“This Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam… is a huge threat to Britain and
the British people because it’s popular and very well-funded… particularly by
the Saudi Arabians. Where do we go from here? First of all stop winding up real
hard liners to recruit… by getting out of their countries and stop
interfering. The only place Britain has
an interest in interfering in the Middle East… is Saudi Arabia… because here
you have a tiny Sunni Wahhabi over lordship ruling and oppressing… and they’re
the ones funding terrorism… they’re the real problem and we should interfere
there as far as this… an embargo on Saudi Arabia… no help to Saudi Arabia… no
trade to Saudi Arabia… until Saudi Arabia reforms… and in particular stops
funding terror and Islamisation in the West.
Until they do that Saudi Arabia is the great enemy of Britain, France,
America and the enemy in fact of the whole of damned humanity because of this
poison, this appalling thing mascaraing as a religion that they are working to
force on the whole World. And we should
look to bring down the House of Saud and … let the Saudi’s replace it with
something better… and finally sending home every last Wahhabi.” - Nick Griffin speaking in July 2013
after his visit and Syria.
As a British born convert to
Sunni Islam, I largely agree with him!
Muslims are not all the same
Wahhabis account for less than
3% of the World’s Muslim population, most of whom live in Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism is a puritanical movement that is considered
outside of ahul sunnah wal jamat or
the Sunni majority; a majority of nearly 87%.
Muslims are not one homogenous group and neither are their
interpretations of Islam. It would be
inaccurate to say that Islam or Muslims generally are violent or anti-Western
since research does not show this. The
Gallup international poll found that of the 7% of Muslims who thought the 9/11
attacks were in some way justified gave a political reason only and no
reference to Islam, whilst the 93% majority most commonly gave the response
that Islam prohibited such atrocities. Likewise
the Joint Intelligence Committee (April 2005) identified no religious reasons
for membership to terrorist organisations, but rather opposition to the war on
Iraq and socio-economic problems.
Neither is the West a source of hatred in the Muslim World, The Gallup
poll found that unfavourable views of the USA and Canada – the same region but
with different foreign policies, if you will – differed greatly, for example
66% of Kuwaitis have an unfavourable view of the USA, but only 3% viewed the
same of Canada. Muslims also are
generally devoted to their religion and hold it in high esteem. The Gallup poll found that 100% of Egyptian
Muslims identified Islam as playing an important role in their life, as did 99%
in Indonesia, Bangladesh and 98% in Morocco, and with 70% here among British
Muslims, reflecting similar figures to other Western European countries. Therefore
to blame Islam generally as the source of ‘jihadist’ terrorism – bearing in
mind that the vast majority of victims are Muslim - is unfair and simply fuels
the fire of extremism because these same ‘jihadists’ use anti-Islamic sentiments
from the West to underhandedly recruit Muslims who by default hold their
religion in high regard. So what differentiates these ‘jihadist’ terrorists who
identify themselves as Muslim from the overwhelming majority of Muslims who do
not identify with them?
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam has been the
mainstay in the Muslims World for the religion’s fourteen hundred year
existence, it is what most people refer to when they mean Islam. Muslims virtually unanimously agree on the
key beliefs, practices and scriptural sources of Islam, where they differ
however is in interpretation. Shi’ism -
the other significant traditional group making up some 6% of Muslims Worldwide –
puts the authority of interpretation in the hands of individual expert scholars
whom the laity are obliged follow. Sunnism sees the role of scholars as more
collegial and the authority of interpretation is with the consensus. This has given rise to Sunni Islam being a
continuum of opinion rather than a single body of thought. The continual and almost limitless debate however
is moderated and protected from spiralling off to extremes by an agreed canon
of authoritative texts. This canon of
Sunni Islam fixes where Islam will not go and so protects the religion and the
World from terrorism in the name of Islam.
Wahhabism contrasts starkly with Sunnism and Shi’ism by belligerently
rejecting the expert opinion and authoritative texts that maintain moderation
for a single narrow and literal interpretation.
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (d.
1791), Wahhabism’s founder, came from a family of scholars in the Nejd region
of central Arabia, however he did not finish his education as his younger brother
Sulayman did. It is not clear whether he
was expelled or simply left the local seminary that his father lectured, but
his father was said to be unhappy with his elder son as he was a poor student
and was arrogantly defiant of his teachers.
