My problem is that the sword is combined with the phrase ‘There is no god but Allah. When I wrote this, there were certain circumstances – it was when Al-Zarqawi and his people were decapitating hostages with a sword. It was as if the sword had become one of the symbols of Islam. When you combine the sword with the phrase ‘There is no god but Allah,’ some people might get confused, and think that you want to spread ‘there is no god but Allah’ by means of the sword.
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I’ll note the irony – that al-Qaeda and other groups in Saudi prefer to have the sword removed, and indeed, the (automobile) decal for the Islamist critics of the regime is the kalimah shahadah (statement of faith) with the sword removed – one of the cars driven into the Jeddah American consulate in 2005 was noted as having that decal.
The Saudi reasoning for the flag is that the kalimah indicates the (supposed) legitimacy of their right to rule based on the upholding of the kalimah shahadah, while the sword represents the swords by which ‘Saudi’ Arabia was won.
One might note that there are non-Islamist critics who also criticize the sword being there, not because they oppose a weapon, but because a sword is archaic – perhaps an AK would make them happy?
All the same, this is precisely the kind of pointless debate on symbols that the Saudis can get into, while ignoring the $20 billion dollar weapon deal with the US – which the craven House Democrats are passing a resolution, not trying to halt the deal, but to make it dependent on immediate lowering of gas/oil prices…. political pandering of the worst sort, taking the place of real and required criticism of America’s relationship with the Saudi regime.