METHODOLOGY
Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom decided to undertake this project
after a number of Muslims and other experts publicly raised concerns about Saudi state
influence on American religious life.1 This report complements a May 2003
recommendation of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an
independent government agency, that the U.S. government conduct a study on Saudi
involvement in propagating internationally a “religious ideology that explicitly promotes
hate, intolerance, and other human rights violations, and in some cases violence, toward
members of other religious groups, both Muslims and non-Muslims.” 2 In releasing this
report, the Center is also mindful of one of the key findings of the 9/11 Commission
Report: “Education that teaches tolerance, the dignity and value of each individual, and
respect for different beliefs is a key element in any global strategy to eliminate Islamist
terrorism.”
The phenomenon of Saudi hate ideology is worldwide, but its occurrence in the
United States has received scant attention. This report begins to probe in detail the
content of the Wahhabi ideology that the Saudi government has worked to propagate
through books and other publications within our borders.3 While substantial analysis has
been previously published on Saudi Wahhabism in other countries, few specifics have
been reported on the content of Wahhabi indoctrination within the United States. 4 Part
of the reason may be that the vast majority of the written materials are in Arabic. Also,
U.S. security investigations have focused on stopping money flows and curbing the
activities of individual extremists resulting in, among other actions, the recent expulsions
of dozens of religious teachers with Saudi diplomatic passports.5 Saudi officials argue
that they have changed their textbooks at home, something we have not sought to
confirm. We have ascertained that as of December 2004, Saudi-connected resources and
publications on extremist ideology remain common reading and educational material in
some of America’s main mosques.
In undertaking this study, we did not attempt a general survey of American
mosques. In order to document Saudi influence, the material for this report was gathered
from a selection of more than a dozen mosques and Islamic centers in American cities,
including Los Angeles, Oakland, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Washington, and New York.
In most cases, these sources are the most prominent and well-established mosques in their
areas. They have libraries and publication racks for mosque-goers. Some have full-or
part-time schools and, as the 9/11 Commission Report observed, such “Saudi-funded
Wahhabi schools are often the only Islamic schools.”6
The material collected consists of over 200 books and other publications, many of
which titles were available in several mosques. Some 90 percent of the publications are
in Arabic, though some are in English, Urdu, Chinese and Tagalog. With one exception,
2
an Urdu-language document, the materials for this study were in Arabic and English. The
Center had two independent translators review each Arabic document.
All the documents analyzed here have some connection to the government of
Saudi Arabia. In some instances, they have five connections. The publications under
study each have at least two of the following links to Saudi Arabia. They are:
• official publications of a government ministry;
• distributed by the Saudi embassy;
• comprised of religious pronouncements and commentary by religious
authorities appointed to state positions by the Saudi crown;
• representative of the established Wahhabi ideology of Saudi Arabia;
and/or
• disseminated through a mosque or center supported by the Saudi crown.
In many examples, the Saudi link is readily apparent from the seal or name
appearing on the cover of the publications of the Saudi Embassy in Washington, or of the
Saudi cultural, educational or religious affairs ministries, or of the Saudi Air Force.While not all the mosques in the study may receive Saudi support, some of the mosques
and centers, such as the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles and the Islamic Center in
Washington, are openly acknowledged to receive official support by the Saudi king as
recorded on his website.7 While some observers distinguish between funding from the
Saudi state and donations made by individual members of the Saudi royal family, it
should be noted that King Fahd makes no such distinction. His website asserts, “King
Fahd gave his support, either personally or through his Government….” The website
also asserts that “the cost of King Fahd’s efforts in this field has been astronomical,
amounting to many billions of Saudi Riyals,” resulting in “some 210 Centers wholly or
partly financed by Saudi Arabia, more than 1,500 Mosques and 202 colleges and almost
2,000 schools for educating Muslim children.” The King and his son donated millions of
dollars to the King Fahd mosque.8
Furthermore, the Saudi government has directly staffed some of these institutions.
