by B. R. GOWANI

PHOTO/Dawn (front row, from right to left) Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, United States President Donald Trump, Abu Dhabi (UAE) Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at Arab-Islamic-American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia PHOTO/Reuters

President Trump

The United States President Donald Trump‘s hatred for Muslims has been on open display. Yet, his problems are numerous. This is partly due to his unfiltered language and the refusal of the Democratic Party, liberal news media, and talk-show hosts (Bill Maher, Steven Colbert, and others) to accept Trump’s unfair victory. They blame it on the Russian interference in the 2016 US election. Trump and his associates may be corrupt and may have benefited financially from Russia; but no solid proof has yet been uncovered of Russia’s meddling in the election. (On the other hand, many whites, including Trump, had never accepted Obama as their president.)

Prince Mohammed

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud suffers from Alzheimer’s disease so the kingdom is controlled by Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, one of the King’s sons; he’s also the Saudi defense minister and the deputy crown prince.

Prince Mohammed has been known for his “impulsiveness, aggression and poor judgement,” and, like Trump, he refuses to learn from his blunders. He accelerated the Saudi plan to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al Asaad and began a war against Yemen which is still going on and has had tragic consequences on Yemenis.

Prince Mohammed is now yearning for a war with Iran for sectarian reasons, as Saudi Arabia is comprised of a Sunni Muslim majority and Iran of Shia Muslim majority. The Sunni/Shia divide occurred right after Prophet Muhammad’s death in 632 CE. Worldwide, less than 15% of the Muslims are Shias and the rest are Sunnis.

In an early May interview on Saudi TV channels, Prince Mohammed threatened his intention:

“We will not wait until the fight is inside Saudi Arabia and we will work so that the battle is on their side, inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia.”

The Saudi ruling class’ hatred of Shias and their strict interpretation of Islam dates back to the mid-eighteenth century. Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703-1792) wanted to rid Islam of all foreign influences and considered all non-Sunni Muslims including all sects of Shia and some Sunnis like the then Caliph, also the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, as “heretics.” Wahhab favored execution of criminals in public places, stoning to death of adulterers, cutting off of hands of thieves, and other barbaric punishments. His ideas annoyed people and so he had to leave his city, Uyayna. In 1744, Wahhab formed union with “notorious bandit-emir” of Deraiya named Saud ibn Muhammad (d. 1765). They conquered other cities and towns that comprise parts of today’s Saudi Arabia; Wahhab was to handle the religious side of governance and Saud would take care of the political/military business.

Wahhab’s idea of purifying Islam from all outside influences was to be implemented, that would thus cage Muslims within the prison of Wahhabism. Their relations strengthened further when Wahhab’s daughter married Abdul Aziz, son of Saud. In April 1802, during Saud’s son Abdul-Aziz bin Muhammad‘s reign, Iraqi cities, Karbala and Najf were attacked, and 5,000 Shias were murdered, their property was looted, and the shrine of Shia Imam al-Husayn b. Ali (d. 680) was destroyed because Wahhabis are fanatically against people praying at shrines. (Husayn was Prophet’s daughter Fatima’s son.) The present day Saudi Arabia is ruled by the successors of these fanatical intolerant Wahhab and Saud.

Arab-Islamic-American Summit

The Global Caliph (US leader) wanted to save his ass and wanted to show that he could create jobs so he changed his tune on Saudi Arabia and traveled about 7,000 miles to sell arms. The Muslim Caliph wanted to save their ass (King’s, his own, and of other princes’. Also, Prince Mohammed can bark but can’t bite Iran without the help of the US. So the “two most dangerous men in the world” as noted accurately by Patrick Cockburn, met. The US will sell over $380 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia. This was the reason for the Arab-Islamic-American Summit. Saudi Arabia also invited heads of other Muslim-majority and non-Muslim majority presidents, premiers, and ministers. Altogether 55 countries were represented; 9 of them (including the United States) were non-Muslim majority countries.

