“War is deceit,” said Muhammad (Bukhari 4.52.268), and Mohammed bin Salman is a knowledgeable and devout believer, but of course even to raise the question of whether Saudi Arabia is trying to deceive the West in order to gain its support against Iran would be “Islamophobic.” Deceive us? Inconceivable!
Nonetheless, in enthusiastically cheerleading for Mohammed bin Salman’s reforms, John Hannah in Foreign Policy inadvertently reveals how cosmetic and minor they are. He compiles a wish list of what needs to be done, and it’s a serious list: reform hateful Saudi school textbooks, root out Wahhabism in mosques worldwide, and recall Saudi translations of the Qur’an (which are, in fact, not mistranslated, but which contain hair-raising marginal glosses encouraging the book’s martial passages to be seen in the context of modern jihad attacks against Infidels).
If any of that happens, then maybe this Saudi reform is genuine. But if it does, Mohammed bin Salman will face an uprising from his nation of true believers.
And also, Hannah is correct in saying that “both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama understood that we wouldn’t be able to just kill our way out of the conflict with radical Islamists. Each devoted considerable resources to what’s been called the ‘battle for hearts and minds.’” However, both falsely claimed that Islam was a religion of peace, and all the resources they poured into this battle for hearts and minds were designed to shame jihadis into laying down their arms by reminding them of how peaceful Islam is. This effort was wrongheaded from the start, and doomed to failure, because the jihadis generally knew the Qur’an, and knew they weren’t violating its tenets. The idea that they are is just Western wishful thinking.
“Saudi Arabia Can Win Islam’s War of Ideas,” by John Hannah, Foreign Policy, March 15, 2018:
…Both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama understood that we wouldn’t be able to just kill our way out of the conflict with radical Islamists. Each devoted considerable resources to what’s been called the “battle for hearts and minds.” Whether through programs to promote democracy or counter violent extremism, both administrations made ample efforts to dissuade Muslims around the world from the path of murderous jihad — but to little avail.
What’s consistently been missing from America’s strategy have been powerful partners in the Muslim world who can reliably be counted on to speak out authoritatively on matters of Islamic theology in ways that the United States simply can’t. That’s where Saudi Arabia comes in….
Unfortunately, for decades that power was wielded largely for ill. In an effort to counter the threat of Iran’s 1979 Shiite revolution, and burnish their legitimacy at home with powerful religious conservatives, Saudi rulers plowed billions of dollars annually into spreading the kingdom’s extremely harsh version of Islam — aka Wahhabism — around the world. Saudi funds built mosques and schools on every continent. They trained radical clerics and teachers to staff them. They distributed editions of the Koran and school textbooks heavily skewed toward messages of hatred against anyone — including other Muslims — who failed to toe the line of Wahhabi orthodoxy. In this way, millions of young believers from Mali to Malaysia, from Belgium to Bangladesh, have had their idea of what it means to be a good Muslim insidiously shaped by a narrative that systematically dehumanized the “other” — creating a large pool of potential recruits who inevitably had a heightened susceptibility to the siren song of jihadism.
Enter the enormous promise of Mohammed bin Salman. For months, the crown prince and his closest advisors have relentlessly hammered the theme that Saudi Arabia’s modernization requires an embrace of “moderate Islam.” He’s slammed the extremist ideology that the kingdom did so much to empower after the Iranian revolution and acknowledges that “the problem spread all over the world.” He’s vowed that “now is the time to get rid of it” and declared that “we won’t waste 30 years of our life combating extremist thoughts, we will destroy them now and immediately.”
It’s not just talk, either. At home, the powers of the kingdom’s notorious religious police have been scaled back. Prominent hard-line clerics have been jailed. On the all-important issue of female empowerment, the pace of change has been breathtaking. Women can now open businesses without the approval of a male guardian. They’re being allowed to enter the military for the first time and attend sporting and cultural events. This summer, the ban on women driving will disappear.