The King Fahd mosque, the main mosque in Los Angeles, from which several of these
publications were gathered, employed an imam, Fahad al Thumairy, who was an
accredited diplomat of the Saudi Arabian consulate from 1996 until 2003, when he was
barred from reentering the United States because of terrorist connections. The 9/11
Commission Report describes the imam as a “well-known figure at the King Fahd
mosque and within the Los Angeles Muslim community,” who was reputed to be an
“Islamic fundamentalist and a strict adherent to orthodox Wahhabi doctrine” and
observed that he “may have played a role in helping the <9/11> hijackers establish
themselves on their arrival in Los Angeles.”9
Several hate-filled publications in this study were also gathered from the Institute
of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in Fairfax, Virginia. According to investigative reports in
the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi
Ambassador to the U.S., served as chairman of this school’s Board of Trustees, and some
3
16 other personnel there held Saudi diplomatic visas until they were expelled for
extremism by the State Department in 2004.10 Until late 2003, the institute was an official
adjunct campus of the Imam Mohammed Ibn-Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, part of
Saudi Arabia’s state-run university system, funded and controlled by the Saudi Ministry
of Education.11 Although Saudi Arabia claims to have severed official links with it, the
Institute the Saudis established continues to operate in northern Virginia.
Some of the works were published by the Al-Haramain Foundation, run from
Saudi Arabia with branch offices in the United States until the FBI blocked its assets in
February 2004, finding that it was directly funding al Qaeda. In October 2004, the Saudi
government’s Ministry for Islamic Affairs dissolved the foundation, and, according to a
senior Saudi official, its assets will be folded into a new Saudi National Commission for
Charitable Work Abroad.
Some of the Wahhabi materials in this study were printed by publishers and
libraries functioning as publishing houses in Saudi Arabia. Some of these are directly
government-supported and-controlled, such as the King Fahd National Library and the
General Presidency of the Administration of Scientific Research, Ifta’, Da’wa and
Guidance (General Administration for Printing and Translation). Others, which may be
privately run, are monitored closely by the state, which does not grant the free right to
expression, and, according to the State Department, the government’s Ministry of
Information has the authority to appoint and remove all editors-in-chief.12
A prolific source of fatwas condemning “infidels” in this collection was Sheik
‘Abd al-‘Aziz Bin ‘Abdillah Bin Baz (died 1999), who was appointed by King Fahd in
1993 to the official post of Grand Mufti. As Grand Mufti, he was upheld by the
government of Saudi Arabia as its highest religious authority. Bin Baz was a government
appointee who received a regular government salary, served at the pleasure of the King
and presided over the Saudi Permanent Committee for Scientific Research and the
Issuing of Fatwas, an office of the Saudi government. His radically dichotomous mode of
thinking, coupled with his persistent demonizing of non-Muslims and tolerant Muslims,
runs through the fatwas in these publications.
Bin Baz is famously remembered by many Saudis for a ruling he issued in 1966
declaring the world flat. He was also responsible for the fatwa, unique in Islam, barring
Saudi women from driving.13 Perhaps as a way of atoning for a fatwa he reluctantly
issued in 1991 at the time of the Gulf War accepting the presence of non-Muslim troops
in Saudi Arabia, in subsequent years Bin Baz seemed to go out of his way to pronounce
against Christians, Jews, and “infidel” Westerners. His fatwas, which carry considerable
weight, have been circulated through official Saudi diplomatic channels to mosques and
schools throughout the world, including some in the United States, and have been
particularly influential in radicalizing Muslim youth at home and abroad. The extremist
views proclaimed in these official fatwas belie what Adel al-Jubeir, the articulate Saudi
spokesman and special advisor to Crown Prince Abdullah, asserts during televised press
conferences about fanatical sheiks in the Kingdom being mainly “underground,” and the
fatwas they issue being merely expressions of “their personal opinions.” Though Bin Baz
4
is now dead, his fanatical fatwas continue to be treated as authoritative by the Saudi
government.
The bulk of the material was collected in November and December 2003. In
December 2004, additional samples were collected from mosques in Washington, Falls
Church, Los Angeles, Orange County and Chicago showing that the problem continues as
this report goes to press. One of the documents from Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Affairs
Ministry bears the post-9/11 publication date of 2002, while most of the other titles were
published in the 1980s and 1990s. Notwithstanding the fact that some of the titles were
published by groups and entities that in the last two years have been shut down or have
broken ties with the Saudi government following U.S. government terrorism
investigations, and despite the Saudi government advertising campaign that their
textbooks are being revised, the offensive titles and similar publications remain widely
available in America, and in some cases dominate mosque library shelves, and continue
to be used to educate American Muslims.
Copies of the documents and their translations are kept on file at Freedom House.
