Saudi Arabia and Officially Sponsored Religious Extremism

One of the problems in Saudi Arabia is the fact that religious extremism isn't a fringe movement - it's the official, state-sponsored brand of Islam. This has been embarrassing at times, and the government is trying to change, but change is not only slow, but it's being resisted by a religious establishment that is used to calling the shots.

The Economist reports:

Many teachers have simply refused to use the kinder, gentler new texts. Even some parents complain that they no longer trust the curriculum to convey correct values. In one notorious incident last year, colleagues and students of a high-school chemistry teacher pressed charges against him for speaking against jihadist violence, for “favouring Christians and Jews”, and for poking fun at clerics’ beards. The local judge handed him a 40-month jail sentence, plus 750 lashes.

It must be remembered that Saudi Arabia spends a lot of money every year promoting Islam — and this is the sort of Islam they are spreading. Consider the Korans they give away:

They are annotated by Wahhabist scholars, who pronounce, among other things, that jihad is one of the “pillars” of Islam. (Most Muslims recognise five pillars: the profession of faith, prayer, alms-giving, fasting and pilgrimage.) “By abandoning jihad, Islam is destroyed,” says one footnote. “Jihad is an obligatory duty, and he who tries to escape this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfill this duty, dies with the qualities of a hypocrite.”

The legitimacy of the Saudi royal family is tied to the preservation of extremist Wahhabi clerics. They can’t readily dispense with these zealots, but at the same time these zealots are only making it more difficult for Saudi Arabia to become a peaceful, positive force in the modern world. How much longer will this continue?

 

Read More:

• Islam
• News About Islam
• Islam and Politics
• Islam and the Koran
• Wahhabi Islam
• Religion in Saudi Arabia