Most people these days, are acutely aware of the apparent wealth and glamor of Saudi Arabia’s cities, as in the context of the region, it’s second only to the UAE’s Dubai in terms of apparent grandeur. To many, it serves as the effective heart of the Middle East, particularly given the fact it is the home of Mecca itself, and thus Islam as a whole. But as with many things with a glossy exterior, Saudi Arabia holds a plenitude of dark secrets just underneath the surface, and the pressure it exerts over the rest of the Islamic world has only truly been for the worse as opposed to the better.
To understand, one must first have context. From where does Saudi Arabia acquire this power? Simple. It’s the world’s largest exporter of petroleum. Yes, it has other exports, but at last count, petroleum serves as 75% of its total fiscal revenue. However, it’s not only wealth that enables Saudi Arabia to flaunt an excessive degree of influence over its neighbours. Its cultural relevancy to Islam itself also perpetuates this, given Saudi Arabia is the home of Mecca itself. Given the fact it’s a mandatory religious duty for all Muslims to visit Mecca at least once in their lifetime as part of their “Hajj”, this grants Saudi Arabia a unique position of power over other Muslim nations. Not only this, but Mecca is also considered the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad himself. One might imagine, that the modern day Meccan economy is a regional powerhouse, owing to the constant flood of pilgrims.
But let’s retread slightly, and investigate the Saud family themselves, specifically their ideology, as the two cannot be disconnected from one another. Indeed, it was only just prior to WW1 that Ibn Saud (the founder of Saudi Arabia) himself re-committed his dynasty’s support of Wahhabism.
But what is Wahhabism? Simply put, it’s an Islamic reform movement founded by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb in 18th century Arabia.
More elaborately, it’s an extremely regressive form of Islam that proudly declares itself as ridding Islam of all “Pagan” aspects. For those who know Xian history, think of it similarly as Protestantism as founded by Martin Luther. That is to say, bringing back Abrahamic religion to its purely Jewish/Torah roots. Any sort of “superstition” that may have been absorbed from local or tribal cultures’ pre-existent faiths must be utterly eradicated in order for Islam to be truly halal.
This, to note, includes a variety of things. All forms of ancestor veneration and the visiting/decorating of tombs is banned. Similarly, Mosques must be brutalist in nature, by which I mean, utterly stripped down of art and decoration. Saints are no longer allowed to be venerated (out of the suspicion this leads to polytheism) and the Quran (even the parts of it that are utterly insane and contradictory to reality) must be interpreted literally. Wahhabists go so far that, to contrast themselves with other Muslims, they believe they alone have the right to call themselves “Monotheists”.
Further, one must also understand Wahhabism is rooted in a particular form of “Arab nationalism”. Mind, this is not nationalism as it’s typically understood, as any proponent of Islam will generally decry notions of nationalism. Wahhabism itself warns against it in all but this one exception. If you’ve read my article on Dubai, you’ll be well aware that notions of “lesser Muslims” exist within certain sects of Islam. Arab Muslims from Saudi Arabia and Dubai will gladly enslave and treat Muslims from African or South East Asian regions like dirt.
This false nationalism is sourced from the belief that Wahhabist Arabs consider themselves the true people of the God of the Quran, and thus, the Torah. This belief system is not new, and has cropped up in similar movements like the “British Israelites”, which attempts to recontextualize the Old Testament to imply that the British people are actually the true descendants of the Biblical Israelites (as opposed to the modern day Jews). Anyone with a working mind knows this is absolute idiocy, especially owing to the fact there’s dozens of racial movements all claiming the same thing, like the Black Hebrews. The British Israelite movement is even partly responsible for shaping American Mormonism. When you deprive a people of their native culture, and replace it with a belief system that orbits around a foreign people and land, you’re eventually going to create a phenomena where people will attempt to distort genetic and historical reality to try and replace what was lost, as opposed to true solution, which is a return to one’s ancestral culture. A similar movement is the “Aryan Nations”, started by a Native American.
The point is, there are Muslim movements which mirror the same obsession with the Israelites of the Torah narrative. After all, Muhammad was an Arab himself, and he claimed to be a descendent of Abraham just like Jesus, though through Ishmael. Therefore, all “true” Arab Muslims who subscribe to this “purified” Islam can lay claim to the notion that they alone within the Muslim world, are the “truest” Muslims. In fact, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of this belief system, was accused by contemporary Muslims of genuinely believing he was the “one true Muslim”, and everyone else, including other Muslims, was basically a “Pagan” compared to him.
Again, let’s draw three comparisons to Martin Luther. A fellow reformer, in a conversation with Luther, once casually made a statement about “going to heaven” and “walking beside Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato.” Luther gave the man a horrified look and said “They were pagans; they were not baptized; they are roasting in the everlasting fires of Hell.” The man replied “but they were good men, were virtuous and followed their consciences.” To this, Martin Luther snapped and said “If you talk like this, you’re not a Christian, and I regret to have wasted my time with you.” Further, Luther famously claimed the Pope himself was apparently the “Anti-Christ” and the Catholic Church was supposedly a hotbed of “Paganism”. Lastly, understand that both the Wahhabis and the Protestants were ultimately responsible for plunging their respective regions into war (see, the Wahhabi War and the Wars of Reformation).