Abd al Wahhab preached his anti-intellectual, anti-mystical and
sectarian message only after his father’s death to much criticism from the
entire scholastic community, fiercest of all by his own brother Sulayman, on
the basis his views were ignorant, arrogant and had no precedence in Islamic
history. Abd al Wahhab claimed the community
had diverged from the first generation – known as the Salaf – which he imagined
as a utopian period, and he saw the centuries of scholastic debate and development
as heretical innovations extending the meaning of extreme terms such as devil,
polytheist and apostate to the scholars of Islam and anyone who didn’t agree
with him. Unlike the normative view that made a distinction between fiqh –
man’s attempt to reason and understand God’s Will - and Shariah - God’s
immutable Will - Abd al Wahhab made no such distinction; the literal outward meaning of the scripture
was God’s Will. The view that God entrusted man with guidance
and the ability to reason right and wrong empowering him to take responsibility
for his own actions was reduced to simply following a detailed set of
instructions; those who did were saved and those who did not were damned! His
ideas were reactionary; trying to find certitude in literal readings of the
scripture as an answer to the uncertainty of the times he lived in and the
challenges of modernity.
The Establishment of Saudi Arabia
In 1745 Abd al Wahhab’s zealous
revolution was joined by the then Bedouin warlord of Ad Diriyah, Muhammad ibn
Saud. The pair successfully established
the first militant state in central Arabia and it grew rapidly conquering its
capital Riyadh in 1773. Even after Abd
al Wahhab’s death in 1791 the movement continued to expand eventually
conquering the two holy sites of Mecca and Madinah by 1806. After a number of years of indiscriminately murdering
tens of thousands of Muslims and pilgrims claiming them apostates, stopping the
annual pilgrimage (hajj) and openly
rebelling to Ottoman authority the Sultan sent the governor of Egypt Muhammad
Ali to restore order and control. Mecca
and Medina were retaken in 1812 and the entire Saudi state was eventually
vanquished by 1818. Although the Wahhabi
intolerance, hate and fanaticism remained despite its military suppression by
the Ottomans. After its collapse in
1922 there was no resistance to Abd al Aziz ibn Saud’s (d. 1953) eventual bloody
reestablishment of the Saudi state based on the puritanical theology of
Wahhabism and the Bedouin tribal culture.
This new model of an ‘Islamic’ state restricted personal liberty forcing
its unwilling subjects to abide to a very specific code of conduct unlike their
Ottoman predecessors who had tolerated diverse religious and cultural
practices.
Saudi Arabia’s control of the
holy cities of Mecca and Medina was deeply unpopular throughout the 1920’s to
the 1960’s because the belief system was at odds with the rest of the Muslims
World. Secular regimes such as Nasser’s
Egypt also saw the theocratic government in Saudi Arabia as historically retarded. Saudi Arabia faced many challenges to their
custodianship of the Holy Cities, Nasser even attempted to overthrow the Saudi
government in the 1970’s. Coinciding
with the discovery of oil and its sharp rise in price the Saudi government
decided to aggressively export the Wahhabi creed to gain acceptance, initially
funding other fundamentalist organizations and a decade later creating a more
sophisticated network. One of my
teachers who was a student in the Muslim World during the 80’s said that in
every seat of learning there were funded people to deliberately try and
undermine the lecturer and promote Wahhabi thought. Wahhabism however did not
spread under its founder’s namesake as it would have appeared just another
school of thought within Islam, rather the Wahhabis view is it as Islam and so
they prefer the term Salafi meaning from the illustrious first generation, the Salaf.
Wahhabis rebranding to Salafis
The term Salafi pre-dates
Wahhabism to the medieval reformer ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328) and is a term that
has been used by any reformist seeking legitimacy in their attempt to refer
back to the ‘golden age’ of The Prophet Muhammad and his Companions. As such Salafism is a broad term covering all
manner of groups from liberal reformers to moderates to Islamists and jihadist
terrorists. What connects them is the
same fundamental methodology; Muslims should directly reinterpret the source
texts in light of the modern demands of today.
This approach has not been entirely negative or without merit as it has
revived an intellectual movement that has blown some of the dust off a rather
stagnated scholastic tradition. Salafism
per se is not actively hostile to the classical scholastic tradition or indeed
even anti-Western, in fact some have stove to legitimise modern ideas such as
democracy, constitutionalism and the nation state within Islam. The term Salafism is more palatable to
Muslims generally as it is hard to disagree with, at least to some extent. It only becomes intolerant in the form of the
exported Saudi Salafism, but since the 70’s the two terms have slowly become
synonymous marking a great victory for the Wahhabi propaganda machine.
Sayyid Qutb and Islamism
Not all Saudis are Wahhabis and
not all Wahhabis are terrorists, in fact the majority are not, however the
likes of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden are Wahhabis, what differentiates them
is an additional ‘Islamist’ political view.
