Long Island Newsday
October 13, 2003
Schumer Takes On Saudi State Religion
Wahhabi stance draws criticism
By Thomas Frank, Washington Bureau
Washington - Sen. Charles Schumer, who has denounced the Saudi Arabian government for two years as weak on terrorism, is now attacking a new target: the Saudi state religion, which he says promotes terrorism and is making "dramatic inroads" in the United States.
"It's serious," the New York Democrat said. At hearings and news conferences, Schumer is publicizing connections he sees between U.S. Muslim groups and Saudi Arabia's puritanical Islamic movement, Wahhabism.
"It preaches violence against nonbelievers or infidels and serves as the religious basis for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida," Schumer said. He warns that Wahhabis "are trying to hijack mainstream Islam" in U.S. mosques, schools and prisons and "are allowed to recruit disciples who pose a tremendous threat to Americans everywhere."
Schumer's statements have brought harsh criticism from some prominent Muslim groups, which accuse him of an anti-Islamic smear campaign aimed at bolstering Israel.
"People like Schumer see it as a zero-sum game: If Muslims and Arab-Americans gain any influence in political circles, they see that as taking away from the influence of those who support Israel," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose leaders attended a White House ceremony after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Some academics say Schumer is simplistic in citing religion as the root of terrorism and overreaching in his blanket condemnation of Wahhabism.
And by echoing a handful of controversial authors and scholars, some from conservative pro-Israel think tanks, Schumer has angered some fellow Senate Democrats.
Author Stephen Schwartz, who advises Schumer and last year wrote a book criticizing Wahhabism, is publicly denounced by Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois as an anti-Muslim, anti-Arab ideologue. When Schwartz testified before Schumer in June as an expert witness at a Senate hearing, Durbin said in a statement, "This is completely unacceptable and beneath the dignity of this committee."
Schumer dismisses anti-Muslim charges - "that's how they try to deflect it" - and presses on. Tomorrow, the Senate terrorism subcommittee, in which Schumer is active, will hold its third hearing since late June focusing on Wahhabism, this time probing its influence in the military and in federal prisons.
In February, Schumer called for firing all 42 Muslim chaplains in New York State prisons after The Wall Street Journal exposed a Wahhabi imam who controlled the hiring of the state's Muslim prison clerics and praised the Sept. 11 hijackers. Schumer said chaplains should represent "diverse Muslim leadership."
Many agree that Wahhabism threatens religious pluralism with its literal reading of the Quran, intolerance of nonbelievers and denial of women's rights. Followers, who reject the terms "Wahhabism" and "Wahhabi" as pejorative, believe their strict, 18th-century interpretation is the only true Islam.
In the past 30 years, the Saudi monarchy has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of its oil wealth to export Wahhabism by building religious schools, called "madrassahs," and mosques around the world.
"These all came with the demand that they tow the Saudi doctrinal line," said Vali Nasr, who teaches Middle East politics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
"It's a concern in the United States," said F. Gregory Gause III, director of the University of Vermont's Middle East Studies program. "The stuff about Wahhabi clerics being the dominant Islamic interpreters in prison systems and in Islamic schools in America, that's an issue because it [Wahhabism] does go against many of the values we try to promote here."
Shiite Muslim prisoners in New York are suing the state corrections department to get their own chaplain. In Muslim communities in Florida, California, Illinois, Texas and Arizona, Wahhabis and non-Wahhabis are fighting for control of mosques. Some Shiites have sued after losing.
Schumer is more strident - and controversial - when he links Wahhabism and its purported domestic followers to terrorism.
"More than just about anything else, the root cause of terrorism is the Saudi propagation of Wahhabism," Schumer said last month. He wants the administration to pressure Saudi Arabia to repudiate Wahhabism and stop financing its expansion.
Scholars do not see Wahhabism as such a direct threat, but say it can foment intolerance and be used for inspiration by terrorist leaders.
"Bin Laden is driven not by original Wahhabism, but an absolute antagonism to the West," said Earle Waugh, a religion professor at the University of Alberta in Canada.
The CIA, in an unclassified paper two years ago, said Wahhabism "can become lethal when mated to politically inspired causes that justify extreme violent action by reference to Quranic texts and other religious injunctions."
David Long, former deputy director of the State Department's counterterrorism office, said: "I don't think it's Wahhabism that makes terrorists. It's people who are predisposed to violence and use the scriptures to justify what they're going to do."