A listing of the mosques and centers where these publications were found and a
bibliography of the documents analyzed in this report follow.----------
BIBLIOGRAPHY
List of Sources
1. Islamic Center of America
215 North Oraton Parkway
East Orange, NJ 07017
School name: Madrasatu Ahlis Sunnah
previously known as The Islamic Day School
2. Daru-Al-Islah
320 Fabry Terrace
Teaneck, NJ 07666
3. Al-Farouq Masjid
552-4 Atlantic Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
4. The Islamic Center (of Washington, D.C.)
2551 Massachusetts NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
5. Masjid Al-Islam
5021 A Street SE
Washington, D.C. 20019
6. Dar Al-Hijra Islamic Center
3159 Row Street
Falls Church, VA 22044
7. All Dulles Area Muslim Society, Adams Center (Herndon Mosque)
500 Grove Street, P.O. Box 1085
Herndon, VA 22070
8. MCC (Muslim Community Center)
4380 N. Elston Avenue
Chicago, IL 60641
9. Richardson Mosque (Dallas)
840 Abrams Road
Richardson, TX. 75081
10. Islamic Society of Greater Houston, ISGH – North Zone
11815 Adel Road
Houston, TX 77067
78
11. Masjid Al-Farouq
1207 Conrad Sauer Drive
Houston, TX 77043
12. King Fahd Mosque (Los Angeles)
10980 Washington Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232
13. Masjid Abu Bakr (aka Islamic Center of San Diego)
7050 Eckstrom Avenue
San Diego, CA 92111
14. Islamic Society of Orange County
9752 W 13th Street
Garden Grove, CA 92844
15. Islamic Center of Oakland (Oakland Islamic Center)
515 31st Street
Oakland, CA 94609
79
Appendices*
Document No. 2
Verdict Regarding Celebrating the Year 2000 and the Call for the of Unity Religions.
Riyadh: Permanent Committee for Scientific Research and the Issuing of Fatwas, 2000.
Collected from Masjid Abu Bakr, San Diego, CA, 12/10/03.
Document No. 32
Science of Tawheed (Unity). Riyadh: The General Presidency for Teaching Girls
1991. Collected from Masjid Al-Farouq, Houston TX, 12/15/03.
Document No. 36
Bin Baz, Sheik Abdul Alaziz. Religious Edicts. Riyadh: The Institution of Islamic
Affairs at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., 1989. Collected from Islamic
Center of America, East Orange, NJ, 12/14/03. Available from King Fahd Mosque,
Culver City, CA, 12/04/04.
Document No. 44
Religious Edicts for the Immigrant Muslim. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Cultural Attaché in
Washington, no date. Collected from Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., Washington,
D.C., 12/12/03.
NOTES
1 Schwartz, Stephen, The Two Faces of Islam, Doubleday, New York, NY, 2002.; Baer, Robert, Sleeping
With the Devil, Crown Publishers, New York, NY, 2003. See also Mai Yamani’s talk at Freedom House
“State Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia: Impacts of a Religious Ideology of Intolerance and Hate,” 21 October
2004; Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia,
http://www.cdhr.info/; Saudi Institute,
http://www.saudiinstitute.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=12 U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Report on Saudi Arabia, May 2003.
3 Saudi Institute, Report: Saudi School in Virginia Disparages Christianity and Judaism, Washington, 13
July 2004.
