Stephen Schwartz came back into public notice with the publication of his book “The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa’ud from Tradition to Terror in 2003. Since that time, he’s become the “go-to” guy when media wanted somene to bash Saudi Arabia or its Salafist interpretation of Islam.
There are serious problems with Schwartz’s book, primarily his limited knowledge about Islam and even less about the Arab world. He did, however, create a believable narrative which I sure he believes, and has unfortunately seduced many others. The book seems to offer an explanation for the otherwise inexplicable, the bombings of 9/11 and the involvement of Saudis in those attacks.
The first problem is with Schwartz’s understanding of the complexity of the Islamic “umma” or global community. There are many variations on the concept of what makes a “good” Muslim, ranging from dire fundamentalist views to very open, syncretic views, blending regional cultural and historical values with those of Islam. Somewhere in the mix falls Sufism, the form of Islam that Schwartz professes.
Sufism is very interesting in itself. It’s very attractive to a certain slice of the American “boomer” generations in that it seems to find a way to do the “peace, love, harmony” thing very well. As a mystical interpretation of Islam–which tends to be a very rationalist religion–it is not the mainstream of Islam in the least, though many Muslims intentionally or not use aspects of it in their daily lives.
As Schwartz notes in an interview he gave to the Australian blogger Arthur Chrenkoff, Sufism is to Islam as authentic (not pop-) Kabbalism to Judaism. That is, it’s an esoteric interpretation that tries to look between the lines and under the surface of written texts to discover their true meaning. In Kabbalism, one finds things like numerological readings of the Torah, hints of the future–along the lines of Nôtradamus–and unifying views of the world that try to make sense of the often nonsensical facts of life.
One of the main themes of Sufism is the “oneness of life”. We are, Sufism explains, all part of the one reality. We are God; I am God; you are God. Once we realize that, all of our problems can be resolved because we do not harm ourselves.
Now, I’ve no problem with that as a religious concept, but it truly is heretical when compared to orthodox Islam, which draws a bright line between God and his creations, including mankind. The 99 names of God show this distinction: The Merciful, The Compassionate, etc. These terms only make sense–to a literalist Muslim–if there is a relationship between two beings. Who, after all, is “compassionate” toward oneself.
This is not to criticize Sufis or Sufism. It is, rather, to show that Sufism is not the general trend in Islam, no more than Kabbalism is the general trend in Judaism.
It seems that Schwartz’s first contact with a Muslim society was in the Balkans, where met Sufis. This contact became, for him, the standard by which he gauges Islam. But measuring Islamic practice by an outlier creates serious problems. Having found a religious expression he liked, he made it the standard of what Islam should be. He’s perfectly entitled to do so, as one seeking religious value in his life. But to insist that those who do not agree are tyrants and Inquisitioners is factually wrong.
Schwartz also lets himself be misled by the term “Wahhabi”. He throws the term around as an epithet; it suits his thesis to do so. He’s heard the word used by non-Wahhabi/Salafist Muslims as a term of deprecation. But he does not seem to understand that words, including “Wahhabi” mean what the speakers want them to mean. For instance:
In 1992, the Uzbek government had begun to use the term “Wahhabi” for anyone who was perceived to be an adherent of radical Islam or who held anti-government sentiments as part of his Islamic beliefs. Five years later, the government was labelling as Wahhabis even ordinary Muslims who practiced Islam in unofficial mosques or who engaged in private prayer or study. Any Muslim who associated with prayer leaders or taught children how to read the Koran was called a Wahhabi.
(link)
“Wahhabi” has become a useful club for those who would bash the Saudis.
The Saudi interpretation of Islam–whether it’s called “Wahhabi”, “Salafi”, or “Wahidun”–is not a generous one. It is, in fact, intolerant. It sees itself as the bulwark of “authentic” Islam in a world of heretical interpretations. As a result, it can very easily lead to extremism. Those who follow that school do tend toward demonizing others. The extremists among them do use it as justification for offensive jihad. There are plenty of citations available to show how the disdain for other religions that is taught in Saudi schools can lead to hatred.
Saudi Arabia does not have freedom of religion; members of religions or sects other than the official sect are not permitted to publicly practice their religions. This has extended to non-Salafi sects of Islam as well, though in a complex manner. The Shi’i of the Eastern Province and the Ismailis of the southwest, for instance, have had overbearing regulations put on their ability to build their own mosques or to practice particular rites.
