INTRODUCTION

Post-9/11, Wahhabism has been identified by governments, political analysts, and the media as the major "Islamic threat" facing Western civilization and the inspiration for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.  It has become infamous for its negative influence on Islam, mosques, and madrasas globally.  It is described as extremist, radical, puritanical, contemptuous of modernity, misogynist, and militant in nature.  It has been characterized as Islamo-facism following in the traditions of communism and nazism.¹  It is accused of inspiring militant religious extremism in movements ranging from the Taliban of Afghanistan to the so-called Wahhabis of Central Asia and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.²  It is targeted as the most intolerant of all interpretations of Islam, seeking to impose itself alone as the expression of "true" Islam.³  Wahhabi teachings are often referred to as "fanatical discourse" and Wahhabism itself has been called "the most retrograde expression of Islam" and "one of the most xenophobous radical Islamic movements that can be."⁴

Yet Wahhabism is also the conservative creed of the ruling family of Saudi Arabia and has been defended by visionary twentieth-century reformers like Muhammad Rashid Rida of Egypt and the Palestinian American scholar Ismail Raji al-Faruqi as a mode for reforming and rejuvenating Islam in the modern era -- an interpretation considerably at odds with its supposedly violent and intolerant tendencies.  Also at odds with such negative portrayals are the more positive images of Wahhabis distributing copies of the Quran and hadith (accounts of the sayings and deeds of the Prophet), funding hospitals, orphanages, and other charitable institutions; and constructing mosques worldwide.  Wahhabis have also provided relief following natural disasters globally and in the aftermath of the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.  However controversial the missionary work (daw'ah) accompanying these efforts has been, a strong case can be made for recognition of Wahhabi involvement in charitable works and its provision of educational and worship institutions for Muslims throughout the world.⁵  This image does not fit with the more monolithic presentation of Wahhabism as a militant, violent, extremist movement.

For all of the press and academic coverage of Wahhabism, few attempts have been made to define and delineate what makes a Wahhabi a Wahhabi other than broad concerns about tendencies toward violence, extremism, terrorism, and indoctrination of the masses in the conservative Wahhabi creed.  There has been little discussion of the Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law or scripture outside of general assertions of "literalism," "innovation," "heresy," and obsession with ritual matters, such as the precise length and style of a man's beard or the exact fashion in which one is to pray.⁶  Having been accused of a paradoxical combination of narrow-mindedness and innovation, Wahhabism is then typically dismissed as being unrepresentative of "Islam" and unworthy of detailed attention to its doctrines.  Particularly striking is the lack of attention given to the written works of Wahhabism's founder and ideologue, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, despite the fact that it is assumed that the militance, violence, and extremism displayed by certain Wahhabis today have their origins in Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's own teachings.

Post-9/11, many in the West have struggled to understand the connection between Wahhabi beliefs and the horrendous acts of terrorism that cased the deaths of over three thousand civilians.  Fear and uncertainty about the previously little known Wahhabis have led to serious questions.  Does Wahhabism represent an ongoing threat to the United States and American interests?  Is Wahhabism monolithic?  Is it necessarily opposed to Western civilization and values?  Can the United States safely have a friendly and cooperative relationship with the Wahhabi monarchy of Saudi Arabia or are Americans being deluded into consorting with the enemy due to the need for oil and a failure to understand the "true" nature of Wahhabism? ⁷

In response to the demands for answers, many have asserted that the militant extremism of Osama bin Laden has its origins in the religious teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who is believed to have legitimated jihad against non-Wahhabis and encouraged the forcible spread of the Wahhabi creed.  According to this interpretation, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab is the godfather of modern terrorism and Islamic militance.⁸  Like his contemporaries, he is accused of being opposed to modernity, and extreme literalist in his interpretation of Muslim scriptures, a misogynist, and an admirer and imitator of past militant radicals, particularly the medieval scholar Ibn Taymiyya.  Like Osama bin Laden, he is believed to have had little formal religious training, and his written works are generally dismissed as mere compilations of Quranic verses and hadith, without any accompanying commentary or interpretation.⁹  Finally, both Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the Wahhabis are often accused of being outside of the Sunni tradition due to their position as "heretical innovators" and extremists.¹⁰  Although this comparison makes for a simple and clean analysis, it is not faithful to the historical record.

