Herland Report host, Hanne Herland speaks to Norway’s former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Carl Schiøtz Wibye about the history of Saudi extremism, Wahhabism and Islamism.
How may the Saudis solve the problem of extremism, and will Crown Prince Salman’s efforts be enough?
In order to understand why the current efforts of the Crown Prince to reform Saudi Arabian society are so important and vital for peace in the Middle Eastern region, take a listen to Wibye’s analysis of the history of Saudi Arabia.
Wibye spent many years in Saudi and only when he retired, he wrote about it, highly critical of the connection between the house of Saud and the extremist Wahhabism clerics.
He says that the Saudi Arabian Wahhabism as a sect, a sunni-extremist deviation within Islam that has caused so many problems, hoping the reformation within the Saudi system will be able to enlighten those who push for hatred of minorities and endless war.
Former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Carl Schiøtz Wibye: “This is why I wrote the book, I Terrorens Rike (Norwegian). I saw that nobody had established the link between the extremely strong radicalization of Islam the past thirty years and in parallell the broad Saudi propaganda for Wahhabism, its strong missionary activity and funding it in the exact same period of time.”
“There has been a parallel development the past thirty years: The billion dollar missionary activity for Wahhabism, violence and hate and the strong radicalization in the Muslim Ummah. This needs to be addressed.”
ALSO READ: The Dhimmi Culture. Christians as Third Class Citizens in Muslim World. Dr. Petra Heldt.
Wibye elaborates on how historically the oil money was fuelled into exporting radical ideology, which first permeated the Middle East and now is fuelling hatred between groups in Europe and the West.
The house of Saud depends on domestic peace, its alliance with the Wahhabi clerics has historically been important to legitimize the King. The billion dollar funding of Wahhabism is at the root of the problem, says Wibye.
Wibye explains: “Wahhabism originated from the Saudi Arabian desert some 250 years ago, in the form of an alliance between a very militant preacher, Mohammad Ibn al-Wahhab and a local emir, Mohammad bin Saud. The alliance stated that the Saud family was to be responsible for politics and the al-Wahhab family for religion, which in those days meant the whole social frame work such as common law. This is, in essence, still valid today.”
“What was later to be named Wahhabism, after its founder al-Wahhab remained a sect within Islam for over 200 years. The Ottomans looked upon it as a sect. It was an ideological movement in the center of the Arabian desert. The expansion of this very violent ideology came in the 1970’s and 80’s. Why?”
“Because at this time, the Saud family acquired the necessary resources through the oil, to develop and export the campaign for their ideology. I would call it an ideology disguised as a religion, or a policy disguised as religion.”
“Wahhabism is the main culprit, the main ideology responsible, for the deep sectarianism we see today. And more conflict and violence in society.”
“Iran has also done its best to export Shia islam, but they do not have comparable resources, but they have a quite a large population. Much of their budget is spent in the interior.”
“The Saudis have had billions and billions available to export their message of hate – I would go that far. The Saudi imams basically teach how to hate those who go against their ideology.”
“We have had a radical wave that has increased conflict and a violent development, and unfortunately, this has also reached us in the West.”
“Muslims are killing Muslims in extreme numbers, partly due to the takfir principle, and it is extremely unfortunate. At the same time, other minorities are denied the right of existence. It means that in this extreme view, the majority of the world population does not have the right to exist.”
“The Saudis own a large share of the Middle East media, so they control almost all the flow of the official information in the Middle East. The Saudis also own a large share of the Western media, and we should not forget that they also contribute much money to the Western universities. When you get scholarships and funds, millions of dollars to your university, you tend to not want to rock the boat and write good reports.”
Former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Carl Schiøtz Wibye: “This is why I wrote the book, I Terrorens Rike (Norwegian). I saw that nobody had established the link between the extremely strong radicalization of Islam the past thirty years and in parallell the broad Saudi propaganda for Wahhabism, its strong missionary activity and funding it in the exact same period of time.”
“There has been a parallel development the past thirty years: The billion dollar missionary activity for Wahhabism, violence and hate and the strong radicalization in the Muslim Ummah. This needs to be addressed.”
Wibye says: “The Saudis come in and build a mosque, supply and pay and supply locals who often have been in Medina to learn this radical Wahhabism. They convince their fellow Muslims to go along with the extreme views. Their Qurans and other literature from Medina, Saudi Arabia, literature which propagates hate towards Jews, Christians and other groups.”
“Together, this offensive creates a class of people who believe that they are in possession of the only correct version of Islam. This particular Quran has been provided by the Saudis, and has a lot of comments and parenthesis which makes it much more radical than the original Quran text.”
“The Wahhabis go into the community with this Saudi form of Quran, and all the minorities have to leave as they progress.”
“There cannot be any Jews, Christians, Shias or Sufis, Ahmadiyyas – they all have to go, they should not be on this earth and so on. The Wahhabis unfortunately have this idea that the whole world should become Wahhabis.”
“Extremism is nothing new, it has happened in other religions, in these types of fundamentalist movements. The problem is that this is very active in Islam now, and it comes as a result as an enormous spending of resources on propagation of this message.”
“This is tragic on a human level. It is going to happen in the West, and is already happening. We can look to Sweden, for example, where you have communities where only Muslims can enter. If we do not do anything, this will only grow.”
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The Herland Report is founded by Hanne Nabintu Herland, a Scandinavian historian of comparative religions, bestselling author, commentator and TV producer, known from the media for sharp analysis and fearless speech.
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