Saudi Arabia: Inside the Hidden Kingdom
February 2003 2900
It's late on a weekend night in Jeddah. There are no cinemas or bars and mingling with girls is strictly forbidden. So in an act of defiance, young men come to this carpark and listen to Western dance music.
YOUNG MAN #1 (Translation) You work and go home. It's boring. Some of us are married. We sometimes get together here.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM, WAHABI CLERIC: We in Saudi Arabia try our best, I am talking about the religious point of view, we try our best to convince people that this is not taking you anywhere - on the contrary it's taking you to Hell.
YOUNG MAN #2 (Translation):I came here with my friends to spend a good time and get together. We're just having fun, going out in the fresh air and having fun together.
Saudi youth, like the rest of the country, are torn between fundamentalist Islam and the pleasures of the West.
DR SALEH AL-KHATHLAN, KING SAUD UNIVERSITY: They are in the midst of what I would call a clash of cultures, and this is very difficult to deal with. So, they need some kind of orientation, or reorientation, resocialisation. But this is not easy to do.
The Saudis are a tribal, once nomadic people, who have become one of the wealthiest and most developed societies on earth. They've maintained their strict Islamic traditions, but they've also embraced consumerism with a passion. All this has happened in just one generation. 30 years ago, the capital, Riyadh, was a small desert town. But there is a crisis in this kingdom. The oil wealth is drying up. Unemployment, once unheard of, is on the rise and, even worse, poverty can be seen on the streets. These pressures have created a need for reform. But it was the kingdom's role in the September 11 terrorist attacks that has forced the country's royal rulers to question the society they had built.
PRINCE ABDULLAH BIN FAISAL BIN TURKI: Sometimes shocks, no matter how awful, their background could be so good. Sometimes you are shocked into thinking about things, into introspection, into questioning things, into paying attention to things.
At last there is movement. In the past year, the royal family has finally allowed its subjects a degree of freedom. Voices for reform, like those of Mohammed Mohaisen, are being heard for the first time.
MOHAMMED MOHAISEN (Translation) We cannot be living in the 21st century with the King who is still everything. He's the king, the prime minister, the judge. There has to be separation of powers. Every single citizen must feel there is a law. Theres a system that everyone complies with. No-one is above it and no-one is oppressed by it.
Before, this statement could have led to a death sentence. Now, concerned Saudis are coming together in informal political gatherings like this - pretty unremarkable by Western standards, but in Saudi Arabia, where political gatherings are banned, it's revolutionary.
DR ABDULLAH HAMAD (Translation): The issue of a civil society is important in our lives today. Because we had delved so deep into devoutness that we ignored civil society.
Some of these individuals have tried reform in the past, but have paid the price. Dr Abdullah Hamad has been jailed four times, once for trying to establish a human rights commission. Mohammad Mohaisen was exiled to Africa for four years for speaking up against the regime.
MOHAMMAD MOHAISEN (Translation): Reform's coming like a strong, gushing current and no-one will be able to stop it. We therefore hope it will take effect peacefully.
They're speaking the unspeakable. Everyone in this room wants the royal family to loosen its absolute grip on power and for the religious establishment to change its fundamentalist ways.
DR ABDULLAH HAMAD (Translation): In my opinion, there now exists an intellectual deficit which necessitates the creation of a communiqué of political modernity for Islam.
To reform the religious establishment won't be an easy task. In Saudi Arabia, the Koran is the Constitution. Religion dominates all aspects of daily life. Men and women are segregated even at fast-food outlets. Religious police make sure everybody attends daily prayers and remains properly dressed. Saudis follow a strict interpretation of Islam known as Wahabism. Clerics like Sheik Hakkim believe Muslims have deviated from God's plan and must return to the ways of the Prophet Mohammed who lived 14 centuries ago.
SHEIK HAKEEM: In essence, what we believe, is the Koran and the Koran is the same book with the same letters since 14 centuries ago. It's the same thing, - it hasn't changed, not even a single letter. This is the power of our book. Nobody can come and say, "Listen, this is primitive. This is 1,400 years old. How can you live in a changing world?" We say, This is something divine.
