Contradictions between Islamists in the Regional and Global Context: Wahhabis, Muslim Brothers, and al-Qaeda

Abstract

The 1990–1991 Gulf War of the US-led coalition forces against Iraq had far-reaching global and regional implications. Islamists – that is, those for whom religion had become a part of political discourse, organizational affiliation and political struggle – sharply diverged in their assessments of that war. While the Wahhabis supported the Saudi government, which invited the US troops and their allies, the Muslim Brothers and the related Sahwa Movement in Saudi Arabia condemned the deployment of non-Muslim forces to the land of the two Holy Places and the war against ‘Muslim Iraq’ with the assis-tance of non-Muslim soldiers, as well as questioned the very legitimacy of the government of Saudi Arabia, which made such a decision. Previous dogmatic disagreements – such as those over attitudes towards the Sufis or the applica-tion of Sharia law – had not previously hindered the cooperation between Brothers and Wahhabis on the basis of the struggle against nationalism, communism, socialism, laicism, the penetration of culture and other Western values. Yet, the former dogmatic divisions deepened, and the politicization of Islam revealed the sharply anti-Western positions of the Islamists from among the Brothers and the Sahwa. The Sahwa ear-Vasiliev Contradictions between Islamists ly 2021 did the coalitions achieve some degree of consensus, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar seemed to have restored relations. 2001: