3 Islamic articles on: Saudi Arabia

Table of contents for the topic Saudi Arabia
  1. Why Saudi Arabia does not represent Islam
  2. Is Saudi Arabia an Islamic country?
  3. Should Muslims boycott the Hajj because of Saudi repression and war crimes?

IslamQA: Why Saudi Arabia does not represent Islam

Do you dislike the Saudis? If so why?

I consider them no better or worse than most other governments, but they are greatly responsible for the negative image of Islam that the rest of the world has about us, and for this reason they deserve to be denounced, as I will explain below. This is not a criticism of the Saudi people, it is a criticism of the actions of the Saudi government at the highest levels.

The impression that some people have that Saudi Arabia is an “Islamic” country following an authentic version of Islam that others should look up to is something of a fairy tale promoted by Saudi propaganda. It is true that Saudi Arabia spends billions of dollars on Islamic projects throughout the world to create the image of being a defender of Islam and Muslims, but as I explain below, it probably earns many times as much through usury (ribā) alone, something the Saudi government was very eager to hide until it came out in the 1980’s. Saudi Arabia’s support for various Islamic projects is not necessarily hypocritical, they may really believe they are doing God’s work and there are many good and admirable Saudi people involved with these projects. But that does not change the fact that everything the government does is completely tainted with usury. Is God so desperate to need the services of usurers? It is utterly hypocritical for a Muslim to turn a blind eye on this.

The version of Islam the Saudi government propagates is the highly intolerant Wahhabi interpretation of Ḥanbalī Islam that was severely denounced by the muftis of Mecca in 1743 from all the four major schools of Islam, including the Ḥanbalī mufti.

Recently the Saudi crown prince admitted that they spread Wahhabism in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the request of Western powers:

The Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism began as a result of Western countries asking Riyadh to help counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Washington Post.1

The result was the Taliban. Taliban means “students”, these were the graduates of the madrasas founded in Pakistan by Saudi Arabia. These madrasas were designed to spread Wahhabism as part of a Pentagon operation known as Operation Cyclone. This operation was meant to breed jihadis and help them take over parts of Afghanistan, using Pakistan as a staging ground, in order to cause the Soviet Union to invade the country. The creator of this plan was Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Jewish-American military strategist. The plan resulted in the deaths of somewhere between 562,000 to 2,000,000 innocent Afghan men, women and children. Professor Andrew Bacevich writes:

What judgment to render on all this is a matter of perspective. Asked in 1998 if he had any regrets about having helped instigate Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in many respects the god-father of Operation Cyclone, reacted with astonishment. "Regret what?" he replied. "That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?"

The interviewer pressed the point. Hadn't subsequent rise of radical Islamism tarnished that victory? Not in Brzezinski's view. "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"

The Saudis on the outside were promoting their “one true” version of Islam, while behind the scenes they were helping carry out a US plan for causing endless war in Central Asia in order to help weaken Russia. Unless they were incredibly naive, they knew that millions of innocent people could die in this plan to corrupt and prostitute the concept of jihad in order to weaken Russia’s southern borders for the benefit of the United States. They should be held responsible for every innocent Afghan and Pakistani man, woman and child that died because of this evil plan that continues to cause death and destruction in these countries to this very day. (See America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History by professor Andrew J. Bacevich).

But it does not end there, as I explain here, the Saudis are also responsible for bankrolling the US military through the petrodollar system. (See The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets by the American scholar David E. Spiro) The Saudi government earns billions of dollars every year by charging interest (ribā) on money it lends to the American government, in return the American dollar’s value is kept at a fixed, high price, enabling the US government to continually print dollars without the currency losing its value, enabling the US government to spend trillions of dollars destroying Muslim countries without suffering any great financial consequences.

In addition to the above, almost every terrorist attack in the world today is carried out by people influenced by Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi propaganda, which teaches its followers to view the world as if it is in a state of perpetual war. The Wahhabis are supposed to be the only true Muslims who have the God-given right to carry out any atrocity they want against both Muslims and non-Muslims in this “war” whose end will only come once the Wahhabis are in control of the world.

