of strength. 2. United we stand, divided we fall. Fail on… Read more »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNJPJ4JwHeE
Hi! I’m here to rain on your parade, to piss on it, Paddy. Sorry, but it’s just what us Black-Sabbath-Shire-Irish are programmed to do. Don’t take it personally…..we’ve come to rescue your Ghost Nation: “Against this backdrop of terrorism, on this weekend of commemoration of the 1916 Rising, one cannot avoid qualms that official Ireland, despite good intentions, may be bestowing retrospective legitimacy on the IRA campaign of violence. Without wishing to rain on anyone’s parade, could we have over-reached, to the point of undue glorification of republican violence and blood sacrifice in Ireland, which tragically cost thousands of innocent… Read more »
It amazes me that anyone, for one single moment, believes any of this Saudi ‘battle’ against shale oil, story. You just need to consider the geography and mechanics of shale oil production to see how absurd it is. First, the very structure of shale oil production is that of a rolling cycle of very short life rigs. There is no possibility of the sort of massive infrastructure build to support the previous generation of oil fields, on land or under sea. The rigs almost ‘migrate’ across the land, as each one runs dry very quickly. So to stop production simply… Read more »
Shakespeare talked about man’s inhumanity to man. Last time I checked man came in different colours and creeds. Yet somehow the white man and his Christian religion seems to be only one copping a plea. Added to that our PC ‘leaders’ and media seemed hell bent on persuading all the non white man races and/or their creeds that it is all white man’s fault. This is a load of boll0x. I’m as racist and bigoted as the next man and that includes a few non white man non christians. The west (the European section) needs to stop this nonsense and… Read more »
The Wahabbi approach provides an aspiration model for young men. It is based on certain principles. It claims a certain heritage. In inculcates a certain model in the mind, concerning behaviour. This is never questioned. In fact it seems above criticism. Anybody who critiques is regarded as being offensive, and a bigot. This is NOT correct. As Christopher Hitchens stated, when an approach to life claims to be the solution to everything, then it should be ready for crticism. It is simply too great a claim, and too serious in it’s consequences for humanity, to be given any authorization to… Read more »
The latest information is that FG want Shane Ross not in power. The detestation that exists in FG for Shane Ross is noticeable. And it is even more pronounced with regard to Creighton. Ross is a threat to the institutional state system, with all it’s pretence. And the Ross threat is represented in the word “transparency”. Deals are likely to get done to include all sorts – Lowry, Eamon Ryan (of the bailout the banks party), the Healy Raes. Anything but transparency. Will Shane Ross be the Trump card of the disaffected in Ireland ? Or was that Ming with… Read more »
We in the West, in recent decades, have been instructed to follow a different model of aspiration, and achievement. And it is pushed relentlessly in the media. Consume more stuff/services, and therefore find salvation. This is being presented in certain sections as evidence of moral degeneracy. That might be true. It is open to debate. We can discuss this rationally. And it is not a belief system, even if many people in it believe that it is a believe system. However, this does not justify other forms of immorality in name of political ideology whether Marxist like Pol Pot or… Read more »
Petro Islam:
Wahhabism – Saudi Arabia – Sponsored by the USA has become more war like since 1979 (‘jihad in Afghanistan against the atheist Soviet Union’) Wahhabism – mujahedeen – al-Qaida – ISIS. The “west” is using the Saudi Wahhabi ‘Army’ “radicalised Islam” for its own ends – a private army it can deny any involvement with – and Wahhabism has its own agenda. Responsibility for the bombs in Brussels and elsewhere lies within Saudi Arabia and within its sponsors in the USA.
I am in Shock: “Speaking recently, Barack Obama was woundingly candid about US-Saudi differences over Syria and Iran. He spoke of America’s Saudi alliance with barely disguised distaste. And he offered some unpalatable advice to his “friends” in Riyadh. “The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians – which has helped to feed proxy wars and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Yemen – requires us to say to our friends as well as to the Iranians that they need to find an effective way to share the neighbourhood,” Obama said. Sectarian rivalries were not in the US interest. And… Read more »
This is a story that is in the news in Britain. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/12204357/Muslim-shopkeeper-murdered-in-suspected-religiously-prejudiced-attack-after-posting-on-Facebook-of-love-for-Christians.html A Muslim shopkeeper uploaded a comment on Facebook, designed at reconciliation and bridge building. In the context of Easter, and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He was a kind man, and was motivated by consideration for others and tolerance. Then a co-religionist decided that the shopkeeper was reading too much of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth – and decided to murder the shopkeeper in a horrific and barbaric manner. This is an example of there being an obsession with control in hardline religious militancy. “Blessed are… Read more »
An interesting undercover documentary (by ITV). Relevant in the context of the article. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-25/new-eye-opening-documentary-completely-exposes-barbaric-saudi-regime The real hardline oppressor of the Arabs. It is NOT the USA. Or any other Western liberal democracy. Though, unfortunately several of Western democracies provide arms on lucrative terms to this regime that is oppressing Arabs. And it is definitely NOT Israel. Though clueless morons like Paul Murphy would disagree. Time to meet the real oppressor. This is an excerpt : [ Director of the Insitute of Gulf Affais, Ali al-Ahmed, said the Saudi education system ws created as a security measure to protect the ruling… Read more »
@ Deco Ref. http://www.henrymakow.com/ 21 March 2016 Here, Deco, u will find important answers about some of ur concerns : 1. Media Manipulation ; Shows that Freud’s nephew Bernays was not benign nor essentially for commercial purposes. Rather, for a deeper & more sinister agenda. 2. Feminism’s Inconsistency Re: “Strict” or “Fundamentalist” Islamic practises in Europe, But, hey, FEMEN are facilitated even by France 24 to benefit when they commit Agit-Prop events against ordinary French people protesting against the anti-family laws illegally imposed by Sarkozy Mark 2, Hollande ; & Saudi Arabian official presence in Europe, & U.S.A. & Canada,… Read more »