With the comparisons made, understand Wahhabism as the strictest form of Sunni Islam. If you think of the version of Islam that maintains a religious police force that kicks down people’s doors and executes them on the spot for thought crimes, here it is. To paint a proper juxtaposition, not all Muslim women across the Middle East garb themselves the same way. For some cultures, it begins and ends at enforcing a headscarf. Already this is pathetic insanity, but compare it to the Wahhabi norm, which is what most people think of immediately when asked to think of “Muslim women”.
Indeed, the ubiquitous trash bag known the world over is in fact, a Wahhabi export, which should tell you instantly the exact nature of this particular brand of Islam.
It goes deeper still. Whereas there are a few countries with Islamic populations who simply believe certain things should be done and loosely adhere to it, in Saudi Arabia, these matters have traditionally been enforced. This list of things that are heavily discouraged (oftentimes to the point of severe consequences) within a Wahhabist nation is extensive, but believe me, one could not hope to cover it all. This is merely a taste:
- Listening to music.
- Dancing.
- Fortune telling.
- Amulets/good luck charms.
- TV programs that aren’t religious brainwashing.
- Smoking.
- Playing board games (chess/backgammon/checkers/etc) and cards.
- Drawing humans and animals (landscape art only, if even that).
- Acting in a play or writing literature.
- The dissection of dead bodies (yes, even in the context of criminal investigations).
- Sending flowers to loved ones in hospital.
- Women driving (until 2018).
- Interpreting your dreams (no I’m not kidding).
- Celebrating your birthday.
- Praying while at a tomb.
- Acknowledging Mother’s Day.
- Having ornaments inside a Mosque.
- Owning a dog (or even petting one).
- Smiling at non-Muslims (again, not kidding).
- Women working without their husbands permission.
- Sex outside of wedlock (unless you raped your slave, which was legal all the way into the 60s and still occurs today).
If you violate these laws? You’d have been flogged, up until as late as 2020. This was, as you might have imagined, so violent and torturous it’s enough to kill some people, given they routinely charge people with 1000 lashes or more. And yes, this did include foreigners, and has been enacted on tourists before. Anyone should be shocked the practice continued this long. In fact, a British man was sentenced to such only back in 2015 for the exorbitant crime of having wine in his car. 350 lashes, this entitles, apparently. Personally, I’m more than a little skeptical it’s actually ended, as reports of bloggers and other journalists being tortured and murdered are still routine, and the practice is still ongoing in other Wahhabist cultures. If you want proof, I’d simply urge you to remember the story of Jamal Khashoggi, who was violently slaughtered by Saudi Arabian actors mere years ago. What did he write, a mere six months before his assassination? Have a guess.
“Saudi Arabia should return to its pre-1979 climate, when the government restricted hard-line Wahhabi traditions. Women today should have the same rights as men. And all citizens should have the right to speak their minds without fear of imprisonment.“
Of course, you’ll have your idiots declaring Saudi Arabia is “liberalizing” due to the great mercy of no longer beheading foreign tourists for holding their unwedded partner’s hand. Don’t think for a second however, that this is somehow out of the kindness of their hearts. The reality is, the heart of Saudi Arabia is just as ugly as ever, and was the truth known, these laws were always conveniently applied to some but not others. Just like under Communism, certain people are simply more equal than others.
The sole reason why Saudi Arabia is offering very surface level lessening of its Sharia law is simple. Money. Sooner or later, the petroleum reserves will run dry. When that happens, what will the otherwise desert landscape of Saudi Arabia have to offer the world? From where will its great riches rise? There’s a famous quote, by the very founder of modern Dubai itself.
“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I ride a Mercedes, my son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson is going to ride a Land Rover…but my great-grandson is going to have to ride a camel again.”
The point is, there’s an awareness that the wealth drawn from this source is not infinite. Already, great moves are being taken to ensure Saudi Arabia has the means of maintaining its economics. Not for the benefit of the citizens, of course. No. Wahhabism is particularly unique even within Islam for one key reason, and that’s one of its self-admitted central virtues.
Da’wah Wahhabiyya. More or less? Propagation. In a mere 23 years, between 1982 and 2005, 75 billion USD was spent propagating Wahhabi Islam, not just within the Middle East, but to the world. This equates to literal thousands of Mosques and Islamic Schools across the planet, all serving as mouthpieces for Saudi Arabia’s native brand of regressive Islam. Even Jewish business journalist David A. Kaplan once had to confess this even left the Soviet propaganda machine in the dust.
Already, great damage has been done. One must simply glance over at Indonesia to see how readily it’s embraced Wahhabism and has grown only more regressive in recent years, as it’s suckled billions from Saudi Arabia. In fact, among the non-radical sentients left in Indonesia, there’s a neologism (that is, for those ignorant of linguistic mechanics, a newly minted word or phrase), known locally as Aribasasi. Effectively this means “Arabization”, specifically in the context of Wahhabist interests from the primary exporter of the ideology.
