1 EARLY DRAFT PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF AUTHOR Religion and Identity in Saudi Textbooks: Wahhabism

+ Salafism + Saudi Legitimacy = Schoolbook Islam Be Eleanor Abdella Doumato When I was in Riyadh in January, 2002, I was invited to attend a lunch and informal discussion about a book I wrote on the subject of womens rituals and their suppression under the Wahhabiyya in Saudi Arabia. The people attending were well-educated Saudis: university professors, heads of charitable societies, entrepreneurs, and at least one royal, all of them on the social invitation list of the American Embassy. At the lunch table, I was asked to summarize the books thesis, and when I mentioned moulid votive ceremonies and the Shiite lamentation readings at the womens Husseiniyya in the Eastern Province, an embarrassed silence filled the room. Finally a voice at the table spoke up and emphatically corrected me. There is only ONE Islam, she said. What the speaker meant is that in Saudi Arabia there is only One Islam we acknowledge publicly. The rituals I had mentioned are considered illegitimate according to the Wahhabiyya, and are forbidden by Saudi decree, along with the wearing of amulets, chanting by religious mystics, and the womens healing ritual called Zar. Even so, moulid ceremonies are popular among women in Hejaz, and lamentation ceremonies are central to ritual expression for at least 10 and maybe 15% of the Saudi population. These rituals are part of the historical fabric of the kingdom. Otherwise, there would be no decree banning them. By correcting me, and by the complicit silence of others, the women were affirming their allegiance to the Wahhabi idea of tawhid, the cornerstone of official Islam in Saudi Arabia, and by implication they were also affirming their allegiance to Saudi Arabias political culture, exactly as prescribed in the kingdoms compulsory school curriculum. Designed to homogenize the population and instill loyalty to the state, the curriculum teaches in every grade that there is One Islam, that all Muslims are united in one Umma, that Saudi Arabia holds a special and sacred place in the Muslim world, and that its royal family fulfills the requirements of Islamic rule. The schoolbooks inure students to respect authority, to equate opinion with knowledge, and to see ethical questions in black and white. At the same time, the kingdom, like the rest of the Muslim world, is ethnically diverse and its people divided by sectarian orientations. The authoritarian model has been undermined by economic realities and new information technologies, and the moral posturing of Saudi Arabias political culture has grown ever more distant from the world into which the country has emerged. The school books are cites that not only help to create and fuel these contradictions, they are a mirror of them in society at large. If Islam is One, what kind of Islam is it? What are its ethics and its sources? How do the texts deal with heterodox Islam and non-Muslims? As a mirror of political identity for the people of Saudi Arabia, what are the inclusions and exclusions that define belonging, and how do the texts reconcile belonging to the Umma as well the nationhttp://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

2 state? What the texts reveal are claims of authenticity in ancient roots, but an Islam that is a modern amalgamation of home-grown Wahhabism, the Salafism of the Muslim Brotherhood, plus a pan-Islamic agenda that rubs against the Saudis goal of building loyalty to the state. The texts and religion in the curriculum The texts used for this paper are the books of Fiqh, Hadith, and Tawhid for grades 9-12 which were used in the school year 2001-2002, and a selection of textbooks that are currently in use [2003-2004]: National Training, for grades 4-6, and 8-12, and Prophetic Biography and History of the Islamic State for the 10th grade, and a new Tawhid text for the 10th grade. The new texts are all produced under the aegis of the Ministry of Education, since the General Presidency for Girls Education was dissolved in 2002. However, it is not clear to what extent the influence of the General Presidency has been diminished in making curricular decisions since the personnel working for the Presidency, including its supposedly fired director, Dr. Murshid Murshid, have been moved into the Ministry of education bureaucracy. In the past, the Presidency and the Ministry each produced their own books, although in most cases the content was identical. At the start of the 2003 school year, some of the books designed for boys were also assigned to the girls schools, replacing texts that used to be provided by the Presidency, but I doubt that the Ministry is moving toward a uniform curriculum since, especially at the elementary level, Ministry textbooks are addressed to boys. For purposes of promotion, religion courses are counted as more important than secular subjects, and the religion curriculum is extensive, designed to occupy more than a third of students weekly classroom hours in elementary and middle school, and at least four hours a week in high school.1 Religious instruction actually occupies a great deal more of the students time because books on history are Islamic history, and books on Arabic literature are about religious literature, while National Training is premised on religious affiliation and values. These texts include Recitation and Language [Style], Stories from the Lives of the Companions, Stories from the Lives of the Followers [of the Companions], Recitation and Memorization, and Tafsir. All of the books, I have been told, are being revised, which is happening in response to American criticism and pressure from American government sources, and I have been told that there are some changes in the books for this year, and that additional changes will come later. However, a check of the Fiqh, Hadith and Tawhid texts for 2001-2002 against the 2003-4 editions of the same books revealed only one that is radically altered: the 10th grade tawhid text. The current situation notwithstanding, the content of the religion curriculum remains virtually unchanged since its inception,2 and curricular guides dating back to 1970 show the same concentration in religious subjects that exists today.3 Information in the texts is repetitive from subject to subject and year to year, and requires memorization. There are illustrations in some of the elementary level texts, including pictures of adults and children, both boys and girls, which is very surprising given the strong prohibitions against the use of pictures articulated in the high school hadith texts. For the elementary grades, in some books both the vocabulary and subject matter, such as who goes to heaven and who to hell, the causes of polytheism, apostasy http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

3 and Gods unity seem entirely inappropriate to grade level. On the other hand, some elementary books offer gentle lessons on loving God and family, good manners, the importance of being helpful at home, and on personal safety in every-day situations such as crossing the street. One Islam: Pure Faith, a Patron Saint, Nation, and Ruling family In the school books, the message is there is only One Islam for all Muslims, and the Arabian Peninsula has a special place in Islam, preserved and defended by Gods grace and the ruling family. The One Islam-Saudi nation message begins at the elementary level, especially in a series called National Training, but is most thoroughly fleshed out in the tenth grade Tawhid text4 where Islam is conflated with the word Salafi. The introductory lesson is entitled On the foundational sources of the creed, and the way of the Salaf [minhaj al-salaf] in acquiring knowledge of it. Correct belief, in the lesson, is the way of the as-salaf as-salih, the worthy ancestors who lived at the time of the Prophet and the centuries after his death. To follow the pious ancestors means eliminating reason and drawing only on the Quran and Sunnah: The established creed stands firm only according to the proofs of the lawgiver, and there is no place in it for opinion [al-ray] or individual reasoning [al-ijtihad]. Therefore, its sources are confined to what comes from the Book and the Sunna, because nothing offers more knowledge of God and what is owed to Him and what to refrain from. And God alone knows best, and after God then the messenger of God, and thus it was the way of our worthy ancestors [al-Salaf alSalah] and those who followed them and pursued knowledge of the creed, to confine themselves to the Book and the Sunnah. Why ignore the scholarly tradition of Islamic jurisprudence in favor of just the Book and Sunnah? According to the texts, unity of thinking and avoidance of communal strife is the goal: Whenever the Book and Sunnah give guidance as the right of God the most High, they have faith in it, and they hold to it, and they act according to it. And whatever was not proved in either the Book of God or the Sunnah of his messenger, it was repudiated and they rejected it. And therefore there was never among them differences in religious doctrine [al-atiqaad]; on the contrary, their creed was one, and their community was one, because God guaranteed unanimity [in thought], correctness in creed, and a single path to whomever clings to his Book and the Sunnah of his messenger.5 Philosophical thought and logic lead to schism, says the text, are therefore especially to be avoided. when some people built their creed on other than the Book and the Sunnah, from metaphysical speculation [ilm al-kilaam] and systematic logic [quwaaad al-mantiq] inherited from Greek and Roman philosophy, they produced http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