The Saudis also complicate perceptions because they believe they have the religious duty of spreading Islam around the world. Generally, we in the West do not have a problem with a religion’s prosyletizing mission. We fund individually various mission activities, particularly Christian missions.
But we become very perturbed when a sect we view as intolerant does the same. Because we separate church and state, we do not understand why a state would fund religious missions abroad. We would be much happier if the Saudis did not take their missionary obligations seriously.
Schwartz, in his condemnation of the Saudis and Wahhabism, has missed an extremely important part of the story:
Al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Jammia Al-Islamiya and other terror groups did not suddenly erupt from Saudi Arabia. They arose out of a noxious combination of extremist interpretations of Islam that originated in different parts of the world that metatasized in Afghanistan.
Take it as a given that Wahhabism brings with it a pernicious intolerance for difference and a narrow understanding of the world. Then combine it with the political aspirations of the Muslim Brotherhood, which originated in Egypt. From its founder Hassan Al-Banna through its more contemporary Said Qutb, the Muslim Brotherhood has brought its own strain of intolerance, coupled with action, to the mix.
Now add in the extreme intolerance of the Deobandi sect of Sunni Islam. [Note particularly footnote #xii in the linked document.]
This was a religious sect that developed largely in reaction to British colonial rule in India, the Raj. It shared many of the same fundamentalist values as the Wahhabis and Muslim Brotherhood, but was even more intolerant toward non-conforming Muslims. It is the Deobandis who are blowing up Shi’a mosques in Pakistan. It was Deobandi Islam that was the official sect of the Taleban in Afghanistan.
The holy war in Afghanistan succeeded in driving the Soviet Union out of that country. It also resulted in a witch’s brew of various strains of fundamentalist Islam.
That brew has come to be called “Wahhabi”, but it is, in fact, a combination of three strains of Islamic fundamentalism, each intolerant, each with a xenophobic view of the world. Calling it “Wahhabi” may make for simpler sentences, but it oversimplifies the reality.
In Afghanistan, Saudi fighters met Egyptian fighters. Both were allied with Deobandis operating with Pakistani government support. All joined the native Afghan mujahidin.
The United States provided arms. Saudi Arabia provided young men and money. Pakistan provided logistical support. Other Muslim countries provided foot soldiers. All combined in Afghanistan.
While both the US and Saudi Arabia saw the war in Afghanistan as vital to their national interest, neither predicted the eventual outcome: a militant and viciously intolerant Islamist movement.
The United States dropped the ball in Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out. The country and its problems essentially disappeared from our scopes. It didn’t disappear for the Saudis, however, on several counts.
First, there was a desire–joined with the perceived religious duty to prosyletize–to spread its version of Islam. That is something all religions do: promote their version of “the truth”. Afghanistan had been identified as a country with many heterodox views of Islam, so it was natural that the Saudis wanted to work toward bringing them to orthodoxy.
Second, once the war was won, there were thousands of young Saudi warriors coming home. They returned to a country vastly different from the one they had grown up in. From the late 1960s into the very early 1980s, Saudi Arabia was one of the richest countries in the world. Its per-capita income was essentially equivalent to that of the US. Saudis were proud to be Saudi. The government assured an easy life for the majority of its population–notable not including the Shi’a communities.
If a young man of that time wanted to get married, he could apply to the government for money to pay a dowry. He could apply for an interest-free (of course) loan to build a house or to start a business. And business opportunties were abundant. It was a good time to be a Saudi.
By the late 1980s, however, the situation had changed. The price of oil had dropped, the Saudi government was running a deficit, money became very tight, and perquisites of being a Saudi were starting to drop. Population was expanding more rapidly than the government could accommodate and the future was not looking good.
The Saudi government had no place for these returned warriors. The Saudi population was not acclaiming them as heroes. These young men were disjointed from their history and heritage.
The collapse of Communism, however, offered other opportunities.
Countries in which Muslim had been oppressed–or had been perceived to be oppressed–were now open for assistance from their co-religionists. The young veterans, from Saudi Arabia, but also other Arab and Muslim countries, found a new lease on their political and religious life. They started descending on the Balkans–where even the US was fighting to support the Kosovar Muslims–and Central Asia. Their assistance, this time, was not as welcomed as it had been in Afghanistan. The world had changed, the situations were different, and the Islamic warriors were seen as a hinderance rather than help.