Attention to Wahhabism has grown since the September arrest of Army Capt. Yousef Yee, a Muslim chaplain at the military prison for suspected al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.
Schumer recently held a news conference to denounce the Defense Department: "The fact that a chaplain who was detained for supposedly stealing classified documents was trained by a group under investigation for terrorism should set off alarms at the highest levels."
But the situation with Yee is more nuanced than Schumer portrayed.
The group under investigation is the American Muslim Foundation, a "charity" near Washington. Federal agents raided it and 28 other offices and homes without filing charges in March 2002, seeking evidence of terrorism financing.
The foundation had established the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council in 1998 as one of two groups that certifies clergy credentials for the military. The council certified Yee but did not train him. Yee took courses in Syria.
The council says it is independent from the foundation and called Schumer's statement "unjust and disparaging."
Schumer spokesman Phil Singer said the groups share a tax ID number, making them "the same group."
Yee, who had been suspected of espionage, was charged Friday with the relatively minor offense of disobeying orders for allegedly leaving the military base with a layout of the prison block.
Foundation president Abdurahman Alamoudi was charged Sept. 29 with taking $340,000 from Libya to lobby the United States to lift sanctions against the country. U.S. citizens are barred from doing business with Libya.
U.S. Muslim groups rage at being called terrorist.
"Schumer has behaved in the most reprehensible manner imaginable," said Nancy Luque, a lawyer for the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, which certifies and trains Muslim chaplains for the military and federal prisons.
Schumer said the school appears linked to terrorism because it and the home of its president, Taha Jabir Alalwani, were searched in the 2002 raid. And he said the school gets Saudi money and exhibits "Wahhabi influence."
Luque said, "The raid is not enough to make the accusation that we're terrorists. It was 19 months ago." She said Alalwani, an Iraqi, abhors Wahhabism.
Pressed to document his charges, Schumer's office says Alalwani once listed his address on legal papers as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, a Saudi group with ties to and backing from the Saudi government.
Schwartz, the author who advises Schumer, said such links with the Saudi government are the only way to get at the Wahhabi background of private, often secretive Islamic schools and foundations.
"Senator Schumer and his staff have been very careful and do a lot of diligence," Schwartz said. "They call me up and ask, 'Can we say this? Is it bulletproof? Are we going to get in trouble?' "
October 13, 2003
Schumer Takes On Saudi State Religion
Wahhabi stance draws criticism
By Thomas Frank, Washington Bureau
Washington - Sen. Charles Schumer, who has denounced the Saudi Arabian government for two years as weak on terrorism, is now attacking a new target: the Saudi state religion, which he says promotes terrorism and is making "dramatic inroads" in the United States.
"It's serious," the New York Democrat said. At hearings and news conferences, Schumer is publicizing connections he sees between U.S. Muslim groups and Saudi Arabia's puritanical Islamic movement, Wahhabism.
"It preaches violence against nonbelievers or infidels and serves as the religious basis for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida," Schumer said. He warns that Wahhabis "are trying to hijack mainstream Islam" in U.S. mosques, schools and prisons and "are allowed to recruit disciples who pose a tremendous threat to Americans everywhere."
Schumer's statements have brought harsh criticism from some prominent Muslim groups, which accuse him of an anti-Islamic smear campaign aimed at bolstering Israel.
"People like Schumer see it as a zero-sum game: If Muslims and Arab-Americans gain any influence in political circles, they see that as taking away from the influence of those who support Israel," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose leaders attended a White House ceremony after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Some academics say Schumer is simplistic in citing religion as the root of terrorism and overreaching in his blanket condemnation of Wahhabism.
And by echoing a handful of controversial authors and scholars, some from conservative pro-Israel think tanks, Schumer has angered some fellow Senate Democrats.
Author Stephen Schwartz, who advises Schumer and last year wrote a book criticizing Wahhabism, is publicly denounced by Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois as an anti-Muslim, anti-Arab ideologue. When Schwartz testified before Schumer in June as an expert witness at a Senate hearing, Durbin said in a statement, "This is completely unacceptable and beneath the dignity of this committee."
Schumer dismisses anti-Muslim charges - "that's how they try to deflect it" - and presses on. Tomorrow, the Senate terrorism subcommittee, in which Schumer is active, will hold its third hearing since late June focusing on Wahhabism, this time probing its influence in the military and in federal prisons.
In February, Schumer called for firing all 42 Muslim chaplains in New York State prisons after The Wall Street Journal exposed a Wahhabi imam who controlled the hiring of the state's Muslim prison clerics and praised the Sept. 11 hijackers. Schumer said chaplains should represent "diverse Muslim leadership."