4 deviations and divisions [sects] in the creed, and resulting from it were arguments, and divisions in the community, and cleavages in building Islamic society. [p. 14] Deviation from the correct creed, indeed, spells disaster [mahlikah] and perdition [diyaa a]. 6 The message in the lesson is that intellectual debate and individual reasoning must be sacrificed on the altar of communal harmony and political unity. The lesson is literally a textbook illustration of what Khaled Abou El Fadl describes as the antiintellectualism of contemporary Islams supremacist, puritanical orientation which retreats to the secure haven of the text, where it can safely disassociate itself from critical historical inquiry.7[p.14] The name he gives to this supremacist, puritanical orientation is Salafabism, a combination of the word Salafi and Wahhabism, the home-grown Najdi version of Islam that the school book employs in the next lesson to locate the One Islam in Saudi Arabia and legitimize its present rulers. This chapter, the Call [dawa] of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, places the progenitor of Najdi Islam as the historical rectifier of deviations in the peninsula, and draws a parallel between Al Shaikh, as ibn Abd al-Wahhab in known in Saudi Arabia, and the Prophet Muhammad.8 The lesson explains that MIAW came as a mercy from God to renew the religion of this nation [al-ummah] and his call for renewal fit the pattern established by God in the past: the Prophet Muhammad was sent by God as the final prophet, to renew for mankind the creed that had been altered by deviations and innovations over time. While Muhammad is the seal of the prophet, God produces from time to time individuals from the ulama to renew the struggle against innovation and to rectify the creed and protect the shariah from change, and bring the light of God to people of blindness. [p. 19] Such a person appeared in the 12th century of the Hijra, and he was Shaikh al-Islam, al-Imam the Renewer [al-majdid] Muhammad ibn Abd alWahhab, and he appeared in this country when it was steeped in ignorance and practicing greater and lesser kinds of polytheistic practices [Shirk]. MIAW, like the Prophet, was awakened to the evils of polytheism and pursued the teaching of the truth with patience and persistence in the face of opposition and open hostility, and, like the Prophet, triumphed in the end because he possessed the truth and was doing Gods will. MIAW is thus a sort of patron saint of Najd, who preached the salafi creed first to his fellow scholars in Najd, and then traveled to Mecca, Medina, al-Ahsa [Hasa] and Basra and acquired knowledge of the sciences of Hadith and Tafsir and Fiqh and languages and recitation of Salafi books, especially those of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Qiyyam, and he preached to his fellow scholars in Najd, and then sent out missionaries to other territories. He realized that in his own land, Najd, there were people of differing ideas about religious doctrine, and ignorant of the Sunnah, practicing innovations and committing greater shirk around graves and tombs and placing faith in stones and trees, and making judgments based on other than what God send down. His call spread and enmity on the part of those who sought guidance in caves became hostile to him but The Shaikh persevered in his call, giving sincere advice and teaching students the true faith and writing useful treatises and books and sending them around the country, and he patiently issued legal http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

5 opinions in answer to questions on the basis of what seemed to him right and correct. When staying in the country became difficult for him, he went to another county in the path of the call to God, and to the renewal of this religion .. The textbook narrative places the Al Sa ud family in Gods light as reflected off MIAW, for Muhammad ibn Sa ud, the ancestor of the present rulers of Saudi Arabia, becomes his partner and protector, and the means of expanding the Call: When news of him reached the Amir of Dir iyah, Imam Muhammad bin Sa ud, and he accepted the truth of his call and the peacefulness of his goal of pursuing God in the heart, and accepting it. So he admitted The Shaikh and announced his acceptance of the call and his support of it, and an agreement was sealed between The Sheikh and the amir on the basis of this blessed call, and the power of religious knowledge [ilm] and evidence was joined with the power of political rule [sultah] and execution. In the narrative, violence is the product of the need to defend, and parallels between the Prophet Muhammad, forced by enemies to leave Mecca, and MIAW are further drawn out as enemies of MIAWs Dawa force conflict into the open: Ibn Sa ud becomes the defender of the Dawa of truth, and in the ensuing struggle between the armies of Truth and the armies of falsehood, God foreordained that victory would come to those who stand for truth. And the armies of tawhid gained victory over the surrounding lands and the State of Tawhid [addoula at-tawhid] is established in the Arabian peninsula, and, at the hand of The Shaikh, polytheism [shirk] and innovation [bida] and superstition ceased to be.9 As if to insure that no student misses the spiritual genealogy linking the presentday rulers of Saudi Arabia to the reforming Shaikh and back to the Prophet Muhammad, the lesson concludes with a list of manifestations of the Blessed Dawa [al-dawa almubaaraka] in the world today. The first is the spread of the salafi doctrine and the revitalization of the sunnah and the suppression of innovation and superstition, and the return of the people to the Book and the sunnah. This point is important because it rewards conformity while validating the suppression of non-comformists and turning their suppression into a positive attribute of the state. Second on the list is the founding of a scholarly movement that produces Islamic scholars and libraries, reminding students that the Saudi government has invested heavily in Islamic education. Third is the founding of an Islamic state that rules by the Book of God and the Sunnah of his prophet, and establishes Gods Dawa as a model of emulation for the Muslims in this country and in all the regions of the earth, and is forever, an example of faith and constancy. In other words, the accomplishments of The Shaikh are carried forward by the present rulers. The list concludes by highlighting the mass marketing of religious publications and the establishment of highly-endowed Islamic institutions at home and abroad, which are central components of the Saudi agenda to wield influence internationally in the Muslim world: The publication of useful Salafi books and their distribution in Hajj season and at

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6 other times, and support for Islamic institutions and Dawa centers in other lands [saair al-balaad]. God, Homeland, and School-boy: identifying with the Saudi state The National Training texts are all about connecting the ruling family to Islamic rule in the kingdom, and affirming their beneficence and success in making Saudi Arabia a power in the Islamic world. There is a good deal of common sense training for life in the series: lessons discuss how to tell time, and why appointments, and keeping them, are important. The texts discuss different kinds of work, and address the kingdoms low-skill, high employment problem by presenting manual labor in a positive light and explaining that among the services the kingdom offers to its citizens are vocational classes for people who want to learn a marketable skill. Lessons discuss safety issues such as keeping ones fingers out of electrical sockets, not playing with matches, and avoiding drugs; taking care to cross the street in a crosswalk. There are also lessons on cooperative behavior, such as keeping public spaces like the mosque and classroom clean, as well as lessons on personal cleanliness and polite behavior at the table: eat only with the right hand, for example. But the series is also about validating the performance of the ruling family and instilling respect for authority. In a lesson entitled al-Watan p. 31 the homeland is the land in which our fathers and forefathers lived, and they preserved it for us and we live today in it.. Our country [baladna] is the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the place of inspiration, and it is the Islamic holy land for in it is the sanctuary [Harem] of noble Mecca and the Kaaba, and the prophets mosque. Our homeland [watan], the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is ruled in piety by the Book of God and the sunna of the Prophet in all matters. A lesson on[ p. 39] the kingdom and the defense of the Islamic faith gives the history of Saudi rule from the time of the first Saudi state, and tells the familiar history of Muh ibn Abd Wahhab and how he saw that there was a lot of evil and superstition and innovation in the Arabian peninsula, and how he found an ally in Dariiya and the two together brought about a renewal of religion. The 6th grade national training text validates the leadership role of the kingdom in the Muslim world: has chapters titled the holy places in our land, my country and the Gulf Cooperation council p. 20; my country and the League of Arab States, the organization of Islamic conference and Islamic bank for Development which our kingdom supports at all times There are also chapters on My county and the Islamic holy places, my country: guarding justice and truth of Islam. A photo of the al-Aqsa mosque p. 29.accompanies a lesson called My country supports the Arab cause. An 8th grade text, in a few brief pages, explains the system of government: the government has established ministries and agencies that offer important public services, such as education, security services; health, recreation; social services, economic planning. The text explains that the system of government is a king with a council of ministers, who are specialists in the areas they oversee, and a Shura council, which is an Islamic tradition, one that King Abd al-Aziz always used, and King Fahd instituted by