It is Saudi Arabia’s oil, petrodollars, its control of Kaaba, and its habit of hosting ousted government leaders that allows it to exert undue influence over other governments. That’s why so many leaders showed up at the Summit. Two examples of Saudi Arabia’s immense hold over other countries:

During his second tenure in the late 1990s, current Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif was overthrown in a military coup. He went into exile to Saudi Arabia. His third tenure began in 2013. (Uganda’s Idi Amin, among many others, also spent his exile in Saudi Arabia.) When Saudis announced an alliance named the “Muslim NATO,” Pakistan’s name was included in that list without informing Pakistan. Pakistan had earlier refused to join the Saudi war against Yemen because Pakistan didn’t want its Shia population (between 10-15%) to feel that it was siding with the Saudis against Iran. But Pakistan had no choice in joining the Muslim NATO. The correct term for this alliance should be “Sunni Muslim NATO.”

Indonesia is the most populous Muslim majority country in the world. Since 1980, Wahhabism/Salafism is rapidly making inroads in that country via education, as Krithika Varagur points out. Higher education scholarships in Saudi Arabia, and free education at the Saudi government funded Institute for the Study of Islam and Arabic (LIPIA) in Jakarta, are available. These are the “two main arms” of Saudi Arabia in indoctrinating Indonesians. Many of these students end up in public positions. The Arabic language department head of LIPIA, Hammed al-Sultan, is ignorant of Pancasila, Indonesia’s “foundational philosophical theory,” which basically encourages a pluralistic society with democracy and social justice for all. At LIPIA, Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesia’s official language) is totally absent; even the bathroom signs are in Arabic language – the gradual imposition of the Arabic language at expense of the national tongue.

Talking to Varagur, the Saudi ambassador to Indonesia, Mohammad Abdullah Alshuaibi, boasted:

“We have built mosques, hospitals, and schools there [in Aceh].” “And an Arabic language institute.”

It is in Aceh, the only one of 34 provinces where, alongside the national criminal code, Muslim sharia legal code is used, too. Just this week, outside a mosque, two men received 83 lashes for gay sex while 2,500 people roared their approval.

This is an example of how the Saudi money, mosques, and madrassas are changing the culture in Muslim countries and creating intolerance towards humane values, minorities, women, LGBTQ community, secularism, and anything not to the taste of the puritan fanatical Wahhabis/Salafists. Recently, Basuki Purnama, Jakarta’s former governor was running in election for a second term, but was sentenced to two years prison term on the charges of “blasphemy,” which is the strongest of Islamists’ weapon. Purnama is President Joko Widodoinin’s friend but the President is not able to do much against the barbaric forces who claim to be fighting in the name of Allah, Muhammad, and Islam.

Hypocrisy

The ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Taliban are all Sunni terrorist groups that came into existence through the US, Saudi, and other Muslim countries’ imperial wars, direct/indirect funding, support, training, and encouragement. Many a time, their policies clash as Pakistan’s support of Taliban/Al Qaeda which the US is fighting. Same is the situation with Jaish al-Fatah, or the Army of Conquest, who is opposed by the US but is supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Whenever it suits the US, it too supports the Muslim terrorists. The batch WikiLeaks released in October 2016, clearly shows that the US administration was well aware of the Saudi and Qatari support of ISIS and al-Qaeda. And a 2009 cable by Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, released by Wikileaks read:

“Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan].”

The fact to remember is that 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in 9/11 attack in the US were Saudi nationals. One has also to keep in mind that the Saudi Arabia puritan sect is a role model for the Sunni terrorist groups as can be seen from the punishments, beheadings, and cruelties meted out to victims.

At the recent Summit, Trump’s address didn’t blame Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim countries for supporting terrorism; instead, in an Orwellian twist, his speech put blame on Iran:

“From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.”
“Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate Iran, deny it funding for terrorism, and pray for the day when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they deserve.”

The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology was opened by Trump in the presence of the Sunni extremist Muslim fuckers.

Meaningful change is not possible while the Saudi/US commercial links are intertwined, as is the case presently. Only when the US is ready to divest itself from the billions of petrodollars so readily available in exchange for US support, can the fogged lens clear and further damage from extremism to the world be contained.

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

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