Wahhabi
Wahhabi
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Part of a series on
Sunni Islam
Beliefs
Monotheism
Prophethood & Messengership
Holy Books • Angels
Judgement Day • Predestination
Pillars
Schools of Theology
Modern Movements
Hadith Collections
Contents
• 1 History
○ 1.1 Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab
○ 1.2 Saudi sponsorship
• 2 Beliefs
○ 2.1 Fiqh
• 3 Criticism and controversy
○ 3.1 Naming controversy: Wahhabism and
Salafism
○ 3.2 Criticism by other Muslims
○ 3.3 Attitudes towards Non-Muslims
○ 3.4 Militant and Political Islam
• 4 International influence
○ 4.1 Explanation for influence
• 5 Notes
• 6 References
• 7 Additional reading
• 8 External links
○ 8.1 Critical
History
Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab
Further information: First Saudi State
Further information: Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab
Mohammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, studied in Basra (in southern Iraq) and is reported to
have developed his ideas there.[16][17] He is reported to have studied in Mecca and
Medina while there to perform Hajj[18][19] before returning to his home town of 'Uyayna in
1740.
After his return to 'Uyayna, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab began to attract followers there,
including the ruler of the town, Uthman ibn Mu'ammar. With Ibn Mu'ammar's support,
Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab began to implement some of his ideas such as leveling the grave of
Zayd ibn al-Khattab, one of the Sahaba (companions) of the Muslim Prophet
Muhammad, and ordering that an adulteress be stoned to death. These actions were
disapproved of by Sulaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Ghurayr of the tribe of Bani Khalid, the
chief of Al-Hasa and Qatif, who held substantial influence in Nejd and ibn 'Abd al-
Wahhab was expelled from 'Uyayna.[20]
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was invited to settle in neighboring Diriyah by its ruler Muhammad
ibn Saud in 1740 (1157 AH), two of whose brothers had been students of Ibn Abd al-
Wahhab. Upon arriving in Diriyya, a pact was made between Ibn Saud and Ibn Abd al-
Wahhab, by which Ibn Saud pledged to implement and enforce Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's
teachings, while Ibn Saud and his family would remain the temporal "leaders" of the
movement.
Saudi sponsorship
Beginning in the last years of the 18th century Ibn Saud and his heirs would spend the
next 140 years mounting various military campaigns to seize control of Arabia and its
outlying regions, before being attacked and defeated by Ottoman forces. The invasions
were justified as the destruction of the villages of polytheists as authorized in the
Qu'ran.
One of their most famous and controversial attacks was on Karbala in 1802 (1217 AH).
There, according to a Wahhabi chronicler `Uthman b. `Abdullah b. Bishr:
"[Wahhabis] scaled the walls, entered the city ... and killed the majority of its people in the
markets and in their homes. [They] destroyed the dome placed over the grave of al-Husayn [and
took] whatever they found inside the dome and its surroundings. .... the grille surrounding the
tomb which was encrusted with emeralds, rubies, and other jewels. .... different types of
property, weapons, clothing, carpets, gold, silver, precious copies of the Qur'an."[citation needed]
In the early 20th Century, the Wahhabist-oriented Al-Saud dynasty conquered and
unified the various provinces on the Arabian peninsula, founding the modern day
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.[21] This provided the movement with a state. Vast
wealth from oil discovered in the following decades, coupled with Saudi control of the
holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have since provided a base and funding for Wahhabi
missionary activity.
The Saudi government established the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and
Prevention of Vice, a state religious police unit, to enforce Wahhabi rules of behaviour.
[13]
Afghanistan maintained a similar government ministry from 1992 to the downfall of
the Taliban in 2001. It was revived by the Supreme Court of Afghanistan as the Ministry
for Haj and Religious Affairs.[22]
Beliefs
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The Wahhabi subscribe to the understanding of primary doctrine of the uniqueness and
unity of God (Tawhid).[15][23] The first aspect is believing in Allah's Lordship that He alone
is the believer's lord (Rabb). The second aspect is that once one affirms the existence of
Allah and His Lordship, one must worship Him and Him alone.