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7 royal decree. The government in its wisdom and in its attention to Islam assures that the rights of individuals are upheld, rights that are derived from shariah. The family receives special attention in the National Training books: the family is the building block of society, to which each person turns for support, and in which each person is part of a hierarchy of authority. A 4th grade text tells boys to respect their mother because she bore you, and cared for you after birth, and if you were ill she called upon God for you, and protected you. The elementary books are illustrated, and lessons are incorporate an illustrative story: Ahmads mother asks him to get up and serve some fruit to his grandfather. Ahmad answers, No, Im busy, let my brother do it. Grandfather speaks kindly to Ahmad, asking him to come and sit by his side. He gently puts his arm around Ahmad, and says, Treat your parents with respect, because respect is an obligation, and so is being good to them, as God says, [Sura 17 The Israelites #24] and make yourself submissively gentle to them with compassion, and say: O my Lord, have compassion on them, as they brought me up when I was little p 25 A lesson on Islamic greetings in the 5th grade text is especially noteworthy because its message is in marked contrast to another lesson on Islamic greetings that appears in a high school hadith text.. The high school text teaches that a Muslim should not initiate a greeting of Salaam alaikum to a kaafar, but if the kafaar should speak first with a greeting of Peace be upon you, it is permissible to respond with the words, and upon you. The high school text includes hadith that have the prophet advising that if one enounters a kaafar in the street he should force him to the side , and on no account should he say wa rahmet al-lahu wa barakatu. In the 5th grade text, however, Ahmad goes to the store to buy school supplies with his father, and his father greets the clerk with the words, salaam alaikum wa rahmat allah wa barakaatu and the clerk answers wa alaikum as-sallam wa rahmat allahu wa barakaatu. Father, says Ahmad, do you know this man? And the father replies, p. 17 he doesnt know him, but that doesnt matter. Whenever you meet people, whether in a store or in school, you always greet them by saying salaam alaikum wa rahmat allah wa barakaatu and the response is wa alaikum as-sallam wa rahmat allahu wa barakaatu. Ahmed says, al-salaam is one of the names of God. One Way to be Woman: Pillar of Islamic Identity, Pillar of the State One of the most common themes in the high school texts is gender, where the separation of men and women is highlighted as a major symbol for what it means to be respectful Muslims. Sex-segregation in the school texts is also explicitly foregrounded to illuminate its character of the Saudi state as an Islamic state. The 10th grade Prophetic Biography and History of the Islamic State lists of the characteristics of Saudi Arabia that qualify the kingdom to be called an Islamic state, and at the top of the list is the fact that it enforces the separation of unrelated men and women in all public places. In the high school texts, gender segregation plays a prominent role in defining Islamic moral values: The ninth grade Hadith text, for example, contains a lesson based on the following words attributed to the Prophet. A man must not be alone with a woman unless she is with her mahram. [a mahram is a womans closest male relative and her guardian, usually her father or husband, and must be someone to whom the woman could not be legally married.] A "guide to the Hadith" explains that being alone http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

8 with a woman is a cause for her falling into prostitution, and for that reason Islam forbids it. The lesson then extrapolates advice for the modern day from the Hadith: a man is not to be alone in the house with an unrelated woman; a woman must not ride in a car alone with a hired driver; a female servant must not stay in the house alone with a male member of the family. Finally, the students are warned that leniency in matters ordered by God spreads corruption in the individual and in society.10 The same text has a lesson entitled "Gazing at Women." The Prophet is asked about inadvertently glancing at a woman, and advises that one should look the other way. The guide to the Hadith tells the student that seeing an unrelated woman opens the door to Satan, and puts one on the path to fornication, even if seeing the woman were unintended, and even if a man sees a woman directly or in a magazine or in a film. Barricading the door against Satan, the lesson reminds students, increases the faith of the worshipper of God. The ninth grade text of Fiq puts the onus on girls to protect themselves from being seen by any man except a mahram.11 Entitled "What is Obligatory Regarding Clothing and Adornment," the lesson teaches that Islamic clothing must cover the private parts of the body ["awra"], which for a man is the area from the navel to the knee. For a woman, however, the awra means all of her body. She is therefore entirely private and all of her must be covered, unless she is praying, and then her face and the palms of her hands should be visible. Whenever she is in the presence of a man to whom she is not closely related, all of her body, including her face and hands, must be covered, although exceptions are allowed for medical care or betrothal. The text gives no scriptural evidence for equating the awra of a woman with her whole body, though this interpretation is well established in the Hanbali school to which Najd ulama subscribe.12 The lesson warns students that the Muslim woman must wear hijab for the sake of her religion and for safeguarding her reputation, and continues with a prescription for proper Islamic dress [hijab]: hijab should be made of thick cloth, not of something flimsy that would show skin; it should be wide, not narrow so as to outline the parts of her body; it should not resemble the clothing of non-Muslim women or the clothing of men.13 The lesson concludes with a warning never to uncover one's face or hands in front of unrelated men, for it is a great wrong and a grievous fault. Almost every text for the four years from ninth through twelfth grade includes a lesson offering some version of Islamic scripture enlisted in the service of promoting sexsegregation. A tenth grade lesson on Islamic greetings has a sub-section advising boys never to shake the hand of a non-mahram woman, although exceptions may be made if the woman is old.14 A twelfth grade lesson says the mahram rules must apply to women's work, and lists permissible places for women to work as extensions of women's nurturing roles: girls' education and health care, or in vocations such as seamstress, or nursemaid for small children. Women may engage in "buying and selling," so long as a mahram is present or the woman has deputized a man to act on her behalf.15 There is a lesson on sanctioning of wives who fail to submit sexually to their husband [angels will weep for them], on the rights and obligations of family members [good women are obedient], and on the way in which Islam elevates the status of women by keeping them separate and protected by men. Gender in the school books is a reflection of the parochial, sex-segregation habits of Najd, and also of the way Najdi scholars think about scriptural interpretation. It is not http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

9 exactly literal interpretation, but an interpretative reading into the text, to which is employed the principle, whatever leads to forbidden things must be forbidden. For example, in the version of the Quran published in English for free distribution by the Saudi government, a passage referring to womens modesty is editorialized with interpretation in parentheses[Q 24: 31]: And tell the believing women to lower their gaze [from looking at forbidden things] and protect their private parts [from illegal sexual acts] and not to show off their adornment except only that which is apparent [like both eyes for necessity to see the way, or outer palms of hands or one eye or dress like veil, gloves, head-cover, apron, etc] and to draw their veils all over juyubihinna [ie their bodies, faces, necks and bosoms].. Controls over women as detailed in the school books serve both social conservatives who believe there is moral value to sex segregation, and the state, which can stand on the very visible platform of womens invisibility to declare loudly its commitment to ruling in the name of Islam. One Islam: Under Siege by Insiders and Outsiders from the Beginning till Now Abou El Fadl describes the Salafi-Wahhabi combination as one that constructs Islam into the antithesis of the West [p.15] , adopting third world nationalistic ideologies of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism [p. 20], and one that has searched Islam for black and white, which is, in his view, the antithesis of the Islamic tradition.16 El Fadl could have drawn these conclusions from reading the Saudi curriculum alone. A history text for the tenth grade called The life of the Prophet and history of the Islamic state contains a section called Waves of Enemies Against the Islamic World that begins with a warning that the solidarity of the Umma depends on unity of doctrine, firmness of character and high moral values, unity in foreign policy and unity in civilization, and without these the Islamic Umma will grow weak and fall into decay [pp. 69-71]. The chapter presents a Maneachean view of Islam versus the world, as if Islam were one thing, but one thing that been besieged over the centuries by internal and external enemies that are ideological as well as political and military. The books introduction for the teacher explains that the chapter is designed to allow the student to see that the enemies the Muslim world faces today are really extensions of the same kind of enmity they faced historically, and to understand how religious sectarianism and deviant beliefs have occurred repeatedly in Islamic history, and always serve Islams enemies.17 The waves of enemies chapter expands the enemies list that appears in the high school Fiqh and Hadith texts [see Doumato, Manning the Baricades]. Among the deviants who have assaulted Islams unity [ Internal Enemies of the Islamic world in the Middle Ages] are the Sabeans [ Saudi reference for Shia], the Kharijites, Qarmatians, the Zanj, and Ismailis; then there is the tribal asabiyya of the jahiliyya era, the Shuubiyya controversary of the age of the Ummayyads, and atheism [zandaqa], and heretical Sufism.[pp. 74-84]. Then there are outsiders like the Crusaders and Mongols, and the Magi [Majus, adherents of Mazdaism], and others like them among the idolworshipping nations. And in the contemporary age, there is nothing against our nation more aggressive or more malicious than colonialism and its willing tool Zionism [p. 73]. In modern times there is a revival of Asabiyya [nationalism], especially Turkish and http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

