How Saudi Arabia is changing

Pulitizer-prize winner Karen Elliott House has another article in her series of reports from Saudi Arabia in today's Wall Street Journal:

"The main threat to Saudi Arabia isn't military but religious," says a prominent graduate of Riyadh's Imam Muhammad University. "If we do not deal with extremism, we will pay a terrible price in 15 years. The government will face its own weapons turned against it because extremists are infiltrating not just education but the military."

A young imam from a large Riyadh mosque illustrates this mindset. "We are waiting for the time to attack," the imam says, in the course of a long interview. "Youth feel happy when the Taliban takes a town or when a helicopter comes down, killing Americans in Iraq. It is a very dangerous situation for the U.S. in the whole Muslim world."

To combat religious intolerance and extremism, the Saudis have reformed the education system, reports House:

Tawfiq al Saif, an author and member of the Shiite minority, says that when he was in school, Sunni religion teachers taught, as required, that Shiites were infidels, but didn't take it seriously. Then in the 1990s, his son was taught that Shiites not only were infidels but must be converted. "Now, students are taught to coexist with Jews and Christians," Mr. al Saif says, commenting on how much the official line has changed. Indeed, ordinary Saudis almost uniformly voice the current government line that true Muslims revere all of God's prophets -- including Moses, Abraham and Jesus.

But as House goes on to report, the regime has to balance the demands of two polarized constituencies. There is the camp with views like those expressed by the Riyadhi imam:

"Your leaders want to bring your freedom to Islamic society," [the Riyadh imam] says. "We don't want freedom. The difference between Muslims and the West is we are controlled by God's laws, which don't change for 1,400 years. Your laws change with your leaders."

Then there is the freedom camp, personified by the al Saif family:

"My father wanted only freedom to practice his religion," Mr. al Saif says. "I want religious freedom and political rights. And my son wants the kind of life he has lived as a student in Britain."