The problem for the reformers is that the Wahabis are a fundamental part of the regime. 250 years ago the royal family, the House of Al Saud, forged an alliance with the Wahabis here at Dir'aiyah. They set out from this mud palace and conquered what was to become the modern day Saudi Arabia and a deal was struck that stands to this day. The royal family would control all political and economic affairs, while the Wahabis would dictate personal morality and social affairs.
DR ABDULLAH HAMAD (Translation): It achieved a transformation, a social transformation, from a Bedouin desert-based authority, the authority of the state.
The most obvious effect of Wahabism today is on women's freedom. They're forbidden from driving and banned from most types of work and study. They also need permission from a male relative to travel. I was told I could not film women at close range or talk with them. But the Ministry of Information did let me meet Salwa Al Hazzaa, the first woman in the kingdom to head a department in a top hospital. She comes from Qassim, one of the most conservative parts of Saudi Arabia.
SELWA AL HAZZAA: When the late King Faisal tried to open the schools for females, and this was back 35 or 40 years ago, there was resistance. People were opposed to that. He was actually fought. My own maternal uncles were the people that stood against the late King Faisal. Girls had to be taken out by army trucks from the Qassim area to go to school.
Selwa believes women have come a long way in a short time.
SELWA AL HAZZAA: My mother, who is only 14 years older than me, didn't go to school. Can you imagine - there's only 14 years difference. Now for me as her daughter and all the there were actually five sisters - all of my sisters are either PhD or Masters degree, holding leading positions in the society. So if you tell me What is the next step of the females? It has to happen gradually. OK? When someone says, Why aren't you - actually I didnt want to bring this up ..behind a steering wheel? I don't want to be behind a steering wheel at this moment. There are other important key issues that I want to tackle - illiteracy, positions for females, getting females educated - which most of them are at the moment.
But Selwa is part of a small elite of Western-educated women. At present women only make up 4% of the workforce. Wahabist clerics will resist calls for more women to enter the workplace. They think this would lead to a moral breakdown in Saudi society.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM: What is rate of rape in the West? Some say every 10 seconds a woman is raped. They have everything, they dont have any segregations, do they? They have discotheques, bars, strip bars, they are working in the same offices, they have secretaries, they have colleagues, they have mixed schools and universities, yet they still have rapes. So, even if you think of it in a logical way, dont think of it in terms of religion. If a place where mixing is available, you have rapes.
The royal family realises that it will have to rein in the power of the Wahabist clerics if it wants to modernise Saudi Arabia. The first reform target is the education system. During my trip, the government only showed me the biggest and the best. This is the prestigious King Saud University. Education has been in the spotlight ever since it was discovered that 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers were from the kingdom. America accuses Saudi Arabia of fostering terrorism and says the education system, with its heavy emphasis on Islamic teaching, is largely to blame. Academics here agree that the narrow Wahabist world view is not healthy.
DR KHALID AL DAKEEL: It does not encourage diversity. It does not encourage accepting the other and what I mean by others is the non-Muslim. It is not a good thing, thats true. And that needs to be changed.
REPORTER: Do you think it will be?
DR KHALID AL DAKEEL: I think it will be. I think it will be because everybody except the religious establishment, they do recognise the problem and they want to solve it.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM: How dare such a person come and say Islam in Saudi Arabia is narrow-minded. I do not think that this is applicable. I could reverse it to him by saying that those who say that Islam is narrow-minded or is translated or practised in a narrow vision are themselves Westernised, they are not practising Muslims.
Academics say they are reducing the Islamic content of the curriculum, not because of American pressure, but for a much more practical reason. This year, nearly 500,000 Saudis will pour on to the job market and it's estimated that only two out of three will find work. Islamic theology is not applicable to a modern-day economy.
DR KHALID AL DAKEEL: This question of changing the curriculum here, you may not believe it, but so many people - and I am one of them - we have been calling for changing this curriculum for a long time now, long before September 11. It makes it worse now that it looks as if we are responding to US pressure. That's not true. That's not the case.
