The Two Faces of Islam

My most recent bus fare was The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Saud from Tradition to Terror by Stephen Schwartz. The liner notes say he was the Washington bureau chief for the Jewish Forward and an editorial writer for the VOA. Another source confirms an early conclusion of mine: he converted to Sufi Islam somewhere along the line. It is easy to tell. His "Two Faces" are Sufism (unrealistically angelic) and Wahhabis (diabolic--no argument from me). Shi'ites he treats as honorary Sufis. The book has a strong air of the Beltline. For example, he hasn't a clue about Christian denominations, his description of Marin County is a sloppy cartoon, and he doesn't mention the Nation of Islam anywhere in his analysis of Islam in America. Somebody spent too much time in Washington.

He gives the history of the Wahhabi cult, inadvertently showing that this is a recurrent problem in Islam, beginning with the Khawarij revolt during the reign of Ali. These revolutionaries treat other flavors of Moslem as even worse than unbelievers. This was valuable to Al Sa'ud in 1747, when he and Ibn al-Wahhab joined forces. Al Sa'ud's main source of income was banditry, and Wahhab gave him religious/ideological grounds to attack, loot, and destroy fellow Muslims. A victorious jihadist has always been entitled to loot and enslave those infidels whom he allows to live.

He asserts, and gives the historical background for asserting, that the Wahhabi cult has, thanks to Saudi financial backing, achieved a dominance in places that ordinarily would not welcome it. (That Wahhabis are detested in some places is verified by other references in my reading list.) One characteristic of the Wahhabi cult is their rejection of all the 4 main schools of Islamic law--so it isn't surprising that they'd be heartily disliked.

Unfortunately his Sufi vs Wahhabi dichotomy doesn't match history very well. He implies that the evils associated with Islam came either from Wahhabi (or other Khawarij-like revolts) or reaction to Christian encroachment. The dhimmis were all happily singing songs in the field on the old plantation. All was sweetness and Sufi light, inspiring the troubadours and giving advice to Aquinus. Cow pies. Bat Ye'or revealed the real problems of the dhimmis, and observers ranging from official ambassadors to Mark Twain show that the default ummah can be as vicious as the Wahhabis.

I think it more accurate to say that the Wahhabis represent one extreme of intolerance and focus on the letter of the law, and Sufis another extreme of modest tolerance and some focus on spirituality, but that there are other extremes as well and several spectrums connecting them. Those in the Sufi orders are estimated at 3%, with a larger number associated with them; and their influence (including in missionary work) has been large (says the Encylopaedia Britannica): but apparently not a majority.

Setting aside his implicit and explicit claims for the virtues of Sufism, he documents resistance to Wahhabism in places like Bengali (1831) and modern Bosnia, and shows how the demolished religious infrastructure in Kosovo makes the advance of Wahhabism easier there. The Kosovites need trained clerics, and guess who is willing to pay for training them, provided they train in Saudi Arabia under Wahhabis and using only Wahhabi materials.

Not unnaturally, a huge amount of effort has been spent in making sure that American Islamic groups are represented by the self-appointed Saudi-financed Wahhabi organizations. He lists

• CAIR: Council on American-Islamic Relations
• AMC: American Muslim Council
• AMA: American Muslim Alliance
• ISNA: Islamic Society of North America (according to New Trend, this group controls most mosques in North America, including who speaks at Friday prayer [p231] and what literature would be distributed).
• ICNA: Islamic Circle of North America
• IAP: Islamic Associaton for Palestine
• HLF: Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development
• AMJ: American Muslims for Jerusalem
• MSA: Muslim Student Association

as groups controlled by Wahhabis. Being able to find out about these lobbying/etc groups is an advantage to being inside the Beltline, I suppose, but I'm very interested in details about how they are trying to control the Nation of Islam and about the prison indoctrination programs, which he omits.

Some of his political/religious analyses are interesting. He attempts to demonstrate that revolutionary Iran was never as dangerous as we thought, that the Chechens (being Sufi-influenced) are not so likely to become Wahhabi-type terrorists (?), and that Shi'ism may be a relatively friendly ally. He is also very dubious of Cheney, and notes that most US representatives to Saudi Arabia wind up as part of an effective Saudi lobby--presumably due to the corrupting influence of money allied with the region's devotion to hospitality.

He warns that we risk losing a great deal of goodwill if we ignore the native Muslim groups in places like Bosnia--which haven't forgotten what we did, even if the Arabs of the MidEast never heard of it.

I've griped quite a bit about the book, but there's a lot of solid research in it, and I recommend it--but with the caveat that you shouldn't take his claims for Sufism as gospel, and remember that although Wahhabism is our main enemy, it has allies among mainstream Islam.