c. 2005 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) The words are chilling, especially to non-Muslim ears.
“(We) will pursue this evil force to its own lands, invade its Western heartland and struggle to overcome it until all the world shouts by the name of the Prophet, and the teachings of Islam spread throughout the world.”
This missive, found in a Houston mosque, was identified by the Washington-based human rights organization Freedom House as an example of Wahhabism, a fundamentalist Muslim philosophy that is the state religion of Saudi Arabia.
Outside that country, Wahhabism is often regarded as an extremist interpretation of Islam that calls for the violent defeat of the world’s non-Muslims. It is invoked by Osama bin Laden and other terrorists as the theological basis for their jihad, and some say that it is the religious foundation for Islamic terrorism.
Islamic scholars have a different view. They say today’s Wahhabism is a mutation of the movement’s founding principles, and that it must be understood in its historical context, from its founding in the 18th century up to its controversial status today.
“I do not believe in a Wahhabi conspiracy that is going to kill us in our beds,” said Hamid Algar, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
Princeton historian Bernard Lewis, a highly respected scholar of Islam, has likened Saudi Arabia’s exportation of modern-day Wahhabism to a hypothetical situation Americans can more easily understand.
“Imagine that the Ku Klux Klan gets total control of the state of Texas,” Lewis told Princeton Alumni Weekly. “And the Ku Klux Klan has at its disposal all the oil rigs in Texas. And they use this money to set up a well-endowed network of colleges and schools throughout Christendom, peddling their peculiar brand of Christianity. You would then have an approximate equivalent of what has happened in the modern Muslim world.”
Unlike Wahhabist teachings today, the founder of Wahhabism, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, did not direct his interpretation of the religion at non-Muslims at all. Instead, he criticized Shiite Muslims for what al-Wahhab believed was a violation of the basic principle of monotheism.
Shiite Muslims believe that 12 imams, or spiritual leaders, were direct descendants of the prophet Muhammad who had the ability to interpret the Quran infallibly. The tombs of those imams are revered as holy sites and visited by Shiite pilgrims. A major difference in belief between Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims, which include Wahhabis, is that Sunnis believe that Muhammad was the only human being who could infallibly interpret scripture.
Al-Wahhab taught that these core Shiite beliefs constituted idolatry because, he said, Shiite Muslims pray to the 12 imams instead of directly to God. But Berkeley’s Algar says that al-Wahhab “mistook intercessors for worship,” meaning that Shiites pray to God through the imams and not to the imams themselves.
Wahhabists are known for “litmus tests of belief,” said Muqtedar Khan, a professor at Adrian College in Michigan. For Wahhabi Muslims, the central issue is the belief in uncompromised monotheism. “If you don’t believe in that, they question whether you are a good Muslim or a Muslim at all,” Khan said.
Wahhabism does not, however, inherently lead to violence, Khan said. “It is not just Wahhabism that has led to the emergence of al-Qaida.” Instead, he said, “Wahhabi intolerance, when combined with Cold War geopolitics, created terrorist jihadism.”
Islamic scholars say the initial focus of Wahhabi theology was those inside the religion, not outside it.
“Wahhabism at its first emergence was a movement directed not against non-Muslims, but against other Muslims who they regarded as apostates, traitors to the faith,” said Algar.
Wahhabism’s anti-Western message really began to take shape during the 1940s, he says, when American forces were first stationed on the Arabian Peninsula, which by that time was controlled by the Saudi family with Wahhabism adopted as the state religion.
During the first Gulf War, tensions heightened, and through “the force of circumstance,” according to Algar, bin Laden emerged in Saudi Arabia, citing Wahhabism as his theological foundation.
But Algar is troubled, he says, that today, “any Muslim that is seen to be in any way hostile to American policies is labeled as Wahhabi.” He called the Freedom House report, which chronicled more than 200 Saudi-connected Wahhabist documents discovered in U.S. mosques, a “malicious” attempt to overestimate the importance of Wahhabism in the American Muslim community.
“As someone who frequents mosques, I can tell you this is not the case.”
So what should one make of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabism? Is it true to what the movement’s founder taught?
Al-Wahhab’s teachings have historically been adopted to fit political movements of various periods, says Natana DeLong-Bas, a visiting professor at Brandeis University who studied al-Wahhab’s complete theological writings extensively in their original Arabic over four years.
For example, she cites the common criticism today that Wahhabism oppresses women, given that women in Saudi Arabia are not permitted to drive cars. Al-Wahhab himself, she says, “was supportive of the concept that there be a balance in rights between men and women” including access to religious education, and even the right to initiate divorce.
Today’s understanding of Wahhabism on both women’s issues and anti-Western sentiment, DeLong-Bas believes, is actually a “mutation” of al-Wahhab’s teachings that stems more from the medieval scholar Ibn Taymiyya than the writings of the founder of the movement.
During the Mongol invasion of the Middle East and the Christian Crusades of the medieval period, she explains, Ibn Taymiyya, whom bin Laden has referenced in his public statements, advocated armed resistance.
According to DeLong-Bas, “Al-Wahhab did not allow aggressive military action. Ibn Taymiyya did. The crusaders were to be fought as infidels.”
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Today, DeLong-Bas says, officials in Saudi Arabia are concerned as terrorist, or “jihadist” groups, including al-Qaida, are waging attacks on Saudi soil. Accordingly, she says, “change is starting in the kingdom (Saudi Arabia) today.”
“They have been pressed into a position of realizing this is a very serious situation,” she said. During her travels to Saudi Arabia, she has noticed the emergence of publications advocating a less rigid interpretation of Islam than the Wahhabi orthodoxy. She observed an increasing openness to reconnecting with the classical Islamic sources that al-Wahhab cited in his writings instead of focusing narrowly on a few historical interpretations.
“The religious establishment is in the best position to delegitimize jihadist ideology,” she said. “If you can do it from within your own tradition, it’s more likely to succeed than if something is imposed from the outside.”
MO/PH END RNS
