For Saudis, a hard fight over faith
Reformers work to redefine religion in a kingdom built upon conservative Islam
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"[Religious leaders] say music is forbidden, photographs are forbidden, MTV is forbidden, sex lives are forbidden," says Ghannami. "These young men who blow themselves up in Saudi Arabia, it's because of the teaching in the mosques and the schools. [It] concentrates on the life after this life. This life to them is just a gas station, someplace to stop and refill and move on to something better for eternity."
Ghannami, who also writes occasional newspaper columns, goes on to say that many of the extremists also practice takfir.
That means if one Muslim deems another Muslim a takfiri (an infidel), a fatwa can be issued targeting that infidel.
He goes on to say that the difference between him, Nogaidan, and others who were schooled in the same way and Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda members is that the latter went to Afghanistan and trained in a "military way."
Ghannami, Nogaidan - as well as many others in this country - point out that it was the US collaborating with Saudi Arabia in sending and funding the mujahideen operations in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Both have also suffered because of their now public conversions. Nogaidan, who is a regular columnist for Al Riyadh newspaper in Riyadh, was targeted with a fatwa - by one of the sheikhs now jailed - because of his views.
He also was picked up by the religious police in November and sentenced to 75 lashes for his columns criticizing Wahhabism. The sentence was later suspended. But the two say they walk a fine line between criticism of the religious establishment and advocating reform.
Many of their former friends - still extremists - have "forsaken" them, and they say they receive hundreds of threatening letters and phone calls.
Others say the numbers of these extremist imams is small, and does not represent the mainstream.
"These imams are few, and don't have the support of big, well-known sheikhs and imams," says Nasser al-Rasheed, a conservative Saudi businessman who was educated in the US. "Their attitudes are not created because of the Wahhabi belief, but because they went to fight in Afghanistan and because of the US position regarding Israel."
Sheikh Mussa al-Hanagid concurs. He is a member of the muttawaeen. The muttawaeen have long been caricatured - and feared. They are depicted as elderly men with long white beards, robes, and sticks - mainly screaming at women to cover more fully.
But Sheikh Mussa, says the government is recalibrating the roles of religious police, too. Mussa, himself a trainer, says there are a number of supervisors monitoring the muttawaeen. They are being trained to be more tolerant, kind, and professional. For example, they've now all been ordered to wear a badge with a picture that clearly identifies them.
Ghannami and Nogaidan are skeptical of the changes and think the government needs to go further. "We must find a new reading of our religion that is more tolerant, something that will fit better with globalization and communicating with our fellow man," Ghannami says. "[Saudi Arabia] is not an isolated desert island anymore."