Now, the U.S. imperative should be pressing Mohammed bin Salman to take his campaign for moderate Islam on the road. His willingness to “destroy” the monster of global jihadism that the kingdom helped create needs to be turned into a concrete action plan. To their credit, the Saudis have already invested heavily in a center focused on countering extremism in cyberspace. Trump should press to make the ideological battle an institutionalized feature of the U.S.-Saudi dialogue. A bilateral working group should quietly be established to develop a strategy that can be jointly monitored. More than a decade ago, the U.S. Treasury did something similar to help the Saudis get on top of their terror finance problem, and by all accounts the collaboration has produced significant results.
There should be multiple elements to such an effort, but some immediate tasks come to mind. First, school textbooks. The Saudis promised to eliminate the hate-filled passages a decade ago. Progress has slowly been made, but the job’s still not done. Mohammed bin Salman should order it finished — this year. Behind the scenes, U.S. experts should provide verification.
Second, working with trusted partners in indigenous communities known for their religious moderation, the Saudis should conduct a thorough audit of the global network of mosques, schools, and charitable organizations that they’ve backed with an eye toward weeding out radical staff and content.
Third, initiate a worldwide buyback of Saudi-distributed mistranslations of the Quran and other religious materials notorious for propagating extremist narratives.
elee says
In general far ess is to be expected of Muslims.
mariam rove says
The only reform in Islam is dead Islam and that is not happening anytime soon. This guy if full of it. m
Richard says
Absolutely. That is true. If a religion is real, it is real. That means it is perfect and it cannot be changed. If it can be changed by man, man is superior to God – or God had nothing to do with it to begin with. The alternative is that Mohammed was mistaken about what Allah revealed to him. Tell that to a billion devout Muslims! Mohammed ibn Salman may be sincere; but if he is, he is either an infidel and/or dumb as a doorknob.
boakai ngombu says
i suppose with all these “improvements,” we can expect the day that black band atop the covering (to be taken off when Israel is destroyed) will no longer be seen.
MFritz says
This fat cat doesn’t want ANY change that could drive him – or the likes of him – from the heap of the pile of his shithole country.
Sarah says
You nailed it.
Their revenues are drying up, badly. They’re chronically overspending still, they cannot balance the budget due to their collective addiction to obscene levels of waste and luxury.They’ve still got an ocean of oil – but they need to see that oil barrel price back up near the halcyon days of US$100 a barrel.
So. Faced with the dawning reality that the golden days are going to come to an end, this new idiot ‘Prince’ (yeah right) has decided that the best way to keep Saudi Arabia moving forward is to; spend unbelievable amounts of money on building brand new cities that are supposed to attract tourism and business investment yadda yadda – and make the Saudis some kind of futuristic desert hotspot for tourists and business.
It just goes to show how grossly inept the so-called ‘Royal’ family are at running that nation. I mean, buggar paying down the absolutely astronomical debt the country has. (Tell me how in the hell that Saudi Arabia has ANY debt whatsoever?!?!?) Buggar balancing the books and presenting a budget that does not go wildly into deficit every single time.
Stuff spending that money on a massive social engineering project that will turn the Saudi’s into a group of people who believe in the value of a good day’s work for a good day’s wage. Stuff reducing the obscenely bloated public service and the tens of thousands of literally fake careers it creates for Saudi’s to pretend at working.
But he allowed women to drive!!
You know what? Fuck him. Fuck him and his ‘permission’ to allow women to drive – IF their male owners agree to it. Let’s not forget that little detail that was quietly lost in translation.
He’s spending money like the Apocalypse is locked in to occur any day now. The Saudi’s as a population are addicted to welfare- and it’s really really exceptional welfare that the State hands out. They have no real work ethic as a culture. They’re lazy and they prefer to pay others to do the actual work. Hence their gigantic ‘Guest Workers’ population (read: modern day slaves).
The country is a mess. The only thing that has kept it together and relatively peaceful is the fact that the ‘Royal’ family have essentially poured tremendous amounts of cash at the Saudis and kept them at bay. What’s going to happen when all the money dries up?
