In the fall of 2004, just before U.S. Marines led a final assault on the Iraqi insurgent stronghold of Falluja, 26 top Saudi clerics issued a fatwa inciting attacks on U.S. troops as a "lawful duty." Chief among them was Salman al-Awdah, a popular renegade cleric who once mentored Osama bin Laden.
In September, Awdah turned his back on his former pupil. Speaking on Saudi television to a large Ramadan audience, the cleric harshly rebuked bin Laden, asking, "How many innocents, old men, children are killed in the name of al Qaeda? . . . What have we gained from the destruction of a whole country such as Iraq and Afghanistan?" Arab News hailed the move as a "major blow to the ideology of Osama Bin Laden and his followers in the Kingdom." Awdah's apparent change of heart set off a furious debate in the Arab world over whether his message was long overdue or a betrayal of the Islamist cause.
Mainstream Muslims have been denouncing al Qaeda for years. Awdah's turnaround suggests that even the most radical corners of Islam have their differences, too. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have clearly taken their toll on all sides. But if more extremists begin losing faith in the jihad, we may come to see Sheikh Salman's breakup with Osama as a defining moment.[Photo: AFP/Getty Images]
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