Desert Storm–the First Gulf War for Americans; the Third Gulf War for Arabs of the region–signaled a complete repudiation of Usama bin Laden and his chaotic concept of jihad. He had offered his services, and those of other Afghan War veterans, to protect Saudi Arabia from Iraq. The Saudi government rejected his offer and instead accepted that of the US and the coalition it established.
I believe it was then that bin Laden made the conceptual leap that combined the different threads of Islamic fundamentalism into a new, Islamist movement.
Rejected by Saudi Arabia and eventually stripped of his nationality, bin Laden moved to Sudan. That country, in addition to being strongly influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, had its own history of the Mahdi, a 19th C. visionary who sought an apocalyptic Islamic war. If anything, bin Laden became even more radicalized and started funding operations against the West, the US in particular. It was also where he started accusing the Saudi government of apostacy.
Eventually driven out of Sudan, bin Laden found himself again in Afghanistan. This time, he was paired with Mullah Omar, theoretician and religious leader of the Deobandi Taleban. Again, a different and noxiously intolerant strain of Islam cross-fertilized the mix he had brought with him.
In sum, while “Wahhabism” absolutely has problems with its narrow view of life and the world, with its intolerance for difference and resistance to change, it is not the same as the violent Islamism that Schwartz calls by that name.
If this were only a matter of dictionary definitions, misidentification wouldn’t matter. But it goes far beyond that.
With no first-hand knowledge of Saudi Arabia, other than Saudi dissidents, Schwartz really has no knowledge on which to base his theses. Saudi dissidents come in many varieties. Some are modernists, some are secularists, some want a more fundamentalist interpretation of religion. Schwartz has found those who agree with him that Saudi Arabia is “a problem”.
But by a blanket condemnation of Saudi Arabia and a mistaken view of what Wahhabism actually is, Schwartz promotes a dangerous view. He eliminates from discussion those Saudis who are not extremists–and that is a majority of Saudis. By assuming that Saudi government support for the building of schools, mosques, and madrassas means that the government supports extremist Islamism, he makes a factual mistake. By imputing the actions of some Saudis to the desires of all Saudis, he demonizes a population that varies, vastly, in its views of Islam.
I think the Saudi government–as many third-world or developing countries–has been sloppy, inattentive, and perhaps venal in many of the decisions it has taken about itself. As in most developing countries, authority and decision making is restricted to the highest levels of bureaucracy. But simply because a government wills something to happen does not ensure that it does happen. Lower level functionaries have ways of exerting their own influence on things.
Instructions, if not liked, can be thwarted by the functionaries. They can be misinterpreted; they can be lost; they can be delayed; they can be met in letter, if not in spirit. Favoritism–a major component of patron-client relationships–can see monies diverted in unintended directions.
This is compounded in a society in which religion plays such a major role.
Any action, taken by anyone, is subject to being called “not religious enough” by an opponent. Accusing someone of backsliding on religion–while not as extreme as calling him an apostate–holds that threat. Allegations of not supporting religion strongly enough are the trump cards, offering no opportunity to argue.
The Muslim obligation to donate funds to charity complicates this issue further. All good Muslims are required to give 2% of their net value to charity annually. Most, in fact, do exactly this.
In the case of Saudi Arabia, this obligation sometimes takes embarassing turns. There are very rich Saudis who actually had trouble donating all that they need to donate. If someone approached them with a plausible charitable cause, then a check would be written. There was no follow-up, no checking of accounts, no background checks. A Muslim was considered, prima facie, to be trustworthy.
More modestly endowed Saudis were no more cautious. A donation box purporting to raise money for orphans in Afghanistan or Albania, sitting on the counter of a drug store or market, would always raise money. Requests for mosque-building were met with donations. All Islamic charities, it seems, were seen as equally meritorious.
We have learned–and the Saudis have learned–that this was not the case. Money was diverted from its notional goal, frequently. Saudi money–governmental and private–that had gone to support imams in mosques around the world was being abused when those preachers–unmonitored–went off into extremist views not representative of general Saudi Islamic belief.
This is exacerbated by the fact that Wahhabism, as practiced in Saudi Arabia, is in fact intolerant. It has a long history of anti-Semitism. It cherry-picks quotations from the Quran to make non-Muslims appear less than human. It also has a history of fanatical religious experts who promoted their own radical vision of Islam. These facts are indisputable.