10 Arab nationalism, and socialism, as we see in Albania, Russia, Yugoslavia and the Peoples Republic of China, as well as Orientalism; and there are also magic arts and the spirit of negativism toward Islam just as in the tariqas of the heretical Sufis. [p. 74] To counter their enemies, Muslims must not sink into extravagance or greediness, nor imitate the character or behavior of their enemies. Ideas that run counter to Salafi-Wahhabi orthodoxy, that are generated within Islam, are not interpretations and modes of thought to debate and consider, but are unacceptable, deviant, heretical, and can only be promulgated by People who are not real Muslims or who wish Islam harm, who create schism and therefore must be denounced. Admonitions against heretical thoughts are sprinkled throughout the high school Fiqh and Hadith texts. 18 In the 11th grade Fiqh text, for example, heretical thought can easily turn a believer into an apostate: The top crime is as-shirk, associating others with God, and denying His Unity, which is code for Shia beliefs and rituals. One can also be labeled an apostate for denying any of God's attributes, or any of God's books or messages, or for cursing God or his messenger, for mocking religion, or for placing a copy of the Quran in an unclean place, or by doubting, "as when one doubts anything of the requirements of religion. The apostate is a person who denies his religion, says the text, and when someone denies his religion he strikes a blow to the solidarity of the community, and the evidence lies in Hadith, Whoever changes his religion, kill him.19 But first the apostate should be put in jail and questioned, and if he repents he is freed. Those on the enemies list have no redemptive features, even if they are Muslim, and the conflict between Islam and the enemy is all one-directional. The Moghul Enemies against the Islamic world, for example, traces the Mongolian onslaught from central Asia to the fall Samarqand and Tashkent, to the end of the Abbasid Caliphate with the fall of Baghdad. But that is the end of the story: nowhere, here or in any of the other textbooks I have seen so far, is there a discussion about Moghul civilization, which inaugurated a great age of Islamic art, architecture and sciences such as astronomy[p. 103]. There are no four schools of law that are worth discussing. There is no Iranian or Turkish civilization. Anything that is not subsumed under Salafi-Wahhabi orthodoxy is either something to be denounced, or it does not exist at all. The world of the textbooks is simply black and white. One Islam: Showing loyalty and bearing enmity, the sine qua non of Wahhabism The concept of al-walaa wa al-baraa, showing loyalty and bearing enmity has resonance historically in every school of Islamic thought, but for Wahhabi Muslims, from the very inception of the movement in the mid-18th century, it has conferred supremacist identities in its adherents, facilitated authoritarian rule, and proven a potential vehicle for violence. As explained in the 10th grade Tawhid text, any kind of non-conformist thought or action among Muslims is not only an error to be corrected, but persons in error are to be despised. Non-Muslims are not to be befriended or tolerated. Nor can they be simply ignored: they are to be hated. It is a law of tawhid that one should show loyalty to the Unitarian Muslim and bear enmity toward his polytheist enemies, says the text. As God says,

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11 Only God is your Wali and His Apostle and those who believe, those who keep up prayers and pay the poor-rate while they bow. And whoever takes God and His Apostle and those who believer for a guardian, then surely the party of God are they that shall be triumphant. [Q 5:55-56]. You shall not find a people who believe in God and the last day befriending those who act in opposition to God and his Messenger, even though they were their own fathers, or their sons, or their brothers, or their kinsfolk. 58:22 Additional proof texts refer to specific events during the Meccan wars20 but without historical context, and are used to show that disassociation between Muslims and nonMuslims is a universal and eternal condition set forth by God.21 The place of al-walaa wa al-baraa has great standing in Islam, the lesson says, as the Prophet said: The strongest bond of belief is loving what God loves and hating what God hates, and with these two one gains the loyalty [wilaayya] of God.22 The lesson elevates enmity for the sake of God above the prescribed rituals: From ibn Abbas may God be pleased with him, the Prophet said: Whoever loves for the sake of God and hates for the sake of God and shows loyalty for the sake of God and enmity for the sake of God, he will achieve the loyalty of God by that, and unless he does so, no worshipper will ever find the taste of faith even if he is excessive in prayer or fasting. p. 110 Who are the polytheist enemies against whom the monotheist Muslim must bear enmity? To MIAW, polytheist enemies were other Muslims, especially the Ottoman Turks, but also Shia, Sufis, and anyone who wears an amulet or practices magic. The school text however, parses out new ways to become an enemy, and explains why a Muslim must be on the alert to show enmity toward the offender. Students should recognize for example, hypocrisy [al-mudaahanah] when they see it. If a person socializes with moral deviants, the lesson says, but thinks himself immune to their deviancy, hes being hypocritical because he isnt immune, and by not breaking off relations with them and showing them hatred, hes showing disloyalty to God [p. 111]. The proof text is the story of Abraham [al-Khalil] who broke off from those who did not believe in God alone but instead worshipped idols. 23 Imam ibn Kathir said: God ordered his believing worshippers to have enmity toward unbelievers and avoid them and cut themselves off from them. In the Fiqh and Hadith texts, imitating the kuffar is presented as morally corrupting. For example, women who dress like foreign women invite temptation and corruption, so the fabric of Muslim womens dress must be thick in order not to show any skin, and wide so as to conceal the contours of the body, and the face must be covered to protect her personality. But in the Tawhid lessons, imitating the kuffar is a slap in the face of God because the Muslim is supposed to love what God loves and hate what God hates. If a Muslim, for example, joins in holiday celebrations with the kuffar, or shares with them their joys and sorrows, he is showing them loyalty; [ p. 118] To say id mubarak to the kufaar is as bad as worshipping the cross; its an even worse sin against http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

12 God than offering a toast with liquor; worse than suicide, worse that having forbidden sex [artikab al-farj al-haram]; and many people do that without realizing what they have done. [p.118] Imitating the kuffar by using Anno Domini instead of the Hijra year is another problem, because A.D. evokes the date of Christs birth and therefore using it is a show of affinity with them. At Christmas time, Muslims are not to dress like the kuffar or exchange gifts or attend a feast or display ornaments. The ceremonies of the kuffar should be like any other day for a Muslim. As Ibn Taimiyya said, Agreeing with the Ahl al-kitab on things that are not in our religion and that are not the customs of our ancestors is corruption. By avoiding these things, you cease supporting them. Some even say, goes the lesson, that if you perform a ritual slaughter on their day it is as if you slaughtered a pig. The past is repeatedly evoked as a warning to the present. In a section of the chapter called Judgement about making use of the kuffar in employment and fighting and things like that quotes Shaikh al-Islam Ibn Taimiyya as saying, Knowledgeable people know that the ahl dhimma min yahood wa nasara wa munasabin wrote to people of their own religion giving secret information about the Muslims. [p. 119] The principle is not to cooperate with the kuffar: O you who believe! Do not take for intimate friends from among others than your own people; they do not fall short of inflicting loss upon you; they love what distresses you; vehement hatred has already appeared from out of their mouths, and what their breasts conceal is greater still. [Q 3:118] One should not employ an unbeliever, says the lesson, if there is a Muslim who can do the job, and if theyre not needed, one should never hire them because the kuffar can never be trusted.24 Shaikh al-Islam ibn Taimiyya forbade using the kufar at all. Nor should a Muslim accept employment from an unbeliever, for a Muslim should never be in a position of subservience to the kuffar, whereby the kuffar will show him disrespect. Nor should he be put in a position requiring him to deny his religion. A Muslim should not live permanently among kuffar because his faith will be compromised, and that is why God required Muslims to migrate from a land of unbelief [bilad al-kufr] to a land of belief [bilad al-islam]. As for those who would rather work for the kuffar and live among them, this is the same as showing loyalty to them and agreeing with them. This is no doubt apostasy from Islam. And if you were there out of greed or if it was for pleasure [rafahiyye] even though he hates their religion and protects his religion it is not allowed. Beware of the worst punishment. 25 In a subsection of the chapter on al-walaa wa al-baraa are warnings about music, laughter, and singing, proscribed behaviors for which the Wahhabis were once famous, and which led nineteenth -century commentators to liken the Wahhabis to Calvinists. Proscriptions on joyous behaviors, according to the text, are meant to encourage the Muslim to invest all his being in thoughts of God, and not expend his energies in frivolous activities. In the text, though, the significance of such proscriptions shifts to contemporary concerns about the new enemy, the cultural invasion from the west. The worst kind of imitating the kuffar is becoming so preoccupied with the kind of unimportant things that the kuffar have promoted in their own societies that the http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

