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The educated young woman said to me: What do you think of the development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
And a colleague of her went on to say: Until very recently, the kingdom was a very conservative, rather static society, and no one would have imagined that with the change of leadership and the transfer of rule to a new generation, social and cultural matters would develop in such a way and speed.
I said: You are right, for the kingdom is the stronghold of Wahhabism and Salafism, and its kings and their ruling family used to maintain that in a balance between the wealth that accumulates for them and with them, as a percentage of oil revenues, and between letting the Salafi sheikhs and the people of enjoining good and forbidding evil with their beliefs control the Saudi street completely. The Saudi regime was spending millions of dollars on spreading their doctrine in Islamic countries.
The young woman said: Women drive cars, art concerts, cinemas and theaters, and book fairs where we see books that were never allowed to enter this country. I see, Doctor, that the banner of Salafism will fall by changing the way of life in the Kingdom.
I said: The rapid change that you are talking about has its reasons. Our Saudi brothers who used to accompany us in studies, and even some kings before they sat on the thrones of government, were open to the world, reading what we read and practicing enlightenment outside their countries, but they return to extreme reservation when they return to their community. And when a brave young man came and removed this schizophrenia by declaring his liberal tendencies, it was as if he was expressing only the reality of the situation.
Another young man said: What is the effect of this on Egypt?
I smiled and said: You know that Egypt and Saudi Arabia were competing for the leadership of the Arab nation. Saudi Arabia with its wealth and as the birthplace of Islam and its adoption of a strict religious model, and Egypt with its scientific and cultural history, in which most of the leaders of the Arab world studied until recently, and the strength and organization of its army.
But the truth of the matter is that Egypt had millions of workers in the Kingdom, working for years, years they spend working and coexisting in this closed society, and they are affected socially and culturally, years that changed their psychological composition, and gradually merge in their conscience Salafi thought and Wahhabi beliefs and deepen in their souls, then they return to Egypt Practicing the same lives they were accustomed to in the Kingdom for years and years, millions and millions of Egyptians, some of whom turned into advocates of Salafist thought, and some statistics even indicated that Saudi Arabia was their ideal as a state.
Egypt – the country of enlightenment, culture and arts, Egypt that has led the battles for women’s freedom and their positive participation in life since 1919, that is, before the announcement of the transformation of the Arabian Peninsula and the Kingdom of Hejaz into a Saudi kingdom after the unification of its various regions in 1932, Egypt, which has seven thousand years of civilization – was negatively affected Emotionally sharply with the Wahhabi thought, with the return of the millions who imbibed this thought, and the emergence of the political Muslim Brotherhood group that seeks religious rule for the country, and who almost succeeded in reaching the rule of Egypt without the civilized genes in the Egyptian people.
The young man said: What do you mean by Wahhabism and Salafism, and who is the most dangerous to the country is the mother of the Brotherhood… We found them cooperating at a critical moment in the country’s history together, and we did not hear about their activities much before 2011?
I said: Wahhabi Salafism or Wahhabism or monotheistic Salafism is a term given to a Sunni Islamic movement that was established in the Najd region in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula in the late eighteenth century AD, at the hands of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792).
He said: What are the ideas and literature of the Wahhabi call?
I said: When Sheikh Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab launched his call, it was to spread the Salafist call, and also to purify the beliefs of Muslims and get rid of the customs and devotional practices that they see as contrary to the essence of monotheistic Islam, and among these goals:
■ Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil.
■ Denying polytheism and calling for pure monotheism by fighting tawassul and seeking blessings from the messengers, prophets, saints and righteous people, living and dead.
■ Denying and asking the rulers to demolish the shrines and domes on the graves of the saints, and equating them with the land and not distinguishing it from any other grave.
■ Denying heresies and superstitions such as building on graves and taking them as mosques, and birthdays, and this is what made them enter into direct clashes with the Sufis.
■ Affirming the Beautiful Names of God and His Supreme Attributes without interpretation, distortion, analogy, adaptation, or representation is one of the main issues in their belief.
■ Not allowing to think about the development of what existed in the days of the early Muslims.
■ Not violating the ruler, which is the result of Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab’s cooperation agreement with a Najdi prince, whose name is Muhammad bin Saud – the founder of the first Saudi state – on a religious-political pact, so Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab pledged allegiance to Prince Muhammad bin Saud on hearing and obedience. I found political patronage and military protection, and Prince Muhammad pledged allegiance to him to spread his call if the matter became established for him, and Muhammad bin Saud stipulated in his pledge of allegiance to the sheikh that he should not be subjected to what he takes from the people of the country. From their point of view.
The young woman said: What does what is happening in Saudi Arabia have to do with us, Doctor?
I said: I will tell you a story that happened between me and Professor Mahmoud Al-Saadani, the satirical writer, may God have mercy on him, many years ago, and we were friends despite the age difference. Down.. He told me a genius sentence about what is happening in Egypt at that time of state interference in the economy and the call for the survival of the public sector. He said to me, Doctor: The leftist factory is closed in Russia and the agent is working in Egypt.
The story came to my mind when you asked me about the impact of what is happening in Saudi Arabia on Egypt, because my fear is that the Salafiya factory will close its doors in the Kingdom, and the agent will continue to “work” in Egypt.
What I see around us confirms the inability to create a new religious discourse, and the political continuity of the Salafists, even though their principle was not to get involved in the
Political work, hearing and obedience to the ruler. We cannot change laws that allow for the suppression of thinking about innovation, accusations of contempt of religions when differing in opinion, atonement for those who are tempted to use their reason, and to leave the circle of the past and move to the future..
What I fear is the continuation of transforming the Egyptian identity, which is multi-branched, deeply impacted, and historical in origin, into a single-minded identity that sees nothing but a past to which we do not belong and does not belong to us. What I fear, my children, is to repeat what Mahmoud Al-Saadani said in another place: “The factory is closed there, and the agent is working in Egypt.”