To quote this article: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/apr/16/how-saudi-arabia-religious-project-transformed-indonesia-islam
“…the concept was used in reference to a whole class of developments in Indonesia: the rise of political Islam, blasphemy prosecutions, the growing popularity of hijabs and burqas, new mosques, louder mosques, new schools, the persecution of religious minorities. Above all, it referred to the relatively new, central role for Islam in the cultural and political life of a big democracy that was, until 1998, a tightly controlled military dictatorship. The underlying claim was that five decades of Saudi Arabia’s religious influence in Indonesia was responsible for all these things.”
To note, I do highly recommend this particular article as a companion piece to this, as it touches on much of what I have.
All said, the extent of this, globally, is so severe, even the heavily censored Wikipedia has a full section dedicated to this highly specific matter. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia#Allegations_of_sponsoring_global_terrorism)
“Saudi Arabia has been accused of sponsoring Islamic terrorism. According to Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in March 2014, Saudi Arabia along with Qatar provided political, financial, and media support to terrorists against the Iraqi government. Similarly, President of Syria Bashar al-Assad noted that the sources of the extreme ideology of the terrorist organization ISIS and other such salafist extremist groups are the Wahabbism that has been supported by the royal family of Saudi Arabia.
Relations with the U.S. became strained following 9/11 terror attacks. American politicians and media accused the Saudi government of supporting terrorism and tolerating a jihadist culture. Indeed, Osama bin Laden and 15 out of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia;in ISIL-occupied Raqqa, in mid-2014, all 12 judges were Saudi. The leaked 2014 U.S. Department of State memo says that “governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia…are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIS and other radical groups in the region.” According to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups… Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” Former CIA director James Woolsey described it as “the soil in which Al-Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are flourishing.” The Saudi government denies these claims or that it exports religious or cultural extremism. In September 2016, the U.S. Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act that would allow relatives of victims of the 11 September attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for its government’s alleged role in the attacks.
According to Sir William Patey, former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the kingdom funds mosques throughout Europe that have become hotbeds of extremism.”
As time passes, however, the Saudi powers have realized this blunt force spreading of Wahhabi Islam is only one form of approach. A much sneakier form has begun to rear its head as of late.
The entertainment industry. Yes, in a show of great irony, the country once banning these very same things is now funding Hollywood movies, American video games, and so forth. In truth, Communist China has been doing this very same thing recently, and it was only going to be so long before the Saudis took note. For instance, Chinese investments were to such an extent in Hollywood, that the Mulan live action adaptation, a Western Disney movie, was filmed outside of an Uighur Labor Camp.
As you might imagine, Saudi Arabia would have been licking its lips at the potential here. In truth, these deals have only just begun as of this and last year. What sort of propaganda do you think is going to spawn from this machine?
https://deadline.com/2023/03/saudi-arabia-officially-launches-multimillion-dollar-film-sector-financing-program-loans-investment-1235304484/
It’s not just movies, but sport as well. Already Saudi Arabia has booked the 2034 Fifa World Cup, following on from Qatar’s successful (and rightfully much derided) 2022 claim. The real idiocy here is, for years now we’ve had a West which has claimed itself to be on the side of progressive values, even to the point of fault. But the moment a big enough cheque comes along, suddenly all that goes straight out the window. But it gets worse. Saudi Arabia is also launching a bid for the 2035 Women’s World Cup as well.
What does anyone think is inevitably going to happen, when this World Cup rolls around? Are they all going to be forced to play in full trashbag outfits? The female football leagues have an extremely high percentage of lesbian players. Will the West protect them? Don’t hold your breath.
What about the inevitable drunken belligerence which is going to unfold, as is seemingly the norm at a soccer cup? Nothing good is going to come out of this. In an absolute best case scenario, Saudi Arabia simply lets it happen as is and turns a convenient blind eye to the usual drinking, sex and rowdiness that comes part and parcel to these events. But all that will prove, is their hypocrisy and willingness to shirk their own supposedly precious ideals whenever it’s economically convenient.
Just to really drive the point home, here’s a quote just to prove how ridiculous all of this truly is.
Abullah Al Najdi, a Saudi imam (priest), told Al Riyadh Daily (July 14, 2008), “Football is haram, (sinful) in Islam. It is an infidels’ fad. Fighting for a ball and later celebrating a victory is senseless.”
Again, when push comes to shove, when money is the great enabler that allows Islam to proliferate, don’t think for a second they aren’t willing to put their own values aside for what they deem is the “greater good”, and in this instance, exporting Wahhabism is the end goal, no matter the cost.
I’ll end on a final note, that succinctly summarizes the state of mind discussed here.
Ali Al Khudhair, a Saudi Imam in Riyadh, in his preaching sermon on the Friday of April 4th, 2008, simply stated that telling lies is acceptable so long as it benefits Islam.
Sound familiar?
Never forget that Satanism alone is the religion of the Eternal Truth, and that it’s an expected mark of our own ethical morality that we would never lie, even if said lie was to be to our advantage. Fittingly, for such a place that’s built amidst the desolate sands, one must always remember any house built upon lies is one built on sand. And sand, will always be swept away with the storm.
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