Wahhabi theology treats the Qur'an and Hadith as the only fundamental and
authoritative texts. Commentaries and "the examples of the early Muslim community
(Ummah) and the four Rightly Guided Caliphs (632-661 C.E.)" are used to support these
texts but are not considered independently authoritative.[24]
Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab further explains in his book Kitab-at-Tawhid (which draws on
material from the Qur'an and the narrations of the prophet) that worship in Islam
includes conventional acts of worship such as the five daily prayers; fasting; Dua
(supplication); Istia'dha (seeking protection or refuge); Ist'ana (seeking help), and
istigatha (seeking benefits). Therefore, making dua to anyone or anything other than
Allah, or seeking supernatural help and protection which is only befitting of a divine
being from something other than Allah are acts of shirk and contradict Tawhid. Ibn Abd-
al-Wahhab further explains that Prophet Muhammad during his lifetime tried his utmost
to cut all ways and roots towards shirk.
The most important of these commentaries are those by Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab (even
though he was not among the first three generations) including his book Kitab al-
Tawhid, and the works of Ibn Taymiyyah. Abd-al-Wahhab was a follower of Ahmad ibn
Hanbal's school of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) like most in Nejd at the time, but "was
opposed to any of the schools (Madh'hab) being taken as an absolute and unquestioned
authority". Therefore, he condemned taqlid[25] at the scholarly level.
Wahhabism also denounces the practice of blind adherence to the interpretations of
scholars and the blind acceptance of practices that were passed on within the family or
tribe. Of the most widely used excuse of the pagans around the time of the prophet was
that they worshiped idols because they saw their forefathers engaged in that practice.
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab wrote in support of the responsibility of the individual Muslim to
learn and obey the divine commands as they were revealed in the Quran and the
Sunnah.[26] He upheld the view that blind deference to authority eventually leads one to
neglect their direct connection with Qur'an and Sunnah. Islam is not an elitist religion in
which one must be bound by priests and rabbis for any recourse to religious texts. He
uses as evidence an ayah of the Qur'an in which Allah condemns the children of Israel
for taking their rabbis as authorities besides Allah. This was because they gave supreme
authority to scholars without any critical and evaluative mindset and gave ultimate
loyalty and connection to the scholars and creation rather than Allah and his revealed
texts.
Fiqh
The Wahhabis consider themselves to be 'non-imitators' or 'not attached to tradition' (ghayr
muqallidun), and therefore answerable to no school of law at all, observing instead what they
would call the practice of early Islam. However, to do so does correspond to the ideal aimed at by
Ibn Hanbal, and thus they can be said to be of his 'school'.[27]
International influence
According to Western observers like Gilles Kepel, Wahhabism gained considerable
influence in the Islamic world following a tripling in the price of oil in the mid-1970s.