But again, the trump-card nature of religion, always gravitating toward the most limiting extreme, creates roadblocks to reform. A religious scholar and his writings cannot be repudiated easily. Particularly government bureaucrats are not going to take this on; it would be instant professional death. Even leaders have to deal with this gingerly.
As an example of this, in a sectarian environment, Americans generally hold Oliver Wendell Holmes in high regard. No government official is going to start pulling Holmes’ books from school libraries. As a writer and as a Supreme Court Justice, he’s an okay-sort-of guy. But he was also capable of saying things like this, which does not make its way into Bartelett’s Quotations:
“We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes…Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Buck v. Bell, 1927 [Thanks to Winds of Change blog for this pointer.]
While “great Americans” like Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Joseph P Kennedy (the root of the Kennedy dynasty) all–rightly–have anti-Semitic labels attached to them, they are not repudiated on all counts, for all they have done throughout their lives. The evil in their work is ignored while, contrary to Shakespeare, the good lives on.
Through fear of being called “not Muslim enough” and though inattention to the actual texts, Saudi officials have allowed reprehensible texts to be published and distributed. They have allowed zealots to take over the education of their children. They have permitted their children to be taught untruths, distorted truths, and utter fantasies about the real world.
The Saudis and the Wahhabis have much to answer for. Being the sole source of Islamist terror, however, is not one of those things.
They have aided it–wittingly or not–and they have abetted it–wittingly or not. But Islamic terror has not been a goal of either the government or the majority of the population.
By erroneously extrapolating the beliefs and actions of a few thousand Islamists, many of whom have Saudi citizenship, to the population of some 16+ million Saudi Muslims, Schwartz libels them. By pointing those fighting real terrorists in the wrong direction, Schwartz inhibits effective action against the radical Islamists. He is, in fact, tempting us to look the wrong way, thus endangering us.
Saudi Arabia needs reform. It is taking tentative steps toward reform that is more pluralistic and representative of all its people. Whether these steps are too little, too late, is something that we will see, soon. By heaping allegations of bad faith and extremism upon the entire population, though, Schwartz hinders those reformers who would make change.
[UPDATE: 03/21/05] I received an e-mail suggesting to me, correctly, that even within the Deobandi sect there are differences. Some factions practice a “quietist” religion, others a virulently militant one.]
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March:12:2005 - 13:32
Good post, John. One comment: Qatar is a Wahhabi country, yet it doesn’t seem to suffer from as many problems with extremism as Saudi Arabia.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Praktike: You’re right. There are several reasons for this, I think. Foremost, IMO, is that Qatar, as a quasi-maritime state, has been forced to look outward far more than the KSA. It has always traded–before and after the Al-Thani succession–with a wider world including Iran, India, and SE Asia.
Day-to-day dealings with “foreigners” requires a more open attitude. The Nejdis, on the other hand, relied almost totally on limited intercourse between Bedouin and urban populations, both mostly limited by their desert environment.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Great post. I’ll have to digest it for a while.
Cheers!
Lorenzo
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Is it as simple as pointing fingers at Saudi Arabia?
John at Crossroads Arabia has a long, but informative and knowledgeable, post on this subject.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
the more I learn about Islam the more concerned I get with the American publics ability to understand what it is we are up against. I hope this country wakes up soon!
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Tentative steps towards reform aren’t enough, John. Proactive, public, and *enthusiastic* support of the greater worldwide war on Islamic fanatics would be much more helpful.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
The gap between where we think the Saudis should be and where we think they are is pretty wide. But it’s also somewhat immaterial.
What matters is the gap the Saudis see and what they are doing about it.
Right now, “tentative steps” are about all the system will bear. We can encourage the Saudis to move faster, but the ones with whom we have the most leverage–the Saudi government–is already aware of what needs to be done. They can only go as fast as the majority of Saudis will permit them to go.
One way to slow down reform is to keep telling the Saudi public that they’re wrong, that they’re evil, that they’ve got to change.
What can help is to acknowledge the progess they’re making and to encourage more of the same. Sure, keep some pressure on, but it can’t be a relentless barrage of criticism on all counts. You do not remake a person overnight. Even more, you do not remake a population overnight. In fact, only a people can remake themselves.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
John, in SA is there a reliable organization that vets charities to make sure that they do not contribute anything to terrorist causes, including stealth-terrorist causes such as payments to families of suicide bombers?
