Saudi-returned migrants spread extremism in west, south asia
Recent violence in Syria and Iraq by Saudi-returned migrant workers is testimony to the fact that they are bred on Salafist or Wahhabi ideology in the kingdom and they spread this ideology in their homeland.
Most analyses today see 9/11 as a watershed moment for the terms of reference of the world order. India too has suffered because of the rise of militarised extremists and some commentators see 26/11 as the Indian 9/11. Following the recent developments of the so-called Arab Spring, incidentally an ominous name if one was to recall the result of the Prague Spring in 1968, a number of analyses of the rise of Daesh, the Arabic acronym for ISIS, has placed an overwhelming amount of emphasis on the current situation in Syria and Iraq being largely the result of US policies post 9/11.
There is no doubt that the wholesale rejection of large parts of the Iraqi Sunni population as well as the torture and brutal treatment of Sunni internees in many of the infamous prisons in Iraq gave oxygen to radical and violent groups. This trend was also catalysed by the high-handed manner in which successive Shia-majority Iraqi governments treated members of the Sunni tribes. The other important factor in exacerbating this situation has been Iranian influence in Iraq, their backing of the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Assad clan in Syria as well as support for a number of factions in Yemen.
15 of the 19 men that attacked the World Trade Center on that sunny autumn day in New York were Saudi Arabian. However, most analyses of global terrorism rarely mention the ideological role that parts of the Saudi state and some civilians have had in funding and creating networks that lay the ideological groundwork for the rise of Salafi jihadis and other militarised extremists. The Saudi state, including the royal family, is not a simple homogeneous structure where blame can be laid simply at the door of the state, but it is the heterogeneity of the state and the way in which the regime seeks to play multiple factions off each other that has lead to what could be termed as a schizophrenic approach to trying to address issues of terrorism. The recent attacks on Shia mosques are instances of how foreign policies are now coming back to haunt domestic politics. Given the Indian defence minister’s recent statement about using terrorists to fight terrorists, it is worthwhile to explore how this strategy has created blowback in India’s immediate neighbourhood and in many parts of the world. It is by now a well known fact that at the height of the Cold War, America and her allies, most notably Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Israel, were not averse to not only encouraging but also funding and supporting the rise of the Mujahideen in order to counter Soviet influence. This was under the aegis of what was then called Operation Cyclone and led to the creation of almost 100,000 militants. In 1979, Saudi and Arab fears were exacerbated because of the success of the Iranian revolution, which, despite being ostensibly Shia, found great ideological support amongst Sunnis around the world. It was as much the danger posed by Sunni political Islamists to Arab monarchies and secular dictatorships, as the perceived threat of rising Shia influence, that dictated the logic of isolating Iran.
What is important is that certain ideological positions became part of state policy in Saudi Arabia and some of the other Gulf countries. In particular these revolve around a set of positions that loosely would fall under the Salafi and Wahhabi categories respectively. Unfortunately, these two words have been used as synonyms for jihadis and so in many analyses both categories are used without any nuance or context. It is not possible to go into a deep discussion of what constitutes Salafi or Wahhabi thought. It is sufficient to say that certain theological positions that are advocated by certain non-quietist Salafis and Wahhabis have the potential to be manipulated and used to turn people into militarised extremists. One such doctrinal issue is that of takfeer, the act of declaring someone a kafir or non-Muslim. Amongst the Shia, the counterpoint to takfeer is tabarrah, or the act of cursing some of the companions and wives of the Prophet who are honoured by the Sunnis. Both takfeer and tabarrah are fortunately not widespread, but because of their divisive nature, they tend to be highly visible when deployed.
Over the last 40 years and in reality for a longer period than this, parts of the Saudi establishment have spent billions of dollars on Islamic outreach programmes, what could crudely be called daawa programmes, across the world, but particularly in countries with large Sunni Muslim populations. Recent statements of intent by the religious affairs minister in Pakistan of having an exchange programme for clerics is just one example of this and the report produced by the Pakistani interior ministry of the millions of unaccounted for dollars being donated to over a 1,000 madrasas in Pakistani Punjab is another example. Much of this money is also spent on charities, hospitals, mosques, social relief programmes, both religious and certain secular educational programmes and other such ventures. Recent academic work by A.H. Khan has demonstrated that the Ministry for Awqaaf or religious trust in Pakistan is so thoroughly controlled by interest groups allied to Saudi Arabia that they are in effect staging hostile takeovers of shrine committees and not only changing the way these are run but in some instances physically changing the building in order to conform to their idea of what is allowed by the sharia.
