Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, the U.S., and 9/11.

When Freedom House calls Sunni Wahhabism a "hate ideology", it is time for all to sit up and take notice. Defeating al Qaeda and other terrorist groups militarily is obviously important, but equally important is the defeat of the heretical ideology that provides these terrorist groups their philosophical underpinning, and one of the most prominent terrorist-friendly ideologies is Wahhabism. As I wrote here and here, this sect of Islam is inimical to the interests of the United States. Worse, the House of Saud is inextricably intertwined with Wahhabi extremists, and the government of Saudi Arabia is directly responsible for the worldwide spread of this hardline and unforgiving belief system. With the power of Saudi money behind it, Wahhabists have been infiltrating and crowding out the other more moderate and tolerant denominations of Islam . . . .

Last Monday, the CFRF [Center for Religious Freedom] issued a report titled Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques, which details one aspect of Saudi-backed Wahhabi indoctrination in America. The group gathered over 200 books and publications from over a dozen mosques and Islamic centers across the country. These materials have the direct backing of the Saudi government. While books and publications are just one component, it defies all common sense that this ideology is restricted just to written materials. For example:

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.”

Read it all at The War on Wahhabism, Continued [doubleplus emphasis added]. Obsidian Wings, 2/5/05.