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Since late 2003, the Saudi government has instituted controls–which the US Dept. of Treasury find among the most strict in the world–on how money can be donated to charities and to which charities. Treasury and the FBI work together with the Saudis in a joint taskforce to see that the controls work. So far, there’ve been no complaints from the US side.
On the issue of “payments to families of suicide bombers,” things are a bit more complicated. When the Saudis–and I’m talking about the Saudi government here, not necessarily individuals–raise funds for Palestinians who have suffered as a result of the infitada or Israeli actions, they do not distinguish between the ways a family has suffered. While they do not single out families of suicide bombers for charity, neither do they exclude them. The issues gets more complicated–and more easily distorted–because of the different ways the Saudis and Palestinians use the word “martyr.” For the Palestinians, it’s generally reserved for those who died either in suicide bombings or in direct action against the Israelis. For the Saudis, though, it anyone who died as a result of Israeli action, whether or not that action was self-defense, accident, or intentional. That leaves a thin line separating the two, but I believe it to be a real line.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
On Stephen Schwarz (Crossroads Arabia)
This is a followup to my earlier post on Stephen Schwartz. Whilst researching Schwartz, I found the blog Crossroads Arabia and this apparently very well-informed commentary on Schwarz and Wahhabism.
I’ve emailed Crossroads Arabia inquiring at the bl…
March:12:2005 - 13:32
A person who states that “Sufism is not the general trend in Islam, no more than Kabbalism is the general trend in Judaism” knows nothing about Judaism. One needs only examine the Orthodox Siddur, the daily prayerbook of observant Jews, to understand the immense influence Kabbalah has had on Judaism. Judaism today is deeply infused with Kabbalah. One may also consult the works of Gershom Scholem to get an understanding of this rather elementary fact. Kabbalah today is not a marginal phenomenon.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
With due respect, I’m quite confident that if you were to take a poll of Jews around the world asking the importance of Kabbalism to their daily worship–or their weekly worship–you would receive a negative reply. Are there groups within Judaism that knowingly incorporate the Kabbalah in their worship? Of course there are. There are probably more who do not recognize the Kabbalistic aspects of the prayers or rites they follow.
That, however, does not make Kabbalism a mainstream tenant of Judaism. Contemporary religions, regardless of what the adherents of those religions think, are a mixture of many different strains of thought over many years and places.
As Gnosticism (along with Neo-Platonism) influenced Christianity, it equally influenced Judaism and Islam. If you know what to look for, you can find those influences today. The extistence of those influences, however, does not make those three contemporary religions manifestions of Gnosticism.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
It is quite obvious that you have no idea of the theology or practice of Judaism, or any idea how to go about researching it. This is what you do: you get a copy of a book called The Artscroll Siddur, which is used for daily prayers by the largest group of Orthodox Jews in the world, i.e. the Germans and Poles (i.e. Germans and Poles by ritual, whether they live in the U.S. or Israel). You go through it page by page. The Siddur includes a running commentary on the origins of various songs and recitations, such as Leha Dodi, which is sung on every Shabbat and which every observant Jew in the world knows very well was written by the Safed Kabbalist R. Shlomo Alabetz and has a Kabbalistic meaning. You should also look for the zemirot or religious songs, such as Yom Zeh L’Yisrael by the most important Kabbalist of the Renaissance era and succeeding period, R. Itzhak Luria, known as the Ari. You should also look for Kah Ribon, written by the Kabbalist Israel Najera, and for commentary on the liturgical reading of Shir ha-Shirim or The Song of Songs, a practice introduced into Judaism by the Kabbalists. And finally you should research why the Kabbalistic classic, the Zohar, is considered the “third scripture” of the Jews and is the most reprinted book in Jewish history, since Torah was traditionally done in the form of scrolls and Talmud was not read by a broad public. Every religious Jew in the world knows that Jewish observance was transformed by the Kabbalists of Safed. Every book on the history of religious Judaism describes this as an obvious fact. I already suggested you read Gershom Scholem. Don’t believe me. If you are unwilling to get a copy of the Siddur you can look all this up on google. But do believe this: I don’t bluff on these topics.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
I meant Alkabetz, not Alabetz.
