Lästips
Sunday Times hade i helgen ett utdrag ur kommande boken The Islamist, där Ed Husain beskriver sin väg in i fundamentalismen, vad han såg där, och vad som fick honom att lämna den. Texten i Times behandlar hans sejour i Saudiarabien.
The problems of Saudi Arabia were not limited to racism and sexual frustration.Läs alltihop.
In contemporary Wahhabism there are two broad factions. One is publicly supportive of the House of Saud, and will endorse any policy decision reached by the Saudi government and provide scriptural justification for it. The second believes that the House of Saud should be forcibly removed and the Wahhabi clerics take charge. Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are from the second school.
In Mecca, Medina and Jeddah I met young men with angry faces from Europe, students at various Wahhabi seminaries. They reminded me of my extremist days.
They were candid in discussing their frustrations with Saudi Arabia. The country was not sufficiently Islamic; it had strayed from the teachings of Wahhabism. They were firmly on the side of the monarchy and the clerics who supported it. Soon they were to return to the West, well versed in Arabic, fully indoctrinated by Wahhabism, to become imams in British mosques.
