Abstract
Few figures in the history of Islām have attracted such controversy as Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (c. 1115/1703-1206/1791).1 For some American authors, particularly those writing in the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001, the legacy of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb is entirely negative. The majority of the suicide bombers involved in the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were of Sa‘ūdī origin. The Sa‘ūdī state is inextricably linked with Wahhābism. Therefore the evil of 11 September 2001 is attributed to the Wahhābī tradition and even to the views of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb himself (though there is no necessary congruence between the ideas of the founder of a movement and his successors). For Stephen Schwarz, himself a Ṣūfī, anything of Ṣūfī, origin is automatically acceptable (even though historically Ṣūfīs, too, have led ‘jihads of the sword’: see Chapter 7). He talks of ‘Wahhābī obscurantism and its totalitarian state’, ‘fundamentalist fanaticism’ as well as describing it as ‘Islāmofascism’.2 Muslims from other traditions denounce Wahhabis because they call themselves ‘the asserters of the divine unity’, thus laying exclusive claim to the principle of monotheism (tawḥīd) which is the foundation of Islām itself. This implies a dismissal of all other Muslims as tainted by polytheism (shirk). Thus Hamid Algar, Khomeini’s official biographer, argues that Wahhabism is ‘intellectually marginal’, with 4no genetic connection’ with movements that subsequently arose in the Muslim world. In his judgement, it should be viewed as ‘an exception, an aberration or at best an anomaly’.3
The state of Shaykh Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb [Sa‘ūdī Arabia] arose only by Jihād. The state of the Ṭālibān in Afghanistan arose only by Jihād. The Islamic state in Chechnya arose only by Jihād. It is true that these attempts were not perfect and did not fill the full role required, but incremental progress is a known universal principle. Yesterday, we did not dream of a state; today we established states and they fall. Tomorrow, Allāh willing, a state will arise and will not fall…
Abū ‘ Abdallah Al-Sa’dī, al-Qaeda’s Voice of Jihād Magazine, Issue No. 9: Memri Special Dispatch 650, 27 January 2004
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Notes
Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islām. The House of Sa’ ud from Tradition to Terror (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 107, 192.
Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islām. Saudi Fundamentalism and its Role in Terrorism (New York: anchor Books, repr. 2003).
Hamid Algar, Wahhabism: A Critical Essay (Oneonta, NY: Islamic Publications International, 2002), 2, 4, 5.
Michael Cook, Commanding Right and forbidding Wrong in Islāmic Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 170.
H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramer (eds), Concise Encyclopedia of Islām (Leīden: E. J. Brill, 2001), 618.
Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1992), ch. 5, 155–205.
Madawi Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 17.
Ameen Rihani, Ibn Sa’oud of Arabia. His People and His Land (London: Constable, 1928), 242.
Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islām. Inter-faith Relations in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 103.
Mark J. Sedgwick, Ṣūfīsm. The Essentials (Cairo and New York: the American University in Cairo Press, rev. edn. 2003), 95.
Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islām: Reconstructing īdentity, State, Faith and Community in the Late Ottoman State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 23.
John S. Habib, Ibn Sa’ud’s Warriors of Islam. The Ikhwan of Najd and Their Role in the Creation of the Sa’udi Kingdom, 1910–1930 (Leīden: E. J. Brill, 1978).
Eldon Rutter, The Holy Cities of Arabia (2 vols) (London: Putnam, 1928), i. 79.
M. Naeem Qureshi, Pan-Islam in British Indian Politics. A Study of the Khilafat Movement, 1918–1924 (Leiden, Boston and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1999), 397.
H. St J. B. Philby, Arabia of the Wahhabis (London: Constable, 1928), 66–7.
H. St J. B. Philby, The Heart of Arabia. A Record of Travel and Exploration. I (London: Constable, 1922), 306.
Loretta Napoleoni, Modern Jihād. Tracing the Dollars behind the Terror Networks (London: Pluto Press, 2003), 119.
Worlock and Sheppard, With Christ in the Wilderness. Following Lent Together (London: Bible Reading Fellowship, 1990), 35.
G. Makdisi, ‘Hanbalite Islām’, in Studies on Islam, ed. and trans. Merlin L. Swartz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 252.
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© 2004 Richard Bonney
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Bonney, R. (2004). Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb and Wahhābism. In: Jihād. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230501423_8
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