The Saudi roots of extremist Muslim terrorism

A liberal blogger, Raif Badawi, has been sentenced by a Saudi Arabian court to 1,000 lashes, plus 10 years in prison, for “insulting Islam”.  He’ll receive 50 lashes a week for 20 weeks.  He got his first installment last Friday.

His crime was to critique interpretations of Islam by the intolerant Wahabi (aka Salafi) sect, which is the established religion in the Saudi

The Saudi ruling family lives in fear of terrorist Muslim extremists such as Al Qaeda and ISIS.  Yet the thinking of these movements is rooted in Wahabism, and the Saudi government spends hundreds of millions of dollars to spread its ideas through the Muslim world.

A few more thoughts about the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  If French don’t want their citizens of Arab origin to embrace radical Islam, they shouldn’t use Muslim as a synonym for Arab, any more than they would use Catholic as a synonym for native-born Frenchman or Frenchwoman.

Also, the Charlie Hebdo massacre has conveniently superseded the Senate torture report in the public mind.  The roots of extremist Islamic terrorism are also in Abu Ghraib and the graves of the more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians who died in the U.S. invasion.

This is not an excuse for terrorism or a plea for tolerance of terrorism.  It is a recognition of cause and effect.

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Global outrage at Saudi Arabia as jailed blogger receives public flogging by Ian Black for The Guardian.

The World Must Now Confront Salafi Teachings by Trudy Rubin for The Philadelphia Inquirer (via Crooks and Liars)

Moral Clarity by Adam Shatz for the London Review of Books.

 

Tags: Charlie Hebdo, insulting Islam, Islamic terrorism, Muslim extremists, Raif Badawi, Salafism, Saudi Arabia, Saudi government, Saudi monarchy, Wahabism