13 Muslim neglects to remember God and to do good works, for God says: Oh you who believe! Let not your wealth, or your children, divert you from the remembrance of God; and whoever does that, they are the losers [Q 63: 9].26 The lesson explains that the kuffaar assign value to unimportant things because, absent religious faith and belief in stowing away good deeds for the Last Day, their lives are empty. What are these unimportant things? First, there is what they [the kuffar] call the arts, such as singing and playing instruments, dancing, acting, theatre and cinema that is visited by people who are lost from the truth. Then, there is the creation of pictures, statutes and drawings, and also games and going out at night. Sports are more important to youth than remembering God and obeying Him; prayers are missed because of sports, and school and household obligations are ignored. Some of these are forbidden in religion and some allowed, says the lesson, but whether allowed or not, the Muslim nation today is facing challenges from its enemies, and should save their energy for dealing with these challenges and making the situation less dangerous. Muslims have no time to waste on insignificant activities.27 The snuffing-out of art and music, and anything reflecting creativity has been a defining feature of Wahhabism historically, and so has its hostility to the outsider.28 The hostility toward non-conforming Muslims at the heart of Wahhabism is not merely an isolated element of this religious orientation that is pulled off the shelf periodically as a means of firing up political cohesion, although it has proved useful for this purpose repeatedly in the past. David Commins work on Ibn Atiqs treatise on allegiance to the polytheists, for example, shows us that the duty to bear enmity was alive and well in 1883 when this treatise, which could be a template for the contemporary school tawhid text, was produced.29 The destruction of tombs, the re-writing of the pilgrimage rites to eliminate music, the forbidding of dance and celebrations of birthdays, even the Prophets, the forbidding of public cinema, drama, art exhibits, are all part of the modern fabric of Wahhabi culture. Its hostility to any human practice that would excite the imagination or bolster creativity, says Khaled Abou El Fadl, is perhaps the most stultifying, and even deadly, characteristic of Wahhabism,. Anything that suggests a step toward creativity he says, constitutes a step toward kufr. [p. 24-25.] The Saudi textbooks in and of themselves exemplify the very unimaginative, creativity-crushing thought process they preach: in one way or another, nearly every textbook that deal with religion repeats information from other texts and is about the same thing, over and over. Wahhabism and Salafism: their meeting in Saudi Arabia, and How did Odd-Ball Islam get to be the One Islam? The Salafi-Wahhabi version of Islam is represented in the school texts as Islam, pure and simple, the Islam of the pious ancestors of Real Muslims today. In some parts of the world , Salafi-Wahhabi Islam has in fact transcended its self-image to become, in the eyes of others, Islam. Yet the religion preached by MIAW and adopted by successive governments in Najd was always, until the late 20th century, considered odd-ball Islam. With its simplistic and parochial interpretations of Hadith, its dislike of art or music, film or drama, its call for total segregation of women and sex-separation in public places, its validation of a religious police force, and most of all its unapologetic contempt for http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

14 outsiders and encouragement of rude behavior towards them, Wahhabi Islam was despised and disparaged by Arab Muslims everywhere outside the peninsula as well everywhere inside it except Najd. In MIAWs lifetime, his own father and brother criticized his methods and his moral posturing,30 and the success of his mission was due almost solely to conquest. Even Ahmad Abd al-Ghafour Attar, the 20th century biographer and panegyrist of MIAW, admits that in the 1930s, when he was a student of religious sciences in Mecca, MIAW was held in very low esteem by himself and all his fellow students, and Wahhabism was considered something primitive and unique to Najd. As recently as 25 years ago, when I first went to live in Saudi Arabia and started writing about its confrontation with the west, Wahhabism was so marginal to the wider Islamic world that I would always begin my articles by explaining that Saudi Arabia was different, and its brand of Islam had nothing to do with Islam anywhere else. So how did Saudi Wahhabism come to be widely accepted as authoritative Islam? How did it become fused with Salafism, and how did the fusion of Wahhabism and Salafism get into the school books? The answer begins with the Salafiyya movement that grew out of the colonial occupation of Egypt at the turn of the century, and the response of Islamic scholars who sought to better their societies by reforming Islam. Like MIAW, men such as Muhammad Rashid Rida, Muhammad Abdul, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and Muhammad al-Shawkani [p. 31] believed that Muslims should return to Islams two scriptural sources for guidance31 and thereby follow the way of their worthy ancestors. However, their goals and methods were entirely different. MIAW was not trained in jurisprudence, had no interest in history or authentication of hadith and wanted to reproduce what he imagined to be the perfect community in Medina. These Egyptian reformers, however, were scholars, and their goal in shaking off the historical tradition was to clear the way to reinterpreting the foundational texts to accommodate modern needs.32 They too saw a golden age in the era of the Prophet, but it was an era infused with the values of social justice they were seeking. They were, as El Fadl says, synchronizers: they tended to engage in a practice known as talfiq in which they mix and match various opinions from the past in order to emerge with novel approaches to problems. They were mostly Muslim nationalists eager to read the values of modernism into the original sources of Islam. [p. 32] They were striving to reconcile the Islamic tradition with such ideas as the public good, democracy, constitutionalism, socialism, and the idea of the nation-state. [p. 32] Although today supporters of MIAW like to cite The Shaikh as the founder of modern Salafism, none of these reformers would have seen him in that light. It was only in 1933 that Wahhabism gained respectability outside Najd, and this was largely due to a misunderstanding of its meaning on the part of the famous Egyptian writer, Taha Hussein, who published an article in which he claimed to see in Wahhabism a vehicle for Arab nationalism: It is the call of Islam as preached by the Prophet, he wrote, excluding every mediation between God and his servants. It aims at reviving Arab Islam and purifying it from the influence of ignorance and of mixing with non-Arabs.33 Drawing a parallel between the experience of the Prophet Muhammad and MIAW, Hussein imagines that had the Turks and Egyptians not crushed the Wahhabis in the 19th century, the doctrine might have united the Arabs against European colonialism, just as Islam united the Arabs at the time of the Prophet. The doctrine, he wrote, awakened the http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

