Author: Paul Martin
Publication: The Washington Times
Date: June 3, 2002
Saudi Arabia's top Muslim cleric
has called on the Islamic world to unite against a worldwide conspiracy
of Hindus, Christians, Jews and secularists threatening Islamic moral
values.
Muslims, he said, should cleanse
themselves from creeping Western values and American-controlled "globalization."
In a television address monitored
here, Sheik Abd-al-Rahman al-Sudays, the imam of the Mosque of Mecca,
Islam's holiest shrine, turned his ire on the followers of India's
dominant religion as tension mounted between that country and mainly
Muslim Pakistan.
"The idol-worshipping Hindus indulge
in their open hatred against our brothers and sanctities in Muslim
Kashmir, threatening an imminent danger and a fierce war in the whole
Indian subcontinent," he said in a live sermon heard throughout the
Arab world via the official Saudi national television and satellite
channel.
The linkage of Hinduism with the
sort of invective normally reserved for Jews and the supporters of
Israel together with scathing remarks about Christians made the speech
unusual.
Since Saudi Arabia's leaders exercise
tight control on their media and on their government-appointed imams,
their comments especially from Mecca and on the main television channel
are seen as indicators of the government's views.
The imam lashed out with thinly
veiled invective against the United States, with which Saudi Arabia
has close economic and military ties. He contrasted the "sublime"
truths of Islam with the supporters of "fake globalization that wastes
human values and ideals," an apparent reference to the West in general
and the United States in particular.
Though he was particularly scornful
of Jews, whom he said had been cursed and turned into "pigs and monkeys"
by Allah, he turned his ire on Christians and capitalists as well.
"Their course is supported by the
advocates of credit and worshippers of the Cross," the imam asserted,
"as well as by those who are infatuated with them and influenced
by their rotten ideas and poisonous culture among the advocates of
secularism and Westernization."
The imam prefaced his remarks with
a warning to his own people not to become confused by modernity.
"The nation has never been in such a dire need to follow the example
of the prophet in this age of tribulations, sedition, open challenges
and mean plotting by the enemies of Islam," Sheikh al-Sudays said.
Leaders of former communist countries
also came under attack, especially in zones where Muslims have taken
up arms.
"The enemies of Muslims among the
atheists insist on their arrogance and aggression against our people
and sanctities in struggling Chechnya," declared the imam.
He concluded with a prayer for God
to support Islam and Muslims, to humble the infidels, destroy the
enemies of religion, and make his and other Muslim countries peaceful
and stable.
He went on: "Oh God, support our
brother mujahideen in Palestine, Kashmir and Chechnya. Oh God, we
ask you to support our Palestinian brothers in Palestine against
the aggressor Jews and usurper Zionists.