But the clerics are fighting back. Last year the Ministry of Education tried to introduce English studies in the fourth grade. They hired hundreds of teachers, but the religious establishment protested so ferociously that the project was put on hold. The clerics say that learning English at an early age would corrupt young Saudis.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM: It makes the proud Arab people looking upwards to the English-speaking people. So, by introducing it in the fourth grade, kids would then tend to go to McDonald's because it's part of their culture now. They study English, their parents are encouraging them to study English. So they think English is a source of modernisation and development and they watch movies, listen to the songs and they become completely Westernised.
Sami Angawi, an expert in Islamic heritage and thought, says that for far too long, the Wahabis have got it wrong.
SAMI ANGAWI: Even if we take the time of the Prophet himself, he did not tell us - and I think intentionally - to follow one of his companions or 10 of his companions. He didn't state who is the ones really to follow. He said, "Follow my companions and it will be in the right guidance." And he says, "If you have a question, ask them and then use your heart." He didn't say, "Ask one person." He said, "Ask many questions and then you will follow what your heart tells you." So the diversity, the idea of interaction, the idea of dialogue, is built in Islam. This is a picture of the birthplace of the Prophet. It is here, with the dome and the minaret. (Points out in photograph)
Angawi himself has been a victim of Wahabi intolerance. In the early 1990s he was in charge of the heritage aspects of the redevelopment of Mecca, the most holy place in all of Islam. He says the Wahabis deliberately destroyed historical sites relating to the Prophet's life, fearing pilgrims would glorify such sites instead of worshipping God. But when they made a decision to destroy the actual house the Prophet lived in, Angawi says he had to act.
SAMI ANGAWI: Well, I mean, the bulldozers were there and I said, "If you don't stop, I will throw my children under it."
REPORTER: But the bulldozers did go to the site eventually?
SAMI ANGAWI: Well, eventually, but I wanted to document it. Most important to me was to document it. My responsibility as a man of knowledge and seeker of knowledge is to keep this knowledge, as much as I can, and my limit was to document it.
The clerics gave Sami Angawi a week to document the house. These pictures are now the only physical evidence that the Prophet Mohammed's house ever existed. Soon after they were taken, the house was bulldozed and cemented over.
SAMI ANGAWI: Every time I look at a picture I feel sad knowing it could have been preserved.
Sami Angawi says Wahabism is not what Islam is about. He wants its monopoly on the interpretation of Islam to end.
SAMI ANGAWI: We have problems within ourselves. We are out of balance in a way, because we are not allowing different schools of thought the dialogues in all levels and we really need that back.
The problem is that the people have never known any democratic structures. Their lives revolve around the family and the mosque, which the Wahabi clerics control very tightly. There is no room for other ideas to grow. When I tried to film at this mosque in Riyadh, I was quickly stopped by the police, who work closely with the religious police. Non-Muslims are barred from any mosque in Saudi Arabia. But the local press is becoming an avenue for open debate. Although it's still censored, since September 11 they have been given the space to discuss the idea of reform. Khalid Al Maeena is an editor at a Saudi publishing house that produces 17 magazines and newspapers.
KHALID AL MAEENA: We are advocates of change. Our newspaper, both the English and Arabic, talk about issues that were not talked about before or discussed. We discuss mismanagement, we discuss sloth, laziness, we discuss the need for change, we discuss certain issues in society. We want change at all levels.
The ruling family has used the media as a weapon in its tussle with the religious establishment. Last year a fire broke out at a girls' school in Mecca. The religious police prevented the girls from escaping the burning building because they were not wearing veils. As a result, 15 girls were burnt to death. The press covered the incident extensively and it provoked such a public outrage that Saudi Arabia's ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, was compelled to act. He took the responsibility of the girls' education away from the clerics and handed it to the Ministry of Education.
KHALID AL MAEENA: The moving or transfer of the girls' education to the Ministry of Education was welcomed by all, there were major headlines, and I think that was our finest hour.
