Saudi cleric warns Muslims their religion is under attack

SAUDI Arabia’s top cleric warned more than two million pilgrims yesterday against enemies of Islam, saying Muslims cannot be defeated by military might as long as they remain steadfast in their faith.

Speaking before midday prayers at Namira mosque on Mount Arafat, Sheik Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheik said Islam was passing through a crucial phase, but he avoided directly specifying Islam's enemies or a possible US-led attack on Iraq.

"The enemy has exposed its fangs and is fighting our religion and is doing its best to drive Muslims away from their religion," al-Sheik told pilgrims in an emotional sermon as the annual Muslim pilgrimage, or Hajj, came to its highpoint.

"Your enemy would not defeat you with its vast troops and equipment, but you will be defeated if your faith is weakened," he said. "You have no other path to victory, but to resort to God and turn your sayings into deeds."

He said Saudis had tried in the past to spread Islam and God's word and were accused of being terrorists.

"The nation is being targeted in its religion, morals and economy. It is being targeted in its education curriculum, and they claim that the curriculum calls for terrorism," al-Sheik said.

The conservative kingdom has come under increasing criticism since the September 11 terror attacks.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks were Saudis, and Saudi Arabia's curriculum, which includes religious textbooks that promote the kind of anti-Western sentiment espoused by Osama bin Laden, has been criticised as encouraging terrorism toward the West.

About 500,000 pilgrims from inside Saudi Arabia joined about 1.5 million foreigners in this year's Hajj, which is taking place under tight security because of fears of demonstrations against a possible war with Iraq.

Anti-US sentiment is running high in the Muslim world because of the threat of war against Iraq and American policies on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Many pilgrims have expressed anger or dismay at what they see as campaigns against their faith.

"Islam calls for peace and coexistence among people, it does not call for war," said Mohammed, a Nigerian who did not want to give his full name.

"I hope that God destroys America for its support of the Israelis against the Palestinians," said Najmuddin, a pilgrim from Afghanistan, where men often use only one name.

After dawn prayers at the nearby valley of Mina, where most pilgrims spent the night in white fireproof tents, the short trek began to Arafat, a gentle plateau from which a small, rocky hill known as the Mountain of Mercy rises.

Singing the pilgrim chant "At thy service, my God, at thy service", they reached Arafat on foot, in buses and even clinging to the roofs of vehicles.

By mid-morning, helicopters hovered overhead and police barked orders through bullhorns to keep order on the ground. The arid plateau became an ocean of pilgrims, with men dressed in identical seamless white garb and women covered except their hands and faces.

Every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it is required at least once to perform the Hajj a centuries-old pilgrimage to Mecca, the birthplace of Islam and its seventh-century prophet Muhammad.

The annual ritual is a spiritual journey that, according to Islamic teachings, cleanses the soul and wipes away sins.