The Changing Face of Wahhabism

Last update: 2022-04-22 09:23:55

The history and doctrine of a movement that was born four hundred years ago, was fought for its sectarian nature in the eighteenth century, survived reformist Salafism in the nineteenth century, was anti-Communist and anti-Nationalist during the years after the second world war, compromised itself with radical Islam during the 1970s and finally imposed itself as a neo-traditional authority with a calling to minister to the world.

Wahhabism is a source of great confusion. It is considered to be a contemporary movement, whereas it actually dates to the eighteenth century. The traditionalization of the Muslim populations, the rise of terrorism, the spread of Salafism and a great succession of fatwas are all imputed to it. In reality, it is a “mutant.” It made its appearance as a sectarian movement in the eighteenth century – on the eve of modern Islam’s crisis – and was fought relentlessly by the official religion. It survived reformist Salafism in the nineteenth century, passed itself of as a liberation movement in the 1920s, declared its hostility to Communism and Arab nationalism after the second world war and compromised itself with radical Islam in the 1970s. Then it quietened down, establishing itself as a neo-traditional authority with a calling to minister to the world. This is how an almost medieval sect settles down and takes over Islam.[1]

An account of Wahhabism’s history seems to me to be instructive. Its doctrine, on the other hand, is problematic. One always wonders what relationship there is between Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism takes its name from Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb, founder of the Wahhabi doctrine, whereas Saudi Arabia is the name that the Saud princes gave to the country in 1931, in memory of Muhammad Ibn Sa‘ûd, the founder of their first kingdom. Their politico-religious alliance gave birth to a sort of (undeclared) Sunni church that was capable of adapting to the circumstances and surviving up to the present day despite the vicissitudes and crises marking the history of the Arab world.(...)

 

The Najd Pact

Ancestor of those who hold religious power in Saudi Arabia today, Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb (1703-1792) founded a politico-religious movement that, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, imposed itself by the sword in Najd, the central part of Saudi Arabia. This movement then went on to conquer the whole of Arabia right up to the Gulf, thanks to an indefectible alliance concluded around 1744-1745 with Muhammad Ibn Sa‘ûd (ancestor of the current king of Saudi Arabia) “in the name of God and his prophet”: the Pact of Najd. The two men met at Dir‘iyya, Saud’s fief and one of the numerous villages in the area. To be more precise, Arabia is divided into Hijâz, in the west, where the Holy Places are, and Najd, in the east. Najd is divided, in its turn, into three sub-regions: al-Ahsâ’, a Shi’ite region that is extremely rich in oil; al-Qasîm, the Wahhabis’ current base, which provided the majority of the terrorists involved in the 11 September attack; and, finally, al-‘Âridh, which includes the village of Dir‘iyya lying 30km from the current capital, Riyadh.

Caravans coming from Baghdad and Damascus and bound for Hijâz are obliged to pass through Najd. Dir‘iyya is situated at the foot of the Najd plain, at the end of a valley adjoining the Wadi Hanîfa oasis – a dry basin during the summer but rich in water from the mountains during the winter. The chroniclers tell of how a certain Mâni‘, a Saudi ancestor, established himself in the oasis as usufructuary of the land in 1446-47. The Saud family only freed themselves in 1726-27, when Muhammad Ibn Sa‘ûd killed his uncle, the local lord, following a murky family matter. The Wadi Hanîfa oasis (also called al-Yamâma) has a sorry reputation amongst Muslims, since it was a refuge for the “false prophet,” Musaylima (known as “the liar”) and served as a base for the “apostates” who refused to pay their tithes during the reign of Abû Bakr (632-634), Muhammad’s first successor. This recollection did not fail to have an effect. When Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb settled there, his supporters saw him as a hero come to purify the breeding-ground of contestation, but his opponents accused him of being the new “lying Musaylima.”

It was in this memorable place that the Najd Pact was sealed. It was the first pact in the history of Islam in which spiritual power and temporal power were clearly separated: Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb appointed the imams and judges and saw to the religious instruction. Ibn Sa‘ûd enjoyed the temporal power, which was limited, at that time, to appointing governors in the provinces and waging war. The pact was a verbal agreement by which Ibn Sa‘ûd undertook to follow Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb’s unitary (or Unitarian) doctrine – according to which there is no God outside God – on condition that the sheikh did not break the pact and that the prince reserved the levy of taxes on his subjects to himself. Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb promised the prince that he would not leave the town and dangled the hope before him that, thanks to jihad, God would honour him with even greater blessings and resources. The emir swore loyalty to the sheikh in the name of God’s religion, of God’s prophet, of jihad, of the application of Islamic rules and of commanding right and forbidding wrong. The historical facts are related by two chroniclers of the time, Husayn Ibn Ghannâm (d. 1810), who provided the first source in that era, and ‘Uthmân Ibn Bishr (1795-1873), who then reintroduced it. The numerous ordeals peppering almost three centuries of Arabian history were to see the foundation of a first kingdom (1748-1818), a second one (1824-1890) and a third (1932-) without the alliance between the ruling family and the ulama ever being challenged.