Two other points: I wonder whether you realize that the argument that one had to go to the Soviet Union to understand Communism was never considered respectable after about 1939; or that visitors to the Soviet Union, as to the Saudi kingdom, were typically taken around on “Potemkin Village” tours where they were shown only what the rulers wanted them to see. I don’t perceive any difference here. Tyranny is tyranny. In addition, my book THE TWO FACES OF ISLAM was based on information from numerous Saudi dissidents, while other Saudi subjects have told me they are amazed at my knowledge of the situation in the kingdom given that I have not gone there, much as Orwell was similarly complimented by Ukrainians amazed he had never been to the USSR.
The view that Wahhabism implies terrorism is a mainstream Muslim opinion supported by leading ulema around the world. My book has been endorsed by anti-Wahhabi ulema in various countries.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Thanks for reducing the argument to ad hominem attacks.
Not only have I lived and worked in an array of Muslim countries for the majority of my life, from Turkey through all of the Arab countries, but I’ve also lived in South and South East Asia, where strong Muslim minorities live. I’ve also a major concentration in Theology from Georgetown U. Your attempt to overwhelm from a presumptive position of expertise instead of actually arguing your point does little to advance your argument. I will acknowledge that when I use the term “Kabbalah” I am refering to the esoteric or hermetic Kabbalah, the current “interpretation” that dominates popular discourse.
I’m well aware that there is a deeper Kabbalah, as exemplified by the Zohar. I’m familiar, too, with Rishi and Rambab (Maimonides), as well as concepts like the Sefirot. I’m well acquainted with Shabbatai Zevi (17th C) and his mission, as well as that of Baal Shem Tov (18th C).
There’s a “go-lightly” form of Kabbalah that everyone can accept as good practice for living life. Equally, there are “Sufi-light” adherents who find much to appreciate in it’s New Age-isms. Neither are the “real” forms of their respective practices. That is my point and that is my criticism of your book.
I’ve no doubt that you’ve heard what you report from dissident Saudis. However, most Saudis are not dissidents. To try to interpret Saudi Arabia and the Saudi population, based solely on the perceptions of dissidents doesn’t really make a lost of sense, you know. I’ve no doubt, either, that you’ve picked up some factual information about Saudi Arabia and the religious practices of some Saudis. But by concentrating on the 2% that is truly dangerous, you demonize the other 98% and make is far more difficult for them to effect reform.
I don’t pretend to be the world’s leading expert on Saudi Arabia. But rather than “Potemkin villages”, I actually traveled around and through Saudi Arabia while living there for four years. I’ve stayed with shepherds during their spring grazing periods and eaten dinner with taxi drivers and grocers; I’ve spent long nights arguing with academics and journalists, as well as a range of religious scholars–Sunni, Shi’a, and Sufi. I’ve also done original research for the USG on Shi’a families of the Persian Gulf.
What you report in Two Faces is a stereotype of one sort of Saudi religious zealot. That type is unrepresentative of the population at large, as all stereotypes ultimate prove false.
I was, in fact, living in Saudi Arabia when your book came out. It served a somewhat useful purpose. Saudis who read it–and many did–were so dismayed by the untruthful scorn you heaped upon them that it did motivate them to get serious in fighting off the zealots. It provided a useful lesson for them about how thoroughly misunderstood their religious practices truly were.
I have absolutely no problem with Sufism, Kabbalism, mystical forms of Christianity. They all have their value and their adherents. But orthodox practitioners, those who eschew the mystical, also have their values. Those who pervert religion to reach their individual ends can hardly be called exemplars of those religions. This is the error you make in assuming that all, or even most Saudis adhere to the most radical forms of Wahhabism. They quite simply do not.
If you’d like to continue discourse instead of invective, I’m happy to oblige.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Wow
John.
He takes on Stephen Schwartz and decimates him, even when Schwatz comes to comment. In the process, John details his nuanced and expert view of Saudi Arabia, Whabbism, and the development of extremism.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Thus ends the attempt of the LT to pull rank on the MAJ.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Tales. Of. Interest.