So the Saudi question is complicated. Most Saudi citizens will probably be as shocked as anyone else if they learned about these things. The Wahhabi Islam I describe above is not the Islam followed by most Saudi citizens, they mostly follow a reasonably moderate Islam like most other Muslims. Wahhabism is a tool used by the government to justify its rule, to shut down criticism and to breed a class of ultra-intolerant propagandists that serve the government’s interests.

The Saudi government is involved in good and bad things. The good should not make us turn a blind eye toward the bad. It is very hypocritical for Muslims to say they stand for truth and justice while letting this government get away with its actions. No one is so holy as to be above criticism, and the rulers of the cities of Mecca and Medina should be held to the highest possible standards because anything evil they do will reflect on all other Muslims.

IslamQA: Is Saudi Arabia an Islamic country?

Why do you call Islamic countries imaginary? KSA, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia (and many more) are ideal Islamic countries with Sharia court and all.

There are many reasons to doubt the extent to which Islam is followed in so-called Muslim countries. For example, in the Quran, God says that He is at war with usurers (those who charge interest on money). The Saudi government earns billions of dollars every year through usury by lending its oil earnings to the United States government and earning interest on this money. This is interest paid by American taxpayers to the Saudi government. This arrangement is known as the petrodollar system and it is one of the main reasons why the United States can spend trillions of dollars destroying Middle Eastern countries without facing any serious repercussions: the Saudis bankroll the United States’ military, and through only selling their oil for US dollars, they keep the price of the US dollar high, in this way enabling the US government to print hundreds of billions of dollars of money every year and forcing the rest of the world to accept it. (See the scholarly book The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International Markets by David E. Spiro, published by Cornell University Press). Any country that has tried to escape the US-Saudi dollar system has been bombed and destroyed: Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan. Syria was to be next. Iran and Russia are the remaining two countries that are trying to escape the US-Saudi dollar system and if you read the news, you can see that they are high on the US agenda for countries that have to be bombed.

Saudi Arabia follows many of the commandments of the Quran (such as cutting the hands of thieves), while stealing money by the billions of dollars through usury (since usury is legalized stealing as any Islamic economist and classical Christian thinker will tell you).

Saudi Arabia enforces zakat (one of the most important parts of Islamic law) but allows usury (one of the most important prohibitions in Islamic law, banning it in name, allowing it through all kinds of loopholes, and as mentioned, the government itself is one of the world’s biggest usurers). This is like giving charity with one hand while stealing with another. Saudi Arabia is like the example of a rich man who prays at the mosque and gives charity but who is also completely corrupt in his private life. It is true that Saudi Arabia spends billions of dollars on beneficial Islamic projects to convince millions of shallow and uninformed Muslims inside and outside the country that it represents authentic, true Islam.

Yemen does not enforce zakat nor does it ban usury. Its legal system is a mixture of Islamic, Egyptian and Napoleonic.

In general, a country that does not ban usury but cuts the hands of thieves allows the biggest thieves to thrive while only going after the smallest ones. That’s the type of “Islamic government” we have today; it is largely a show designed to appease the uneducated masses.

The Malaysian and Indonesian governments might be the closest in following Islam, but I have not studied them deeply so I cannot speak about them.

IslamQA: Should Muslims boycott the Hajj because of Saudi repression and war crimes?

I've read that when we do hajj we are financially supporting the Saudi government to oppress people in it's country and also to kill people in Yemen. Is it true that they use hajj revenue for bad stuff?

I doubt there is a major country in the world that does not kill innocent people whenever it suits its political goals. Doing business with them or buying products from them always in some way supports them in doing this.

The United States is responsible for the murder of somewhere between 500,000 and 2 million innocent Afghans through staging the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980′s. It is also responsible the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Syrians through its regime change and war-mongering operations. This means that doing any business with the US in some way supports them in doing these things.

And yet there are millions of Muslims living in the US, paying taxes, and in this way supporting the US government.