 

Sacking and Destroying

Wahhabism also based itself on the greatest then-existing tribal confederation, the ‘Anaza or ‘Anza, from which the Saud princes stem and which still governs in Bahrein and Kuwait today. Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb, on the other hand, was a member of the Tamîm tribe, to which the al-Thânî in Qatar also belong. It is then also necessary to take account of the difference between the cosmopolitan Hijâz, where the four rites of Islam were freely practised, and the Hanbalite and Bedouin Najd. Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb re-awakened the locals’ appetites. Fanaticized and galvanized by the idea of booty, his emulators sacked Kerbala (1801) and then Mecca and Medina (1803-1806), killing honest Muslims and taking possession of their wealth, including the sacred treasure placed in the Prophet’s Tomb in Medina. One can thus understand why Wahhabism provoked an incredible resistance in everyone, everywhere. According to recent research, the ulama, quite independently of their own doctrinal variations, would have drawn up no less than two hundred refutations: an excessive number that ought to be at least halved. In short, the tradition put up resistance. However, the Wahhabis were obstinate and ended up achieving the success they hoped for and to such an extent that the current kingdom (founded in 1932) is the natural extension of the two failed attempts during the periods 1745-1818 and 1824-1891. Wahhabism can also be interpreted differently, as the attempt to unite an Arabia that had been handed over to warlords in the eighteenth century. What is inexplicable, nevertheless, is why the Wahhabis destroyed all the tombs and mausoleums of famous people like Khadîja (Muhammad’s first wife) and the cupolas erected in honour of ‘Alî (Muhammad’s son-in-law) in the holy places. The tombs and mausoleums no longer exist today. The Wahhabis have destroyed them, explaining that constructing religious buildings above ground level is a form of paganism. They have also burned the books of mystics and texts on logic. This shows Wahhabism’s very puritan side, which has contributed to its success and is still making its effects felt today. It is said that the sources testifying to these raids are Western ones and Muslims deny such sacrilege. However, my research has permitted me to find Arab sources that have made inventories of the pillaged objects, piece by piece.

Wahhabism did not content itself with unifying Saudi Arabia but wanted to re-islamize Muslims. It sent letters to all the eastern sovereigns, enjoining them to follow the path of unitarism, on pain of a declaration of jihad against them. During the period in which Mecca and Medina were under Wahhabi control, copies of letters were entrusted to pilgrims who had to pass them on to the kings and sultans of their country of provenance. Two copies of a letter probably drawn up by Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb’s emulators were to arrive in the Kingdom of Tunis in around 1803 and 1805 respectively. By way of a reply, the bey appointed two scholars to refute Wahhabism, thus providing us with two of the finest refutations of Wahhabism in existence (1803 and 1805). There are also three Moroccan refutations and there is even one written by Sulaymân, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb’s brother.

The letters sent by Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb to the Arab sovereigns, the sultans and the kings, in which he asked them to follow the Unitarian path, were the primary cause of the first Wahhabi state’s destruction (1819). A second reason for it is linked to the abuses committed by the Wahhabis in Mecca and Medina. More specifically, the Wahhabis used to attack the pilgrim caravans bound for Mecca with the Mahmal[2] (one setting out from Egypt and the other from Syria), on the pretext that the pilgrims were intoning religious litanies, an action considered sacrilegious.

From this point of view, the Wahhabi movement is a mixture of Bedouinism, puritanism, banditry and fanatical doctrine (at least during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). The Ottoman Empire charged the Egyptian Khedive, Mehmet Ali, to destroy it and the latter entrusted the mission to his son, Ibrahim. Egyptian troops seized Mecca and Medina in 1811 and marched on towards Dir‘iyya. The town was destroyed after six months of siege. The king, ‘Abdallah, was arrested and sent to Istanbul, where he was subsequently hanged.

 

The Quincy Pact

The second Wahhabi state is of no interest. Having receded to the confines of its native Najd, it was to be destroyed by the Rashîd, another tribe in the Najd area. In 1902, however, the then eighteen-year-old ‘Abdelaziz Ibn Sa‘ûd, accompanied by sixty-odd men, attacked the al-Masmak palace in Riyadh by night and killed the governor in the Rashîd family’s pay. He had an ingenious idea that may well explain the relationship between Wahhabism (up until then a medieval sect) and modern Islamic radicalism.

The stroke of genius was the creation of the so-called Brothers (Ikhwân) in 1912. These were neither yokels impervious to war nor citizens who fought for four months every year. They were nomads to whom ‘Abdelaziz decided to give a stable home in dwellings called hujar. The metonymy operating between hujar and hijra (exile) is not without its significance: the new exiles were established in camps. They were indoctrinated and fanaticized by the Wahhabis, who explained to them that they had previously been living as pagans but that they had now become Muslims: indeed, they were the only ones to be Muslims. Thus the nomads withdrew from their world in order to go and live in the new world of the settlements. In this way, ‘Abdelaziz created an army of approximately 150,000 men ready for jihad. It was a mercenary army that lived on hand-outs. Thanks to this army, ‘Abdelaziz was able to re-conquer the kingdom of his intrepid warrior ancestors, whose banner carried the motto, “There is no god but God and Muhammad is God’s Prophet.”

Nevertheless, a conflict was sparked between ‘Abdelaziz and the Brothers. Under international pressure (1929-1930), ‘Abdelaziz was forced to negotiate with the English, the French and the Ottomans. The Brothers could not understand how their leader could come to an agreement with the godless…. Thus, between 1928 and 1930, they fought a genuine war against ‘Abdelaziz, who came out the victor. Hereby a lesson: one cannot indoctrinate Bedouins with impunity.

The most important event during the twentieth century remains the Quincy Pact, however. ‘Abdelaziz Ibn Sa‘ûd and the American President, Franklin Roosevelt, met on the US cruiser, the Quincy, on 14 February 1945. They were to seal a pact that was similar to the pact of Najd in its oral form but completely different in its content: oil in exchange for military protection.

In fact, and this is often ignored, the two men never spoke about oil. They chatted about Palestine, geopolitics, farming and the news, but not oil. A deal was done, nevertheless: ‘Abdelaziz understood that the United States was the world’s greatest power, whereas Roosevelt knew that Arabia was oozing oil. The alliance is still in force now, despite the events of 11 September 2001, and from that moment onwards there have existed two pacts: one between the White House and the House of Saud and the other between the Saud family and the Wahhabis. This is the politico-religious system that must be taken into account if one is to understand the Saudis’ difficulty in maintaining friendship with the Americans, on the one hand, and relying on a rigorist clergy to whom they have delegated universal authority to spread Wahhabi Islam, on the other, whilst managing the prickliness of other states at the same time.

 

Oneness and Submission

Wahhabi doctrine is set out in The Book on Divine Oneness, which is God’s Right over His Servants. What is Islamic unitarism (tawhîd)? It is a simple principle to which all Muslims subscribe: there is no other god than God. Nevertheless, Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb broke with the consensus by accusing his contemporaries of unfaithfulness. How did he manage this? By implementing a system that mixed medieval considerations with the life of Muslims. The central argument was the distinction (which he owed to Ibn Taymiyya) between the oneness of dominion or sovereignty (tawhîd al-rubûbiyya) and the oneness of obedience or adoration (tawhîd al-ulûhiyya). The oneness of dominion celebrates God’s kingship. He is the rabb, the Lord of the worlds (Qur’an 57:1-6 and 32:3-9). Believing in God therefore means recognising that God is the only rabb.

The oneness of obedience or adoration is quite another matter. In addition to the act of recognition, this requires submission to the one God: “I did not create the jinn and the humans except that they may worship Me” (51:56). Unitarism turns into orthopraxy. Thus the word “holy” may only be used in relation to God or His Prophet, in appropriate formulations. From words one passes to acts of devotion: intercession, invocation, requests for help, the expression of fear, hope, trust or desire, prostration, humiliation, glorification and the dedicatory sacrifice of an animal are all acts that must be offered to God alone. From words and acts one passes to places of worship: taking them for objects of veneration is a form of associationism[3] and the prohibition extends to tombs and religious buildings. From the cultural dimension one finally reaches the political one: the saint, the scholar (‘âlim) and the emir are lumped with intercessors, who are portrayed as being based on the priesthood model.