In the UK, Dr MacEoin has uncovered large amounts of material in mosques that not only vilify certain religious and social groups, but actually urge followers towards violence. The provenance of much of this material was Saudi Arabia. In Yemen, I came across a large amount of literature that was explicitly written against Sunnis, Sufis and Shias, amongst others. These books and pamphlets were often published in Jeddah and Riyadh. In interviews with some Zaidi scholars in Manakha in Northern Yemen, a notable similarity in their concern was that many young Zaidis were being given very generous scholarships to go and study in Mecca and Medina and these young men then returned to their homeland eager to “correct” and “guide” their communities. Incidentally, Iran too has similar outreach programmes and a small number of Zaidis also go to Iran for religious studies. In Morocco, the king has clamped down on increasing Salafi and political Islamist influence in the kingdom. Yahya Birt, an English convert and director of the City Circle, an organisation of Muslim professionals, has often highlighted the problem of Saudi funded organisations and has pegged the amount spent every year by the Saudis on propaganda purposes to between $2-$3 billion a year. Even in 1975 the Soviet propaganda budget was $1 billion annually. This money was not just spent in Europe but also in other parts of the Middle East, South Asia and SouthEast Asia. In my travels in Syria and Yemen before 2011, and then in North Africa more recently, I noticed a trend in middle class suburban areas of Damascus and Aleppo and more so in small villages like Dumaiyyara or Mara’t AlNoman, which surround these two ancient cities. An entire generation of white and blue collar Syrian workers had gone to work in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia and on their return brought back money as well as ideology. In conversations with the sons, nephews, brothers and uncles of migrant workers, it was striking how deep Saudi soft influence was amongst this demographic. I found a similar trend in Yemen, although of course because of the particular exigencies of Yemen and its largely tribal politics these changes were not just through returning migrant workers but also through aid and charity programmes.
In Eastern Yemen, in Hadhramaut, there was a particularly pronounced and visible effect of this because some of Yemen’s oldest Sufi centres are located there. Without going into anecdotal detail, the point is that Saudi influ- ence and money has meant that over the course of three, maybe four decades, huge amounts of money was spent and continues to be spent in order to encourage a particularly narrow, literalist and exclusionary ideology, what Tim Winter or Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad of the University of Cambridge has called Islam’s unstable isotope.
It is, therefore, of note that Samir abu Mohammad al Khlfawi or Haji Bakr, the chief strategist of ISIS, chose Tal Rifat as his base in Syria. He was killed some weeks ago, although his death was barely mentioned by most media organisations. Tal Rifat is a village outside Aleppo, which is mostly inhabited by people who had returned from Saudi Arabia and espoused Wahhabi Islam. In his papers acquired by Der Speigel, the strategy is clear in that he chose to initially build ISIS networks in towns that were already Salafi and Wahhabi, but also which had a large number of returning migrant workers from the Arabian Peninsula. In a number of conversations with people from various Sunni madrasas in Damascus, including Abu Noor in Rukneddin, where I spoke to representatives of Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro and Ramadan Buti (who was killed in a suicide attack) it was clear that money from the Gulf and Arabian peninsula has disrupted networks and religious establishments that are often centuries old.
There was an effort to use Islamic sciences to refute the opinions of propagated by Wahhabi scholars. Buti wrote As Salafiyyah Marhalatun Zamaniyyatun mubaraka la Mazhabun Islami (The Salafi era was a historical age not an Islamic school of thought). Sheikh Yusuf ar-Rifai wrote Naseeha li ikhawanina ulama an-najd (Advice to our brothers the scholars of the Najd). Many people were aware of the work of an Indian scholar, Habib ar-Rahman al-’Azami in four volumes, which refuted Nasir al-Albani, a particularly vociferous opponent of the Sunnis (ahl as-sunnah wa jama’ah). What is clear is that there was a transnational intellectual movement to counter increasing Wahhabi influence and although the Saudis ideally want to view themselves as leaders of the world’s Sunni communities, the fact is that this is contested from within not just by political Islamists such as the Ikhwanul Muslimeen or Muslim Brotherhood, but also by traditional scholars of the four mazahib or Sunni schools of thought.
Apart from high academic discourse, the other medium through which Wahhabi and Salafi thought was propagated in Arabic speaking countries is the vast network of satellite channels such as Al-Nas in Egypt and Al-Wisaal in Saudi Arabia. Often excerpts of these end up with subtitles on YouTube and are therefore accessible to non-Arabic speaking parts of the world. Organisations in Pakistan have helped to translate these videos into Urdu, which means that they are accessible to a wide South Asian audience. The Syrian cleric Adnan al-’Arour made his provocative speeches inciting Syrian rebels to violence again anyone who disagreed with his particularly myopic understanding of Islam sitting in the Kingdom. His platform was a satellite channel called Riyadh TV. He is just one example of the preachers that use technology in order to disseminate an ideology that is exclusionary, and also contains within it the possibility of great violence. Mohammad al-’Uraifi is another popular Saudi Arabian cleric and an analysis of his statements shows that he vacillates between vilifying religious minorities, but at times, under pressure from the establishment, retracts these statements or simply falls silent on them. Recently on an Arabic Al-Jazeera programme, which is vastly different from its English sister channel in terms of content, a talk show host, Faisal Qasim, tried to ask if the killing of Alawi “scum, dogs and filth” could be justified. Of course, since these conversations and shows are mostly aimed at an Arabic speaking audience, the effect of this aspect of Saudi and Gulf soft power often goes under the radar. This is despite the fact that the Qataris, unlike the Saudis, have tried to include political Islamists, whereas for Saudis they are anathema.
