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Is
Saudi Arabia Against the Terrorists?
By Khaleed Waleed
2006/05/03
audi Arabia always
claims to be fighting against the Islamist terrorists. It also claims to
be a moderate Muslim country which supports the ‘moderate’ version of
Islam. The gullible infidels in general and the west in particular,
erroneously trust this hypocritical stand of Saudi Arabia with regard to
Islam and Islamist terrorists. Being a native of Saudi Arabia I shall
explain why this is so
To expose this
hypocrisy and the double-standard of Saudi Arabia, I am going to write,
explaining what is really going on with the education system of this
country. Once you comprehend the duplicity and pretensions of Saudi policy
vis-à-vis Islam and its dissemination of unbound hatred for anything
un-Islamic, you will certainly come to terms with the realities of Saudi
Arabia. Please bear in mind that the Saudi education system, in particular
its religious education system, is in the heart of all the terrorism we
are experiencing in to today’s world.
The
first aspect of the religious education system (Wahabe) in the schools of
Saudi Arabia is the teaching and propagation of intense hatred towards the
non-Muslims. This unbound abhorrence for the infidels is the prime reason
for the isolation of the students and the people of Saudi Arabia from the
rest of the world. This is the truth, I must write, firstly.
Though, I must admit
that all schools in Saudi Arabia, especially those in the non-Wahabi Area,
might not be exactly what I wrote above, but I am certain the majority of
the schools will be the mimicry of the type of hate-schools I described
above. I am not an inhabitant of the Wahabi area, such as Riyadh and Qasem
(land of the terrorists), but I am definite that the people in those areas
have their own stories of sufferings in the hands of the religious
bigots,—surely more than other areas of Saudi Arabia.
I vividly remember
that during our school days we were forced to attend classes wearing those
uncomfortable cassocks of the religious preachers. This utterly clumsy and
distasteful apparel contains ‘Thoub’ with ‘Gutra’ (head covering) without
black head rings. Everyone in Saudi Arabia very easily recognizes this
peculiar dress as the gear of the religious people. The difference between
this religious uniform and the Saudi garb for the ordinary people is that
the religious dress is a little short and without the black rings on the
head-covering, whereas the ordinary Saudi dress is flowing and contains
the black rings on the head-covering. All students in Saudi Arabia must
wear the religious dress—it is compulsory, presumably, first to force the
students to accept this mode of dressing and, secondly, to surrender to
the might of Saudi religious authority. To add more teeth to the
authoritative power of the clerics, a student is not allowed to walk
around in the school compound if he is not fully attired in the religious
garb mandated by the Religious Education Department. We used to be
expelled, many times, for the slightest deviation from this regimentation.
This could be as minor as forgetting the head-cover (gutra). Such is the
absolute power and authority the clerics in Saudi Arabia wield on the
school children.
Needless to
say—pants, shirts, trousers and T-shirts are absolutely haram
(forbidden). They are the apparels of the infidels—we were told in no
uncertain terms. If any students dared to attend school wearing any such
dresses of the Kafirs (non-Muslims), he was immediately branded as
an infidel and leered at, identifying him to be disloyal to the country
and religion.
In class-rooms, our
preceptors told us that saluting our national flag was haram. We
must not show any deference whatsoever to the government or to any human
being—the respect is reserved exclusively for Allah only—they told us
bluntly. Strangely though, everyday we always started our school time with
the national anthem and with saluting the national flag. The clerics had
to keep their mouth shut because these rituals were mandated by the
government. They could only grumble, and that was all.
Those rituals
finished, we would start our morning program with the recitation of the
holy Qur’an and Hadis. They were compulsory daily studies, without
any exception. Then we would be bombarded with short poems deriding the
Kafirs and extending support for the Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya,
Kashmir, the Philippines and such places where Muslims were presumably
oppressed–we were let to believe. Then more poems would be recited
eulogizing the acts of the mujahedens (read Islamic terrorists)
around the world and in support of them. Our teachers would let us
memorize the names of those Muslim countries (where Muslims were
reportedly tormented) and we would go out to collect charity for the
jihad those mujahedens were fighting against the infidels. We
were exhorted that the jihad is compulsory to protect Islam from
its enemies.
