The Hypocrisy of the Wahabbis (UPIASIA)

M.D. Nalapat

Manipal, India — Although the U.S. State Department considers the Wahabbi sect to be engaged in "purifying" the Muslim faith, in fact what Mohammad ibn Abdul Wahab created three centuries ago was an entirely new faith, used thereafter to uproot the Sufi-suffused Islam that had gifted scholarship and success to the Muslims. Neither of his two biographies is credible, both being the work of admirers of the al-Sauds, the family later installed as the titular masters of the Arabian Peninsula.

Abdul Wahab developed his teachings to protect the absolutist rule of the al-Sauds, wrapping them in a cloak of piety that concealed personal conduct the opposite of the example set by the Prophet Mohammed. The founder of Wahabbism was an individual who sought to uproot traditional Islam from the land where it was revealed.

Early in his career as a preacher, Abdul Wahab formed a partnership with Muhammad ibn Saud, whereby the desert chieftain's dynasty was declared by the preacher to be the legitimate rulers of the lands where Islam first took root. A grateful ruler promptly anointed Abdul Wahab as the only correct teacher of the tenets of Islam. That the Muslim faith, democratic in its chemistry, explicitly rejects kingship, or that the Prophet Mohammed is the only transmitter of the Word of Allah, were seen as inconsequential.

Almost from the start of their sojourn into fortune, the al-Sauds fastened themselves to the flanks of the British, thereby gaining assistance in their battles with other chieftains, until their presumed loyalty finally earned them installation in 1932 as masters of the land they called "Saudi Arabia." But for British and later U.S. help, the al-Sauds would have remained just another of several tribal families, very possibly made extinct by those angered at their incessant aggression.

Sabahism, not Wahabbism (UPI)

M.D. Nalapat

MANIPAL, India, April 23 (UPI) -- Kuwait is a tiny sliver of land sandwiched between the three regional giants of Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Unlike the three, the country is free from extremism and is showcasing economic rather than religious or ethnic issues to underline its identity. Local women go about the shopping malls in denims, although the emir of Kuwait has not been able to persuade Parliament to give voting rights to this better half of the Kuwaiti population.  But it is to be hoped that the next elections will witness both women candidates as well as voters.

The ruling family in Kuwait, the Al-Sabah, are close friends of their Saudi cousins, the Al-Saud. However, the two dynasties have followed entirely different paths in managing their respective countries. For one, the Al-Sauds have been much more proliferant, now numbering an estimated 27,000 -- not counting more distant relatives. They have also taken seriously the message implicit in the very naming of their country after themselves, helping themselves to 36 percent of the total wealth of the kingdom, leaving the rest mostly to the families close to the court.

Many Saudi citizens -- especially in the Shiite east -- enjoy neither running water nor electricity. In contrast, Prince Abdel Aziz Al-Saud, the favorite son of King Fahd, has just done his bit for reducing unemployment in the kingdom by building a new palace in Riyadh at a reported cost of $670 million. No 30-year-old can be content with just a single home, so the austere Saudi royal is building another palace in Jeddah, although this will cost a mere $540 million.

The skies over Europe are filled with private aircraft ferrying the Al-Sauds from one hotspot to the other, and the boutique stores in Paris and London would close down but for free-spending Saudi princes and princesses. Sadly for the Saudi people, such largesse does not extend to home.