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Middle East Time Bomb: The Real Aim of ISIS Is to Replace the Saud Family as the New Emirs of Arabia
Posted:
Updated:
This article is Part II of Alastair Crooke's
historical analysis of the roots of ISIS and its impact on the future of
the Middle East.
BEIRUT -- ISIS is indeed a veritable
time bomb inserted into the heart of the Middle East. But its
destructive power is not as commonly understood. It is not with the
"March of the Beheaders"; it is not with the killings; the seizure of
towns and villages; the harshest of "justice" -- terrible though they
are -- that its true explosive power lies. It is yet more potent than
its exponential pull on young Muslims, its huge arsenal of weapons and
its hundreds of millions of dollars.
"We should understand that there is really almost nothing that the West can now do about it but sit and watch."
Its real potential for destruction lies elsewhere -- in the
implosion of Saudi Arabia as a foundation stone of the modern Middle
East. We should understand that there is really almost nothing that the
West can now do about it but sit and watch.
The clue to its truly
explosive potential, as Saudi scholar Fouad Ibrahim has pointed out (but
which has passed, almost wholly overlooked, or its significance has
gone unnoticed), is ISIS' deliberate and intentional use in its doctrine -- of the language of Abd-al Wahhab, the 18th century founder, together with Ibn Saud, of Wahhabism and the Saudi project:
Abu
Omar al-Baghdadi, the first "prince of the faithful" in the Islamic
State of Iraq, in 2006 formulated, for instance, the principles of his
prospective state ... Among its goals is disseminating monotheism "which
is the purpose [for which humans were created] and [for which purpose
they must be called] to Islam..." This language replicates exactly
Abd-al Wahhab's formulation. And, not surprisingly, the latter's
writings and Wahhabi commentaries on his works are widely distributed in
the areas under ISIS' control and are made the subject of study
sessions. Baghdadi subsequently was to note approvingly, "a generation
of young men [have been] trained based on the forgotten doctrine of
loyalty and disavowal."
And
what is this "forgotten" tradition of "loyalty and disavowal?" It is
Abd al-Wahhab's doctrine that belief in a sole (for him an
anthropomorphic) God -- who was alone worthy of worship -- was in itself
insufficient to render man or woman a Muslim?
He or she could be
no true believer, unless additionally, he or she actively denied (and
destroyed) any other subject of worship. The list of such potential
subjects of idolatrous worship, which al-Wahhab condemned as idolatry,
was so extensive that almost all Muslims were at risk of falling under
his definition of "unbelievers." They therefore faced a choice: Either
they convert to al-Wahhab's vision of Islam -- or be killed, and their
wives, their children and physical property taken as the spoils of jihad. Even to express doubts about this doctrine, al-Wahhab said, should occasion execution.
"Through
its intentional adoption of this Wahhabist language, ISIS is knowingly
lighting the fuse to a bigger regional explosion -- one that has a very
real possibility of being ignited, and if it should succeed, will change
the Middle East decisively."
The point Fuad Ibrahim is making, I believe, is not merely to
reemphasize the extreme reductionism of al-Wahhab's vision, but to hint
at something entirely different: That through its intentional adoption
of this Wahhabist language, ISIS is knowingly lighting the fuse to a
bigger regional explosion -- one that has a very real possibility of
being ignited, and if it should succeed, will change the Middle East
decisively.
For it was precisely this idealistic, puritan,
proselytizing formulation by al-Wahhab that was "father" to the entire
Saudi "project" (one that was violently suppressed by the Ottomans in
1818, but spectacularly resurrected in the 1920s, to become the Saudi
Kingdom that we know today). But since its renaissance in the 1920s, the
Saudi project has always carried within it, the "gene" of its own
self-destruction. THE SAUDI TAIL HAS WAGGED BRITAIN AND U.S. IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Paradoxically, it was a maverick British official, who helped embed the
gene into the new state. The British official attached to Aziz, was one Harry St. John Philby
(the father of the MI6 officer who spied for the Soviet KGB, Kim
Philby). He was to become King Abd al-Aziz's close adviser, having
resigned as a British official, and was until his death, a key member of
the Ruler's Court. He, like Lawrence of Arabia, was an Arabist. He was
also a convert to Wahhabi Islam and known as Sheikh Abdullah.
St.
John Philby was a man on the make: he had determined to make his friend,
Abd al-Aziz, the ruler of Arabia. Indeed, it is clear that in
furthering this ambition he was not acting on official instructions.
