[iwar] [fc:Saudi.clerics.issue.edicts.against.helping.'infidels']

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-13 15:27:57
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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World  Middle East
from the October 12, 2001 edition

Saudi clerics issue edicts against helping 'infidels'

New fatwas warn Saudi royals of jihad against whoever backs the US-led
bombing

By Nicolas Pelham | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

LONDON - In a series of fatwas released from inside Saudi Arabia,
prominent Muslim clerics have instructed their followers to wage jihad
on Americans in the kingdom and condemned the rulers who give them
protection as infidels.  The religious edict appears to sanction the
overthrow of the house of Al Saud, and makes the royals apostates,
subject to the Koranic punishment of death. 

In what could be one of the most significant internal challenges to the
Al Sauds in their 80-year dominance of the Arabian peninsula, Sheikh
Hamoud bin Oqla al-Shuaibi, a senior cleric, issued his fatwa just days
after the Sept.  11 attacks.  "Whoever supports the infidel against
Muslims is considered an infidel....  It is a duty to wage jihad on
anyone who supports the attack on Afghanistan." Support is defined as
assistance "by hand, by tongue, or by money."

So far, there's been no official response from the kingdom whose
constitution is the Koran and whose leaders trace their lineage back to
the Prophet Muhammad.  But the Islamic website, which relayed the fatwa,
said Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif had met Sheikh Oqla in an
attempt to persuade him to retract what amounts to a threat of
assassination.  The sheikh declined. 

Since the September attacks, the Saudi authorities have been treading a
tightrope between tacit support for the external backer, the United
States, and the puritanical Wahhabis, the dominant sect, which has been
the source of Saudi legitimacy for the past 250 years.  Wahhabi sheikhs
such as Oqla openly support Osama bin Laden, a native of Saudi Arabia,
and dissidents in exile claim that their fatwas will appeal to the 5,000
to 10,000 Saudis who have been trained in his Afghan camps. 

"The Saudi royal family is in a state of anxiety and fear," says Saad
al-Fagih of the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, the
main vehicle for Saudi dissent in exile.  "They are aware of a few
thousand people who have trained in Afghanistan in the last few years. 
There is information that these people have orders to hit."

Fatwas carry only as much authority as the man who pronounces them.  But
Oqla, who is 80 and blind, has authority.  He lives in the town of
Burayda, a Wahhabi stronghold in the desert north of Riyadh, whose
leaders have been calling their people to jihad since the 18th century,
and whose writings have been the inspiration for groups like the
Taliban.  He was jailed for two months in 1995 for lambasting the
30,000-strong royal family for corruption.  His fatwas have been echoed
by Suleiman Alwan and Ali Khodeir, two younger Wahhabi clerics. 
Following the bombing in Afghanistan, mainstream preachers in Riyadh
have added their voice, and anonymous fatwas have explicitly named King
Fahd as a target for jihad. 

Four days into the aerial bombardment, the wave of dissent the fatwas
promised to inaugurate has not materialized.  But a Molotov cocktail was
thrown at a German couple, and a Canadian was shot dead in Kuwait.  And
Saudi security officials remain on high alert following the killing of
two Americans by a suspected suicide bomber on Oct.  6 in Al Khobar, a
city in Eastern Province where 13,000 Americans live.  Riyadh has
advised Prime Minister Tony Blair not to visit, fearing a stop-over on
his Gulf tour could further inflame Islamic sentiment. 

In an attempt to defuse the militant mood, state clerics have appeared
on state media.  "The most important trait of true Muslims is to oppose
any unjust person who is bent on bloodshed and not to give shelter to
any mischief maker," Saudi chief justice Sheikh Leheidan, who was
himself taught by Sheikh Oqla, was quoted as saying on Wednesday. 

Only a minority of Saudis are Wahhabis, but denunciations of the alleged
corruption of the Al Sauds and Western backing for their absolute rule
has won religious leaders the support of frustrated Saudi youth. 
Underemployment is high, and many resent the allocation of the kingdom's
best jobs to tens of thousands of Westerners, including 30,000 to 40,000
Americans.  There is wide sympathy with the criticism of King Fahd,
whose preferred title is Custodian of the Holy Places, for hosting 5,000
US troops on holy soil. 

"Osama bin Laden has become a symbol of defiance," says Jamal Khashoggi,
a respected Saudi journalist in Jeddah.  "Whoever stands in defiance of
American arrogance will be seen as a local hero."

Many reform-minded Saudis blame the school system, which allows Wahhabis
to dictate the syllabus.  The fatwas - which were circulated in mosques
and on the Internet - justified the expulsion of the Al Sauds from Islam
on the basis of the Tawhid, the Wahhabi manifesto, which is compulsory
for 10-year-olds to study in school.  Page 29 reads: "As Allah has said,
never support the infidels."

The post-Sept.  11 flurry of fatwas echoes the release of a hit video
last summer in which bin Laden extended his jihad "from Crusaders and
Jews" to the House of Al Saud.  Speaking in verse, bin Laden declared,
"people who give land to the Americans are distorting the shihada" (the
Muslim profession of faith). 


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