الفكر السياسي الوهابي : قراءة تحليلية /
أحمد الكاتب
- Third edition
- 206 pages ; 24 cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
During the twentieth century, the Islamic world witnessed an openness to democratic thought, and parliamentary systems and presidential elections were established in most Islamic countries, except for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which maintained an absolute totalitarian system in which the king monopolized all legislative and executive powers, and failed to bring about any democratic development. Perhaps this failure had many factors, but the most important of them may be the Wahhabi political thought that rejects democracy. Although the relationship of the Wahhabi movement with the Saudi regime was not always good, and was marred by much tension and conflict, such that it produced radical revolutionary currents that sometimes called for the beheading of the regime, it was experiencing a confusing intellectual and political crisis in which it wavered between excommunication and exit or postponement and submission, and did not find a way out between them. This is what prompted some Wahhabi opposition movements to the Saudi regime, such as the Al-Qaeda organization, to adopt alternative strategies to the internal reform process, by seeking revenge on external enemies and holding them fully responsible for the deterioration of the internal political situation. While Al-Qaeda objected to the American military presence in the land of the Two Holy Mosques, it directed all its anger at the American occupier and ignored the one calling for and seeking American protection, which is the Saudi regime. Instead of demanding that the regime expel foreign forces or work to change it politically or find a way to participate in political decision-making and pressure the government to implement legitimate policies consistent with the true religion and the national interest, it found itself forced to fight the battle with the occupying foreign enemy and take the battle to its home.
Islam and politics--20th century Wahhabiyah. Islamic fundamentalism.