It may be a small win for the reformers in the battle with the religious establishment, but just as important is the challenge to reform the economy. Saudi has just recently admitted the existence of poverty, but it is still deeply embarrassing for them. Here my minder from the Ministry of Information is shooing off a woman scavenging in a bin. With one of the highest birth rates in the world, unemployment here is an incredible 27% and per capita incomes have plummeted to a third of their value in 20 years.
DR SALEH AL- KHATHLAN, KING SAUD UNIVERSITY: You know, unemployment is conducive to radicalism. It's easier to mobilise jobless people than someone who has a job and who is certain about the future.
Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki is one of the 5,000 princes who make up the ruling family. He believes the only way to solve Saudi's economic ills is to open up and modernise Saudi's economy. As head of the General Investment Authority he's pursuing that aggressively and that's put him on a collision course with the religious establishment.
PRINCE ABDULLAH BIN FAISAL BIN TURKI: Our economic policy, for example - I am seen as a big extremist, totally open and whatever. They think I am a heretic, on socio-economic, economic and on social things, but politically I might be conservative.
Many reformers fear that some in the royal family are reluctant to acknowledge the country's deep political problems because it threatens their own privileged positions.
MOHAMMED MOHAISEN (Translation): As for the situation in the government, yes, there are powerful people concerned about their interests. Corruption has spread even worse than a cancer. Financial corruption. But also there are people in the government like Prince Abdullah, in particular, who even precedes the people in working for reform.
But the prince certainly doesn't think his family's absolute power is a part of the problem.
PRINCE ABDULLAH BIN FAISAL BIN TURKI: Our political system was not installed by the KGB, or by the banana companies, oil companies, or by the Americans. It evolved from within. I generally - but it's for you to judge - I believe we don't have a deep political problem. What we question always is the management of things and the things that affect the dignity of daily life.
If the regime doesn't let Saudis participate in the political process, then extremism and opposition to its rule will grow. 70% of Saudis are under the age of 30, so they are a force to be reckoned with. Reformers are concerned that with unemployment on the rise, disaffected youth will turn to underground extremist groups like al-Qa'ida.
DR KHALID AL DAKEEL: Let's face it, there's a sympathy for al-Qa'ida here. It's not because people in Saudi Arabia like what they are doing. It's out of frustration, out of sometimes ignorance, not getting the facts, and out of being angry at the US.
An American-led war in Iraq will mean more fuel for the extremist fire. Al-Qa'ida is the sworn enemy of the Saudi regime and these American troops are the main reason why. Bin Laden says the royal family has polluted the holy lands of Saudi Arabia by allowing them here since the 1991 Gulf War. The Americans have demanded that the Saudis let them use this air base, Prince Sultan, the biggest in the region.
COMMANDER DALE WALTERS, PRINCE SULTAN AIRBASE: We have many different types of aircraft. We have some of the best aircraft in the world and certainly some of the best-rained crews in the world. So it's put here as a combat wing with all that capability for a reason.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM: We do consider their presence insulting, as would they, if we would have Saudi troops protecting our councils or embassy in Washington. They would not accept them to be armed and patrolling and maybe shooting any trespassers. They would not accept this because this is not acceptable in any country.
The royal family understands that if it openly supports the US it will threaten its own position and create more support for al-Qa'ida. At this stage the Saudis have not let these planes bomb Iraq. If the royal family is going to successfully reform its society, it will have to find the right balance between its Wahabist colleagues, who will slow the process, and the majority - restless youth who want results now. Reformers know it will take time.
MOHAMMED MOHAISEN (Translation) Reforming a society, a whole country, is not an easy task. It doesn't happen in a week, a month, or a year or two. No. You have to change the mentality of the regime and the public. It has to happen step by step.
Reformers are eagerly awaiting the next step. There is talk of introducing elected officials into this consultative chamber, the Majlis Shura. If this was to happen, they could then scrutinise the role and finances of the royal family for the first time. It's a radical suggestion but the reformers are optimistic. They believe too much has changed for their royal rulers to revert to their old ways.
MOHAMMED MOHAISEN (Translation) I don't think the government will imprison anyone. The government itself is working on reform. It may be approaching slowly, but they can't go back.
