Wahhabi Islam:
From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad, by Natana J.
DeLong-Bas
Publisher's Book Summary
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 western media and public officials
as an intolerant, puritanical, militant interpretation of Islam
that calls for wholesale destruction of the West in a jihad of
global proportions.
In
the first study every undertaken of the writings of
Wahhabism’s founder, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1702-1791),
Natana DeLong-Bas shatters these stereotypes and misconceptions.
Her reading of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s works produces a
revisionist thesis: Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab was not the godfather of contemporary terrorist
movements. Rather,
he was a voice of reform, reflecting mainstream
eighteenth-century Islamic thought.
His vision of Islamic society was based upon a monotheism
in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews were to enjoy peaceful
co-existence and cooperative commercial and treaty relations.
Eschewing medieval interpretation of the Quran and hadith
(sayings and deeds of the prophet Muhammad), Ibn Abd al-Wahhab
called for direct, historically contextualized interpretation of
scripture by both women and men.
His understanding of theology and Islamic law was rooted
in Quranic values, rather than literal interpretations.
A strong proponent of women’s rights, he called for a
balance of rights between women and men both within marriage and
in access to education and public space.
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In
the most comprehensive study of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s
interpretation of jihad ever written, DeLong-Bas details
a vision in which jihad is strictly limited to the
self-defense of the Muslim community against military
aggression. Modern
extremists do not have their origins in Wahhabism, she
shows. The focus on the cult of martyrdom, the division of the world
into two necessarily opposing spheres, the destruction
of both civilian life and property, and the call for
global jihad are entirely absent from Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s
writings. Instead,
the militant stance of contemporary Jihadism lies in
adherence to the writings of the medieval scholar, Ibn
Taymiyya, and the twentieth-century Egyptian radical,
Sayyid Qutb. |
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This
pathbreaking book fills an enormous gap in the literature about
Wahhabism by returning to the original writings of its founder.
Bound to be controversial, it will be impossible to
ignore.
Click
here
for ordering information.
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.
Natana
J. DeLong-Bas is a senior research assistant at the Center
for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University,
Washington, DC. She
is the author of Notable Muslims:
A Biographical Dictionary (2004) and co-author of Women
in Muslim Family Law, revised edition, with John L. Esposito
(2001). She has
served as editor for and contributor to The Oxford Dictionary
of Islam (OUP, 2003), and contributor to The Encyclopedia
of the Qur’an (2004) and The Encyclopedia of the
Islamic World (OUP, 2004). She is a frequent public speaker on Islam, Wahhabism and
Saudi Arabia.
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