SEE Security Monitor: Macedonia
Wahhabism said spreading among Albanians in Macedonia, Kosovo
November 15, 2005
AL, MK, YU
Text of commentary by Islamic theologian Zekeria Idrizi: "Careful: 'Wahhabists' marching in Albanian lands", published by Kosovo Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore on 15 November
I have hesitated to approach the phenomenon of our Albanian "Wahhabism" and "Wahhabists" (if you can call them Albanians!), which, over the past 20 years, has spread its roots across our Illyrian [ancient people of the Balkans, whom Albanians regard as their ancestors]-Dardan [ancient name of Kosovo]-Albanian lands. I have hesitated for the simple fact that I thought that Washington, that is, the Bush administration is currently dealing with this problem.
But, the phenomenon of "Wahhabism" has assumed wide and alarming proportions in all Albanian lands and in the Albanian diaspora in the West. They are visible everywhere with their eccentricity in every respect - long beards, Asian dresses, short trousers, wives covered by black dresses (which remind you of Slav Orthodox nuns), and extremely radical and vulgar vocabulary. God, they only need to bring camels from the deserts in order to conform completely - of course, according to them - to the "Sunnet" [practices of Muhammad] of the Prophet! For this reason, the Shkup [Skopje] citizens are justified in calling them "bearded men," "Selamalejkums" [from the Arab greeting selam aleykum], "mojahedin," "Taleban," and so on. Their eccentricity is really out of this world for our European environment and for our national traditions. Finally, their entire extreme and radical doctrine, ideology, and practice is against our religious doctrine, which has been embedded in ! our tradition for centuries since our forefathers embraced the Islamic religion. Our Wahhabists want, among other things, to uproot our traditional religious doctrine - Hanafi Madhab [religious legal doctrine] - and replace it with the rigid doctrine of "Wahhabism." What an absurdity - they want to uproot the extremely tolerant and rational teachings of our Hanafi Madhab with the extreme, stale, infantile, and irrational teachings of Saudi Wahhabism! With their deranged views and propaganda, they have created unseen confusion and chaos in our lands - in mosques, streets, homes, religious ceremonies and celebrations, electronic media and press, Internet, and so on.
Praise be to God, why do we, Albanians, need the Saudi Wahhabism, which, as a religious and ideological faction, opposes the study of general and Islamic philosophy in the universities of Saudi Arabia? It denies rationalism, moderation, and human intellect? This is because, according to them, it is "haram" [sinful in Arabic] for a Muslim to think with his or her own head! Oh God, what a misery! Why do we need the Afghan "Taleban," who turned stadiums into criminal courts and places for punishing women and who strictly forbid the use of radios, television sets, and computers in Muslim homes on the verge of the third millennium? Why do we need this sect, which has sown hatred, divisions, and fratricidal war everywhere? Why do we need this nihilistic religious philosophy that wants to uproot every trace of culture and civilization, this philosophy that denies every national value, and every historic treasure of religious and national heritage?
The alarm bells are already ringing. In Kosova [Kosovo] these Wahhabi bastards have started to desecrate our graves and our monuments "in the name of religion." This is really terrible and worrying. If nothing is done to prevent these vandalistic acts, I fear that it will be too late tomorrow.
I think that there are many factors that stimulate the expansion of this Wahhabi ideology among Albanians. On this occasion, I will mention some of the main factors - of course, from my point of view.
First, it is the indolence, confusion, and at times extreme passivity and lack of unity among our Islamic theologians and leaders. This has created a large vacuum among us, which the Wahhabis have cleverly and quickly used to their advantage.
Second, it is the Albanian Muslims' very superficial knowledge of our Hanafi legal doctrine (I am not even going to mention other religious legal doctrines of the Islamic world: Shafite, Hanbalite, and Maliki) in particular and the Islamic religion in general. This is the main reason why the Wahhabi sect has been so successful in Albania, given that the long period of atheism there had created fertile ground for their sophisticated propaganda.
Third, it is the lack of values in modern secularism, vulgar and extreme materialism, such as drug abuse, prostitution, paedophilia, cannibalism, the hippie movement, pornography, exhibitionism, and other pseudo-values that have led many of our young people into chaos, confusion, and the abyss. They are every day in search of a way out of this chaos. Strangely enough, many of them find salvation in religion. What religion is that? Of course, in that religion, or rather in that religious sect that has the most rigorous, most dogmatic, and most extreme rules. Unfortunately, from the psychological viewpoint, the pathological cases in society in the past will remain such even when they embrace religion, Islam, or, in some cases, even "jihad" in the streets of Illyria, wearing all kinds of Arab-Asian dresses and using very coarse language. Moreover, this phenomenon is widespread not only in the Albanian world. This is a universal phenomenon. In the Western world, t! he number of satanic sects and their extreme members are continuously rising. We already know about collective suicides in religious temples and collective sexual orgies of "religious" hedonists.