Then, we had to
listen to the harangue about Islam and its ostensible glorious past. This
was done solely to enthuse and imbibe our tender, impressionable minds to
bring back the lost glory of Islam. The religious abbot then would lecture
us on the evils of bad behavior in young people, such as: smoking, cutting
hair in western style, dressing in western costumes, wearing women’s dress
(effeminate men), listening to music—especially western music and watching
television. By the way, watching television was the greatest sin—we were
led to digest this thesis. In fact, there is a fatwa which says
that anyone possessing a satellite antenna will not go to Paradise!
Grooming hair in western style is considered an absolutely insolent
behavior. Believe me; to guarantee that none of us were following western
hair–style and to ensure that our hair was cut in front and back, the
headmaster of our religious school would inspect individually the head of
every student. Anyone found guilty of flouting the rule on hair–style
would have his haircut done, forcibly, in the school saloon—in many cases
this meant trimming the hair to zero—the crew–cut, so to speak. This would
make us look like young soldiers in the army and not like the students in
a seminary.
We were continuously
reminded about death. Death is one of the most important aspects of Islam,
and remembering death is a very pious act, we were lectured. Then we had
the description of the procedures of burial of dead bodies and other
obsequies associated with bereavement. In reality, our religious education
system is obsessed with eschatology (the doctrine of death), caring very
little about our young age. Sometimes, I wondered why, in the first place,
Allah sent me in this world if death is to be the only goal towards which
I must direct all my attention. To further instill this fear, we were
provided with a vivid picture of the torture in grave. Thus we would be
absolutely reluctant to do anything to avoid this dreadful torture in
grave.
Ruminating those days
of my religious school, I am now convinced that the teachers made up those
fibs just to implant fear in our young minds—to frighten us to stick to
Islam at all cost. I could still recollect the story of a black snake. The
story runs thus: a man died and when his family took his dead body to a
grave they discovered a snake waiting for him. So they took him to another
grave but with the same result—another snake was waiting for him. They
continued but with the same consequence. Tired and desperate, they buried
the dead body ignoring the snake standing nearby. But, when they were
about to leave, they heard a commotion inside the grave. When they opened
the burial chamber they noticed that the snake had slithered the man and
had broken his bones. So they asked the father of the dead man, “What
wrong did your son do?” The father replied, “He did nothing wrong, except
that he did not pray regularly.”
I shall vouch that
the religious teachers narrated to us many such dreadful stories, which,
of course, now I find to be total lies. Now that I have grown to maturity
I could never believe in such Islamic movies—the cock–and–bull stories of
the Mullahs. How laughable is it when I recall that during those formative
years of my life, I did indeed believe in those horrific tales, especially
when they emanated from the mouths of our all-powerful religious teachers?
I could never ever imagine our religious teachers told us utter lies. We
believed in every word they uttered and we were totally engulfed with
intense fear and horror. We used to see terror, panic and trepidation
everywhere. We were utterly afraid of death, of the torture in grave, the
torture on the judgment day, the anger of Allah, the west, the Kafir,
Israel and so on. It was fear, fear and fear—everywhere, we saw nothing
but fear. We were desperately frightened that the west and Israel was
scheming to destroy us with their atom bombs. Please do not laugh if I
tell you that the son of a friend of mine cries every time he hears the
roaring sound of an airplane. To him it is the start of a war. All these
morbid fear of unknown has been ingrained in us from our very childhood,
to say the least. We are born with fear, live with fear and die with fear.
This is the policy of the government—to subjugate people in a state of
permanent fear.
Our religious
teachers are not convinced that the proper teaching of the English
language would be of any benefit to Saudi students. They are completely
misguided and live with false pride and pretentious vaunt. The rudimentary
English which is taught in our schools is just a sham. The truth is: the
examination of the English language is terribly infected with rampant
cheating. I had plenty of discussions with the teachers on this massive
cheating in our examination system. But these teachers are adamant that
English is not essential, that we are to be proud of our language—the
language of the Qur’an.
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