The Wahhabis consider Christians, Jews and Sufis in the same manner, likening them all to associationists. This is what Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb writes in his Epistle to Muslims: “Believing in holiness and the like is associationism. Is it not said, “whoever ascribes partners to Allah, Allah shall forbid him [entry into] paradise, and his refuge shall be the Fire” (5:72)? If you are convinced of this, you should also know that whoever says we would do better to stop accusing people of godlessness and waging war on them is mistaken. I will explain this to you with a question about the direction of prayer: the prophet and his community pray and the Christians also pray. But the former pray addressing their prayer to the house of God, whereas the latter address the sun. If someone who belongs to Muhammad’s community detests those who pray in the direction of God’s house and loves those who welcome the sun, do you think that he is a Muslim? This is the point: God sent the message about unity through Muhammad, so that no one other than Allah, not even a prophet, might be invoked! The Christians invoke Jesus as the son of God, and the intercession of saints. This advice is addressed to whoever fears the torments of hell. As for those whose hearts have hardened, on the other hand, there is no hope.”

His opponents responded. The traditionalists did not see the use in dividing the oneness – a basic principle – into two parts, one testifying to God’s power and the other proclaiming submission to His decrees. More precisely, the oneness of the dominion (rubûbiyya) was one with the oneness of the obedience (ulûhiyya). The same went for the acts of devotion, even if they were mediated by saints and pious men, and for the animal sacrifices and the votive offerings made out of duty, goodness, piety, as an act of dedication or to expiate a sin. What was the status of religious buildings? Their building, maintenance and decoration were permitted. Lastly, even the intercession of people – practised by ‘Umar (the second Caliph) – was allowed. Fortified by these arguments, orthodoxy’s partisans threw the accusation of godlessness back at him: Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb was an “innovator, a man led astray, a hypocrite, an atheist and a false prophet.”

 

The Invention of Tradition

How was it that Wahhabism won its battle over tradition? In reality, it was the tradition’s crisis that rehabilitated Wahhabism. During the nineteenth century, Muslims attributed their decline to three figures: the despot, the marabout and the sclerotic jurisconsult. The Wahhabis and all the modern jurisconsults are hostile towards these three figures. During the nineteenth century, Wahhabism was considered to be a reformist movement, if not actually a precursor to the critique of the traditionalism to which Islam’s decline was imputed. The reformists wanted to return to the forebears and free Islam from the scoriae of the past. Shared with the Salafis, this aspect is one of the distinctive features of Wahhabism. Once it was rehabilitated, Wahhabism took off. During the 1820s it was considered a nationalist movement that was fighting to unify Arabia. Later it was to demonstrate its elective affinities with radical Islam through the metaphor of Islam exiled in her own land. This is what the abovementioned historian Ibn Ghannâm, disciple of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb, wrote in his Rawda:

The majority of Muslims has returned to the pre-Islamic shadows. Ignorant, at the mercy of corrupt despots, deprived of the light that shows the right way, they have turned their backs on the book of God as their ancestors had done. They have adored the marabouts, both dead and living, they have venerated trees and have substituted new idols for God. This is the situation in Najd, in the holy places, in Yemen, in Egypt, in Iraq….

Between 1960 and 2000, Wahhabism was active against Arab nationalism and Communism, going so far as to finance the Taliban. It supported the Muslim Brothers and radical Islam against the “secular” republics. A 30-page long fatwa issued by the famous Ibn al-Bâz in 1974 accused Bourguiba of apostasy. After the events of 11 September, Wahhabism fell back on its preaching vocation and conducted a campaign against terrorism, which it likened to the medieval concepts of excess (ghuluww) and of the departure from Islam attributed to Kharijism. The “Arab Spring” spared the monarchy, possibly making it even more powerful: the Sunni spearhead against Shi‘a Islam, it is now playing the quietist Salafi card against the Muslim Brothers and is supporting the jihadist factions against Bashar al-Asad.

At every stage of its history, the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance has found the resources required to play a leading political and religious role. Today more than ever, however, its destiny depends on the centrifugal trends that are permeating the Arab world, the repercussions of which over time are difficult to foresee at present.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Oasis International Foundation

 

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[1] I took the sub-title of my book Le pacte de Nadjd. Comment l’islam sectaire est devenu l’islam (Seuil, Paris, 2007) from this idea.

[2] The mahmal is an ark with a pyramidal cover draped in heavily ornamented brocade. On the occasion of the pilgrimage to Mecca, it served to carry the kiswa i.e. the cloth that was used to cover the Ka‘ba (Ed.).

[3] In Arabic, shirk is the opposite of unity and oneness (tawhîd), in that it consists in associating other entities with God (Ed.).

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