Another interesting report on Wahhabism and its roots - too long to post here.
USCIRF
http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.c...iles/asecondlookatthesaudiscauseandeffect.pdf
A few excerpts:
Saudi Arabia is currently under a totalitarian regime, but one that is somewhat unique in that it is bifurcated. On the one hand, the government operates as a monarchy under the rule of King Abdulah and his peers in the Saudi royal family. On the other hand, the day-to-day lives of the people are governed as a theocracy run by the ulema, the council of Wahhabi religious leaders which has de facto control over many of the basic social institutions of the Kingdom. Along with the nations religious institutions, which include the holiest sites in Islam the Holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina the religious authorities also control the justice system. They appoint both the judiciary and the religious police, and impose a strict form of Sharia (Islamic law) as mandated by the Koran and their religious traditions.
Most importantly, it is the religious authorities who dictate the curriculum of the Kingdoms education system. Each of these social institutions revolves around the official state religion, what is generally referred to in the West as Wahhabi Islam.
The USCIRF confirmed this, finding that, The Saudi education system indoctrinates all students in the governments favored interpretation of Islam, regardless of the convictions of the children
or their parents.: All students are taught religion beginning in primary school. The curriculum is exclusively based on Wahhabism. Shia and other Muslim doctrines are condemned, from the beginning of the childs education, as heretical and sinful. . . . In 2001, four
Shia high school students in Najran, aged 16 and 17, were arrested after a fight with a Wahhabi instructor who insulted their faith: They received two to four years in jail and 500 to 800 lashes.
In fact, the control of the Wahhabi religious authorities extends far beyond issues of religious education and the mass media, to the very fabric of the society as a whole. Predictably, this has led to an endemic atmosphere of oppression, one which was observed first-hand by Lawrence Wright. He reports that the problem became especially severe after Islamic radicalsseized control of the Holy Mosque of Mecca in 1979. In order to appease the extremists, the
Saudi royal family ceded even more authority to the Wahhabi ulema.
Wright recounted:
Wahhabi clerics, with their fear of outside influences, waged war on art and the pleasures of the intellect. Music was the first victim. Umm Kulthum and Fairouz, the songbirds of the Arab world, disappeared from the Saudi television stations. A magnificent concert hall in Riyadh was completed in 1989, but no performance has ever been held there. The Islamic courts have even banned the music played when a telephone call is placed on hold. There had been some movie theatres, but they were all shut down.
What is true for Saudi men is doubly so for women in the Kingdom. Trapped underneath stifling black robes and veils, and forbidden from leaving their home without a male chaperone, they are systematically denied even the most basic freedoms.
In addition to imposing Sharia law and appointing the judiciary, the religious authorities also employ their own police force to compel obedience to Wahhabi religious mandates. Officially, the religious police are known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and
Prevention of Vice. But colloquially, they are known throughout Saudi Arabia as the mutawaa.
The USCIRF reports:
The mutawaa is intrusive. They arbitrarily raid private homes and exercise broadly defined, vague powers, including the ability to use physical force and detain individuals without due process. . . . the mutawaa harass and beat women for not complying with the dress code; detain men for appearing in public places with women who are not relatives; harass and detain female foreign workers arbitrarily; shear mens hair if it is determined to violate imposed standards;
detain without charge Saudis and non-Saudis for long periods of time; and flog and beat both Saudis and non-Saudis.
One of the most disturbing illustrations of the power of the religious authorities in Saudi Arabia occurred on March 14, 2000, when a fire broke out in a girls school in Mecca. Shortly before the fire started, a janitor had locked all of the gates to the school and then wandered off leaving them unattended, a common practice to enforce the strict segregation of the sexes at girls schools in the Kingdom.68 When the fire broke out, many of the students panicked and tried to escape before donning their headscarves and abayas (full-length robes), as mandated by Wahhabi religious law. They were immediately intercepted by members of the mutawaa, who tried to physically beat them back inside the burning building. As several other improperly dressed students pressed against one of the locked gates, another member of the mutawaa stood outside refusing to let them out until they were properly attired. Fifteen schoolgirls died as a result.