Having the world's largest reserves of oil but a relatively small population, Saudi Arabia
began to spend tens of billions of dollars throughout the Islamic world promoting
Wahhabism, which was sometimes referred to as "petro-Islam".[39] According to the
documentary called The Qur'an aired in the UK, presenter Antony Thomas suggests the
figure may be "upward of $100 billion".[40]
Its largess funded an estimated "90% of the expenses of the entire faith", throughout
the Muslim world, according to journalist Dawood al-Shirian.[41] It extended to young and
old, from children's madrasas to high-level scholarship.[42] "Books, scholarships,
fellowships, mosques" (for example, "more than 1500 mosques were built from Saudi
public funds over the last 50 years") were paid for.[43] It rewarded journalists and
academics who followed it; built satellite campuses around Egypt for Al Azhar, the
oldest and most influential Islamic university.[44]
The financial power of Wahhabist advocates, according to observers like Dawood al-
Shirian and Lee Kuan Yew, has done much to overwhelm less strict local interpretations
of Islam[41] and has caused the Saudi interpretation to be perceived as the "gold
standard" of religion in many Muslims' minds.[45]
Some of the hundreds of thousands of South Asians expats living in Saudi Arabia and
the Persian Gulf have been influenced by Wahhabism and preach Wahhabiism in their
home country upon their return.[citation needed] Agencies controlled by the Ministry of Islamic,
Endowments, Call (Dawa) and Guidance Affairs of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are
responsible for Tableegh to the non Muslim expats and are converting hundreds of non
Muslims into Islam every year.[citation needed]
Explanation for influence
Khaled Abou El Fadl has attributed the appeal of Wahhabism to some Muslims as
stemming from
• Arab nationalism, which followed the Wahhabi attack on the Ottoman Empire;
• reformism, which followed a return to Salaf (as-Salaf aṣ-Ṣāliḥ;)
• Wahhabi control of the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, which gave
Wahhabis great influence on Muslim culture and thinking;
• the discovery of Persian Gulf oil fields, which after 1975 allowed Wahhabis to
promote their interpretations of Islam using billions from oil export revenue.[46]
Notes
This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be
made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or
external linking. (September 2009)
References
• Esposito, John (2003). The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. ISBN 0195125584.
• Kepel, Gilles (2002). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. trans. Anthony F. Roberts
(1st English edition ed.). Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
ISBN 0-674-00877-4.
• Saint-Prot, Charles. Islam. L'avenir de la tradition entre révolution et
occidentalisation (Islam. The Future of Tradition between Revolution and
Westernization). Paris: Le Rocher, 2008.
Additional reading
• Holden, David and Johns, Richard, The House of Saud, Pan, 1982, ISBN 0-330-
26834-1
• Algar, Hamid, Wahhabism : A Critical Essay, Islamic Publications International,
ISBN 1-889999-13-X
• Delong-Bas, Natana J., Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad,
Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-516991-3
• Al-Rasheed, Madawi, A History of Saudi Arabia, Cambridge University Press,
2002, ISBN 0-521-64412-7
• De Gaury, Gerald and Stark, Freya, Arabia Phoenix, Kegan Paul International
Limited, ISBN 0-7103-0677-6, ISBN 9780710306777
• Oliver, Haneef James, The 'Wahhabi' Myth: Dispelling Prevalent Fallacies and the
Fictitious Link with Bin Laden, T.R.O.I.D. Publications, February 2004, ISBN 0-
9689058-5-4
• Quist, B. Wayne and Drake, David F., Winning the War on Terror: A Triumph of
American Values, iUniverse, 2005, ISBN 0595672728
• Spencer, Robert (2003). Onward Muslim Soldiers. Regnery Publishing, USA. ISBN
0-89526-100-6.
• Spencer, Robert (2005). The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the
Crusades). Regnery Publishing, USA. ISBN 0-89526-013-1.
• Spencer, Robert (2006). The Truth About Muhammad. Regnery Publishing, USA.
ISBN 978-1596980280.
• Malik, S. K. (1986). The Quranic Concept of War. Himalayan Books. ISBN
8170020204.
• Swarup, Ram (1982). Understanding Islam through Hadis. Voice of Dharma. ISBN
0-682-49948-X.
• Trifkovic, Serge (2006). Defeating Jihad. Regina Orthodox Press, USA. ISBN
192865326X.
• Phillips, Melanie (2006). Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State
Within. Encounter books. ISBN 1-59403-144-4.
External links
• What Is a Salafi And Is Their Approach Valid?
• Leading American Academic Discusses the Wahhabi Myth
• Who First Used the Term 'Wahhabi'?
• The Ideology of Terrorism and Violence in Saudi Arabia: Origins, Reasons and
Solution
• Does Saudi Arabia Preach Intolerance in the UK and US?
• Full Text of Kitab Al Tawhid by Ibn Abdul Wahhab
• Spero News - Bosnia: Muslims upset by Wahhabi leaders
• The Wahhabi Myth