Eh. Saudi Arabia (and Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain etc etc – all the tiny resource addicted Arab Gulf State’s) will become just like the rest of the Middle East. Like Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Iraq etc etc. Just yet another poor Islamic nation with a burgeoning population that it cannot sustain and offer any real future for, reliant on foreign aid and spending, that is riven internally with violence and savagery.
Couldn’t happen fast enough as far as I’m concerned.
Infidel says
Muslims always MISMANAGE AND RUIN any land that they inherit… All money comes only from plunder of infidels and their lands…without this plunder.. Islam fails economically.. MASSIVELY… In case of the Saudis and others like the UAE and Qatar, the jizzia to be lazy and violent comes from the bowels of mother earth.. OIL .. which the rest of the planet is HOPELESSLY ADDICTED to…. In one way or other..Muslims need Jizzia.. In any country they go.. they are the most backward and most unemployed and chronically on welfare… Look at Pakistan and Bangladesh, two Islamic states that started at almost the same time as India and yet today India is now in world top=5 economically and both these fiendish Islamic states are financially bankrupt. Because no jizzia is coming either thru plunder of infidels or from Mother Earth..
DHazard says
How are they going to deal with Allah’s open ended command to kill non-believers?
Rewrite the Quran? Declare ALL hadiths as not authentic? “Discover” a new hadith that says all Muslims should become Sufis?
And what about the Shia? Are they still your mortal enemies?
As long as the scriptures of Islam are taken seriously by even a minority of Muslims, Islam will remain a religion of threat and death.
Wellington says
Would you even buy a used car from this man?
gravenimage says
🙂
Sarah says
This idiot ‘Prince’ has done NOTHING but burn tremendous amounts of cash to put a show on for the rest of the world, about how he is transforming Saudi Arabia. My ass, he is. If he wanted to transform Saudi Arabia, he would have decimated the Clerics and their supporters. That’s the only way to modernize that cesspit of a country – along with ditching the absolute Monarchy.
But therein lies the truth of the matter. The truth is, Saudi Arabia already IS modernized. Incredibly so. Magically so. Let’s not forget, less than 100 years ago, that country was nothing more than a loosely bound collective of wandering homeless Arabs who lived in tents in a nomadic lifestyle from atop a camel. To have gone from that – to where they are today is nothing short of miraculous.
Just imagine if they had to invent, engineer and create everything they use today in that country, for themselves.. Cars, electricity grids, plastic, steel etc etc etc..
If Saudi Arabia wants to join the rest of the civilized world as a ‘modern nation’, they’ve got some fundamental growing up to do, first.
Wellington says
Seconded, Sarah.
Have longed remembered what Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel said about Saudi Arabia, to wit, it is not a country but a family. And you’re so right that had the Arabs on their own had to figure how to get oil out of the ground, build cars, develop telephones, build planes, invent computers, develop energy grids, et al., they would still be living in a past century, which, mentally, they still are, courtesy of Islam, silly Arab tribalism, warped codes of honor and a whole host of other stupidities.
I assert that the Arabs are the single most dysfunctional major people on the planet (hell, they even make Latin Americans look like they have their act together). Making it all the worse is that the Arabs “contributed” to mankind the worst religion ever invented by mankind. Quite the legacy. Glad I have no Arab descent in me. Had I, I would be ashamed, as every Arab should be.
Guy Forester says
The goal of the reformers of islam is to take it back to the 7thh century, not forward. No clean water, so your kid dies from a disease? Allah willed it. Your wife died in childbirth? Allah willed it. You have no phone, running water or electricity? Allah’s will.
MTMLA says
Modernized with the brains and work of the infidels, otherwise they’d still be atop camels ,living in tents , cleaning their butts with sand and three stones and drinking camel urine.
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
wahhabism as revival of khawarijism is a creation of Christian West to divide and weaken muslims who were united under ottoman Turks for them to colonise and deprive muslim nations.see a book :”The Emergence of Arab Nationalism “by zein N zein.