REPORTER: MATTHEW CARNEY
EDITOR: TOUFIC CHARABATI
February 2003 2900
It's late on a weekend night in Jeddah. There are no cinemas or bars and mingling with girls is strictly forbidden. So in an act of defiance, young men come to this carpark and listen to Western dance music.
YOUNG MAN #1 (Translation) You work and go home. It's boring. Some of us are married. We sometimes get together here.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM, WAHABI CLERIC: We in Saudi Arabia try our best, I am talking about the religious point of view, we try our best to convince people that this is not taking you anywhere - on the contrary it's taking you to Hell.
YOUNG MAN #2 (Translation):I came here with my friends to spend a good time and get together. We're just having fun, going out in the fresh air and having fun together.
Saudi youth, like the rest of the country, are torn between fundamentalist Islam and the pleasures of the West.
DR SALEH AL-KHATHLAN, KING SAUD UNIVERSITY: They are in the midst of what I would call a clash of cultures, and this is very difficult to deal with. So, they need some kind of orientation, or reorientation, resocialisation. But this is not easy to do.
The Saudis are a tribal, once nomadic people, who have become one of the wealthiest and most developed societies on earth. They've maintained their strict Islamic traditions, but they've also embraced consumerism with a passion. All this has happened in just one generation. 30 years ago, the capital, Riyadh, was a small desert town. But there is a crisis in this kingdom. The oil wealth is drying up. Unemployment, once unheard of, is on the rise and, even worse, poverty can be seen on the streets. These pressures have created a need for reform. But it was the kingdom's role in the September 11 terrorist attacks that has forced the country's royal rulers to question the society they had built.
PRINCE ABDULLAH BIN FAISAL BIN TURKI: Sometimes shocks, no matter how awful, their background could be so good. Sometimes you are shocked into thinking about things, into introspection, into questioning things, into paying attention to things.
At last there is movement. In the past year, the royal family has finally allowed its subjects a degree of freedom. Voices for reform, like those of Mohammed Mohaisen, are being heard for the first time.
MOHAMMED MOHAISEN (Translation) We cannot be living in the 21st century with the King who is still everything. He's the king, the prime minister, the judge. There has to be separation of powers. Every single citizen must feel there is a law. Theres a system that everyone complies with. No-one is above it and no-one is oppressed by it.
Before, this statement could have led to a death sentence. Now, concerned Saudis are coming together in informal political gatherings like this - pretty unremarkable by Western standards, but in Saudi Arabia, where political gatherings are banned, it's revolutionary.
DR ABDULLAH HAMAD (Translation): The issue of a civil society is important in our lives today. Because we had delved so deep into devoutness that we ignored civil society.
Some of these individuals have tried reform in the past, but have paid the price. Dr Abdullah Hamad has been jailed four times, once for trying to establish a human rights commission. Mohammad Mohaisen was exiled to Africa for four years for speaking up against the regime.
MOHAMMAD MOHAISEN (Translation): Reform's coming like a strong, gushing current and no-one will be able to stop it. We therefore hope it will take effect peacefully.
They're speaking the unspeakable. Everyone in this room wants the royal family to loosen its absolute grip on power and for the religious establishment to change its fundamentalist ways.
DR ABDULLAH HAMAD (Translation): In my opinion, there now exists an intellectual deficit which necessitates the creation of a communiqué of political modernity for Islam.
To reform the religious establishment won't be an easy task. In Saudi Arabia, the Koran is the Constitution. Religion dominates all aspects of daily life. Men and women are segregated even at fast-food outlets. Religious police make sure everybody attends daily prayers and remains properly dressed. Saudis follow a strict interpretation of Islam known as Wahabism. Clerics like Sheik Hakkim believe Muslims have deviated from God's plan and must return to the ways of the Prophet Mohammed who lived 14 centuries ago.
SHEIK HAKEEM: In essence, what we believe, is the Koran and the Koran is the same book with the same letters since 14 centuries ago. It's the same thing, - it hasn't changed, not even a single letter. This is the power of our book. Nobody can come and say, "Listen, this is primitive. This is 1,400 years old. How can you live in a changing world?" We say, This is something divine.
