After the string of suicide bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia last week, a picture of some of the bombers is emerging. Saudi police have named the man who carried out the attack outside the Prophet Mohammed Mosque as a 26-year-old Saudi citizen called Nayer Musallam Al Bluwi. He had a history of drug abuse and had been fired from his job with the Border Guard several years ago.
Terrorist attacks by those with criminal records is nothing new. Many of those who have committed attacks in the Middle East and abroad have spent time in prison for crime. Many of the Europeans and Arabs who have joined ISIL have had criminal records – in their warped imagination, joining a “religious” organisation somehow wipes clean their past sins.
Such damaged young men are easy prey for radical groups. Because of their lack of understanding of religion, they are vulnerable to radical interpretations, particularly when delivered by groups that offer them camaraderie (such as ISIL or Al Qaeda) or by especially charismatic preachers.
Into that latter category fall clerics such as Yousuf Al Qaradawi in Qatar, who has been engulfed in a social media storm after what appeared to be support for suicide bombings such as the ones in Saudi Arabia. He has been widely scorned on Twitter, particularly by young people for using Islam for his own political ends. The fact that the cleric is affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood is particularly worrying, given the Brotherhood’s long-standing association with violence.
There is a serious problem with legitimate religious instruction being crowded out by radical interpretations. Institutions of learning such as Al Azhar and mainstream clerics, often using carefully modulated language, cannot compete with groups such as ISIL, who use slick videos and images and easily digestible slogans. In the battle for hearts and minds, the mainstream faces challenges. If educated young men and women can believe preachers such as Dr Qaradawi, how much more likely are those with vulnerabilities like drug abuse?
The silver lining in this is that there does appear to be a shift among the youth, who are increasingly calling out these extremists on social media. That is to be welcomed. But they must be supported by better messaging from institutions of religious learning.