By Sanobar Shermatova

02-09-03 That condemnation came as a surprise. The custodian of the main sacred places of the Muslims, Saudi Arabia, enjoys an exceptional status in the Islamic world. Saudi charities have often been accused of funding terrorists, especially as most of the participants in the September 11, 2001 act of terror in New York were natives of Saudi Arabia. And now the supreme council of the country’s clerics has qualified subversive acts and murder as "dangerous crimes" that contradict the Sharia, and those who justify these acts citing jihad (holy war), as people who have gone astray.
The Americans expected to hear a fatwa to this effect immediately after September 11. The American press often asked bluntly: Why don’t the Muslim theologians condemn terrorists and declare them infidels? Answers like "Mufti so-and-so has condemned the murder of innocent people" left the Americans and Europeans unimpressed. The United States and Europe might have presumed that a condemnation should come in the form of a directive from the very top of the Islamic hierarchy -- one that is binding upon all Muslims worldwide.

The fact is that such a directive cannot possibly be issued in the Islamic world. In Islam there is no hierarchy, just as there is no hierarch. The supreme clerics of Saudi Arabia cannot be compared with the Pope of Rome; they wield considerably less power. It would be naive to believe that members of radical organizations -- such as those of Chechen gunmen, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or Hamaz -- would lay down their arms upon hearing the condemnatory statement of the Saudi clergy. Still, their statement should not be belittled.
In their discussions with MN, diplomats from Arab countries said they expected the condemnatory document to be for "domestic consumption" above all. In their opinion, Saudi Arabia’s radical Islamic organizations will soon be purged by that country’s special services. It would then be possible to regard the condemnation of the supreme clerics as an indulgence for the authorities. After the condemnation, it will be hard to accuse state officials of persecuting their nationals just to please the United States and Israel.

The assumption that the radicals are going to be arrested is backed by Israeli mass media reports. Citing diplomatic and other sources, they point out that Saudi diplomats in Washington asked the Israeli Embassy there for information, if any, on the funding of the Palestine-based Hamaz by Saudi nationals.
Understandably, these political developments are due to the unprecedented pressure that the United States is bringing to bear on the Saudi kingdom. The classified section of a Congress report on an investigation into the September 11 terrorist acts, according to some senators who have read the report, deal with the ties of Saudi businessmen, the royal family, and charities and banks with al-Qaeda.

Over the last 50 years, Saudi Arabia has almost always contrived to avoid shootouts with its own radicals eager to declare a jihad against all friends of Israel. It subdued them by other means. In particular, it directed their activities in favour of the United States. For example, with the help of the Saudi and Pakistani special services and of the CIA, many trigger-happy Islamists were sent to war with the Soviet contingent in Afghanistan.
However, the situation changed last May, when a residential complex in Riyadh where foreigners lived was blown up, killing 35 people. Investigators said al-Qaeda had been involved in the explosion, compelling the Saudi leadership to make a choice: Either declare a jihad against the West (thereby safeguarding itself against attacks by the radicals), or wipe out the gunmen.

It is the decision to deal with the terrorists (and not the fatwa that provides an ideological basis for the fight against the terrorists inside the kingdom) that has significant importance for the rest of the world, including Russia. The RF Foreign Ministry says it is expecting an improvement in Russian-Saudi relations, the foundation for which will be laid by the September visit to Moscow of Crown Prince Abdallah ibn Abdel Aziz.
During his visit, a number of documents will presumably be signed for the Saudis to invest in Russia’s oil and gas sectors. This rapprochement is all the more valuable in view of the fact that for many years Saudi Arabia and Russia -- the worlds largest oil exporters -- have competed for oil markets.

The rivalry between the two oil powers is turning into cooperation, including in the field of security, diplomats say. The signal from Riyadh is this: The Arabs need a strong Russia; so we advise the Muslims living in Russia to strengthen, not weaken, their country.
This could be interpreted to mean that the Saudis have vowed to stop aiding the Islamist radicals fighting in hot spots in the ex-Soviet territories.