Terence Ward
Auteur de A la recherche d'Hassan. Une odyssée américaine en Iran.
A propos de l'auteur
He was born in Boulder, Colorado & spent his childhood in Saudi Arabia & Iran. He speaks Arabic, Italian, Greek, Indonesian & Farsi. He has been a management consultant advising corporations & governments in the Islamic world. He lives in New York City. (Bowker Author Biography)
Œuvres de Terence Ward
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 4
- Membres
- 161
- Popularité
- #131,051
- Évaluation
- 4.1
- Critiques
- 2
- ISBN
- 17
- Langues
- 3
Also, I was not aware that there had been some efforts by Muslims from the other three main streams of more moderate Islam to reject the Wahabi creed.In addition I had not really focused on the fact that the Wahhabi sect was really relatively recent....founded about 200 years ago. (I found myself thinking that the Puritans were a similar fundamentalist offshoot of Christianity ...but maybe without the harsh executions etc....On the other hand,19 of the "witches of Salem" were hung for their "sins").
I think Ward makes his points very well that the Saud family have appropriated power in Saudi Arabia in an alliance with the Wahhabi religious sect and have massively financed the spread of these doctrines internationally through the funding of schools, preachers, literature etc. He also makes a strong case that most of the violence of Islam can be traced back to Saudi Arabia via direct support or financing or through the offshoot schools. I lived in Malaysia in the 1980's where there was a fairly mild stream of Islam but over the years it has become more strident and fundamentalist.....with more than hints of corruption of the previous Prime Minister via "loans" from Saudi Arabia.
I also did some work in Saudi Arabia and must say that I was impressed with the calibre of the men that I worked with (no women of course). But these guys were hard working, smart and friendly. But it was not a relaxed atmosphere...full of prohibitions and discrimination against immigrant workers. (I witnessed some poor immigrant worker at the airport struggling in a massive queue, to get out of the country, being abused and sent to the back of the queue simply because he had overstepped an invisible line on the floor). And there was the undercurrent that everyone was being watched by secret police.
The current Crown Prince gets some attention from Ward....both as a proselytiser of Wahhabism and as a mover and shaker who was going to modernise Saudi Arabia and curb the power of the religious leaders. But all of this was prior to the assassination of Adnan Kashoggi in the Turkish Embassy with apparent direct links (according the the US intelligence report) back to the Crown Prince. It remains to be seen whether or how he will survive the taint associated with this brutal murder.
Perhaps, more important might be the move away from oil to sustainable energy. Though here, I suspect the Saudis are ahead of the game and have been moving steadily into the production of petrochemicals as a way of diversifying and adding value to their oil reserves.
This is not a long book and reads (more or less as the author sets it out) as a briefing document for his interested and intelligent Italian niece. It is mildly scary, assuming what he says to be correct ...and he doesn't really touch on the use of the Israeli hacking software enabling Saudi Intelligence to tap the phones of dissidents abroad. (Is this any worse than the Israeli's, Americans, or Russians are doing? I'm not sure but it's certainly not nice). Not a great book but certainly very interesting. I give it 3.5 stars.… (plus d'informations)