Further, what caused these deviated religious methodologies to rise from their slumber in the 1990s was the Saudi Government’s ‘controversial decision to allow an infidel army’—US troops to set up military bases inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)—in case they became Iraq’s next target following the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.[1] This decision, which was sanctioned by the senior scholars and the Grand Mufti, Shaykh ʿAbdul-ʿAzīz Ibn Bāz, infuriated Afghan war veteran Osama bin Laden, who was intent on being the one—along with his ‘international brigade of mujahideen veterans’—to protect the Holy Land, but whose offer was refused:[2]
Bin Laden was outraged, not just by the snub to his proposal to provide troops, but [also] by what he saw as a convenient misreading of Islamic principle by Bin Baz to suit the purposes of the Saudi royal family. In Bin Laden’s view, the fact that the Saudi government, which had been charged with guarding the holiest sites in Islam, was unable to defend itself without infidel help was humiliating. Furthermore, by entering into an alliance with non-Muslim troops in a fight against other Muslims, Bin Laden believed that the Saudi Kingdom was in direct contravention of Islamic law.[3]
Not only did Bin Laden’s views trigger dissent within the ranks of other Saudi scholars with the Awakening Shaykhs, Safar al-Hawali and Salman al-Awdah, who ‘spoke out publicly against Bin Baz’s ruling’[1]—it also caused confusion among the laity, since a vast number of groups who practiced divergent methodologies began to present themselves as Salafi. In the UK, Abu Muntasir was one such individual to be swayed by the diluted principles propounded by those who courted him, some of whom were labelled Mumayyiʿah and Ikhwānī (by the Salafi scholars): those who water down established Islamic Principles in order to justify cooperation with People of Innovation (Ahl al-Bidʿah) by putting credal differences to one side in the arena of Daʿwah .[2] He had made some contacts with the ‘Quran wa Sunnah Society of North America(QSS); Salafi scholars from Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and with the emerging jihadi groups spawned by the veterans of the battle against the Soviets in Afghanistan’.[3] All these groups offered their opinions on the best way to resolve disputes on various topical issues, including the permissibility of democracy, living in non-Muslim lands and rebelling against unjust Muslim rulers, which subsequently led to division among the ranks, in the name of Salafiyyah.[4]
[1] Ibid.
[2] Abdul-Wāhid 2019.
[3] Bowen 2014:60.
[4] Ibid.
[1] Bowen 2014:63.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
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