Excerpts from an extraordinary book about the fissures in Islamic societies, and the implications for the West
I've been reading the manuscript of Anwer Sher's forthcoming "The Jagged
Crescent of Islam" -- and I've found it so fascinating that I thought I
should alert readers. The book contains heretofore unpublished details
of meetings between then Crown Prince Abdullah and Osama bin Laden, and
other accounts that shed light on how Gulf and other Arab societies are
being riven by competing strains of Islam, the issue of good governance
and transparency, and questions pertaining to the future of relationships
with the United States. This is an unusual blend of narrative, anecdote,
analysis and prescription. I was surprised by Mr. Sher's candor; he's as
critical of Arab societies as he is of the West.
Mr. Sher is a high-powered businessman who lives in Dubai. Among other
things, he's been a banker to royalty in the Emirates and other Gulf and
Middle East countries. (Mr. Sher is a Pathan of Pakistani origin whose
father was a much decorated general in the Pakistan military, and whose
mother, a Hindu-born woman from India, was a prolific writer of fiction
and nonfiction. His wife, Eileen Vierdieck, is establishing a museum of
the Arabian horse, the first project of its kind anywhere. Mr. Sher's
other books include one of Islamic stories for children. He's also an
accomplished photographer, and will soon have a show in New York of his
photographs of desert horses.)
Excerpts from the introduction of "The Jagged Crescent of Islam" by Anwer
Sher (with permission of the author):
I would argue that if the 1990 invasion of Kuwait had not happened and the
subsequent direct involvement of the US in the region would not have been
so pronounced, the eventual conflict between fundamentalist militant
organizations and Middle Eastern regimes would have occurred in any case.
All that the American presence has done has given such movements an
impetus and a rallying call that was previously solely directed at Israel.
It is however unlikely that the broad based sympathy of the youth that
exists for such movements would have been so obvious; indeed one can also
see that such youth have two driving thoughts: a hatred for the likes of
Saddam Hussein and other dictatorial rulers in the region, and a hatred
for the American presence. It is this difficult combination to deal with
that makes them a continuing and extremely potent threat to American
policy in the region.
American policymakers perhaps smile at the irony that on the one hand
these movements are the "ally" of the US in wanting to get rid of the
corrupt and dictatorial regimes in the region. Yet while the State
Department will list only a handful of the countries in that category, to
the fundamentalists the American objective would imply a wide spread
change in the region. The fundamentalists know that as things stand within
Arab societies today, any move toward elections based on total adult
franchise would result in perhaps a sweeping electoral victory for
pro-Islamist candidates.
To that extent the fight for the future of the region cannot be conceived
as a military battle but one that is dependent on many factors from
economic well-being, to education and, most of all, long-term confidence
building. Islamists shun the modern notion of reforms as this would imply
secular education, preferring instead a wider notion of an Islamic welfare
state where the notion of education would be non-secular. In a reformed
Arab world under an Islamist notion, the concept of electoral reforms
would only mean a victory by the ballot for the fundamentalists who, after
achieving power, would commence on a social exclusion of any secular
thought, even if it came from liberal minded Muslims. It is here that the
battle for the next few decades will be fought.
…..The idea that there is a central leadership to the militant Islamic
movements is only partially true. While Osama bin Laden's 1998 call for a
Jihad against "the Jews and the Crusaders" may be seen as a symbolic
message, its emotional appeal is stronger than the following it might
conjure up. Even amongst the ranks of militant Muslims there is an
acknowledgement that Osama bin Laden's war against the Saudis and Western
interests has been the result of a personal feud between him and the royal
family.
One must not forget that Osama was part of the system, which he today
opposes, and one of his closet friends was Prince Turki ibn Faisal al
Saud, who was the head of the Saudi intelligence service until a week
before the events of 9/11. During the formative years of Osama's blending
into the Afghan war, it was Prince Turki who was an important conduit to
both the Saudis and the Americans to get funding to Osama and his Afghan
resistance camps in Peshawar and within Eastern Afghanistan.
Osama's falling out with the Saudi Royal family was over the handling of
the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In a crucial meeting days after Iraqi tanks
had rolled into Kuwait, he met with then Crown Prince Abdullah, and tried
to persuade him not to invite the American forces but to let Osama raise
an Arab militia of 30,000 fighters, who backed with Syrian and Egyptian
troops, would liberate Kuwait. Osama sat meekly listening to Prince
Abdullah lay out the plan for calling the Americans and in effect reject
Osama's offer. His calm expression notwithstanding, Osama was fuming with
anger. Days later, audio cassette tapes appeared in major Saudi cities
with Osama bin Laden declaring that allowing American troops on holy soil
was an act of apostasy – and it was to be that he never again referred to
Saudi Arabia by name but to call it the Land of the Holy Mosque.
It has never been clear why Osama's offer was never accepted by Prince
Abdullah; was it that it would mean a long struggle to liberate Kuwait?
Some may argue that a Muslim army fighting on the ground with US and
British air cover was not a bad long-term solution. It might also be that
allowing Osama to lead a Mujahideen army of irregulars into Kuwait city as
a liberator would have made him too powerful within the domestic political
scene of Saudi Arabia.
The eventual house arrest and then expulsion of Osama are all narrative
aspects of history. It was only in 1996 when Osama returned to
Afghanistanas an exile that his contacts with clerics like the Egyptians
Abdullah Azzam and Ayman al Zawahiri did he get a broader view of what was
considered the Muslim struggle. Both of them were instrumental in showing
Osama that the issue was not only of Saudi Arabia but of fighting on all
fronts against what they called the Jewish and Christian conspiracy
against Islam.
Mohammed Atef, an able military commander, also an Egyptian who had fought
in the Afghan war, was to be perhaps the most crucial element of the triad
that made Osama understand that the battle had to be fought in military
terms. This was the turning point in the molding of Osama bin Laden, as
Abdullah Azzam had always been his ideological hero. What is ironical that
all this transformation was taking place in Afghanistan which was ruled by
the Taliban who, while more radically fundamentalist that the Wahhabis of
Saudi Arabia, draw their ideological roots from the Deobandi School of
teaching and do not necessarily agree that Wahhabism is puritanical enough
for Islamic societies.