The problem for the reformers is that the Wahabis are a fundamental part of the regime. 250 years ago the royal family, the House of Al Saud, forged an alliance with the Wahabis here at Dir'aiyah. They set out from this mud palace and conquered what was to become the modern day Saudi Arabia and a deal was struck that stands to this day. The royal family would control all political and economic affairs, while the Wahabis would dictate personal morality and social affairs.
DR ABDULLAH HAMAD (Translation): It achieved a transformation, a social transformation, from a Bedouin desert-based authority, the authority of the state.
The most obvious effect of Wahabism today is on women's freedom. They're forbidden from driving and banned from most types of work and study. They also need permission from a male relative to travel. I was told I could not film women at close range or talk with them. But the Ministry of Information did let me meet Salwa Al Hazzaa, the first woman in the kingdom to head a department in a top hospital. She comes from Qassim, one of the most conservative parts of Saudi Arabia.
SELWA AL HAZZAA: When the late King Faisal tried to open the schools for females, and this was back 35 or 40 years ago, there was resistance. People were opposed to that. He was actually fought. My own maternal uncles were the people that stood against the late King Faisal. Girls had to be taken out by army trucks from the Qassim area to go to school.
Selwa believes women have come a long way in a short time.
SELWA AL HAZZAA: My mother, who is only 14 years older than me, didn't go to school. Can you imagine - there's only 14 years difference. Now for me as her daughter and all the there were actually five sisters - all of my sisters are either PhD or Masters degree, holding leading positions in the society. So if you tell me What is the next step of the females? It has to happen gradually. OK? When someone says, Why aren't you - actually I didnt want to bring this up ..behind a steering wheel? I don't want to be behind a steering wheel at this moment. There are other important key issues that I want to tackle - illiteracy, positions for females, getting females educated - which most of them are at the moment.
But Selwa is part of a small elite of Western-educated women. At present women only make up 4% of the workforce. Wahabist clerics will resist calls for more women to enter the workplace. They think this would lead to a moral breakdown in Saudi society.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM: What is rate of rape in the West? Some say every 10 seconds a woman is raped. They have everything, they dont have any segregations, do they? They have discotheques, bars, strip bars, they are working in the same offices, they have secretaries, they have colleagues, they have mixed schools and universities, yet they still have rapes. So, even if you think of it in a logical way, dont think of it in terms of religion. If a place where mixing is available, you have rapes.
The royal family realises that it will have to rein in the power of the Wahabist clerics if it wants to modernise Saudi Arabia. The first reform target is the education system. During my trip, the government only showed me the biggest and the best. This is the prestigious King Saud University. Education has been in the spotlight ever since it was discovered that 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers were from the kingdom. America accuses Saudi Arabia of fostering terrorism and says the education system, with its heavy emphasis on Islamic teaching, is largely to blame. Academics here agree that the narrow Wahabist world view is not healthy.
DR KHALID AL DAKEEL: It does not encourage diversity. It does not encourage accepting the other and what I mean by others is the non-Muslim. It is not a good thing, thats true. And that needs to be changed.
REPORTER: Do you think it will be?
DR KHALID AL DAKEEL: I think it will be. I think it will be because everybody except the religious establishment, they do recognise the problem and they want to solve it.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM: How dare such a person come and say Islam in Saudi Arabia is narrow-minded. I do not think that this is applicable. I could reverse it to him by saying that those who say that Islam is narrow-minded or is translated or practised in a narrow vision are themselves Westernised, they are not practising Muslims.
Academics say they are reducing the Islamic content of the curriculum, not because of American pressure, but for a much more practical reason. This year, nearly 500,000 Saudis will pour on to the job market and it's estimated that only two out of three will find work. Islamic theology is not applicable to a modern-day economy.
DR KHALID AL DAKEEL: This question of changing the curriculum here, you may not believe it, but so many people - and I am one of them - we have been calling for changing this curriculum for a long time now, long before September 11. It makes it worse now that it looks as if we are responding to US pressure. That's not true. That's not the case.