15 Arab soul and presented it with a lofty ideal it loved and strove strenuously for with the sword and the pen, and turned the attention of Muslims in general and of the people Iraq, Syria, and Egypt in particular, to the Arabian Peninsula.34 The idea that a pure Islam could be used to unite an Arab nation that was fractured and broken under the heal of colonialism resonated with the ideas of Hassan alBanna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood that would later bring Egyptian Salafism into the Saudi education system. During the 1930s and 1940s, al-Bana developed a theory of Islamic training as part of his vision for revitalizing Muslim consciousness and building an Islamic society. His vision called forth what seems common place now but was an innovation in his time, that Islam is a complete system of life [nizam shamil], and in many ways the goals he set forth meshed well with Wahhabi ideals for a unity of religion, spirituality, and politics, goals that are clearly organizing features of the Saudi education system today. Al-Banna defined the Muslim Brotherhood as the call of Salafiyya, the return of Islam to its pure sources, and the path of the Sunniyya because they wish to act according to the pure Sunna in all lifes activities, in creed and worship.35 He saw the Brotherhood as a political society because they demand the reform of authority inside [Muslim territory] and a change in the view [nazr] of the relationship between the Islamic Umma and the nations outside [of Muslim territory] ; and he saw the Brotherhood as an intellectually learned [ilmiyya] union because Islam makes searching for knowledge a duty for every Muslim, man and woman, and an economic enterprise because Islam is concerned with organization of capital and its gain .Verily God loves the gainfully employed believer.36 Al-Banna was also concerned with physical training, because a healthy body is necessary to be a helpful contributor to the aims of Muslim society, and these aims included military Jihad against occupiers.37 During the years of secularization and suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood under Gamal Abd al-Nasser in Egypt, the Brotherhood became radicalized, exemplified particularly by the work of Sayyid Qutb, and also by his brother Muhammad, who became a teacher in Saudi Arabia.38 In Sayyid Qutbs last book before he was executed, Milestones, he articulated a concept of Tawhid which expresses the Ikhwans educational purposes and means,39 those who call people to Islam are obligated to teach them that Islam means firstly the acknowledgement of the creed: There is no God but God in its true sense, which is the attribution of sovereignty [hakimiyya] to God in every aspect of life and the expulsion of those who oppose Gods authority [sultan] when they claim autonomy for themselves. This acknowledgement should be realized in their innermost being [sha air] and in their worship and acknowledged in their pratices and in their everyday life.40 Qutbs Tawhid is a concept that implies a rejection of any man-made system and total subserivience to God and His revelation, which are the Quran and His words to man the the Prophets Sunna as the human manifestation of the Divine Will.41 In Milestones Qutb argued that the Muslim world was living in a state of Jahiliyya, which provided a rationalization for the destruction of Egypts secular and un-democratic regime under Nasser, an idea that made them supportive of the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, who validated the role of the ulama in government and claimed Quran as constitution. http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

16 The Muslim Brotherhood came to influence the Saudi education system in the 1960s, when large numbers of the Salafiyya Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt, Syria and Iraq were given political asylum in Saudi Arabia.42 It was during the the Arab Cold War, and the Saudis, fearing the threat of Arab nationalism that inspired revolutionary activities against monarchies in the Arab world, saw the Brotherhood as natural allies as they fought a proxy war in Yemen against Egypt and the Arab nationalism propounded by Egypts president, Gamal Abd al-Nasser.43 The members of the Muslim Brotherhood who came to Saudi Arabia exerted great influence, Rouleau says, as they became imams in the mosques and teachers in secondary schools and universities. Muslim Brotherhood migrs also became officials in the ministry of education, where they designed curricula, wrote textbooks, and forged ties with Saudi ulama.44 How foreigners could take over the Saudi school system is easy to understand given the state of Saudi education at the time: public education for boys had only begun in 1953, and in 1960, the year public schools for girls were initiated, the country as a whole had an illiteracy rate in the 90% range for men, and higher women. The kingdom simply did not have enough competent teachers, let alone scholars capable of preparing school curricula. [Even today, forty years later, the public schools are not fully Saudiize]. As Arab Muslim intellectuals, the Muslim Brotherhood contribution was indispensable in forwarding the public education agenda of the government, and their religious orientation was complementary. At the same time, the Brotherhood were also in a position to support the ruling family in their confrontation with the challenge of secular nationalism in the Arab states. In 1962, in an attempt to cultivate allies under the guise of Islamic solidarity, and to create a leadership position for themselves in the Muslim world, the Saudis created the Muslim World League. According to Hamid Algar, the Wahhabi-Salafi stamp of the league was evident by the composition of its leadership: the league was headed by the mufti of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al ash-Shaykh, a descendent of MIAW, and among its eight other members were a son-in-law of Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the two most prominent Muslim statesmen and Brotherhood proponents of the time, Maulana Abu l-Ala Maududi, leader of the Pakistani Jamaat-I Islami, and Maulana Abu l Hasan Navdi of India.45 The Brotherhood was thus very well placed to play an influential role in Saudi Arabia on a number of different levels. In the Saudi education policy, formulated in the late 1960s, the fusion of the Salafism of the Muslim Brotherhood, Najdi Wahhabism, and the legitimacy concerns of the royal family is very clear. Islam, in the education policy, is a complete way of life and therefore teaching religion and instilling faith is the fundamental purpose of education, along with instilling a commitment to the Islamic Nation and a sense of solidarity with all Muslims the world over; instilling a commitment to Islamic proselytizing and eternal Jihad against Islams enemies; training students physically so they can pursue Jihad and fulfill their obligations to society [an echo of alBanna]; teaching them to denounce any system that conflicts with Islam; and teaching them the rationale for legitimacy of the ruler: reciprocal consultation between the ruler and the ruled in what ensures right and duties and promotes loyalty and allegiance; and teaching students that Saudi Arabia has a special place and great responsibility in leading humanity to Islam.46

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17 So how did Salafi-Wahhabism come to be so widely accepted as the One Islam? One reason is the adoption of a name well established and respected, which obfuscates its more complicated and darker meanings. The word Wahhabiyya has never been used by Saudi writers except in referencing its use by outsiders, and never occurs in the school texts, because the name is seen as derogatory.47 But the adoption of the name Salafi is, I think, very recent and very intentional, and probably just since the Gulf War of 199091, when suddenly everyone throughout the Gulf who claimed to be conservative was Salafi. It was also at this time that the internet first obtained wide-spread usage, and sites Salafi sites began to appear that claimed Saudi authorship, such as al-Minhaj.com, which lists the now-deceased and once powerful Saudi Shaikh Muhammad al-Uthaimin48 among its sponsors. Another reason for the new-found popularity of Salafi-Wahhabi Islam is its simplicity, and, as El Fadl observes, its apparent egalitarianism. By limiting the sources of Islam to Quran and Sunnah, he says, traditional sources of authority based on scholarship in jurisprudence were undermined, and, given the overt anti-intellectualism of the Wahhabis, with their uncritical use of hadith, consequently anyone who could cite foundational sources could claim to speak for the will of God. [p. 32] When viewed through the high school textbooks, one might even say the new Salafi-Wahhabi combination represents a dumbing-down of Islam, to the extent that today, potentially anyone with access to an on-line Quran and Hadith browser may claim authority in interpretation. There is another, and sinister aspect to the dumbing down of Islam, which may contribute, if not to its popularity, to its wider diffusion, and that is its political utility for rationalizing political actions which might otherwise be considered immoral: as I interpret this idea that originates with Khaled Abou El Fadl, if the text stands alone, without historical context, without taking the scriptural context into account, without attention to hadith validation, or to contradictory hadith or obscurity of Quranic passages, and then these texts are used selectively, the texts can be deployed to mean whatever the user wants them to mean, to claim for example, that the Quran calls for political violence, or that Islam requires hostility toward non-Muslims or death to non-conforming Muslims, or that the Quran and Sunna prescribe total body covering for women. This kind of manipulation of scripture should be familiar to Americans, because Christian fundamentalist use of Old Testament texts is implicated in the same kind of amoral reasoning. Homophobics and sincerely moral Christians alike, for example, focus on Deuteronomy to validate their discomfort with homosexuality, but never invoke other proscriptions for which God prescribed the death penalty, even those that occur in the same chapter, such as Gods decree of death for children who disobey their parents. Presumably the reasoning for the selective invocation of scripture is that the one violation of Gods laws fits the Christian moral order in the eyes of the person making the judgment, while the other violation doesnt, and, from a utilitarian standpoint, invoking the extremity of the one would certainly cast doubt on the validity of the other. Similarly, Pat Robertsons 700 Club promotes millennialism, with its expectation of Armageddon and the death of Jews who dont convert to Christianity, and when it comes to questions about the anticipation of death for Jews or the impact of the in-gathering on indigenous inhabitants, the answer is who are we to second-guess God. Selectively manipulated,