When, for example, he encouraged King Aziz to expand in northern Nejd,
he was ordered to desist. But (as American author, Stephen Schwartz notes),
Aziz was well aware that Britain had pledged repeatedly that the defeat
of the Ottomans would produce an Arab state, and this no doubt,
encouraged Philby and Aziz to aspire to the latter becoming its new
ruler.
It is not clear exactly what passed between Philby and the
Ruler (the details seem somehow to have been suppressed), but it would
appear that Philby's vision was not confined to state-building in the
conventional way, but rather was one of transforming the wider Islamic ummah (or community of believers)
into a Wahhabist instrument that would entrench the al-Saud as Arabia's
leaders. And for this to happen, Aziz needed to win British
acquiescence (and much later, American endorsement). "This was the
gambit that Abd al-Aziz made his own, with advice from Philby," notes
Schwartz. BRITISH GODFATHER OF SAUDI ARABIA
In a sense, Philby may be said to be "godfather" to this momentous pact
by which the Saudi leadership would use its clout to "manage" Sunni
Islam on behalf of western objectives (containing socialism, Ba'athism,
Nasserism, Soviet influence, Iran, etc.) -- and in return, the West
would acquiesce to Saudi Arabia's soft-power Wahhabisation of the
Islamic ummah (with its concomitant destruction of Islam's
intellectual traditions and diversity and its sowing of deep divisions
within the Muslim world).
"In political and financial terms,
the Saud-Philby strategy has been an astonishing success. But it was
always rooted in British and American intellectual obtuseness: the
refusal to see the dangerous 'gene' within the Wahhabist project, its
latent potential to mutate, at any time, back into its original a
bloody, puritan strain. In any event, this has just happened: ISIS is it."
As a result -- from then until now -- British and American
policy has been bound to Saudi aims (as tightly as to their own ones),
and has been heavily dependent on Saudi Arabia for direction in pursuing
its course in the Middle East.
In political and financial terms,
the Saud-Philby strategy has been an astonishing success (if taken on
its own, cynical, self-serving terms). But it was always rooted in
British and American intellectual obtuseness: the refusal to see the
dangerous "gene" within the Wahhabist project, its latent potential to
mutate, at any time, back into its original a bloody, puritan strain. In
any event, this has just happened: ISIS is it.
Winning
western endorsement (and continued western endorsement), however,
required a change of mode: the "project" had to change from being an
armed, proselytizing Islamic vanguard movement into something resembling
statecraft. This was never going to be easy because of the inherent
contradictions involved (puritan morality versus realpolitik
and money) -- and as time has progressed, the problems of accommodating
the "modernity" that statehood requires, has caused "the gene" to become
more active, rather than become more inert.
Even Abd al-Aziz
himself faced an allergic reaction: in the form of a serious rebellion
from his own Wahhabi militia, the Saudi Ikhwan. When the expansion of
control by the Ikhwan reached the border of territories
controlled by Britain, Abd al-Aziz tried to restrain his militia (Philby
was urging him to seek British patronage), but the Ikwhan,
already critical of his use of modern technology (the telephone,
telegraph and the machine gun), "were outraged by the abandonment of jihad for reasons of worldly realpolitik
... They refused to lay down their weapons; and instead rebelled
against their king ... After a series of bloody clashes, they were
crushed in 1929. Ikhwan members who had remained loyal, were later absorbed into the [Saudi] National Guard."
King
Aziz's son and heir, Saud, faced a different form of reaction (less
bloody, but more effective). Aziz's son was deposed from the throne by
the religious establishment -- in favor of his brother Faisal --
because of his ostentatious and extravagant conduct. His lavish,
ostentatious style, offended the religious establishment who expected
the "Imam of Muslims," to pursue a pious, proselytizing lifestyle.
King
Faisal, Saud's successor, in his turn, was shot by his nephew in 1975,
who had appeared at Court ostensibly to make his oath of allegiance, but
who instead, pulled out a pistol and shot the king in his head. The
nephew had been perturbed by the encroachment of western beliefs and
innovation into Wahhabi society, to the detriment of the original ideals
of the Wahhabist project. SEIZING THE GRAND MOSQUE IN 1979
Far more serious, however, was the revived Ikhwan of Juhayman al-Otaybi, which culminated in the seizure of the Grand Mosque by
some 400-500 armed men and women in 1979. Juhayman was from the
influential Otaybi tribe from the Nejd, which had led and been a
principal element in the original Ikhwan of the 1920s.
