Struggle For The Soul Of Islam

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The continuing clampdown on reformers has left Saudi modernizers distraught. "If you have a society draped with religion, of course you will reach this point of extremism," says Turki al-Hamad, a Saudi novelist and newspaper columnist. The voices of moderation, al-Hamad says, have almost no public spaces in the kingdom--no broadcast networks, no radio stations and few mosques--in which to voice their views. The extremists, meanwhile, feel no such constraints. The day before an attack by al-Qaeda militants on a compound in Khobar in late May that killed 22 people, the imam at the mosque in Medina dismissed terrorism as a "summer cloud" before ending with a typical rant against the Jews: "O vanquisher of the infidels, defeat them, shake them up, destroy them!" The failure of the Saudis to rein in such elements could prove disastrous were the clerics ever to decide to incite their followers to rise up against the regime--which bin Laden has called for. The determination of Islamic militants to topple the Saudi regime and gain control of 25% of the world's oil has only intensified in the past few years. If you compare Saudi Arabia, wellspring of Islam and home to its two holiest cities, "with European societies during the Middle Ages," says al-Hamad, "you will find the same picture."

PAKISTAN The situation is similarly distressing in Pakistan, a nuclear power that helped create neighboring Afghanistan's Taliban. It remains one of the world's most fertile breeding grounds for jihadists. Pakistani President Musharraf's decision to back the Bush Administration's war on terrorism has won him kudos abroad but none at home. In the past nine months he has survived three assassination attempts mounted by militants tied to al-Qaeda. Conservative religious parties have gained partial control of two provinces, the Northwest Frontier and Baluchistan, to which many Taliban and al-Qaeda fled from Afghanistan. The U.S. and other international donors have pumped millions of dollars into the Pakistani education system in an effort to draw students away from Saudi-funded fundamentalist madrasahs, or religious schools, where 1.5 million Pakistani children spend nearly all their time memorizing the Koran in Arabic, even though few Pakistanis speak the language. Pakistanis say that so far the government has failed to build new secular schools that would provide an alternative to the madrasahs. Religious conservatives are trying to expand their reach: a Pakistani cleric and Member of Parliament has launched a campaign to shut down cybercafes throughout the country, describing the Internet as a "red-light district."