These idiot saudi monarchs have been serving the interests of wicked Christian West, especially the apartheid evil united states. what kind of reforms they want in Hijaz ? To introduce nudity and indiscriminate sex líke beasts in the holy land, including mecca and madina where Islamic holy sites are located ? Any attempt to do that Will lead to immediate sacking of these idiot zionist saudi monarchs and get administrators appointed from Istanbul to take care of the holy sites.
Wellington says
Wahhabism, Ibrahim, began back in the 18th century in Arabia. Please detail how the 18th-century West was even remotely interested in or cared about what went on in the Arabian Peninsula, let alone being behind the creation of Wahhabism? By the 18th century the Ottoman Empire was a spent force (anticipating Czar Nicholas I of Russia, “the Sick Man of Europe”) and no one in the West really cared about the Islamic menace anymore. Or don’t you know this?
Really, Ibrahim, you proffer a lot of silly and sick stuff but to attribute a fundamentalist revival of Islam in Arabia in the 18th century to the West is a stretch even for you (I think so at least, but then I do believe you are capable of most any nutty idea; well, after all, you are a devout Muslim).
Infidel says
Is this any surprising that Ibrahim tace speaks like this.. He gets all his info from Madarasa propaganda at his mosque…. every Friday during Jummah…
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
Wellington, it is beyond dispute that Britain used wahhabists of sa’ud to fight ottoman Turks for It colonise Arab Muslims under ottoman Turks Empire. Read the book :”the Emergence of Arab Nationalism “
Wellington says
You have moved, Ibrahim, deceptively effortlessly from your contention about what went on in the 18th century, for which you provided no evidence, to the early 20th century.
Well, just like a Muzzie to think that facts can be made up or are optional. Or that a century here or there is of no consequence. Oh yeah, just another example of that great mental aberration I call “Muslimthink.”
gravenimage says
The dishonest Ibrahim itace muhammed wrote:
wahhabism as revival of khawarijism is a creation of Christian West to divide and weaken muslims who were united under ottoman Turks for them to colonise and deprive muslim nations.see a book :”The Emergence of Arab Nationalism “by zein N zein.
…………………………….
What a lot of twaddle. Ibrahim itace muhammed has no disagreements with Wahabbism–it is perfectly Islamic. He just wants his own gang in charge in the “Land of the Two Holy Places”, rather than the Saudis.
And obviously–as Wellington notes–the Christian West had no presense whatsoever in 18th century Arabia. Wahabbism is mainstream Sunni Islam.
More:
These idiot saudi monarchs have been serving the interests of wicked Christian West, especially the apartheid evil united states. what kind of reforms they want in Hijaz ? To introduce nudity and indiscriminate sex líke beasts in the holy land, including mecca and madina where Islamic holy sites are located ? Any attempt to do that Will lead to immediate sacking of these idiot zionist saudi monarchs and get administrators appointed from Istanbul to take care of the holy sites.
…………………………….
Note that Ibrahim itace muhammed considers women being allowed to leave the house without a “Mehram” to be “nudity”–what a moral idiot.
And he decries any freedom for women as “indiscriminate sex líke beasts”, but he has said that there should be no minimum age for girls to be abuse by Muslim pedophiles, that Muslims can marry up to four females (including those little girls, of course), and that forced marraige is fine, that Muslims can rape Infidels in Jihad and keep them as sex slaves.
But he believes that being allowed to marry for love is beyond the pale. *Ugh*.
Guy Forester says
The Saud clan and the Wahab clan were joined in marriage for two goals. Rid the Arabian peninsula of the Turks and to resurrect a pure and original Islam as practiced in the 7th century. So now you know what direction any reforms in Islam will go.
Wealthy and educated Saudis of all clans leave the KSA every chance they get to avoid practicing what they must when at home. Some will leave permanently to stay out of there.
The KSA military, SANG, and police forces are there to keep the house of Saud in power. Any other functions are secondary.
At the same time, believe it or not, the House of Saud acts like a finger in the leaking dike, holding back a flood even worse than what we see today in terms of jihad. There are “true believers” (I think Ibrahim above is one) that do not believe the Saud clan is religious enough and would be happy to take them to Chop Chop square and put REAL Islam in place in the KSA.
