Saudis and Tsunamis
MARSHALL, PAUL
Saudis & Tsunamis Not everyone worked together to help the earthquake victims. BY PAUL MARSHALL DESPITE A FEW PLAYS for political advantage, here and abroad, the world's response to the Indian...
...The Russian town of Beslan, where Chechens massacred hundreds of children last year, has pledged a million rubles from the relief funds it received...
...The website does not explain why Aceh, the most Islamist of any Indonesian province, suffered the worst damage...
...In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tiger guerrilla movement is working with government officials to provide relief...
...Sheikh Fawzan Al-Fawzan asserts, "these great tragedies...
...The tsunami tragedy shows once more that Islamist extremism does not seek freedom, democracy, or the alleviation of poverty...
...The big exception is radical Islamists, led by Saudi Arabia...
...The Middle East Media Research Institute—which posts excerpts from Arabic TV, with translations, at memritv.org—has provided a sampling of Saudi sermons on the same theme...
...In Vancouver, Canada, Buddhists are selling their temple to donate money to the aid effort...
...Its explicit goal is to advance enmity between Wahhabis and all others, and to create reactionary regimes ruled by a perversion of Islamic law...
...However, one religious movement shatters this general harmony—radical Islam, especially the Saudis...
...Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajjid concludes that the tsunami was caused by Christian holidays "accompanied by forbidden things, by immorality, abomination, adultery, alcohol, drunken dancing...
...The Foreign Ministry says, "We feel a special compassion for the people we consider our guests...
...BY PAUL MARSHALL DESPITE A FEW PLAYS for political advantage, here and abroad, the world's response to the Indian Ocean tsunami has been heartening...
...It would be pleasant to end on this note, emphasizing that, as usual, most of the world's religious bodies are engaged in cooperative humanitarian work and, in so doing, are not, as some say, "putting aside" their religious differences, but instead are visibly demonstrating their beliefs...
...prime Minister Alkatiri says the gift is "our way of saying we are here as your friends when you are in need...
...Ibrahim Al-Bashar emphasizes that the countries that were struck "refrain from adopting Allah's law, which is a form of heresy...
...These are not isolated rants by errant preachers: They reflect official government positions...
...The prominent Islamist website Jihad Unspun maintains the tsunami struck Thailand for supporting "the Christian crusaders in the war on terror," Sri Lanka for giving "its full backing to the Christian Crusaders inside the White House," India for its "Shirk (polytheism)," and Indonesia because "the Kufr (non-Islamic) government of the apostate Susilo Bam-bang Yudhoyono" is fighting against the "mujahideen" in Aceh who want to establish an "Islamic Sultanate where the Sharee'ah (Islamic laws) prevail...
...then, after international criticism, upped its pledge to $30 million...
...The extremists would remove a Muslim leader such as Mohammed Younus, and perhaps execute him for the "crime" of cremating Hindu bodies and placing crosses on the graves of Christian victims...
...government...
...Al-Bashar is an adviser to the Saudi justice minister, and Al-Fawzan is a professor at the Al-Imam Mohamed bin Saud Islamic University, a position that he, like Al-Munajjid, cannot hold without government approval...
...Riyadh originally offered $10 million for tsunami relief...
...Local leader MohamPaul Marshall is senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, which will shortly release a report on Saudi influence in American mosques...
...East Timor, still recovering from decades of brutal Indonesian military occupation, is donating $50,000 to Indonesia...
...The same compassion is shown elsewhere...
...By January 6, Americans had pledged over $350 million in private donations, more than matching the sum committed by the U.s...
...They are welcome to be with us as long as they want...
...The same pattern is shown in Saudi government giving...
...Their aim is not to alleviate human suffering, or even Muslim suffering, but only to promote their version of Islam...
...Islamist extremism—an incubator not only of terrorism but also of universal hatred—is the enemy of all other beliefs...
...Afghans have donated blood and are sending doctors with long experience of dealing with disasters...
...All their sermons were shown on the state-controlled Al-Majd TV channel and reflect the Wah-habi ideology that is the state religion of Saudi Arabia—and which the Saudis, flush with petrodollars, assiduously propagate around the world, including in the United States...
...This sum is dwarfed by the $150 million per year the Saudis have given to the families of suicide bombers...
...are Allah's punishments of the people of these countries, even if they are Muslims...
...In Thailand, locals have given injured foreigners preference in access to hospital beds and surgery...
...In India's Cuddalore area, most dead and injured are Hindu and Christian, and they are being aided by Muslim neighbors...
...Meanwhile, according to government websites, they spend billions funding 1,500 mosques, more than 200 colleges, and some 2,000 schools for Muslim children in Europe, North and South America, Australia, and Asia...
...with few exceptions, the vast majority of people, countries, and religions are working together to alleviate human suffering...
...med Younus emphasizes, "To the possible extent, we have been making sure that the Hindu bodies are burnt, and Christians are buried...
...They should not feel offended in death— We will continue to raise money to feed them for as long as they need...
Vol. 10 • January 2005 • No. 17