The real Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, as revealed in his written works, was a well-trained and widely traveled scholar and jurist, as well as a prolific writer.  His extant written works fill fourteen large volumes, including a collection of hadith; a biography of the Prophet Muhammad; a collection of fatawa (juridical opinions); a series of exegetical commentaries on the Quran; several volumes of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), numerous theological treatises; and other varied works, including detailed discussions of jihad and the status of women.  The scope of his scholarship stands in marked contrast to the few legal rulings (fatawa) issued by Osama bin Laden.  More importantly, his insistence on adherence to Quranic values, like the maximum preservation of human life even in the midst of jihad as holy war, tolerance for other religions, and support for a balance of rights between men and women, results in a very different worldview from that of contemporary militant extremists.  The absence of the xenophobia, militantism, misogyny, extremism, and literalism typically associated with Wahhabism raises serious questions about whether such themes are "inherent" to Wahhabism and whether extremists like Osama bin Lade are truly "representative" of Wahhabism and Wahhabi beliefs.

Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad presents for the first time in a Western language the themes of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's writings that are of greatest concern post-9/11:  Wahhabi theology and worldview, Islamic law, women and gender, and jihad.  Rather than reinforcing the standard image of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab as "an unsophisticated, narrow-minded wanderer" and a "disconnected, footloose son of the remote oases" who became "the archetype for all the famous and infamous Islamic extremists of modern times,"¹¹ it reveals a more moderate, sophisticated, and nuanced interpretation of Islam that emphasizes limitations on violence, killing, and destruction and calls for dialogue and debate as the appropriate means of proselytization and statecraft.  This new understanding is then compared to the writings of other scholars and activists, both past and present, on the controversial topic of jihad in order to assess Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's influence, or lack thereof, on contemporary Islamic militants, most notably Osama bin Laden, and to explore the roots of the militant extremism inherent in their visions of global jihad. 

Notes:

1.  The most recent example of this kind of assertion can be found in Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam; The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror (New York: Doubleday, 2002).

2.  On the Issue of Wahhabi support for extremism in Afghanistan and Central Asia, see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban, Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000); and Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

3.  See, for example, Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Place of Tolerance in Islam (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002), 8.

4.  Extracts are from Philippe Aziz, Interview, Le Point, 17 August 1996; and "L'arrouseur arrose," Jeune Afrique, 17 August 1996.

5.  Indeed, Saudi Arabia has not engaged in military occupations or holy wars to gain converts.  Instead, the Saudis have supported what has been called "aggressive proselytizing," which is carried out through the construction of mosques and distribution of Qurans in local languages, particularly in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.  See, for example, Bruce Pannier, "Wahhabism and the CIS (From Fergana to Chechnya)," RFE/RL Internet document, 19 May 1997.

6.  An example of this type of widespread contemporary anti-Wahhabi polemic can be found in Zubair Qamar, "Who Are the Wahhabees ('Salafis')?"  Internet document, 31 March 1998.

7.  These issues have been raised, and sharply answered in the affirmative, by Schwartz, who subscribes to the belief that Wahhabism is a threat to all who believe in the principles of tolerance and pluralism.

8.  The lack of attention to Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's written works is in part due to the lack of access to his writings.  The research for this book was made possible by unprecedented access to these source materials generously provided by the King Abd al-Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as facilitated by its Director General, Dr. Fahd al-Semmari, and H.R.H. Faisal bin Salman.  The author is grateful for their assistance.  However, the author alone retains responsibility for the interpretations presented here.

9.  This characterization is contained in Schwartz, who goes so far as to refer to Ibn Abd al-Wahhab as a "bumpkin from an obscure village in a distant district nobody ever heard of" (Two Faces of Islam, 133), clearly rendering him incapable of appreciating the greatness of broader Islamic civilization and empires and making him "the first known exemplar of totalitarianism" (74).

10.  The most recent critical work making these assertions is Hamid Algar, Wahhabism: A Critical Essay (Oneonta, NY: Islamic Publications International, 2002), esp. 2-5.  However, the author admits that these impressions are based on only the source corpus of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's written works (14-7).  Algar's analysis is based on and limited to analysis of three theological treatises, Kitab al-Tawhid, Kashf al-Shubhat, and Three Essays on Tawhid (the latter was translated by Ismail Raji al-Faruqi and includes the previously mentioned treatises); Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's collection of hadith, four volumes entitled Muallafat al-Shaykh al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab: and Mahmud Shukr al-Alusi's Masa'il al-Jahiliyya.

11.  Schwartz, Two Faces of Islam, 67.

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From Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad by Natana DeLong-Bas, copyright 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. and used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.

Book Description
Before 9/11, few Westerners had heard of Wahhabism. Today, it is a household word. Frequently mentioned in association with Osama bin Laden, Wahhabism is portrayed by the media and public officials as an intolerant, puritanical, militant interpretation of Islam that calls for the wholesale destruction of the West in a jihad of global proportions. In the first study ever undertaken of the writings of Wahhabism's founder, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1702-1791), Natana DeLong-Bas shatters these stereotypes and misconceptions. [more]

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