When the House of Saud ultimately collapses (it will eventually), it will not be pretty.
underbed cat says
Islamic doctrine is clever ..it is true, war is deceit. and so are the methods and organization that spread of the doctrine of sharia from the pages of the Quran. In many stages and precisely placed words and images with not a long time frame. Migration, settling into muslim communities,building support organizations training, converting Americans, educating, entering into the power of politics is part of the spread in sophisticated western countries such as Germany, Sweden, U.K. to deny what is taught and use to influence the media and marketing to allow the term “peaceful religion” to be used as a description, In less sophisticated or impoverished communities it gets violent faster. As the U.S,intervenes and is fighting against the Islamic terrorism across the world, they are arriving at our shores to pretend the violence is not the meaning of jihad and the phenomenon of ISIS declaring they are Islamic is just a curious unrelated radicalization.However they have been migrating to our shores for 50 years bent on the task a sophisticated subversive undermining of our constitution and laws and roam freely planning disruptive attacks. The 9/11 attack by al queda almost blew it for them, but the clever reinterpretation and the word “racism” and “islamophobia” was the only cause and years of subverting national security worked as the dawah deception spread, The Saudi Prince knows what the word terrorism and tolerance means to the U.S, and the opposite meaning to the believers of 56 islamic countries, so we think Saudi ‘s may cooperate and push out jihad terror and they know they may appear as a apparition on the desert yet as it fades the the reality comes in view. Knowing the Quran and the meaning of the words is our only defense and the country may just vote to silence truth as hate speech, guns as offensive, American law as meaningless and sharia law to terrorize the civilian population. The freedom of religion does not protect for a subversive doctrine of continuous war unless we fall for the deception.
underbed cat says
error with a long time frame
MTMLA says
Underbed cat. How about planting a half black socialist muslim which helped to boost the ideology and pave the way to the take over and the infiltration of the WH and US government. He aldo facilitated and promoted the muslim invasion in the US.. He could not be criticized or opposed lest the person be cause a racist.
underbed cat says
Preceded of course by other administrations and liberal and conservative that never saw the dangers of ignoring our borders, massive migration, ignoring values of honesty, excusing reckless behavior, encouraging decrease birth rate, salacious entertainment to change social customs, a hostile U.N., restricting oil production and ignoring the words of history and blaming the U.S. for 9/11 attacks. It may have been easy after fighting for ME allies against their enemies ignoring the knowledge and warnings of history which morphed into ours without understanding their warfare ideology. Allowing foreigners to purchase and control some strategic companies even worse. The placement of ME advisors into national security to deceive was ingenious. Finding the perfect, charming candidate to become president and reach an islamic goal was a tragedy unseen.as the alliance is still strong.and the present population with an ideology to have the U.S. submit to speech law, and gun restrictions and build and support their sharia law presence. What could possibly go wrong.we must work to unwind the influence not spread it.
..
logyallow pornography, restrict our authorities, humiliate our population that took honesty attitudes, religion, prepped for subversives and laws to the were weakened after the values of a nation were nearly destroyed our strenghts
underbed cat says
Please delete last three lines.
MTMLA says
I agree..but 3 last sentences don’t make sense.
MTMLA says
I read about the interview of the new young KSA king on 60 minutes last Sunday 3/17 and then I watched his interview. He said a lot of lies, especially how women are really treated in islam , that they are equal to men ,and blamed the strict treatment of women in KSA on the Iranian revolution and their mulahs. He also said that the wearing of the abaia is optional, its up to the woman….The interviewer didn’t challenge him much, and didn’t ask question on some disturbing things going on in KSA. He’s traveling in the US trying to clean their image..He also said 9/11 was created by Bin Laden in order to draw an edge between KSA and the US. He lied a lot. He’s a typical muslim who can’t be trusted. I bet he’s here to get something from this country and meet with other jihadis. I don’t trust him.