Battle over Muslim hearts and minds goes online
By Seth Mandel
September 12, 2008
 

About two years ago, terrorism analyst Michael Radu was quoted in news reports expressing his concern that European prisons were becoming breeding grounds for Islamic extremism.

At about the same time, Saudi nongovernmental workers were preparing for the launch of an online movement, founded as a companion to the government's repatriation and reeducation programs for convicted criminals.

The stark contrast -- Western prisons becoming fertile recruiting ground while Saudi prisons were trying to close the spigot of Islamic extremism -- is due to new efforts to teach a moderate interpretation of Islam by respected Saudi scholars.

And central to those efforts is the Sakinah Campaign.

"There's this idea that the way people get radicalized is that you get interested in something and then you get radicalized and then you get recruited," Christopher Boucek, an associate and Middle East expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Jewish State. "That doesn't really match up with what we find in research. We find research that people get interested in religion or in God or wanting to make up for things that they've done wrong, and then they get recruited, then they get radicalized."

Boucek, who has reported on the Sakinah Campaign and other Saudi reintegration initiatives, said that the organization seeks to engage Muslims who look to the Internet for information about Islam and its practice.

It doesn't target those who have already made up their minds, Boucek said, but rather presents a moderate interpretation of Islam -- one that disapproves of violence -- to those who might otherwise encounter a more militant revisionism of the Quran's teachings.

On the one hand, members of Sakinah will do some clandestine research to understand what they're up against without giving themselves away, Boucek said.

But, he said, "If you're on an extremist Web site, or an extremist forum, these guys will go in and challenge you, and through Islamic doctrine, and the hadith, and the Sunna and stuff, they'll argue."

Boucek said that the Sakinah Campaign -- and others like it -- do not engage in dialogue about the Arab-Israeli conflict, but with the reach of the Internet and the antiviolence message, the situation in Israel can only be helped, if indirectly, by such campaigns.

"I think in other oblique ways, you can get this message out there -- that violence is not a solution," Boucek said. "So much of the Saudi program, in all it's kind of soft counterterrorism stuff, is about: ‘You don't understand your own religion, so we're going to explain it to you again, and show you that the proper way to approach these issues is x, y, and z.' I think it's really powerful, because you've got these guys who are speaking with authority and credibility."

Aside from the spiritual nature of the Sakinah arguments -- not that something is good or bad, but rather that Islam, the prophet, and the religious establishment wouldn't approve -- Boucek said that Muslim youth aren't simply shooed away from extremism, but also led down a better path.

"More generally, I think it's about using the power of religion to combat extremism," Boucek said. "Any program to modify behavior or to fight extremism this way -- in addition to taking away a negative, you also have to give people positive."

Boucek profiled the Sakinah Campaign in the August issue of CTC Sentinel, a West Point terrorism periodical. Officially a nongovernmental project, the campaign was founded to combat the spread of takfiri beliefs, the Arabic word for labeling someone a Muslim apostate, for which the punishment is death. It is often used by Islamists -- commonly Salafists -- to justify the murder of other Muslims.

Boucek wrote that the Sakinah Campaign is the result of a fusion of two programs; one to unearth and analyze the content of extremist materials on the Internet, and the other to use Internet dialogue to advance moderate Islam.

Those who engage in dialogue on Sakinah's behalf are Muslim religious scholars, often referred to as ulama, with expertise in both Islam and the Internet. A person seeking advice will often post a question on online chat rooms or forums. An alim will offer an answer to the question, and often invite further discussion, either in a private online conversation or regular email contact.

In October 2006, Sakinah announced that it had completed production of a Web site as part of the campaign.

Boucek said many young Muslims are looking for ways to be productive and do positive work in the name of Islam. Sakinah ulama will try to show them that they can spread the word of the prophet without picking up a gun or spreading Internet propaganda.

"I don't think they do this in the hopes of trying to talk about Israel/Palestine et al; I think this is really about state stability and state security, and what's authorized and permitted, and the recognition of authority and loyalty," Boucek said. "These things are all really very essential in the Wahhabi version of Islam in Saudi Arabia."

But, Boucek added, it can still have a positive effect on the various regional conflicts, including that between Israel and the Palestinians.

"Any time when you are having any kind of dialogue, if you open up the door a little bit a little tiny crack, then it makes it easier for other stuff to come in after," Boucek said.

Boucek said that the efforts reach non-Saudis as well, since the Internet crosses national boundaries and the Saudis are looked to as Muslim leaders by Muslims in countries around the Middle East and North Africa.

"The Saudis really think that they have an extraspecial sense of legitimacy and credibility to talk about these issues -- the custodians of the two holy places, the birthplace of Islam -- that it's much easier, I think, to find good Saudi clerics who can talk about this as opposed to in Algeria or France or the U.K.," Boucek said. "If you get people who are in Europe or North Africa or other Gulf states, who have questions, they might defer to what a Saudi has to say."

Prior to the war in Iraq, most of the detainees at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay were Saudi. According to background provided by Boucek, the Saudis pressed for the release of the prisoners to newly crafted Saudi reeducation and repatriation facilities. The arrival of prisoners to the facilities would begin a process of rehabilitation, during which the prisoner would be educated on moderate Islam and his family would be provided for by the Saudi government. As of December 2007, none of the released Saudi Guantanamo detainees had reoffended.

Boucek said the Saudi programs are the most comprehensive and best funded of such reeducation and repatriation programs in the Middle East.

"Rehabilitation and counter-radicalization programs have been getting much more popular all over, but also the Saudi program is getting copied because when people want to figure out what it is they should do, they go and they look and see what the Saudis do, and the Saudis talk to people," Boucek said. "The Algerians are doing this, and the Egyptians, and the Jordanians, and the Syrians allegedly, and the Libyans maybe, and the Yemenis tried to do this; other Gulf states have done it."

The Saudi programs seem to be the most effective, Boucek said, but just the existence of such programs in the region transmits an understanding that tough security and a well-trained police force can only do so much to stem the tide of Islamic terrorism.

"It comes out of this recognition that there's not this hard security answer to all these questions," Boucek said. "You can't jail your way out of this problem or shoot your way out of this problem, you have to engage with people and take on the ideology behind this."

The prevailing wisdom has been that you cannot change the minds of those who are already radicalized, but the Sakinah Campaign does not take that for granted. Boucek said there is a "range of commitment" -- it isn't a question of whether someone is radicalized, but rather how radicalized they are.

"The most committed 10 percent isn't going to benefit," Boucek said. "But if it benefits the 70 percent who is at the other end of the spectrum, that's pretty good."