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18 the text, in other words, is a moral universe unto itself that can be readily adopted by groups with a political agenda. But the most important reason for the success in spreading Wahhabi-Salafi Islam is the flow of oil money, which, as El Fadl says, gave the Saudis the opportunity to address their legitimacy problem. Given Wahhabisms incompatibility with main-stream Islamic practices such as shrine visitation, poetry-reading, processionals and its out-right hostility toward minorities within the kingdom, and its attempt to snuff out centuries- old Pilgrimage celebrations, Saudi Arabia had a serious image problem in trying to lay claim to leadership in the Islamic world, let alone be taken seriously as protector of the holy places. [Note that King Fahd took on the title of guardian of the two holy places only after the second Gulf War and the surge of region-wide Islamism.]The Saudis, as El Fadl puts it, either had to alter their own system of belief to make it more consistent with the convictions of other Muslims, or they had to aggressively spread their convictions to the rest of the Muslim world. The first, he says, would have required the Saudi regime to reinvent itself, but, in many ways it was easier to attempt to reinvent the Muslim world, and that is the option they chose. [ p. 31] So what exactly have the Saudis done to reinvent the Muslim world? Its all in the National Training school texts that praise the Saudis leadership role in Islamic proselytizing and pursuing Islamic interests. The Islamic Universities welcome substantial numbers of foreign students on scholarship, who get an education they could never afford at home; The World Assembly of Muslim Youth organizes conferences and Quran competitions, publishes religious tracts and sponsors missionary activities abroad. The Organization of Islamic Conference, heavily supported by Saudi Arabia, operates on the political and head-of-state level to promote cooperation among Muslim nations. A lesson on Connections of my country to the Islamic world for the 6th grade says, Our country strives to spread the book of God, so Malik Fahd has established a publishing house in Medina the Enlightened so that the Book of God may circulate among people of Islamic countries, and our king, khadim al-haramain wal-sharifain, gives guidance by reproducing the noble Quran for all Islamic countries and for Islamic minorities in other states. [power point examples: the Saudi Quran with its editorialized suras, Islamic Ettiquette, the Natural Blood of Women. The Desired Muslim Generation] Another method has been turning the Pilgrimage into a major tourist industry, with hotels and restaurants to serve all comers, including a tent-city for the poorest of pilgrims, funding pilgrim-tourist agencies abroad that offer classes and literature about the correct rites of pilgrimage according to the Wahhabi method and restrictions, and then orchestrating the rites as they occur. One particularly successful method of asserting Saudi leadership through the Pilgrimage is inviting celebrities to make the Hajj as guests: No where else, for example, could they have obtained the mileage derived from having hosted Malcolm X. One Islam: how far and how deeply has it really spread? This brings me back to the women at the lunch table admonishing me that there is only one Islam. I dont know how seriously they took themselves on the One Islam issue, but after lunch, quite spontaneously, a number of them spoke with me individually about http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329

19 the rituals of their mothers generation with which they themselves were personally familiar. But they were, to a woman, young, and the product of the Saudi school system. Im unsure how much weight to put on the school curricula when it comes to inuring Wahhabi ideas within the Kingdom. This is because there is nothing in the books I did not experience personally in 1979, when probably less than half the school -aged population were even in school. Showing loyalty toward other Muslims and bearing enmity toward non-Muslims were well understood and discussed openly on radio and television, along with warnings not to imitate western women in their dress or their behavior. [If a person works in an office where kuffar also work, should the Muslim shake the hand of the kuffar?] Total sex-segregation as something close to the kingdoms highest virtue was a constant theme in the media, along with Quranic punishments for morals violations, theft and murder. At that time, it was not unusual to hear a prominent sheikh call for death to Shia, and Shia were excluded from high government positions and jobs in the oil industry. Foreigners produced concerts and stage-plays, but in secret, behind closed compound walls, in fear of the religious police. The point Im making is that the state successfully promoted and enforced Wahhabi ideas about the social order before there was a fully functioning school curriculum at which we could point our finger, and since then, the state has invested itself more fully in catering to its WahhabiNajdi constituency. The role of the state in promoting Wahhabism in the past has everything to do with the potential for curricular change in the post 9/11 environment. The Saudi government has got itself between a rock and a hard place: it has molded its constituency based on its claims to rule in the name of Islam as defined by its Wahhabi ulama, but at the same time, it has created a violent opposition prepared to hoist the Saudi rulers on their own petard, an opposition that would take Wahhabism at its word and find the Saudi rulers wanting. Meanwhile, given the heavy promotion of religion over the past twenty years, there is no longer the possibility of a liberal, foreign-educated elite that counts for enough politically to risk backing down, least of all on an issue as emotionally laden as the national curriculum. One final point: this paper is not finished. Id hoped to do a section on Islamic ethics as defined in the school-books. The Fiqh, Hadith and Tawhid texts are not sufficient for this purpose given that there is a course of study on the Companions of the Prophet and the Followers of the Companions of the Prophet, presented as models of emulation for students, and these books I received only recently and have not had time to work through them. To be continued.
1 2 3

All of the textbooks cited were in use during the school year 2001-2002. Hamad Al-Salloom. Abdel-Fattah Ramadan Abdel-Al, Education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: A Case Study of the

Educational Development in Saudi Arabia from 1926-7 to 1986-7, unpublished dissertation. KennedyWestern University, December, 1988.
4

Tawhid, 10th grade, girls, p. 13-14 [1996-97, in use during 2001-2002]

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20

Two proof texts follow: God says: and hold fast by the covenant of God all together and be not

disunited [Imran 103]; So there will surely come to you guidance from Me, then whoever follows my guidance, he shall not go astray nor be unhappy [TaHa 123]
6

Tawhid, 10th grade, girls, p. 15 In his biography of MIAW, Ahmad Attar says that ilm al-kalaam is a

science of theology known as scholasticism, which is the science which makes it possible to prove religious dogmatics by sound arguments. According to old doctors of theology it deals with the essence and qualities of God. Ahmad Abdol Ghafour Attar, Muhammad Ibn Abdel Wahhab [Mecca Printing & Information Est., 2nd. Ed., 1979], p. 116.
7

Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Ugly Modern and the Modern Ugly: Reclaiming the Beautiful in Islam, in

Progressive Muslims, ed. by Omid Safi, [Oxford: One World Press, 2003], 33-77. [my page references are to a typescript]
8 9

Al ash-Shaikh is the family name of MIAWs descendants. The proof text: As for the scum it passes away as a worthless thing and as for that which profits the

people, it tarries on earth, [Q 13:17].

10

al-Mamlakat al-'Arabiyat al-Sa'udia, Wizarat al-muarif, Al-Hadith l'il-saf al-thalath al-mutawasat, P 94-

95.
11 12

Wazarat al-muaarif, al-fiqh l'il-saf al-thalath al-mutawasat, p. 62-65 Barbara Stowasser, Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation, New York: Oxford University

Press, 1994, p. 93. The school of Shafii also includes a woman's face and hands as part of her awra. The schools of Malik and Hanafi exclude the hands and face.
13 14

Al-Fiq lilsaf al-Thaleth al-Mutawasit, wazira el-mu'aref, P. 63pp. 62-65. Al-Hadith wa al-thiqafa al-islamiyye, lil saf al-thani al-thanawi, section for social science and medicine

and sciences al-aloom al-idariyya wa al-ijtamaiuye wal tibaiyya wa tifniyya, p. 67

15

al-Mamlaka al-Arabiyya al-Suudiyya, al-Ra'isat al-Ama litalim al-Banat. Al-fiqh al-murhala al-

thanawia al-saf al-thalath, p.106- 109.

