Bob Tippee
The May 12 bombings in Riyadh focus attention on xenophobic rant from Saudi mosques. The scrutiny disturbs Saudi Arabia. But it's necessary.
People who ceaselessly wish ill—even death—for members of other ethnic and religious groups are sickening. They usually can be ignored. That changes when the wishes start coming true.
Hateful wishes came true again when suicide bombings killed 34 people in three of Riyadh's residential compounds.
The bombers were almost certainly members of Al-Qaeda, the terrorist network responsible for, among other atrocities, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US.
Al-Qaeda receives money and oblique affirmation from within Saudi Arabia, site of the world's biggest oil reserves and Islam's two holiest mosques. The kingdom, petroleum, and Islam thus find themselves connected uncomfortably but undeniably with terrorism.
Those connections, though, are mostly circumstantial and largely unwitting. More-direct ideological support comes from Wahhabism, the strain of Islam officially dominant in Saudi Arabia.
Wahhabism emerged in the 18th century as a Muslim reform movement. Now, as then, it opposes anything in conflict with Muslim doctrine, sternly interpreted. Its fundamentalism undergirds fierce denunciation from Saudi mosques of Christians, Jews, and other supposed infidels.
Much of the non-Muslim West now equates Islam with Wahhabism. That's unfair to Islam, the less-radical bulk of which ranks high on the Wahhabi hate list.
Maybe Wahhabism has moderates. If so, now would be an excellent time to hear from them. From the outside, this segment of Islam looks extremist, hateful, and threatening.
Most Saudis claim not to follow Wahhabism. Yet it prevails in Saudi mosques and schools and has footholds elsewhere.
In Saudi Arabia, many followers see in Wahhabism the sole alternative to a despised monarchy. For some of them, the step is natural from hateful preaching to suicide murder.
Fanaticism occurs in all faiths, of course. When it fosters hatred, it's wrong. When it provokes violence, it's criminal.
When a branch of any religion spawns serial killing of people who think differently, followers need to rethink their theology. And outsiders—also known as targets—need to encourage them.
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