Juhayman
and his followers, many of whom came from the Medina seminary, had the
tacit support, amongst other clerics, of Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Bin Baz, the
former Mufti of Saudi Arabia. Juhayman stated that Sheikh Bin Baz never
objected to his Ikhwan teachings (which were also critical of ulema laxity towards "disbelief"), but that bin Baz had blamed him
mostly for harking on that "the ruling al-Saud dynasty had lost its
legitimacy because it was corrupt, ostentatious and had destroyed Saudi
culture by an aggressive policy of westernisation."
Significantly, Juhayman's followers preached their Ikhwani message in a number of mosques in Saudi Arabia initially without being arrested, but when Juhayman and a number of the Ikhwan finally were held for questioning in 1978. Members of the ulema (including
bin Baz) cross-examined them for heresy, but then ordered their release
because they saw them as being no more than traditionalists harkening
back to the Ikhwan-- like Juhayman grandfather -- and therefore not a threat.
Even when the mosque seizure was defeated and over, a certain level of forbearance by the ulema for
the rebels remained. When the government asked for a fatwa allowing for
armed force to be used in the mosque, the language of bin Baz and other
senior ulema was curiously restrained.
The scholars did not declare Juhayman and his followers non-Muslims,
despite their violation of the sanctity of the Grand Mosque, but only
termed them al-jamaah al-musallahah (the armed group).
Because of donations from wealthy followers, the group had been well-armed and trained. Some members, like Juhayman, were former military officials
of the Saudi National Guard. Some National Guard troops sympathetic to
the insurgents smuggled weapons, ammunition, gas masks, and provisions
into the mosque compound over a period of weeks before the attack,
including automatic weapons smuggled from National Guard armories and hidden in rooms under the mosque that were used as hermitages. ISIS VS. WESTERNIZED SAUDIS
The
point of rehearsing this history is to underline how uneasy the Saudi
leadership must be at the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Previous Ikhwani manifestations were suppressed -- but these all occurred inside the kingdom.
ISIS however, is a neo-Ikhwani
rejectionist protest that is taking place outside the kingdom -- and
which, moreover, follows the Juhayman dissidence in its trenchant
criticism of the al-Saud ruling family.
This is the deep schism
we see today in Saudi Arabia, between the modernizing current of which
King Abdullah is a part, and the "Juhayman" orientation of which bin
Laden, and the Saudi supporters of ISIS and the Saudi religious
establishment are a part. It is also a schism that exists within the Saudi royal family itself.
According to the Saudi-owned Al-Hayatnewspaper,
in July 2014 "an opinion poll of Saudis [was] released on social
networking sites, claiming that 92 percent of the target group believes
that 'IS conforms to the values of Islam and Islamic law.'" The leading
Saudi commentator, Jamal Khashoggi, recently warned of ISIS' Saudi supporters who "watch from the shadows."
There
are angry youths with a skewed mentality and understanding of life and
sharia, and they are canceling a heritage of centuries and the supposed
gains of a modernization that hasn't been completed. They turned into
rebels, emirs and a caliph invading a vast area of our land. They are
hijacking our children's minds and canceling borders. They reject all
rules and legislations, throwing it [a]way ... for their vision of
politics, governance, life, society and economy. [For] the citizens of
the self-declared "commander of the faithful," or Caliph, you have no
other choice ... They don't care if you stand out among your people and
if you are an educated man, or a lecturer, or a tribe leader, or a
religious leader, or an active politician or even a judge ... You must
obey the commander of the faithful and pledge the oath of allegiance to
him. When their policies are questioned, Abu Obedia al-Jazrawi yells,
saying: "Shut up. Our reference is the book and the Sunnah and that's
it."
"What did we do wrong?" Khashoggi asks. With 3,000-4,000 Saudi fighters in the Islamic State today, he advises of the need to "look inward to explain ISIS' rise". Maybe it is time, he says, to admit "our political mistakes," to "correct the mistakes of our predecessors." MODERNIZING KING THE MOST VULNERABLE
The present Saudi king, Abdullah, paradoxically is all the more
vulnerable precisely because he has been a modernizer. The King has
curbed the influence of the religious institutions and the religious
police -- and importantly has permitted
the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence to be used, by those who adhere
to them (al-Wahhab, by contrast, objected to all other schools of
jurisprudence other than his own).
"The key political question
is whether the simple fact of ISIS' successes, and the full
manifestation (flowering) of all the original pieties and vanguardism of
the archetypal impulse, will stimulate and activate the dissenter
'gene' -- within the Saudi kingdom. If it does, and Saudi
Arabia is engulfed by the ISIS fervor, the Gulf will never be the same
again. Saudi Arabia will deconstruct and the Middle East will be
unrecognizable."
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