16 17

El Fadl, The Ugly Modern

Ministry of Education, Life of the Prophet and the history of the Islamic state, 10th grade, 2003. The

goal in making the student aware of all this is so that he will have knowledge in the circumstances of the Islamic faith which will fortify him against sectarianism and deviance.[p. 5]
18

For example, [from the 11th grade Fiqh book, see Doumato, Manning the Barricades] the apostate is a

person who denies his religion, and when someone denies his religion he strikes a blow to the solidarity of the community, says an eleventh grade fiqh text. The evidence lies in Hadith, Whoever changes his religion, kill him. But first the apostate should be put in jail and questioned, and if he repents he is freed. Apostasy from Islam, Fiqh, eleventh grade, General Presidency, p. 67-69.
19 20

Apostasy from Islam, Fiqh, eleventh grade, General Presidency, p. 67-9. Q 5:51: Do not take the Jews and Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever

amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them. Q: 60:1: Do not take my enemy and

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your enemy for friends. Would you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of the truth, driving out the Messenger and yourselves because you believe in God? Q 8:73: As for those who disbelieve, some of them are the guardians of others; if you will not do it, there will be in the land persecution and great mischief.
21 22 23

al-walla wa al-baraa, Tawhid, tenth grade, General Presidency, p. 109-110

al-walla wa al-baraa, Tawhid, tenth grade, General Presidency, p. 110. Q 60:4 Indeed, there is for you a good example in Ibrahim and those with him when they said to their

people: surely we are clear of you and of what you serve besides Allah; we declare ourselves to be clear of you, and enmity and hatred have appeared between us and you forever until you believe in Allah alone.
24 25 26 27 28

al-walla wa al-baraa, Tawhid, tenth grade, General Presidency, p.121. al-walla wa al-baraa, Tawhid, tenth grade, General Presidency, p.121. al-walla wa al-baraa, Tawhid, tenth grade, General Presidency, p.124.

al-walla wa al-baraa, Tawhid, tenth grade, General Presidency, p. 124-5. There are far too many examples of Wahhabi expressions of hostility and aggression toward outsiders to

list them all. Well know examples include the killings in Taif by the Ikhwan during the Saudi conquest of Hijaz and the destruction of tombs and sacred places of Shia in Itaq in 1803, or the leveling of the saints cemetery in Medina, or the beating of people in Hufuf in the 1920s for wearing gold, or the stopping of traditional music and processions associated with the Pilgrimage. Incidents of personal experience with Wahhabisms hostility to the outsider abound. One particularly humorous occasion occurred in Riyadh in 1917, when Dr. Paul Harrison of the American Mission in Bahrain opened a clinic at Ibn Sauds request. According to Dr. Harrison, patients he encountered on the street spat on him and called him Kalb and then followed him into the clinic for medical attention. When the doctor tried greeting a patient with asSalaam alaikum, the patient responded, I say that only to a Muslim.
29

David Commins, Wahhabi Doctrine in an Age of Political Expediency, unpublished paper presented at

the 36th annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 2002.
30

El Fadl, The Modern Ugly and the Ugly Modern: Reclaiming the Beautiful in Islam, in Progressive

Muslims 33-77 (edited by Omid Safi, Oxford: Oneworld Press (2003).

31 32 33 34 35 36

El Fadl, p. 31, Algar El Fadl Attar, p. 163. Attar, p. 164. Roald, p. 111 Roald, p. 112, her translations of al-Banna 1984, Majmu at rasail al-imam al-shahid hasan al-Banna,

pp. 122-123.
37

Al-Banna was very much concerned with morality, and moral training to the Muslim Brothers stresses

patience, sincerity, truthfulness, tolerance, forbearance and hope, as well as discouraging illicit sex, gossip and backbiting.[ roald p. 141-2] Moral training is based on models of behavior from the stories of the life

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of the prophet and his companions, which are part of the Saudi curriculum, and al-Banna was particularly concerned about social welfare and Islamic fraternity, espousing service to the public, including visiting the sick, helping the needy, and offering a kind word. [p. 146 Roald]
38

Algar mentions Sayyid Qutbs book, Signposts Along the Road [Milestones], and In the Shade of the

Quran, as being particularly influential, and also mentions a book written by his brother, Muhammad Qutb, Twentieth Century Age of Ignorance Jahiliyyat al-Qarn al-Ishrin [Cairo, 1964). Sayyid Qutb and his work are discussed by Emanuel Sivan, Radical Islam, and by Yvonne Haddad, Sayyid Qutb: Ideologue of Islamic Revival, in Voices of Resurgent Islam, Haddad and Esposito, eds.
39

Roald p. 125, quoting from Qutb, 1983b p. 40: those who call people to Islam are obligated to teach

them that Islam means firstly the acknowledgement of the creed: There is no God but God in its true sense, wich is the attribution of sovereignty [hakimiyya] to God in every aspect of life and the expulsion of those who oppose Gods authority [sultan] when they claim autonomy for themselves. This acknowledgement should be realized in their innermost being [sha air] and in their w orship and acknowledged in ther raticesnd in their everyday life.
40

In Tawhid, for the 10th grade, five kinds of Tawhid are delineated, and three of these are considered

main concepts of Tawhid by the Muslim Brothers: unity of lordship [tawhid ar-rububiyya], unity of divinity [tawhid al- asma wa s-sifat]
41 42 43 44 45

Roald, p. 127. Algar, p. 48. Eric Rouleau, Trouble in the Kingdom, Foreign Affairs, July 1, 2002. Rouleau. Hamid Algar, Wahhabism: a critical essay, p. 49. [The work of each of these men is recommended for

inclusion in a model Islamic curriculum for North American Islamic schools published in 1412 by Umm alQura University in Mecca.45 ]
46

al-Mamlaka al-arabiyya al-suudiyya wazarat al-maarif, Siyasat al-talim, Riyahd, 1995. The

educational policy rests on acquainting the individual with his God and religion, adjusting his conduct in accordance with the teaching of religion, to fulfill needs of society and achieve national objectives. #2. faith in God as God, in Islam as religion and in Muhammad as Gods Prophet and messenger; #17. absolute faith in the fundamentals of the Islamic nation and in its being the best nation given to people, and the faith in its unity regardless of race, color and distance; #29. Islamic solidarity for the sake of uniting Islamic ranks, strengthening cooperation among them and shielding them against all dangers; #22. reciprocal consultation between the ruler and the ruled in what ensures rights and duties and promotes loyalty and allegiance; #23. God has bestowed a special personality on the Saudi Arabian Kingdom in being the guardian of Islams Sacred places and the defender of the land in which inspiration descended on Prophet Muhammed, and in her adoption of Islam as creed, worship, law, constitution and way of life, and in sensing her great responsibility in leading humanity to Islam and setting it on the right path; #25. Preaching Islam through the world, with prudence and persuasion, is the duty of the state and the citizens

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in order to enlighten the people, bring them out of darkness to light and raise them in the realm of ideology to the level of Islamic thought; #26. Jihad is a strict duty, an established tradition and an existing need which will continue until resurrection day; #29, promoting the spirit of loyalty to Islamic law by denouncing any system or theory that conflicts with this law and by honest action and behavior in conformity with the general provisions of this law; #52 supplying students with physical skill based on healthy and athletic principles to form sound bodies enabling the individual to fulfill his duties toward his religion and society with strength and perseverance; #60 awakening the spirit of Islamic struggle to fight our enemies, restore out rights, resume our glory and fulfill the mission of Islam; #104 preparing the students spiritually and physically for Jihad.
47

For a discussion on the use of the term wahhabism see Dr. Fahd Al-Semmari, The Invention of the

Term Wahhabism: an instrument against expansion through conversion, unpublished paper presented at the 36th annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, Washington, 2002.
48

al-Minhaj.com, is the site of the Salafi Society of North America. Its agenda is Wahhabi: Tawhid is

the Foundation, reads the title page. Making the Religion purely for Allah is the foundation of the Religion, and it is its axis around which its mill revolves, and it is the Tawheed that Allah sent His messengers with and for which He revealed His books. It is that which the prophets called to and for which cause they made Jihaad.[http://www.al-manhaj.com/Page1.cfm?ArticleID=2] Similarly, the web site [http://www.salaf.com/] is clearly a Saudi site, which lists MIAW along with Ibn Tayimiyya among the pious descendents of the Salaf.

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