(posted 12 October)

"My Baffling Question"
27 September, Unizah-Buraydah
from Martin Smith

	A longtime, award-winning FRONTLINE producer, Martin Smith produced "Hunting bin Laden" -- first broadcast in 1999, then updated and rebroadcast immediately after Sept. 11. His other recent FRONTLINE reports have included "Saudi Time Bomb?," "Looking for Answers," and "Dot Con."

On Friday morning, Sept. 27, we head northwest to Buraydah. Buraydah is known as one of the most conservative, most devoutly religious cities in Saudi Arabia. While Mecca and Medina, sites of the two holy mosques, are entirely closed to non-Muslims, Buraydah appears willing to receive a few infidels from time to time, although we are told that we cannot film on the streets. We can talk to people in their homes.

The road to Buraydah stretches across a desert of sage brush and sand with camels roaming here and there, tended by Bedouin tribesman. Every so often, a "camel crossing" sign appears and a kind of oversized pedestrian bridge follows. I am told by our guide today, Khalid, that hundreds of people die in Saudi Arabia each year from crashing their cars into camels. I imagine what happens to the camel when it's hit by a Caprice. Khalid says this road "is improved safety," with special camel bridges and fencing.

The road is four hours long and monotonous. We stop once at a rest area where I meet a man sitting in the desert sucking on a hookah. "Hubbly-bubbly" Khalid calls it. His truck idles nearby while he inhales the smoke of dried strawberries and various spices. He seems quite happy and greets me with energetic nodding of his head while offering the mouthpiece of his hookah to me. I politely decline, although it smells quite good. His truck is full of baby milk powder.

Suddenly, just as I dose off, we arrive in a city the size of Fresno or Bakersfield, California. Unizah and neighboring Buraydah occupy an oasis in the desert where palm dates are the cash crop. We are greeted by some contacts Khalid has made and spend two hours at mid-day in a small sitting room with five young Saudi professionals discussing religion, politics and war. It is a conversation that I grow weary of if only because we seem to tread over the same territory day after day. It doesn't get interesting until the conversation turns toward personal issues. I ask a question that I have been contemplating since I arrived here.

"Why do you all dress exactly alike?"

The Saudi outfit is universal here and the familiar signature of Saudi men everywhere: a white ankle-length "thobe," topped with a red and white checked head-piece which is carefully folded into a triangle, draped along the hairline and held in place by a thick double ring woven out of camel hair. To be fair, there are a few options in apparel. In the summer months many men choose an all white head-piece in place of the red and white. And sandals come in various styles; some men even wear black or brown shoes. But that's about it. I have learned that meeting someone in a crowded room means you have to study their faces very carefully. On first glance, they all look alike.

Some details help -- beards and moustaches, for instance. The Wahhabi clerics all wear untrimmed, long beards, the white head-piece and rarely use the camel-hair ring. The more worldly wear goatees, mustaches or full but trimmed beards. A minority are clean shaven.

Though conformity here is beyond any I've seen anywhere on earth, my question finds a curious sort of blank response. One man, a young university teacher, says, "What do you mean?" I am incredulous. "What do you mean, what do I mean?" I point out that everyone in the room is dressed exactly alike except for Scott, Chris and me. But I press gently. Wanting to draw them out, I ask if it is freeing not to have to decide what to wear each morning. They listen blankly.

I ask what the origin is of the red and white checked headdress. I have asked this of several men since I arrived. All say it is just the way it is. No one seems even remotely curious.

"Why not, let's say, blue and white checkers? Or green stripes, or solids or something just a little different?" I feel like I am asking a roomful of fish why they all have gills. It's a non-starter, my inquiry. They insist on not understanding the question. I point out that the cars they drive all come in different colors and styles. This seems to bring home the point. One young man, the owner of the house, leaves the room. We talk a while longer and they conclude that while they could dress differently, they just don't for no particular reason.

The young man who left returns. He has changed his thobe. It is light beige instead of white, and everyone has a good laugh. We all get ready to leave to explore the town. But I notice that before we depart our host has changed back into his white thobe.

Besides protecting them from the harsh sun and keeping them relatively cool, I think that the way they dress mimics the desert environment with its long monotonous spaces. I wonder who is wearing all the clothes being sold in the malls in Riyadh.