4 Abdella, Doumato and Posusney, Marsha Pripstein eds. Education in Saudi Arabia: Women and
Globalization in the Arab Middle East: Gender, Economy & Society, Lynne Rienner Publishers, London,
2003; Doumato, Eleanor Abdella, “Manning the Barricades: Islam According to Saudi Arabia’s School
Texts,” Middle East Journal Abstracts from The Middle East Journal, 57, No. 2, Spring 2003, pp. 230-248;
Michaela Prokop, "Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Education," International Affairs 79, No. 1, London,
2003, pp.77-89; Groiss, Amon, ed. Report: The West, Christians and Jews in Saudi Arabian Schoolbooks,
Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace and the American Jewish Committee, February 2003; Steven
Stalinsky, "Preliminary Overview - Saudi Arabia's Education System: Curriculum, Spreading Saudi
Education to the World and Official Saudi Position on Education Policy," The Middle East Research Media
Institute (MEMRI), 20 December 2002; “An Egyptian Journalist on the Connection between Wahhabism
and Terrorism,” Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special Dispatch Series- No. 526, 20
June 2003; “Somali Muslim Journalist on the Detrimental Effects of Wahhabism on His Country,” Middle
East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special Dispatch Series- No. 625, 9 December 2003; “Ethipoian
Journalist on the Detrimental Effects of Saudi Arabia’s ‘Poisonous Wahhabism’ on His Country,” The
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special Dispatch Series- No. 624, 9 December 2003;
“Incitement to Jihad on Saudi Government-Controlled TV,” Middle East Media Research Institute
(MEMRI), Special Report- No. 29, 24 June 2004; “Saudi Armed Forces Journal on the Jews: ‘The
Fabricated Torah, Talmud, and Protocols of the Elders of Zion Command Destruction of All Non-Jews for
World Domination,” Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Special Dispatch Series- No. 768, 20
August, 2004; Pipes, Daniel, “The Need to Name and Know Thy Terrorists,” New York Post, 19 November
2002; Mirahmadi, Hedieh, “Sunni Disposition: The Moderates Should Be Our Friends,” National Review
Online, 7 May 2004; Marshall, Paul, "Radical Islam's Move on Africa," Washington Post, 16 October
2003; Marshall, Paul, " Radical Islam in Nigeria: The Talibanization of West Africa," The Weekly
Standard, 15 April 2002; Marshall, Paul, "The Next Hotbed Of Islamic Radicalism," Washington Post, 8
October 2002; Marshall, Paul, "No Fizzle Sharia thrives (and preys) in Nigeria," National Review Online, 3
February 2004.
5 Ottoway, David, “U.S. Eyes Money Trails of Saudi-Backed Charities,” Washington Post, 19 August
2004.
6 Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11
Commission Report, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, p. 372.
7 www.kingfahdbinabdulaziz.com
8 Ottoway, David, “U.S. Eyes Money Trails of Saudi-Backed Charities,” Washington Post, 19 August
2004, final ed., sec. A: A01.
9 Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11
Commission Report, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, pp. 216-217.
10 Schmidt, Susan and Murphy, Caryle, “U.S. Revokes Visa of Cleric at Saudi Embassy,” Washington Post,
7 December 2003.
11 Simpson, Glenn, “A Muslim School Used by Military Has Troubling Ties,” Wall Street Journal, 3
December 2003.
12 U.S. State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Saudi Arabia
Country Report on Human Rights Practices, February 2004.
13 “All women in the country were prohibited from driving and were dependent upon males for any
transportation.” See U.S. State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Saudi Arabia
Country Report on Human Rights Practices, February 2004.
68
14 U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Report on Saudi Arabia, May 2003.
15 U.S. State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Saudi Arabia Country Report
on Human Rights Practices, February 2004.
16 Ajami, Fouad, “The Sentry’s Solitude,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2001, p.2-16; Baer,
Robert, Sleeping With the Devil, Crown Publishers, New York, NY, 2003.
17 Schwartz, Stephen, The Two Faces of Islam, Doubleday, New York, NY, 2002; Also see Final Report of
the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, W.W.
Norton & Company, New York.
18 Al-Jubeir, Adel, Saudi Foreign Policy Advisor, Interview by Tony Snow, Fox News Sunday, 18 May
2003.
19 Also see, for discussion of Saudi innovations in the translation of the Koran, Schwartz, Stephen, “Re-
Writing the Koran: A Bigoted Saudi Translation,” The Weekly Standard, 27 September 2004.
20 Simon, Mafoot, “A Sufi Muslim Takes on Wahhabism,” Sunday Straits Times, 12 December 2004.
21 See Alexiev, Alex, “Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States,” Testimony before of the U.S.
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 26 June 2003.
22 Marshall, Paul, “War Against the Infidels,” The Weekly Standard, 26 June 2004.
23 This study did not attempt to monitor the sermons of radical imams exported by Saudi Arabia. See for
example, Stalinksy, Steven, “Kingdom Comes to North America: Top Saudi Cleric to Visit Canada,”
National Review Online, 13 May 2004, www.nationalreview.com/comment/stalinsky200405130846.asp.
24 Leiken, Robert S., “Bearers of Global Jihad? Immigration and National Security After 9/11,” The Nixon
Center, 2004.
25 Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11
Commission Report, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, pp. 233.
26 Emerson, Stephen, American Jihad, The Free Press, New York, NY, 2002.
27 Argetsinger, Amy, “Muslim Teen Made Conversion to Fury,” Washington Post, 2 December 2004, Page
A03.
