January 7, 2015
THE HIGH PRICE OF A FAKE MAHDI:
Saudi Arabia is right to be anxious over its ideological links with Isis (Brian Whitaker, 1/07/15, The Guardian)
In military terms, the Saudi security apparatus is probably capable of suppressing Isis on its own territory, just as it did with al-Qaeda a decade or so ago, but it is in no position to confront Isis at the ideological level. The problem here is that Isis and the Saudis' Islamic kingdom are ideologically similar, so attempts to challenge Isis on ideological grounds risk undermining the Saudi state too. As Heba Saleh and Simeon Kerr noted in the Financial Times last September:"Some of the features of Isis ideology, such as its hatred of Shia Muslims and application of strict punishments such as limb amputations, are shared with the purist Salafi thought that defines Saudi Wahhabism. Isis has explicitly referenced early Wahhabi teachers, such as Mohammed ibn Abdulwahhab, to justify its destruction of Shia shrines and Christian churches as it cuts a swath through Iraq and Syria. Thousands of Saudi nationals have been recruited to its ranks."Yet, in contrast to the tacit official encouragement of more liberal voices after 9/11, any debate within Saudi Arabia over the role of its official creed in fostering the group's extremism has been timid and largely confined to social media ..."The Saudi authorities have been quick to condemn Isis. But, according to observers, they are anxious to avoid a potentially destabilising examination of common ideological links between the extremist group and the Saudi religious school whose support underpins the legitimacy of the royal family."The underlying issue, therefore, is the rival claims of king and would-be caliph. In the words of two Saudi government supporters: "To restore the 'caliphate', [Isis] would ultimately need to implant itself at the epicentre of Islamic life, the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina. Therefore, [Isis's] road to the caliphate runs through the kingdom of Saudi Arabia."
Inconveniently for the Saudi monarchy, this challenge from the upstart caliph comes at a time of uncertainty over the royal succession.
In his great book, Siege of Mecca, Yaroslav Trofimov, claims that when the Sa'uds went to the nation's clerics to get their endorsement for using military force to reclaim the holy site the clerics required that the family embrace the rigid tenets of Salafism/Wahhabism in exchange and work to extend them throughout the Muslim world. This effectively drove a kingdom that was modernising, at least somewhat, in a retrograde direction. The moment was largely obscured by events in Iran, but mattered more.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 7, 2015 3:56 PM
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