Over 1,500 Extremists Freed After Repenting

According to an article in today'a Arab News:-

Saudi authorities have released more than 1,500 reformed extremists, who were detained on charges of embracing and spreading takfeer (the ideology that brands other Muslims who disagree with them as infidels).

The extremists, under the guidance of the Ministry of Interior, had undergone lengthy counseling, according to Muhammad Al-Nujaimi, a member of the Counseling Committee and professor of comparative jurisprudence at the King Fahd Security College.

I am sceptical about the efficacy of these counselling programs that are supposed to convince jihadis that violence and terrorism are inconsistent with Islam.

Many suspected Saudi terrorists were rounded up in recent in response to the campaign of terrorism waged in Saudi Arabia between 2001 and 2005. This, eventually, resulted in the attacks diminishing in frequency and then stopping altogether.

What I suspect happened was that many of those rounded up along with the were either completely uninvolved or not strongly motivated jihadis. These people probably constitute most of those who have forsworn the use of violence.

I'm pretty sure that the hard-core of jihadis can not be persuaded that violence is wrong. I only hope that none of them have been able to fool the committee with a pretence of repentance.

Note: there is no mention of violence or terrorism in the article; most of it talks about takfeer (or takfir), however, the following paragraph is revealing:-

The suspects were largely confused about the meaning of jihad, which led to their believing in committing blind violence. They also viewed that the present Muslim rulers, scholars and public were infidels, and therefore demanded the establishment of a single Islamic state, said Al-Nujaimi.

This almost needs line-by-line analysis. Firstly, while many modern Muslims say that the primary "meaning of jihad" is an inner spiritual struggle, Islamic scholars over the centuries have held that it is warfare against the unbelievers.

The remainder of the paragraph is pure Al Qa'ida. Osama bin Laden calls the rulers of Saudi Arabia infidels because they don't properly enforce Shari'a (which seems very strange to those of us living here). This is the give-away: although it's not stated, these people are, or are suspected of being, members of Al Qa'ida.