28 See Gilles Kepel, The War for the Muslim Minds, Belknap Press, 2002; and also see Doran, Michael
Scott, “The Saudi Paradox,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004 for a discussion on the various
ideological tendencies within Wahhabism and how the most radical ideologues came to predominate by
allying with the Muslim Brotherhood.
29 Dankowitz, Aluma, “Saudi Study Offers Critical Analysis of the Kingdom’s Religious Curricula,”
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), 9 November 2004.
30 A Washington Post article reported that the D.C.-based public relations firm Qorvis Communications
was paid $14.6 million by the Saudi Arabian Embassy for one six month period, ending Dec. 31, 2002.
Horwitz, Sari and Eggen, Dan, “FBI Searches Saudi Arabia’s PR Firm,” Washington Post, 9 December
2004.
31 I recently met with a delegation of Saudi religious officials, including Sulaiman Muhammad al-Jarallah,
the former director of the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences of Fairfax, Virginia, and a current
teacher at the government’s Imam Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh who serves on a teacher training
commission at the University and on the organizing committee for the National Dialogue. Dr. Jarallah
replied to my question about the progress of such reform by stating that Saudi Arabia was a “conservative”
society whose textbooks properly reflected religiously conservative values. After I raised specific examples
of hate ideology expressed in the Saudi government textbooks, he sought to mitigate it by giving an
example of a heavily veiled Saudi woman having difficulty getting a taxi in London. He added that
“updating” the textbooks would take “many years” and “evolve slowly.” Another Saudi participant,
Ibrahim Abdullah Al-Sadan, also teaching at the Ibn Saud University and a former member of the Ministry
of Education’s Islamic Educational Reform project, said that the criticisms of the curriculum were
unwarranted because the examples given at the National Dialogue were taken out of context. The meeting
took place on December 14, 2004, at the Washington offices of the US Commission on International
Religious Freedom as part of an inter-faith dialogue sponsored through the US Institute for Peace. Also
see, World Net Daily, “Saudi Sheik: ‘Slavery is a Part of Islam’” The independent Saudi Information
Agency reported that Sheik Saleh Al-Fawzan who was recently taped justifying the enslavement of infidels
in a lecture recorded by the Saudi Information Agency, remains a leading figure in the religious
69
establishment that oversees this effort
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35518, 10 November 2003.
32 See e.g., Cohen, Ariel, “Putting the Kingdom on Notice,” Washington Times, 11 November 2003.
33 Schmidt, Susan, “Spreading Saudi Fundamentalism in U.S.,” Washington Post, 2 October 2003. Page
A01; Also see Watanabe, Teresa, “U.S., Muslims Divided Over Saudi Aid,” Los Angeles Times, 1
December 2002, “One of the nation’s most prominent Islamic Organizations (CAIR) has accepted a
$500,000 donation from a Saudi prince, sparking debate among American Muslims over whether foreign
contributors are compromising their independence and the integrity of their organizations.”
34 Ledeen, Michael, War Against the Terror Masters, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY, 2002.
35 Barrett, Paul, “Captive Audience: How a Chaplain Spread Extremism to an Inmate Flock,” Wall Street
Journal, 5 February 2003, Section A, Page 1; Simpson, Glen, “FBI Reviews Muslims’ Military Role,” Wall
Street Journal, 15 October 2003; Also see, O’Beirne, Kate, “The Chaplain Problem: What gives with
imams (and others) in the military?” National Review, 27 October 2003.
36 Simpson, Glenn, “Diplomatic Visas of Saudis Revoked for Preaching Wahhabi Doctrine at Virginia
School,” Wall Street Journal, 30 January 2004.
37 Ottaway, David B., “U.S. Eyes Money Trails of Saudi Backed Charities,” Washington Post, 9 August
2004; Simpson, Glenn, “Saudi Shutter Massive Charity Linked With Terror,” Wall Street Journal, 3 June
2004; Also see Du'ran, Khalid and Devon, “Saudi Relief Hypocrisy,” National Review Online, 13 May
2003, www.nationalreview.com.
38 Stalinksy, Steven, “The Islamic Affairs Department of the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C.,” Middle
East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), No. 23, 26 November 2003.
