ClydeR
01-11-2015, 10:22 PM
A guest on Meet the Press this morning said that Saudi Arabia is the source of the religion driving terrorism.
CHUCK TODD:
I'm joined now from Los Angeles by Reza Aslan, professor at UC Riverside, and author of many books on religion, including Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized Age, and Arsalan Iftikhar, senior editor of the Islamic Monthly. I'm going to bring the panel in as well.
Reza, let me start with you. Should we be looking at this, as we heard the French prime minister today say they're at war with radical Islam. Are we at war with a strain of Islam? Or is this a perversion that we pretend doesn't exist?
REZA ASLAN:
Well, there's no question that there has been a kind of virus that has spread throughout the Muslim world, a virus of ultra orthodox Puritanism. But there's also no question about what the source of this virus is, whether we're talking about Boko Haram or ISIS or Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
All of these have, as their source, a single sect, Wahhabism, the state religion of Saudi Arabia. And as most people know, Saudi Arabia has spent approximately $100 billion over the last 20, 30 years, spreading this ideology throughout the world. And so we do have a problem within the Muslim community. But that problem tends to be very much localized within a particular ideology that must be confronted first and foremost by Muslims themselves.
More... (http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-january-11-2015-n284006)
Are they the same people who make spicy peanuts?
CHUCK TODD:
I'm joined now from Los Angeles by Reza Aslan, professor at UC Riverside, and author of many books on religion, including Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized Age, and Arsalan Iftikhar, senior editor of the Islamic Monthly. I'm going to bring the panel in as well.
Reza, let me start with you. Should we be looking at this, as we heard the French prime minister today say they're at war with radical Islam. Are we at war with a strain of Islam? Or is this a perversion that we pretend doesn't exist?
REZA ASLAN:
Well, there's no question that there has been a kind of virus that has spread throughout the Muslim world, a virus of ultra orthodox Puritanism. But there's also no question about what the source of this virus is, whether we're talking about Boko Haram or ISIS or Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
All of these have, as their source, a single sect, Wahhabism, the state religion of Saudi Arabia. And as most people know, Saudi Arabia has spent approximately $100 billion over the last 20, 30 years, spreading this ideology throughout the world. And so we do have a problem within the Muslim community. But that problem tends to be very much localized within a particular ideology that must be confronted first and foremost by Muslims themselves.
More... (http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-january-11-2015-n284006)
Are they the same people who make spicy peanuts?