"An Obedient Dissident"
27 September, Buraydah
from Martin Smith

In 1993, a group of clerics led a march through the streets of this city protesting official government corruption and loose morals that they felt were destroying Arabian society. The central authorities don't receive such criticism easily. They cracked down, arresting a number of the clerics during what has popularly become known as the "Buraydah Uprising." Among those arrested was Sheikh Salman Al-Oudah, a man whose following had grown so numerous and threatening to the royal family that he was imprisoned for five years. We have sought him out, and he has agreed to speak.

We have to wait until about 10:00 at night before his day has cleared and he can receive us. We are ushered through a gate and into a large tent adjacent to his home and office. Since his release from jail in 1998, he has been forbidden from giving sermons at the mosque. So he circumvents the restriction by hosting gatherings in this tent and by publishing his views on his own website, at www.islamtoday.net. I am eager to talk to him. Al-Oudah is a man who knew Osama bin Laden, a man to whom bin Laden looked for guidance and support in the past, according to U.S. intelligence sources to whom I have spoken.

He arrives with a small entourage after we have already set up our cameras, but he asks to sit aside with me and his retinue to discuss some ground rules before the camera rolls. "What do you want to ask me?" he says through a translator. I run down all the areas I hope we can discuss. They include his views toward the current Crown Prince, corruption, Wahhabi religious practices, the coming war in Iraq, the war between Palestine and Israel, as well as Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. He responds that he will only talk about his views regarding U.S. policies in the Middle East. I realize that this man is still under a kind of house arrest. If he criticizes the royals, especially the Crown Prince, he risks being re-arrested. I am not about to interview a dissident but to listen to a neutered cleric demonstrate his obedience to the throne.

It is a long-held arrangement in Saudi Arabia that was forged in the mid-18th century between the then Al Saud family and a puritanical religious reformer, Mohammed Abdul al Wahhab. The clerics will support the Al Saud rulers and, in return, the Al Sauds will protect and provide for the Wahhabi or Salifi (as they prefer to be called here) clerics. It is an arrangement between church and state that finds precedent in Islam's holy book, the Quran. Religious leaders must pay allegiance to the government that protects them. In Al-Oudah I am witnessing this tacit understanding. As mild as it was, a mere march with some fiery speeches, the "Buraydah Uprising" of 1993 was a break with tradition. Today, at least, Al-Oudah is unwilling to risk more punishment.

He speaks the official line which condemns U.S. policies in Palestine and Israel and Iraq. At times I try to turn the conversation. I know, from various sources, that Al-Oudah is among those clerics who regularly saw young men in the 1980s and 1990s who sought his blessing to travel to Afghanistan to wage jihad, or holy war, against first Soviet and now American infidels. He tells us that this did happen. But, he says, he didn't give his blessing to men wanting to join Al Qaeda to fight Americans. He tells me that he is appalled by what happened in New York and Washington, and anyway, "We have strayed from discussing the issues we agreed to." I am cut off.

I leave suspicious that Al-Oudah is not being straight with us and I wonder what in this revered cleric's understanding of the Quran allows him to be less than truthful. Another source has told me that bin Laden's people were also extremely disappointed with Al-Oudah's public stance on Al Qaeda after 9/11. For now, anyway, the once extremely popular dissident, Sheikh Salman Al-Oudah, appears to be firmly in the government's pocket.

When we wrap up to leave, it is past midnight. We have a four-hour drive back to Riyadh. On the way out of town, we pass the shuttered shops where during the day I saw the Mutawa, the Saudi religious police, patrol for anyone who exhibits any wayward behavior. Smoking is forbidden here, as is photography of any kind, and anyone caught not on their way to the mosque during prayer times can be arrested.

As we drive through the outskirts of Buraydah, I wonder about the future of clerics like Al-Oudah and the people of this bastion of Wahhabi Islam. I look out the window to see that at least one alternate version of the future has arrived. I can't believe it, really. It's a McDonald's franchise.

We arrive back at the Sheraton in Riyadh at 4:30 a.m. I wonder if we will be arrested for photographing a McDonald's.

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