Just like Instapundit, but all in one post! Religion of Peace & Intl: John at Crossroads of Arabia and I have been going back and forth via e-mail on whether or not Stephen Schwartz in The Two Faces of Islam…
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Hi John,
I’ve read your article and the answers of Stephen Schwartz with interest. I can’t say much about the controversy between you and Stephen re. Wahabi Islam. But I can say that he is right that the orthodox prayer service is built upon kabbalistic principles. (and so are the conservative and reform services, perhaps a bit less, but still.) Kabbalah is the inner foundation of Judaism, the references to principles of Kabbalah in the prayer service are many, as Stephen Schwartz pointed out. Yes, not every participant in synagogue might be aware of this. The prayer service is, as it were, ‘the outer garment’ of the inner, kabbalistic content, which is always to elevate the human soul, to bring it to a higher level. I don’t know enough about the realtionship of Sufism/Islam to know if that is the same ‘relationship’.
shalom from Yerushalayim, Eva
March:12:2005 - 13:32
John:
I don’t want to step in the middle of your debate with Stephen Schwarz. I simply want to add two observations:
1. Shia Muslims abandoned the Muslim organizations they founded in large numbers across the U.S. Whether they were made unwelcome by trend towards Wahabi practices in these organizations or they found funds to start parallel organizations remains unclear.
2. My father often remarks that many, many educational Islamic books published since the 80s seem to have a basic theme and a common set of phrases that point to a common origin. Guess the origin?
There has to a middle ground in arguments between Stephen and you.
Regards,
— Reza.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Reza, please don’t think that I hold Wahhabis to be innocent of much. My argument with Schwartz was that he was looking only at Wahhabis as the origins of violent fundamentalism when there are multiple sources, including the Muslims Brotherhood and the Deobandis.
Schwartz was blaming Saudi Wahhabism as the sole source of terrorism–it was the topic of his book, after all–because that was a clearly identifiable target. His oversimplification of the picture earned him lots of money and airtime, but it was factually wanting.
At best, he was being intellectually lazy.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
John:
Agree with you cent per cent on this observation. Looking at South Asia (my origin per National Geographic’s Genographic DNA analysis), clearly the second largest Muslim population in a country, India, doesn’t have the same challenges as its twin neighbors. Of course I don’t want to minimize the challenges from the Deobandis but the heterogenous mix in India offers some religious solace (even though the socio-economic challenges are daunting for most minortiy groups).
Regards,
— Reza.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
Anybody with a molecule’s worth of intellectual honesty, to say nothing of the plain ability to read English, will see that my book THE TWO FACES OF ISLAM deals at rather considerable length with the Muslim Brotherhood. I have also written and published extensively on the Deobandi traditions, especially as they are present in the UK.
Furthermore, I did not engage in ad-hominem attacks on you. I do not know who you are and did not say anything about you personally. You, however, attempted to impugn my book, which has been translated and published as an official Islamic document, and me, by suggesting all sorts of nonexistent faults. Then you had the extraordinary nerve to claim that MY “attempt to overwhelm from a presumptive position of expertise instead of actually arguing your point does little to advance your argument.” Look in a mirror. “An attempt to overwhelm from a presumptive position of expertise” describes your method exactly.
There is no such person in Jewish religious history as “Rishi.” I demonstrated by the discussion of Kabbalah that no matter how many years you lived in the KSA you engaged in nothing here but a jealous little squealy bluff because someone has been more successful than you at dealing with Saudi… and without having to go there, just as Orwell did not have to go to Russia.
My book is now read around the world. Maybe your Saudi friends didn’t like it. Too bad for them. Lots of well-placed Saudis, including some close to King Abdullah, appreciate it.
In the end, I am a widely-published author, while you are just another boring and self-important blogger. Sorry to be rude, but facts are facts.
March:12:2005 - 13:32
It’s okay to be rude. It’s not quite okay to invent arguments and put them in my mouth, however. I wasn’t citing ‘Rishi’ as anything other than as something I read.
Whether or not one can gain necessary information by living in a country depends, of course, on what one is looking at. My point, which I stand by, is that the image of Wahhabis that you draw in “Two Faces” does not accord with the faith practiced by the majority of Saudis, Wahhabi though they are. My assertion is that you’ve created a straw man whom you proceed to trash. In the thrashing, you demean and defame the majority of Saudis. That, pure and simple, is what I dislike about your book.
I also assert that your book caught the crest of a wave of Saudi-bashing post 9/11 and that you seem perfectly content to take advantage of it. Nothing wrong with that, of course, though it isn’t actually a reflection on the merits of your argument.
And may I ask why this post, which dates to March, 2005, has again caught your attention? Have you discovered some new affront to your dignity?
And, I confess, as ‘another boring and self-important blogger’, I do not fall on my knees in abject horror at the thought of your status as a ‘widely-published author’. If there was ever an abject appeal to authority as that sentence, not to mention a bit of ad hominem, I’m hard pressed to find one. Nice going; it’s a keeper!