DUBAI: The Saudi royal family is weathering the biggest challenge to its rule since it founded the kingdom about 70 years ago. But the task is harder without a definite roadmap to guide it through the post-Sept 11 pressure aimed at diluting the influence of Wahabism in daily life.

Today, Saudi Arabia is struggling to curb militancy without confronting the religious powerhouses or inviting the wrath of the public, especially after it transpired that 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept 11 were Saudi nationals.

“It is a crisis that has touched every aspect of the kingdom — religion, economy, polity, authority and legitimacy,” Ghassan Al Jashi, a political analyst with

“Al Ittihad” newspaper, said in an interview.

“It is a crisis that has had to be handled on three fronts — the United States, Arab world and the local population. A crisis of this dimension is certainly as worse as it could get,” he added.

The world’s attention has been increasing on Wahabism, especially now that even US neo-conservatives are branding the Saudis an American enemy. Its adherents comprise just 10 per cent of the world’s more than one billion Muslims.

Now, either due to US pressure or because of the realization by the royals that their stability is being tested,the Saudi government is attempting reforms that were unthinkable only a year ago.

These have included arresting hundreds of Al Qaeda activists and approving anti-money-laundering legislation.

Likewise, Crown Prince Abdullah has publicly pleaded with religious authorities to tone down anti-Western sermons and denounce the Sept 11 attacks.

The Islamic Affairs Ministry has banned religious leaders from declaring jihad, saying that it is the exclusive right of the rulers.

Such has been the commitment of the reform drive that even Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh, the kingdom’s top religious leader, asked educators to steer young Saudis away from militancy, saying Islam preaches moderation and peace.

Emerging from years of silence, political dissidents have issued calls for civil rights. They have been allowed to voice their opinions on the royal family and Islam through the media, and even through meetings with cabinet members.

They are arguing that without free speech and human rights, extremism will grow.

But they also want US troops to leave Saudi Arabia, believing it is humiliating for the land of Islam’s most sacred shrines to be protected by the West.

While many in the region, including Saudis, are convinced that no true Muslim could have carried out the airliner assaults in the United States last year because so many innocents were killed, some still believe that the United States invited trouble by giving too much backing to Israel.

Asked who he thinks was to blame for the Sept 11 attacks, Shaadaab Bakht, a UAE columnist for the Indian portal tehelka.com, replies: “America.”

Was the attack good or bad? “When I see what America has done in Afghanistan and not done in Palestine since the attack, I think it is good,” he said.

Ansar Saleem, a designer in a publishing firm, explains: “While I find it hard to practise the Wahabi tradition because it is too strict for this age, full marks to them for bringing the Americans to their knees.”

It is this kind of dichotomy that has put the royal family on a collision course with a new generation that says it is eager to restore the purity of Islam.

Alarmed by reports that up to 95 per cent of young educated Saudis sympathize with the Osama bin Laden cause, the Saudi government does not want to appear to be succumbing to Western pressure.

In the process, the emergent reforms suffered.

Some Saudis now say that certain US demands infringe on Islam. The Imam of the Grand Mosque of Makkah equates attempts at change with “high treason and extreme madness”. Other figures issue fatwas denouncing the United States and Britain for attacking Muslims in Afghanistan and warn against attacking Iraq.

There is also a wide belief that the United States will be attacked again.

A few weeks ago, Saudi police arrested a dozen Al Qaeda members who fired a surface-to-air missile at an American plane near Riyadh. Filtered reports suggest that there have been pro- Osama demonstrations in Sakaka, in the north, and in Makkah, which have been dispersed with the use of force.

All this indicates that Saudi Arabia is being pulled in two directions. There is an uneasy calm in the relationship between hardliners, Defence Minister Sultan and Interior Minister Nayef, and the moderate de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah — that could explode when the question of succession arises after the ailing King Fahd.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.