A government is not a single beast. It is made up of various groups, often conflicting, each working for its own interests. Parts of it does much good, for example the US government and thousands of American charities have saved millions of lives around the world. Technologies developed in the US have helped save millions more lives through making farming more efficient and in this way bringing down the price of food.

We cannot, therefore, treat a government like an individual and make a final judgment on it when it is something very complex and made up of millions of individuals with varying degrees of morality. When American Muslims pay taxes, while supporting the US military, they also support it in taking care of millions of poor people, in doing scientific research and in carrying out various projects for the benefit of humanity.

In return for paying taxes, American Muslims get to enjoy the freedom to practice their religion in a peaceful and prosperous country. This is a great privilege that takes priority over the US government’s immoral actions. While we criticize the government and try to stop its immoral and unethical deeds, we recognize that good that it does, and recognize that living the US and paying taxes is preferable to living in a war zone or in a tyrannical country. There is no such thing as an all-good government, therefore we must operate within the limits of what is possible, enjoining good and forbidding wrong wherever we can.

The same applies to the Saudi government. By going to the Hajj, we carry out an important religious duty, we support the Saudi government in taking care of Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, and we support it in providing welfare for millions of its citizens, while also supporting its oppressive government and its murder of Yemenis.

The Saudi government is also partially responsible for all of America’s wars, because through its petrodollar agreement with the US, it ensures that the US dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, and this enables the US to print trillions of dollars and use it to wage wars without fearing poverty. The Saudi’s have enabled the US to have a free source of cash wherever they need it, and in return they get US weapons and support.

It is a question of whether the good of performing the hajj outweighs the evils of supporting the Saudi government. Most people think that the good outweighs the bad, meaning that performing the Hajj is justifiable even if it in some way supports the Saudi government.

Whenever you do business with anyone who does not have good morals, you support them in doing any immorality they do. But Islam does not prohibit us from doing business with them, because the facts of reality are complicated, and we must do what circumstances require, rather than closing ourselves off and expecting perfection from the world. Tumblr, Facebook and Google are all Jewish-owned companies and all of them support Israel to some degree. Yet we use their services, because we (rightly or wrongly) think that the good of using their services outweighs the vague evil of their support for Israel. Ideally, we’d have alternatives to these services, owned and operated by better people. But realistically, since there are no such services, we cannot give up their services, because the loss we suffer from avoiding these services is greater than any good we do by avoiding their services.

Avoiding these sites is somewhat similar to cutting your house’s electricity because the electricity company’s owner is supports Israel. Will you do so, or will you decide that the good of having electricity outweighs the bad of supporting a company owned by a such a person? Most people will choose to continue to have electricity until there is a better alternative.

Even if you went back 500 or 1000 years, you could still find evil deeds that the rulers of Arabia did that would make you question whether doing the Hajj is justifiable. This is not a new problem.

Muslims are free to boycott the Hajj to shame the Saudi government into behaving better, and perhaps if there was a worldwide boycotting movement, it would do good. But this would require the support of many religious leaders, who at the moment are unlikely to support a boycott, since they believe that performing the obligation of Hajj takes priority over reforming the Saudi government. Maybe if things get much worse they will support a boycott. But at the moment there is little political will to do this.

You are free to try to educate Muslims about the mass murder of Yemenis by the Saudi government (which is largely ignored by the West’s media, since it is done with the full support of the US) and to encourage them to boycott the Hajj. But don’t be surprised if most people prefer to do the Hajj despite Saudi’s actions.

Most of the Saudi government’s revenue is from oil, not Hajj. If your country imports oil from Saudi, like most countries do, and you drive a car or pay to use a taxi, then you are in reality sending money to the Saudi government. If someone is really serious about boycotting Saudi, they should also boycott their oil.

Most people don’t like boycotts because they make life difficult. In Islam, the choice is yours. You can boycott the entities you dislike, or you can continue to do business with them if you have to, while working to make the world a better place in whatever way you can, through enjoining good and forbidding, exposing and criticizing wrong.