Lawrence Murawiec Quotes
There was a time when the deal between the Saudis and us made sense: after 1945, we need oil, lots, cheap, in guaranteed amounts and at stable prices. In return, we protected them from regional and extra-regional predators - Nasser, the Soviets, etc. They became rich, we powered industry. Good deal. Problems started later: as soon as the kingdom stabilized, King Faisal conceived a great design of taking over Sunni Islam to the Wahhabi creed, and Saudi imperial goals.
Lawrence Murawiec, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Interview, FrontPageMagazine.com, October 7, 2005
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He is a billionaire businessman who tries to maintain relationships and do business with all. In a fundamentalist Islamic land, he is continuously being accused of betraying Islam be doing business in America.
The Saudi’s were covering up the identity of assassins
Theological & Legal Expert
The Interior Ministry has “responsibility” for the press in Saudi Arabia. Licenses are needed to publish a newspaper or magazine. The licenses are granted by the Interior Ministry. Editors keep close to Nayef and censor themselves based on his “guidance.” Wahhabism is a violent and fundamentalist version of Islam whose origins lay in Saudi Arabia. Ibn Taimaya was a 14th century Muslim cleric who preached a particularly radical form of Islam.
After years of minority Sunni Muslim rule of Iraq, the U. S. invasion gave the majority Shiite Muslims political control. The Sunnis and Shiites have been at each others throats for centuries despite the fact that they are both Muslims. Saudi Arabia is the center of Sunni Islam and many of its religious extremists issue edicts advocating the suicide bombing of Shiite mosques and other facilities and assuring martyrdom for the suicide bombers.
Sudan openly used Islamic terrorists to attack, rape and murder animist and Christian civilians in Darfur. The leaders were wanted for war crimes and openly admitted to many. See {641717}.
He was making the argument that Saudi Arabia has been the largest supporter of Islamic extremism and terrorism. While the U. S. Government does not agree, that are many Americans who hold this same view and have been arguing it even before.
In September of 2005 a Rose’s newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Months later, in January of 2006 many in the Middle East protested vehemently and Muslim riots broke out because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim nations started a boycott against Denmark. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews. Apologies were demanded from Rose.
This is a particularly noteworthy quotation as Muslims are often accused of intolerance and here is a Muslim who argues that it is the responsibility of religious leaders to present religion in a tolerant manner.
She is a leading American Arab who is a Syrian expatriate.
He was referring to a religious requirement in the Koran that Muslims spend 10 percent of their wealth in helping the poor. However, the nation had huge oil revenues and virtually every government purchase and license involved kickbacks and “commissions” to someone—typically a member of the Royal Family or their cronies. See {627158}.
Ahmad denied saying this although the reporter who wrote the original story insists that he did and she wrote it down at the time. Ahmad did not deny the statement when it first appeared in the Fremont Argus, but only did so several years later.
The Saudi Arabian Royal Family had been large financial and political supporters of the Wahabbi sect of Sunni Islam. The mullahs in turn supported the monarchy and provided religious cover, so important in Islamic countries. However, the Wahhabis took the Saudi money and set up Madrassas (Islamic Schools) throughout the kingdom and in many other countries of the world including the United States. However, the Wahhabi curriculum included extensive hateful and violence advocating materials regarding non-Muslims. After 9-11, the Royal Family realized that they were also the targets of the terrorists who ironically were recruiting many of their fighters and suicide bombers from the very Wahhabi Madrassas that the Saudis had funded. They claim that they were not previously aware of the extent of the violence taught in the Madrassas (hard to believe) but they resolved to make changes. As a first step, the examined all the texts and teaching guides of the institutions they had funded and demanded that changes be made. (However, they had little influence on those Madrassas outside the kingdom that were not dependent on current Saudi money such as many of the schools in Pakistan and The West Bank and Gaza. These did not change and continued to produce terrorists.). al-Faisal however showed that the Saudi’s were now serious about reform of the teaching by going a large step further, and focusing on the teachers. Saudi Arabia began a program to vet all the teachers, imams and other clerics, a step that was a remarkable reversal from the situation on 9-11.
Historically, this is an amazing quotation. It is typical of analyses of Islam in the 21st century when America and most of the non-Muslim world was having great difficulties with Islamic militancy. But this was written at the end of the 19th century, in 1899. Churchill had a grasp of much that it would take other politicians a century to understand. This book was relatively unknown to all but a few historians, military men, and political scholars. (There was a shortened version published in 1902 which did not include this passage and that is the version that Project Gutenberg posted on the Internet. So do not assume that the quotation is wrong if you cannot find it in the version you are reading on the Internet. You need the 1899 longer and more detailed version.
Professor Lewis is the world’s leading expert on the Arab Islamic world.