And fourth, there is the social-economic factor. After the disintegration of the Socialist-Communist system, especially after the end of the wars in our ethnic lands, many Arab-Islamic charities have infiltrated the country and have been propagating sectarian ideas under the guise of humanitarian work, making their meagre assistance conditional on conversion to the "new religion." According to them, from a "deviant religion" (Hanafi Madhab) into "genuine orthodox Islam" (Bin-Ladin's Wahhabism)! In their efforts, they have opened hundreds of free Islamic schools for our young people. In this respect, they are having great success in spreading Bin-Ladin's ideas among Albanian youth. In addition to this, there is also the miserable state of our religious Islamic administration and their professional staff (low salaries of imams, muezzins [Muslim crier who calls the hour of daily prayers], and religious teachers). Unfortunately, as a result of this situation, a co! nsiderable number of theologians and imams have fallen victim to the Wahhabi propaganda. They get hefty salaries from Wahhabi centres in the Islamic world to spread their ideology in the Albanian world. These are not just empty phrases and unsubstantiated claims. They are well-documented facts. Many times I have said to ignorant Albanian Wahhabists (who think that they have become "Muslims" by growing a beard and by reading two or three religious brochures): "You are nothing but small fry in comparison with your mega-bosses, who are traitors of the religion of their forefathers and whom I blame the most. This is because they are the cause of all this chaos and drama in our universe."
The alarm bells are already ringing. Dozens of mosques in Illyrian lands have been usurped by the Wahhabis! Oh god, this is terrible! The monumental mosque in Shkup, Jahja Pasha Mosque, has fallen into their hands. The beautiful new mosque in the Dizhon neighbourhood (Cair municipality) started to stink of "Wahhabism" from the day it was opened. There are many other mosques, too.
Their goals do not end here. This is just part of the wider efforts to take over from within all Islamic fortresses, that is, all religious administrations in the Illyric Peninsula [referring to the Balkans]. There is already a danger of our religious community offices being turned into "boutiques" of Arab dresses and, god forbid, stables for camels. In this respect, our religious-Islamic establishments should show vigilance and a higher sense of responsibility in order not to fall prey to such perfidious traps.
As early as 1995, I was banned as a result of strict censorship from reading the presentation, "Religious Sectarianism Among Albanian Muslims Serving Pan-Slavic Ideology," which I had prepared at the scientific seminar, "Islamic Religion in Post-Communist Albania," in Durres. I only realized why when I found out that the seminar had been organized by an Arab "Wahhabi" association. I mention this fact in order to stress that I warned about the dangers of the "Wahhabi" phenomenon from very early on. To be honest, it is not by accident that the "Wahhabi" phenomenon emerged at such a sensitive time for our national cause when we were in danger of being biologically exterminated. It was quite typical that the political-military establishment of the Slav-Orthodox Serbs would allow this despicable phenomenon to spread in our ethnic lands because "Wahhabism" did the dirty work for Pan-Slavism by sowing division among Albanians over religious nonsense coming from Bin-L! adin types and by portraying Albanians as "Islamic fundamentalists" in the eyes of the international community. This has always been the case since this religious sect first emerged on the scene in the Saudi desert at the beginning of the 18th century, when its founder, Muhamed Abdul-Wahhab, lived. At that time, this alleged scholar issued a fatwa allowing military-political cooperation between the Saudi Muslims and Anglo-French Christians in the war against the Ottoman Empire. It is worth mentioning that the Vali [ruler] of Egypt, Muhamet Ali Pasha, this great Albanian, was sent by the Sultan to crush the uprising of the fanatic Saudi Wahhabis in blood.
The Albanian Wahhabis are zealous workers. They carry out with precision the orders that they receive from Arab shaykhs. They have been setting up publishing houses to publish titles with a Wahhabist-Salafist message and newspapers with the same message. They also produce various videocassettes and CDs, set up Internet sites, and conduct a range of other activities in order to increase their membership. They have even managed to pollute our air, apart from everything else.
However, my optimism is based on the following: all our Islamic religious administrative bodies have stipulated explicitly in their constitutions and statutes that only the Hanafi legal doctrine is to be practiced. The majority of the Islamic intelligentsia among us support this view. Religious teachers in medreses [religious schools] and theological faculties preach this doctrine. The same situation exists in lower religious schools and classes (excluding those that have fallen into the hands of "bearded men"). Also, the majority of Albanian Muslims in the country and in the diaspora practice their rites in accordance with the Hanafi doctrine. For all these reasons, all practices outside it, that is, all Wahhabi-Salafi practices, are in fact subversive, extra-institutional, underground actions.
As I said earlier, our doctrine is tolerant, rational, and scholarly. And, are tolerance, rationalism, and scholarship not the distinguishing characteristics of our nation?
Thank god that we are Hanafi. In that way, the values of our culture and civilization are closer to those of Europe and the United States.
Source: BBC Monitoring / Koha Ditore
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