Abd al Wahhab’s movement was purely religious aimed at purging the
community of its heretical deviance, it had no global political aspirations per
se. Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), a Salafi and a
member of the Muslim Brotherhood (although not entirely its representative),
however incorporated an Islamo-Marxist political model in which he divides the
world into two; either Muslim or Jahiliyyah (pre Islamic time of darkness and
ignorance). Ignoring usual norms he
redefined many terms and ideas, identifying Muslim society as only one in which
they live in complete obedience to Islamic Law.
Qutb writes in his famous Milestones: ‘there is no Islam in a land where Islam is not dominant… [it is our]
God-given right to step forward and take control of the political authority so
that it may establish the Divine system on Earth.’ He saw that everyone
need not be Muslim but must live under Islamic Law as this was the only source
of true justice and so he viewed there was a perpetual war against the
jahiliyyah. Qutb’s name became legendary
when he was sentenced to death for his ideas by Egypt’s then ruler Gamal
Nasser, he is seen as a martyr even by those who disagree with him and so his
ideas have gained wider acceptance.
Qutb’s ideas contrast sharply
with Sunni thought. He revived medieval
terms from a by-gone era, such as dar al-Islam
(abode of Islam) and dar al-harb
(abode of war) to justify his dichotomous World view, but chose to ignore other
terms such as dar al-suhl (abode of
neutrality) or dar al-amman (abode of
agreement), let alone the scholastic debate that such non scriptural terms are
too simplistic and have no bearing on the modern World. Qutb also polarised these terms from their
classically nuanced meanings, for example Abu Hanifa (d. 767) - the most influential
jurist in all Islamic history – defined dar
al-Islam as anywhere where one could pray the five daily prayers at the
mosque unhindered, which would therefore make modern Britain and indeed the
Western World dar al-Islam. Neither does Qutb’s obligation for Muslims to
live under Islamic Law in its entirety take into account the Prophetic examples
of those who did not. Oppressed Muslims
fled Mecca at the behest of the Prophet Muhammad to migrate to the non-Muslim
King of Abyssinia, known as the Negus, because of his trustworthiness and
tolerance. In fact ibn Hisham’s (d. 833)
famous autobiography of the Prophet, quotes the refuges as actually praying for
the Negus’ fair and just rule to continue!
Sunni thought does not promote political domination, but rather
religious freedom; as Patricia Crone observed in her book on Islamic political
thought, God’s Rule, The Prophet Muhammad’s only interest politically was in
ensuring the freedom for Muslims to practice their religion.
Jihadist Wahhabis as Kharijites
We might term these modern
terrorists then as ‘Jihadist Wahhabis’ to be specific, but they have also been
described by the last great scholar of Al Azhar Muhammad Abu Zahra (d. 1974), who
witnessed their appearance and growth, as Kharijites as have many other
scholars including most recently Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri (b. 1951). Imam Shahrastani (d. 1153) defined the
Kharijites in his famous book on heresiology as: ‘Anyone who revolts against
the Muslim government that enjoys the support of the community.’ Kharijite is the Muslim name given to those
of rebellious intent, who stir up civil strife, label the Muslim community
apostates and kill indiscriminately.
This is an important definition because the Kharijites are considered to
have left the fold of Islam and are actually described by the Prophet Muhammad
as the worst of all creation and a religious obligation to oppose at every
level. From a Sunni perspective then
there is a jihad (literally it means struggle), but not against the West or non-Muslims
or corrupt governments or indeed anyone else that the Jihadist Wahhabis identify,
but it is actually against the Jihadists themselves.
The Jihad against the Kharijites
One of the most important thinkers
of our time is Khaled Abou el Fadl, he represents the best of classical Islamic
scholarship and Western education. In
his outstanding book The Great Theft he identifies two poles that are both a
product of and a reaction to modernity; the puritan and the moderates. The puritans reject modernity and the
moderates accept it. There is an
irreconcilable tension between the two so that the very faith of Islam will be
defined by one of these poles. The vast
majority of Muslims repulsed by the ugly act of violence committed by the
puritans have already sided with the moderates.
