Unlike Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, where ancient civilizations had flourished and made their mark on human history, or places like Dubai and Hijaz, which lay on trade routes and dealt extensively with the outside world, the desert of Najd in the Eastern Province of what is now Saudi Arabia had no civilization to speak of before Islam. Nor did it ever become a cultural centre like the capitals of the Caliphate, Medina, Damascus and Baghdad. Thanks to its arid, barren landscape, Najd remained a cultural backwater, its sole contribution to the arts a traditional form of poetry that spoke of narrow tribal matters. The harsh and unforgiving environment in which the Najdis lived explains why Mohamed ibn-Abdul Wahab found a receptive audience for the equally harsh and unforgiving brand of Islam he preached. The same environment that produced the founder of Wahhabism later produced the radical Ikhwan movement which challenged the authority of King Abdul Aziz ibn-Saud. In the nineteen twenties, the king took on the Ikhwan, who were openly accusing him of deviating from the true faith. When he returned to Riyadh after joining Hijaz to his kingdom, the Ikhwan said he had left on a camel and come back in an American car! This was just one of many clashes between the movement and the king over such issues as whether the radio was sinful or the telephone an invention of the devil, in short, over any of the fruits of modernity which threatened their fundamentalist vision of the world. It is a vision that can only be understood by studying what is known as the secret sects of Islam (radical fringe movements that never became part of mainstream Islam), as well as the message of Mohamed ibn-Abdul Wahab, the product of many factors, including the sociological and geopolitical environment of the deserts of Najd. These factors allowed the Wahhabis, after they invaded Hijaz, to impose their austere understanding of religion throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Among other things, they banned headstones and any structures identifying burial sites, insisting on unmarked graves flush with the land. They combated Sufism in Mecca and elsewhere as contrary to the teachings of Islam. They even entered into an armed clash with the Egyptian mahmil, a splendidly decorated litter on which the Egyptians sent a new cover for the Ka’bah every year. The mahmil ceremony was a merry occasion celebrated by the Egyptians with their traditional love of music, dancing and revelry. For the Najdis, who had launched their puritanical revival movement to purge Islam of what they saw as deviations from the straight and true path of orthodoxy, such unseemly displays of levity could not be tolerated. What I want to cast light on here is that, throughout its history, the desert wasteland of the Arabian Peninsula’s Eastern Province had suffered greatly from its geography. However, it contained the richest oil fields and, following the oil price boom that turned the desert kingdom into a major financial power, it was inevitable that this part of the world should try and market its ideas. This it did with missionary zeal in the second half of the twentieth century. With a virtually endless supply of funds at their disposal, the Wahhabis were able to successfully propagate their model of Islam throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Disillusioned populations, facing massive internal problems caused by political oppression, lack of social mobility, widespread corruption, institutions run without any competence and deteriorating educational systems were easy prey, and mainstream Islam gradually lost ground to the austere, puritanical Wahhabi model that was now presenting itself as the one and only true Islam. While under non-Wahhabi Islam the Muslim communities in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey were forward-looking, in tune with the times and living in harmony with large Christian and Jewish communities, it is inconceivable that Wahhabism would have tolerated the kind of cosmopolitan and tolerant societies that flourished in Alexandria, Cairo, Istanbul, Beirut, Damascus and Aleppo at the turn of the twentieth century. On the contrary, the Najdi version of Islam exhorts its followers to remain in a constant confrontation with others, with the age and with modernity. Under Wahhabism, the word jihad is interpreted as the need to carry a sword at all times, although mainstream Islam for centuries understood it as requiring them to resort to force only to defend themselves from outside aggression. Even semantically, the word jihad is totally unrelated to the notion of armed violence. Mainstream Islam also accepted the possibility of Muslims merging with the rest of humanity (especially before the chauvinistic tribal culture of Najd gained ground), while Wahhabism regards this as impossible and unacceptable. Indeed, it is regarded as synonymous with subservience, a term that is widely used by those whose thinking is shaped by the Wahabbi model of Islam. If Noam Chomsky’s theory is valid, it applies just as much to the Wahhabis who need a strong enemy in order to survive. Next: The Fall of the Oppressors and the Emergence of the Sword For more of Tarek Heggy's writtings in English, please visit www.t-heggy-site-contents.org and for Tarek Heggy's writings in French please visit www.metransparent.com/authors/french/tarek_heggy.htm.