Saudi Arabia: reality check, by Alain Gresh

I cannot recommend this article enough for a quick view inside Saudi Arabia, it's struggles with change, modernity, Islam and the infiltration and effect of international culture.

Saudi Arabia: reality check, by Alain Gresh

For most who pay attention, this is the one of the three main pillars of war with Al Qaida and it's affiliates. It may, in fact, be the primary issue. Qutb wrote that western culture and values would destroy Islam. Zawahiri was a student of Qutb and bin Laden took his cue from Zawahiri. The problem is not necessarily military hegemony nor an issue with Israel/Palestine. These are the face of the problem along with the major claim that:

since Allah made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas -- been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations.

-Declaration of War

Whenever Al Qaida mentions "riches" or "wealth" of Muslims, they are not simply speaking of oil, though they recognize this as a material representation. In fact, the "wealth" of the Muslims is the Ummah, it's oneness and it's adherence to Islam, which has given the people of the middle east their strength for centuries and allowed them to conquer large swaths of the earth under various Caliphas.

The problem is culture. Ours infiltrating theirs and effecting the practice of Islam which is not simply a religion, but an entire way of life for most people of the region, governing everything from marriage, to clothing, to food, to children, to inheritance, to commercial and criminal law.

So, please, read this article because it highlights a number of changes that are occuring in Saudi Arabia that continues to spur the Islamist civil war.

Saudi Arabia: reality check, by Alain Gresh