Puritans although in the minority pose a formidable foe because of their
control of the Holy Cities and their aggressive zealous well-funded propaganda
machine. As el Fadl sates: “To win this very real war that has done inestimable
damage to so many Muslims and to the truth of the Islamic faith, it is
absolutely imperative to declare a counter-jihad against the puritan heresy.” He recommends Muslims need to be as
equally loud against the Puritan acts of violence such as having public
demonstrations denouncing the violence and flood the market with moderate
literature to drown puritanical ones. He
also calls for moderates to rekindle the charitable nature of Muslims to set up
private endowment to establish moderate seminaries to counter the ever
increasing puritan ones. He also
implores Non-Muslims to become educated about Islam to remove prejudice, as
prejudice plays into the hands of the puritans, who translate every anti-Islamic
book into Arabic and use it as a recruitment manual. He also asks Western governments to bring
about just and fair solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict and withdraw as
much as possible from the Middle East to remove ammunition for puritans to
justify ‘jihadist’ terrorism and to stop lending support to countries that use
torture, such as Saudi, Syria, Egypt, Israel etc as torture is a factory
processing line for terrorists – Sayyid Qutb himself being the victim of
torture.
Concluding remarks
Islam is no more violent or less
relevant to modern Britain than Christianity or any other of the main religions,
it possess the same flexibility to adapt and meet the World’s contemporary
challenges. If, as el Fadl encourages,
Muslims anchor themselves in a humanistic understanding of Islam and nurture
the foundational virtues of mercy and moderation, they can make a very real and
positive contribution to the modern World whilst remaining true to Islam. But for this to happen Muslims must also take
responsibility in leading the intellectual fight against the puritanical
Wahhabi poison that threatens the faith of Islam and the lives of Muslims and
non-Muslims alike. To do this Muslims
must engage positively with the wider British public and the political systems
and structures in place as they facilitate freedom of religious practice and
outright reject Saudi funding and Wahhabi influence because they do not. Working with the people of Britain rather
than looking abroad will sooth tensions and allow Islam to manifest organically
as something naturally British ensuring the security of the British people and
the practice of Islam by its Muslims.
Bibliography and further reading
Defending the Transgressed by Censuring the Reckless Against the Killing
of Civilians, 2005, M A Al Akiti, AQSA Press, Oxford, UK. A brief legal verdict by one of the
foremost Islamic scholars of today showing how terrorists attacks fail to
fulfil the conditions of jihad on the grounds they carried out with no
legitimate authority, against impermissible targets and with impermissible
means. He also identifies some of the
perversions of jihadist Wahhabi interpretations.
Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide
Bombings, 2010, M. Tahir ul Qadri, Minhaj ul-Quran International, London, UK. Detailed legal verdict that was stamped
by Al Azhar, Sunni Islam’s most authoritative institution, giving robust
Islamic jurisprudential justifications and legal precedent for why terrorism,
rebellion, indiscriminate killing of innocents and suicide bombings are impermissible and that the terrorists that view these attacks as rewarded in
Islam are Kharijites and apostates.
Is Religion Dangerous, 2006, K.
Ward, Lion Hudson, Oxford, UK. An interesting argument for religion as a vehicle of peace and a
general overview of the very human nature of extremists in any religion or
belief system. Chapter 3 gives a concise
overview of Qutb’s beliefs and influences.
The Future of Islam, 2013, J L
Esposito, Oxford University Press, New York, USA. Accessible account of Islam and the
prevailing opinions currently in the Muslims World and explores the main issues
facing Islam in the 21st century such as is Islam’s compatibility
with democracy.
The Great Theft: wrestling Islam
from the extremists, 2007, K. A. el Fadl, Harpiner, San Francisco, USA. One of the world's preeminent Islamic
scholars argues that Islam is currently passing through a transformative moment
similar to the reformation. He delineates
beliefs and practices of moderate Muslims, distinguishing these from the extremists
and builds a vision for a moderate Islam.
The Muslims 500: The World’s 500
Most Influential Muslims, 2013/14, 2013, Prof. S. Abdallah Schleifer (editor),
RISSC, Amman, Jordon. Chapter 1
‘The House of Islam’, pp19-30, gives an accessible clear and brief overview of
the details and demography of the groups that make up the Muslim population
Worldwide.
God's Rule - Government and Islam: Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic
Political Thought, 2010, P. Crone, Columbia University Press, New York, USA. A detailed reconstruction and analysis
of Islamic political thought focusing on its intellectual development during
the six centuries from the rise of Islam to the Mongol invasions. Academic but accessible
reading of the source texts in their contexts and relating to the modern reader
by comparing it with medieval European and modern political thought.
The Oxford History of Islam,
1999, J. L. Esposito (editor), Oxford University Press, New York, USA.
Arguably the foremost book on Islamic history. Chapter 12 gives a concise overview of the context
and reasons behind the reformist movements in the 18th and 19th
centuries, of which Wahhabism is one of them.