39 Benard, Cheryl, Civil Democratic Islam, RAND National Security Research Division, 2003.
40 “International Religious Freedom Report for 2004,” U.S. Department of State, 2004.
41 See Schwartz, Stephen, “Re-Writing the Koran; A Bigoted Saudi Translation,” The Weekly Standard, 27
September 2004; also see MEMRI, Dispatch No. 830, “Saudi Journalist and Childhood Friend of Osama
bin Laden Criticizes Muslims for Misreading Koranic Verses to Justify Hatred of Christians and Jews,” 17
December 2004.
42 See Schwartz, Stephen, “Re-Writing the Koran; A Bigoted Saudi Translation,” The Weekly Standard, 27
September 2004; also see MEMRI, Dispatch No. 830, “Saudi Journalist and Childhood Friend of Osama
bin Laden Criticizes Muslims for Misreading Koranic Verses to Justify Hatred of Christians and Jews,” 17
December 2004.
43 Alyami, Ali, “Human Rights in Saudi Arabia,” Testimony before the Congressional Human Rights
Caucus, 4 June 2002. Also see: Center for Democracy and Human Rights
http://www.cdhr.info/44 This practice of denouncing as “infidels” moderate or non-Wahhabi Muslims and calling for retribution
against them is sometimes called the doctrine of “takfir,” literally excommunication. See The 9/11
Commission Report; Also see Kepel, Gilles, The War for the Muslim Minds, Harvard University Press,
2002; and “Ultra-Radical Muslims Draw Scrutiny,” Associated Press, Brian Murphy, 20 November 2004.
45 See Cradle of Islam: The Hijaz and the Quest for an Arabian Identity, Mai Yamani, I.B. Tauris
Publishers, London, 2004.
46 Muhammad, Ma’ashu. “The Jews in the Modern Era.” Know Your Enemy Section, The Muslim Soldier,
Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), 20 August 2004.
47 The un-Islamic nature of democracy as understood and practiced in the West is emphasized in more than
one piece of writing. From Jordan comes an Islamist analysis of democracy very much in line with the
Wahhabi views surveyed so far. Copies of this tract were gathered on December 15, 2003, from the Al-
Farouq Mosque in Houston, Texas: “Democracy is an evil system and we have been ordered to reject evil,”
write the authors in Al-Asala magazine, an Islamist publication. The main reason given for this is
democracy’s insistence on governing the people by the people themselves since the people are the source of
all power. To these Islamists this is a flagrant violation of Islamic laws and beliefs: “Either belief in Allah,
in his laws, and in governing through them, or belief in evil and governing through it—and everything that
disagrees with Allah’s laws is evil”
. Pluralism comes in for severe criticism. It is of
two types, the authors inform us: ideological and political pluralism. The first means that people living
under the democratic system have the freedom to believe in whatever they like. “They can leave Islam for
any other religion or sect even if that belief system is Judaism, Christianity, communism, socialism, or
secularism, and this is the very embodiment of unbelief.” Political pluralism, on the other hand, entails
allowing all political parties without regard to their ideas or beliefs “to rule the Muslims through elections,
70
which makes the Muslims and the non-Muslims equal, and this goes against the sacred injunctions that
categorically forbid non-Muslims to govern Muslims.” Elections done the democratic way are haram
(forbidden) because they do not require the candidate or the voter to display the necessary Islamic
credentials needed in order to become a public figure or a voting citizen. Thus democracy brings to power
rulers who from an Islamic perspective are not permitted to govern over Muslims. The purpose of elections
is for the candidate to become a member of a chamber of representatives, “an evil institution” that rules by
majority decisions, “not by Allah’s Book.”
48 Ottoway, David, “U.S. Eyes Money Trails of Saudi-Backed Charities,” Washington Post, 19 August
2004, final ed., sec. A: A01.
49 Muhammad, Ma’ashu, “The Jews in the Modern Era.” Know Your Enemy Section. The Muslim Soldier,
.
50 Ye’or, Bat, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, London:
Associated University Presses, 1996.
51 Final Report on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the Unites States, The 9/11
Commission Report, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, p. 362.
52 For a discussion of the right of women to choose to wear the veil or not see Nafisi, Azar, Reading Lolita
in Tehran, Random House, March 2003.
53 “Author of Saudi Curriculums Advocates Slavery ("Slavery is a part of Islam," prominent scholar
says),” in Saudi Information Agency, 7 November 2003. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fnews/
1018026/posts
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