Many agree that Wahhabism threatens religious pluralism with its literal reading of the Quran, intolerance of nonbelievers and denial of women's rights. Followers, who reject the terms "Wahhabism" and "Wahhabi" as pejorative, believe their strict, 18th-century interpretation is the only true Islam.
In the past 30 years, the Saudi monarchy has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of its oil wealth to export Wahhabism by building religious schools, called "madrassahs," and mosques around the world.
"These all came with the demand that they tow the Saudi doctrinal line," said Vali Nasr, who teaches Middle East politics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
"It's a concern in the United States," said F. Gregory Gause III, director of the University of Vermont's Middle East Studies program. "The stuff about Wahhabi clerics being the dominant Islamic interpreters in prison systems and in Islamic schools in America, that's an issue because it [Wahhabism] does go against many of the values we try to promote here."
Shiite Muslim prisoners in New York are suing the state corrections department to get their own chaplain. In Muslim communities in Florida, California, Illinois, Texas and Arizona, Wahhabis and non-Wahhabis are fighting for control of mosques. Some Shiites have sued after losing.
Schumer is more strident - and controversial - when he links Wahhabism and its purported domestic followers to terrorism.
"More than just about anything else, the root cause of terrorism is the Saudi propagation of Wahhabism," Schumer said last month. He wants the administration to pressure Saudi Arabia to repudiate Wahhabism and stop financing its expansion.
Scholars do not see Wahhabism as such a direct threat, but say it can foment intolerance and be used for inspiration by terrorist leaders.
"Bin Laden is driven not by original Wahhabism, but an absolute antagonism to the West," said Earle Waugh, a religion professor at the University of Alberta in Canada.
The CIA, in an unclassified paper two years ago, said Wahhabism "can become lethal when mated to politically inspired causes that justify extreme violent action by reference to Quranic texts and other religious injunctions."
David Long, former deputy director of the State Department's counterterrorism office, said: "I don't think it's Wahhabism that makes terrorists. It's people who are predisposed to violence and use the scriptures to justify what they're going to do."
Attention to Wahhabism has grown since the September arrest of Army Capt. Yousef Yee, a Muslim chaplain at the military prison for suspected al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.
Schumer recently held a news conference to denounce the Defense Department: "The fact that a chaplain who was detained for supposedly stealing classified documents was trained by a group under investigation for terrorism should set off alarms at the highest levels."
But the situation with Yee is more nuanced than Schumer portrayed.
The group under investigation is the American Muslim Foundation, a "charity" near Washington. Federal agents raided it and 28 other offices and homes without filing charges in March 2002, seeking evidence of terrorism financing.
The foundation had established the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council in 1998 as one of two groups that certifies clergy credentials for the military. The council certified Yee but did not train him. Yee took courses in Syria.
The council says it is independent from the foundation and called Schumer's statement "unjust and disparaging."
Schumer spokesman Phil Singer said the groups share a tax ID number, making them "the same group."
Yee, who had been suspected of espionage, was charged Friday with the relatively minor offense of disobeying orders for allegedly leaving the military base with a layout of the prison block.
Foundation president Abdurahman Alamoudi was charged Sept. 29 with taking $340,000 from Libya to lobby the United States to lift sanctions against the country. U.S. citizens are barred from doing business with Libya.
U.S. Muslim groups rage at being called terrorist.
"Schumer has behaved in the most reprehensible manner imaginable," said Nancy Luque, a lawyer for the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, which certifies and trains Muslim chaplains for the military and federal prisons.
Schumer said the school appears linked to terrorism because it and the home of its president, Taha Jabir Alalwani, were searched in the 2002 raid. And he said the school gets Saudi money and exhibits "Wahhabi influence."
Luque said, "The raid is not enough to make the accusation that we're terrorists. It was 19 months ago." She said Alalwani, an Iraqi, abhors Wahhabism.
Pressed to document his charges, Schumer's office says Alalwani once listed his address on legal papers as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, a Saudi group with ties to and backing from the Saudi government.
Schwartz, the author who advises Schumer, said such links with the Saudi government are the only way to get at the Wahhabi background of private, often secretive Islamic schools and foundations.
"Senator Schumer and his staff have been very careful and do a lot of diligence," Schwartz said. "They call me up and ask, 'Can we say this? Is it bulletproof? Are we going to get in trouble?' "