But the clerics are fighting back. Last year the Ministry of Education tried to introduce English studies in the fourth grade. They hired hundreds of teachers, but the religious establishment protested so ferociously that the project was put on hold. The clerics say that learning English at an early age would corrupt young Saudis.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM: It makes the proud Arab people looking upwards to the English-speaking people. So, by introducing it in the fourth grade, kids would then tend to go to McDonald's because it's part of their culture now. They study English, their parents are encouraging them to study English. So they think English is a source of modernisation and development and they watch movies, listen to the songs and they become completely Westernised.
Sami Angawi, an expert in Islamic heritage and thought, says that for far too long, the Wahabis have got it wrong.
SAMI ANGAWI: Even if we take the time of the Prophet himself, he did not tell us - and I think intentionally - to follow one of his companions or 10 of his companions. He didn't state who is the ones really to follow. He said, "Follow my companions and it will be in the right guidance." And he says, "If you have a question, ask them and then use your heart." He didn't say, "Ask one person." He said, "Ask many questions and then you will follow what your heart tells you." So the diversity, the idea of interaction, the idea of dialogue, is built in Islam. This is a picture of the birthplace of the Prophet. It is here, with the dome and the minaret. (Points out in photograph)
Angawi himself has been a victim of Wahabi intolerance. In the early 1990s he was in charge of the heritage aspects of the redevelopment of Mecca, the most holy place in all of Islam. He says the Wahabis deliberately destroyed historical sites relating to the Prophet's life, fearing pilgrims would glorify such sites instead of worshipping God. But when they made a decision to destroy the actual house the Prophet lived in, Angawi says he had to act.
SAMI ANGAWI: Well, I mean, the bulldozers were there and I said, "If you don't stop, I will throw my children under it."
REPORTER: But the bulldozers did go to the site eventually?
SAMI ANGAWI: Well, eventually, but I wanted to document it. Most important to me was to document it. My responsibility as a man of knowledge and seeker of knowledge is to keep this knowledge, as much as I can, and my limit was to document it.
The clerics gave Sami Angawi a week to document the house. These pictures are now the only physical evidence that the Prophet Mohammed's house ever existed. Soon after they were taken, the house was bulldozed and cemented over.
SAMI ANGAWI: Every time I look at a picture I feel sad knowing it could have been preserved.
Sami Angawi says Wahabism is not what Islam is about. He wants its monopoly on the interpretation of Islam to end.
SAMI ANGAWI: We have problems within ourselves. We are out of balance in a way, because we are not allowing different schools of thought the dialogues in all levels and we really need that back.
The problem is that the people have never known any democratic structures. Their lives revolve around the family and the mosque, which the Wahabi clerics control very tightly. There is no room for other ideas to grow. When I tried to film at this mosque in Riyadh, I was quickly stopped by the police, who work closely with the religious police. Non-Muslims are barred from any mosque in Saudi Arabia. But the local press is becoming an avenue for open debate. Although it's still censored, since September 11 they have been given the space to discuss the idea of reform. Khalid Al Maeena is an editor at a Saudi publishing house that produces 17 magazines and newspapers.
KHALID AL MAEENA: We are advocates of change. Our newspaper, both the English and Arabic, talk about issues that were not talked about before or discussed. We discuss mismanagement, we discuss sloth, laziness, we discuss the need for change, we discuss certain issues in society. We want change at all levels.
The ruling family has used the media as a weapon in its tussle with the religious establishment. Last year a fire broke out at a girls' school in Mecca. The religious police prevented the girls from escaping the burning building because they were not wearing veils. As a result, 15 girls were burnt to death. The press covered the incident extensively and it provoked such a public outrage that Saudi Arabia's ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, was compelled to act. He took the responsibility of the girls' education away from the clerics and handed it to the Ministry of Education.
KHALID AL MAEENA: The moving or transfer of the girls' education to the Ministry of Education was welcomed by all, there were major headlines, and I think that was our finest hour.
It may be a small win for the reformers in the battle with the religious establishment, but just as important is the challenge to reform the economy. Saudi has just recently admitted the existence of poverty, but it is still deeply embarrassing for them. Here my minder from the Ministry of Information is shooing off a woman scavenging in a bin. With one of the highest birth rates in the world, unemployment here is an incredible 27% and per capita incomes have plummeted to a third of their value in 20 years.
