A Conversation with
Natana DeLong-Bas, Author of Wahhabi Islam:
From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad
Question:
Who was
Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab?
Natana
DeLong-Bas: Muhammad
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was an eighteenth century Muslim scholar and
jurist who called for the reform of Islam by returning to the
fundamentals of the faith.
He was most famous for his call to absolute monotheism,
rejecting the idea of people or objects serving as
intermediaries with God. He
called upon all believers to study the Quran and Sunna (example
of the Prophet Muhammad) directly and individually and to apply
those teachings in both private and public life.
His vision of Islam included tolerance and respect for
Judaism and Christianity which, according to the teachings of
the Quran, enjoy a special relationship with Islam because they
share a common revelation as taught by the prophets, including
Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.
Question:
Is it the case
that Wahhabism has been transformed over the centuries into a
faith of fanatics and terrorists or that the West simply
perceives it this way?
DeLong-Bas:
Wahhabism took on a more militant stand after the death of Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab in part because of historical circumstances, which
resulted in different interpretations of his teachings.
Most notably, the writings of the medieval scholar Ibn
Taymiyya were incorporated into Wahhabi doctrine in order to
legitimize fighting against people who claimed to be Muslims.
Ibn Taymiyya taught that a leader who claimed to be a
Muslim but did not implement Islamic law as the law of the land
could not be considered a true Muslim and could therefore
legitimately be fought against. This teaching was important in Ibn Taymiyya’s context
because he lived under the rule of the Mongols who had forcibly
ended the Abbasid caliphate and started a new dynasty that
claimed to be Muslim but really implemented numerous Mongol
traditional and cultural laws.
The first Saudi dynasty incorporated this teaching into
Wahhabi doctrine at the turn of the nineteenth century for the
purpose of legitimizing armed conflict against the Ottoman
Empire in order to overtake the cities of Mecca and Medina.
This doctrine was then applied by extremists to the cases
of other Muslims who were not necessarily in positions of
political authority in accordance with Ibn Taymiyya’s division
of the world into two absolute spheres of Muslims and
non-Muslim.
The
impact of this application can be seen today in extremist
movements with a similar bipolar view of the world.
However, this vision was completely absent from Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab’s own writings and was not part of Wahhabism as it
was originally founded. It
is further not part of Wahhabism as it is practiced in
contemporary Saudi Arabia.
It is a worldview limited to extremist minorities.
Question:
Are there any Wahhabis today?
How large are their numbers?
DeLong-Bas:
Saudi scholars today are working to reclaim the best of their
Wahhabi heritage. Today,
they are giving increased attention to issues like consideration
of public interest (maslahah) in the interpretation of
Islamic law. The
position of women is being seriously discussed and reconsidered,
as are calls for tolerance and dialogue.
Extremism and violence have been consistently denounced
as not being part of Wahhabism or Islam.
Extremists who call for a literal interpretation of Islam
and deny women their rights, such as in the case of the Taliban,
are not Wahhabis.
Question:
Is Osama bin Laden a Wahhabi?
DeLong-Bas:
It is true that bin Laden was born and raised in Saudi Arabia
and that he would have been exposed to certain Wahhabi
teachings. However,
his declaration of a global jihad; absolute division of
the world into Muslims versus infidels; failure to respect the
classical limitations of jihad that forbid the killing of
civilians, women, children, the elderly, the handicapped, and
religious leaders (including rabbis and monks); the destruction
of property; and annihilation of the purported enemy are not
based on Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings.
Such a militant, extremist and intolerant vision of the
world reflects a jihadi mentality and has no basis
whatsoever in Wahhabism as it was originally taught.
Question:
What is the future of Wahhabi Islam?
Can it ever recover from the negative aspects that have
been attributed to it?
DeLong-Bas:
The future of Wahhabi Islam is one of hope.
The reclaiming of the true heritage of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab
can be expected to lead to a more tolerant, flexible, and gender
balanced interpretation of Islam that encourages dialogue and
education and denounces terrorism and extremism.
Recovering from the negative aspects that have been
attributed to it will require two steps:
the reclaiming of the true Wahhabi heritage as is
evidenced throughout current reforms in the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia today, and the willingness of outsiders -- particularly
in the West -- to look at Saudi society as a whole, rather than
allowing the actions of a handful of militant extremists to
define a nation that has already rejected them as aberrant.
In
depth ..
Question:
Long before the events of September 11, 2001, Wahhabism was
associated with violence and intolerance.
However, as you detail in Wahhabi Islam, Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab was in fact a peaceful man who advocated understanding
and equality. How
do you account for this discrepancy?
DeLong-Bas:
Historically, Wahhabism has been accused of violence and
intolerance by a variety of Muslims, particularly Shiis and the
Ottoman Empire. Wahhabism
was begun as a reform movement seeking to return to the
fundamentals of Islam, namely the Quran and Sunna, and to do
away with foreign and superstitious practices that were not
originally part of Islam. Its
reformist approach led some to oppose it, often because they
felt their own bases of power and prestige were threatened.
In the cases of the Shiis and the Ottoman Empire, the
negative perceptions were due to armed conflicts in which
military forces claiming adherence to Wahhabism fought against
and were victorious over their opponents.
The
Ottomans and the Wahhabis came into armed conflict over control
of the cities of Mecca and Medina at the turn of the nineteenth
century. The loss
of the two holiest cities of Islam by the Ottomans represented
the loss of the heart of their claim to religious legitimacy.
The Ottomans therefore declared war against the Wahhabi
“infidels” and crushed them in 1818.
Because the Ottomans had experienced such a blow to their
own religious prestige, they vilified those who were responsible
for overtaking the holy cities as being outside of the faith.
However, the historical record also shows that the
Wahhabis provided stronger security and protection to pilgrims
from all lands coming for the Hajj and eliminated numerous
sources of corruption, thus fulfilling the responsibilities of
the caretakers of the holy cities.
Shii
opposition is related to the sacking of Najaf and Karbala in
1802 by extremist Wahhabi forces.
In this case, Wahhabi forces destroyed Shii shrines in
these two major centers of Shiism and massacred the inhabitants
out of an extreme adherence to absolute monotheism that viewed
shrine and tomb veneration as impinging on God’s uniqueness
and resulted in a view that anyone participating in such
activities was a polytheist.
This horrific incident has, for Shiis, defined the
relationship between Shiism and Wahhabism ever since.
However, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s own writings do not call
for the extermination of Shiism or the massacre of Shiis.
He taught that dialogue, discussion and debate were the
appropriate means of addressing people with whom one disagreed
over religious issues.
Both
the Ottoman and Shii conflicts occurred after the death of Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab. Both
were further related to the state consolidation activities of
the first Saudi dynasty. These
events have come to be considered representative of Wahhabism
historically because the historical accounts of their opponents
have dominated the record and defined the movement according to
these events, rather than according to the interpretation of
Islam preached and taught by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab.
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s writings have not been widely
available up until now, particularly not in a Western language,
which has complicated understanding of his teachings.
Wahhabi
Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad
By Natana J. DeLong-Bas
 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]
Click
here
for ordering information.
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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