Islamic State rise may quell Saudi Shi’ite fear

Islamic State recruitment is on the rise. Even teenage girls are joining its fighting cadre. Since August last year, the US, with its allies, has been bombing IS targets, but that bombing has not dislodged the extremists from much of the territories they have occupied.

While the allies, without any long-term plan, depend on air power for success, their enemy has turned the war into a guerilla type conflict. Unless the allies decide to annihilate tens of thousands of innocent civilians and call that collateral damage there is no way IS can be wiped out from the map in this way.

On the other hand, by allowing IS to carve a Sunni-zone out of Iraq and call it the Islamic State, the group may assist the US Senate’s plan to divide the country into three regions, one for the Shi’ites, one for the Kurds and the third for the Sunni. This raises the question of whether the US and its allies are fully committed to destroying IS. This question becomes even more pertinent when one looks at the role of another set of players in this drama, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies.

Saudi Arabia is alarmed at the revival of the Shi’ites. Iran’s successful revolution and Ayatollah Khomeini’s declaration to export that revolution sent shock waves across the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia has a Shi’ite minority in its eastern province, as has Bahrain. With Shi’ite governments in Iraq and Syria and with Shi’ite dominance in Lebanon, the Saudi regime is facing an existential threat. Hence, its resolve to confront and kill the rise of Shi’ite power at any cost. IS is doing that job for the Saudis.

How can the Western powers destroy IS when its aims are supported by their staunch ally Saudi Arabia?

Given this complicated picture and in the light of more young Australian Muslims joining IS, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has resolved to tighten the screws on immigration laws, visa issuance, citizenship, border security and surveillance.

Australia under John Howard had already toughened the laws on these matters. Now a Prime Minister who is doing badly at the polls and facing leadership challenges within his party is understandably exploiting the national security issue to enhance his leadership.

Be that as it may, when elaborating his tough policy he asked the Muslim leaders of Australia to “mean” what they say when they say Islam is a religion of peace.

This is an unfortunate statement which implies that Muslim leaders are dishonest. On the contrary, Muslim leaders have always been true to themselves when they said that Islam means peace.

The right question for the PM to ask from Muslim leaders is why are they not condemning IS and its ideology instead of only its actions.

So far, the Australian National Imam Council has not in any of its press releases condemned the ideology of IS.

Here lies the real dilemma. The PM should have focused his criticism on this strange silence.

IS, like its predecessors al-Qaida and the Taliban, is the product of what Khaled Abou Al-Fadl, a reputable scholar of Islamic jurisprudence, calls Puritanical Salafism, which is a historically refined theoretical title for Wahhabism. The ideology of PS is in essence anti-Shi’ite, anti-Sufi, anti-women, anti-history, anti-aesthetic and anti-other. The reign of terror of IS bears ample proof for this negative ideology.

This ideology is also the ideology of Saudi Arabia whose ruler is the custodian of the two most holy places of Islam, Mecca and Medina, to which millions of Muslims go on pilgrimage annually. An ideology that remained largely confined to the desert kingdom until the 1980s became thereafter an exportable product largely because of the newly-acquired petrodollar wealth.

While Iran failed to export its revolution, Saudi Arabia succeeded in exporting its PS brand of Islam. This brand is the ruling Islamic paradigm which has silenced all its competitors.

Saudi Arabia has a domineering influence over the Muslim communities all over the globe except in the Shi’ite sector. Through its financial largesse to build mosques, establish cultural centres, schools and other facilities, the kingdom has won the allegiance of a majority of religious leaders. Even an institution like the Al-Azhar in Cairo which had an independent voice over religious matters until recent times has succumbed to Saudi pressure.

To attack the ideology of IS is to attack the ideology of its foster-parent, Saudi Arabia, and its brand of Islam.

Given the above scenario, which imam or religious leader in Australia would dare to challenge Saudi Arabia? This explains the reluctance of Muslim leaders to challenge the ideology of IS and condemn it.

On the other hand, one cannot blame these leaders because even the US and its allies are not prepared to make Saudi Arabia accountable for the damage its brand of Islam has caused. Why is the US still not declassifying the 28 pages of the Joint Congressional Inquiry Report into the 9/11 attacks?

There is dishonesty everywhere and IS will thrive by default. Tougher laws in places like Australia may even toughen the resolve of Muslim youngsters to join IS.

• Ameer Ali is a lecturer in the School of Management and Governance at Murdoch University.