DR SALEH AL- KHATHLAN, KING SAUD UNIVERSITY: You know, unemployment is conducive to radicalism. It's easier to mobilise jobless people than someone who has a job and who is certain about the future.
Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki is one of the 5,000 princes who make up the ruling family. He believes the only way to solve Saudi's economic ills is to open up and modernise Saudi's economy. As head of the General Investment Authority he's pursuing that aggressively and that's put him on a collision course with the religious establishment.
PRINCE ABDULLAH BIN FAISAL BIN TURKI: Our economic policy, for example - I am seen as a big extremist, totally open and whatever. They think I am a heretic, on socio-economic, economic and on social things, but politically I might be conservative.
Many reformers fear that some in the royal family are reluctant to acknowledge the country's deep political problems because it threatens their own privileged positions.
MOHAMMED MOHAISEN (Translation): As for the situation in the government, yes, there are powerful people concerned about their interests. Corruption has spread even worse than a cancer. Financial corruption. But also there are people in the government like Prince Abdullah, in particular, who even precedes the people in working for reform.
But the prince certainly doesn't think his family's absolute power is a part of the problem.
PRINCE ABDULLAH BIN FAISAL BIN TURKI: Our political system was not installed by the KGB, or by the banana companies, oil companies, or by the Americans. It evolved from within. I generally - but it's for you to judge - I believe we don't have a deep political problem. What we question always is the management of things and the things that affect the dignity of daily life.
If the regime doesn't let Saudis participate in the political process, then extremism and opposition to its rule will grow. 70% of Saudis are under the age of 30, so they are a force to be reckoned with. Reformers are concerned that with unemployment on the rise, disaffected youth will turn to underground extremist groups like al-Qa'ida.
DR KHALID AL DAKEEL: Let's face it, there's a sympathy for al-Qa'ida here. It's not because people in Saudi Arabia like what they are doing. It's out of frustration, out of sometimes ignorance, not getting the facts, and out of being angry at the US.
An American-led war in Iraq will mean more fuel for the extremist fire. Al-Qa'ida is the sworn enemy of the Saudi regime and these American troops are the main reason why. Bin Laden says the royal family has polluted the holy lands of Saudi Arabia by allowing them here since the 1991 Gulf War. The Americans have demanded that the Saudis let them use this air base, Prince Sultan, the biggest in the region.
COMMANDER DALE WALTERS, PRINCE SULTAN AIRBASE: We have many different types of aircraft. We have some of the best aircraft in the world and certainly some of the best-rained crews in the world. So it's put here as a combat wing with all that capability for a reason.
SHEIK ATHEMAT HAKEEM: We do consider their presence insulting, as would they, if we would have Saudi troops protecting our councils or embassy in Washington. They would not accept them to be armed and patrolling and maybe shooting any trespassers. They would not accept this because this is not acceptable in any country.
The royal family understands that if it openly supports the US it will threaten its own position and create more support for al-Qa'ida. At this stage the Saudis have not let these planes bomb Iraq. If the royal family is going to successfully reform its society, it will have to find the right balance between its Wahabist colleagues, who will slow the process, and the majority - restless youth who want results now. Reformers know it will take time.
MOHAMMED MOHAISEN (Translation) Reforming a society, a whole country, is not an easy task. It doesn't happen in a week, a month, or a year or two. No. You have to change the mentality of the regime and the public. It has to happen step by step.
Reformers are eagerly awaiting the next step. There is talk of introducing elected officials into this consultative chamber, the Majlis Shura. If this was to happen, they could then scrutinise the role and finances of the royal family for the first time. It's a radical suggestion but the reformers are optimistic. They believe too much has changed for their royal rulers to revert to their old ways.
MOHAMMED MOHAISEN (Translation) I don't think the government will imprison anyone. The government itself is working on reform. It may be approaching slowly, but they can't go back.
REPORTER: MATTHEW CARNEY
EDITOR: TOUFIC CHARABATI