(2006-02-04) Saudi Wahhabi Jihad Support

In a collection of pieces about Saudi Arabia, The Economist notes Texts containing incitement to religious hatred are still stocked in mosques, bookstores and libraries. A giant state-run press outside Medina, for instance, produces some 10m beautifully printed Kor An-s a year, in 40 languages, which are distributed free throughout the world. Yet these are no ordinary Korans. They are annotated by Wahhabist scholars, who pronounce, among other things, that Ji Had is one of the "pillars" of Islam. (Most Muslims recognise five pillars: the profession of faith, prayer, alms-giving, fasting and pilgrimage.) "By abandoning jihad, Islam is destroyed," says one footnote. "Jihad is an obligatory duty, and he who tries to escape this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfill this duty, dies with the qualities of a hypocrite."