Saudi policy regarding the controlling of hate-speech and indeed clamping down on those Wahhabis who think that the royal family has strayed from the true path is, as I said, schizophrenic. On the one hand, wealthy businessmen and certain members of the royal family have actively contributed money and arms to the “opposition” in Syria, Libya and Iraq, while others have taken a tough stand on countering these groups’ domestic power. The Aal ash-Sheikh or descendants of Ibn Abdul Wahab continue to be a force to reckon with domestically in Saudi Arabia and therefore, one way in which the Saudi government has managed to preserve its power is by playing various factions against one another. The new Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad Bin Nayef was himself the victim of a failed suicide attack in 2009 and it is widely expected that he will take a tough stand on counter-terrorism, but while this may be true domestically, internationally the stance is diametrically opposite. Indeed, it is this aspect of Saudi policy that has been greatly overlooked in analyses of the rise of the spectre of global terrorism and perhaps one of the reasons for this is of course the nature of the oil markets and the reliance on Saudi production. India too has often looked the other way in order to protect its economic interests. Analysing the situation on the ground in parts of the Middle East and also Pakistan, it is important for the government to look at the ways and means in which certain political forms of Salafism and Wahhabism, particularly when undergirded by takfeer, are rising in India. Like Syria, Libya, Yemen and many other poorer countries from the MENA region, India today has a large migrant population working in various parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Even if one small fraction of this work force ends up being the conduits for the counter-flow of both capital and ideology, there will be serious implications for India. Indeed, through analysing the way in which “fertile ground” was created in many parts of West Asia as well as South East Asia, not to mention other parts of the world, it is perhaps possible to see the long term effects of the unmonitored financing of certain mosques, madrasas, charities and other institutions. Closest to home, the fractious effect of this is perhaps most visible in Pakistan.
Over the last few years, Indo-Saudi economic relations have become more robust with the Delhi declaration being signed by the late King Abdullah and Dr Manmohan Singh and a defence cooperation agreement signed last year in February. Today, nearly a quarter of India’s crude is supplied by Saudi Arabia. However, while maintaining and expanding these trade and economic links is important, what is equally crucial for India is to highlight its security concerns with the kingdom. In an Op/Ed for the Huffington Post, Turki bin Faisal, a one time Saudi ambassador went to great lengths to explain how Salafism is greatly misunderstood around the world and quoted the scholar Muhammad al-Tahawi in order to portray a vision of Islam that is based on peace and respect for other communities. However, while this view might be representative of certain members of the royal family and indeed of members of the Saudi civil society, it is worth noting that there are a number of preachers, scholars and tele-evangelists who are adamant about their interpretation of Islam being the only right one and these voices, although perhaps not heard in mainstream media and the English speaking world, nonetheless do have another audience.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly underscored that the one main unalterable pillar of his domestic and foreign policy is the preservation of India’s security interests. It would be prudent therefore to view matters related to this through a longterm prism and understand that the purpose of security is to not just prevent physical attacks but also preempt soft security threats that incubate over the long term and whose effects do not necessarily have the high visibility of terrorist attacks. Saudi Arabia and many of the Gulf countries are very complex structures and of course behave in a manner that they deem to be best for their national interests. Indeed, there are many important players in Saudi Arabia that understand the longer term security implications of giving state-sanction to certain ideologies. The experiences of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria point to the futility of using militancy as a weapon of foreign policy.
The domestic and foreign policies of all countries are inextricably tied together and therefore one way in which to reduce unwanted foreign influence amongst Indian Muslims is the economic uplift of Muslim societies so that they are not financially dependent on migrating to the Gulf and nor do they seek patronage from external actors. Increased financial inter-dependence between India and the various countries of the Arabian Peninsula will mean that India will have more leverage in asserting itself regionally and as things stand, the two parts of the world with capital to invest are West Asia and China. Finally, it is worth pondering on a fact and a question. India’s trade with Saudi Arabia one year ago was to the tune of $44 billion, compared to roughly $5 billion trade between Saudi and Pakistan. However, it would not be presumptuous to state that Riyadh is much closer to Islamabad than it is to Delhi and recent coverage of the potential for Saudi-Pakistan nuclear cooperation point to this. America and Europe have chosen historically to turn a blind eye to the soft power projections of Saudi Arabia in the Muslim world because of the imperatives of energy and particularly the oil market. The question is whether India too will sacrifice long-term security and stability at the altar of economic policy. A. Khan is a writer and researcher
One way in which to reduce unwanted FOREIGN INflUENCE AMONGST INDIAN MUSLIMS IS THE ECONOMIC UPLIFT OF MUSLIM SOCIETIES SO THAT THEY ARE NOT fiNANCIALLY DEPENDENT ON MIGRATING TO THE GULF AND NOR DO THEY SEEK PATRONAGE FROM EXTERNAL ACTORS.