Spotlighting a controversial brand of Islam

IT TAKES a courageous scholar - or a foolish one - to stand up against the collective tide of current thinking that regards Wahhabism as the strain of Islam that motivates many of today's Muslim terrorists.

But that is exactly what American Natana J. DeLong-Bas has done in her book, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival And Reform To Global Jihad (Oxford University Press, 2004).

A researcher at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding in Georgetown University, Washington, her study of the works of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, currently preserved in the King Abd al-Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives in Riyadh, leads her to the conclusion: Contrary to conventional belief - especially as portrayed in the Western media - the movement is not a radical departure from mainstream Islam.

Taken by themselves, Abd al-Wahhab's writings were devoid of the xenophobia, militancy, misogyny, extremism and literalism that are today typically associated with Wahhabism, she says.

THE LEADER

EARLIER scholars have described Abd al-Wahhab, a Muslim in 18th century Arabia, as the spiritual leader of a band of marauders who were given to book burning in the name of jihad - a holy war against those who did not share their absolute monotheism (tawhid). 

The charges against him: that he was obsessed with Islamic purity; and that he sought to restore Islam to its pristine state as practised in the 7th century by ridding it of centuries of juristic and theological development.

That band of brothers eventually founded what is today the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

But says Ms DeLong-Bas: 'The real Abd al-Wahhab was a well-trained and widely travelled scholar and jurist, as well as a prolific writer.'

His corpus included a collection of hadith (the sayings of Prophet Muhammad); his biography; a collection of fatwas (juridicial opinions); a series of exegetical commentaries on the Quran; several volumes of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh); and other varied works, including detailed discussion of jihad and the status of women.

Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792) was born in a town in the remote north-central desert of Saudi Arabia, a descendant of a prestigious family of Hanbali (one of the four Sunni schools of law) jurists and theologians.

He acquired his early groundings in religion and jurisprudence from his father, Abd al-Wahhab ibn Sulayman, who was the local qadi (judge). He spent some months, after a pilgrimage in Mecca, studying in Medina. As was the practice among students then, he also travelled widely to the knowledge hubs in present-day Iraq and Iran.

A RADICAL VIEW

ACCORDING to Ms DeLong-Bas, jihad as holy war was not one of Wahhabism's defining characteristics. 'If anything, its downplaying of jihad as holy war distinguished it from the independence movements of the 19th and 20th centuries (that sought) to shake off colonial overlords or respond to other aggression.'

In fact, she says, Abd al-Wahhab's 'emphasis on the importance of the preservation of life - human, plant and animal - and property, both human and material', led him to put severe restrictions on jihad: Muslims should resort to jihad only in instances where the enemy had behaved aggressively towards them first and then rejected the call to Islam.

In short, she says, the founder of Wahhabism was totally different from the person the modern world has come to know - a conclusion also shared by her mentor, Professor John L. Esposito, founder of the centre where Ms DeLong-Bas did her doctoral dissertation.

He told The Straits Times recently: 'There's a tendency today not to distinguish between what I would call your radical Wahhabis and simply a 'Wahhabi Islam' which is a very conservative interpretation of Islam but which is not necessarily radical.'

Extrapolating from her research, Ms DeLong-Bas argues that radicalism is not necessarily an offshoot of Wahhabism, and thus extremists like Osama bin Laden are not truly 'representative' of Wahhabism and Wahhabi beliefs.

The Wahhabi world view is in itself not prone to violence. But because it is very exclusivist, not very pluralistic, and can be very intolerant, that enables the violent extremist to take it and spin it - as Osama bin Laden did. But if Wahhabism doesn't explain Osama's world view, what does?

In Ms DeLong-Bas' view, the roots of Osama's beliefs lie in the teachings of 13th century Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyya (1268-1328), his disciple Ibn al-Qayyim al- Jawziyyah (1292-1350), and Ibn Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966).

Interestingly, none of them was an Arab: Ibn Taymiyya was born in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and Ibn al-Qayyim in Damascus, while Ibn Qutb was an Egyptian.

SANITIZING RECORD?

MS DELONG-BAS also points out that the teachings of the 18th century theologian must be seen in the context of his time. The 18th century was a time when revivalist movements of various types arose in a variety of locations, she says.

'Unlike the movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, which arose in response to external aggressions like European imperialism, or the desire for political independence, the movements of the 18th century arose largely in response to internal conditions. The most important of these was the perceived deterioration in Muslim beliefs and practices.'

Abd al-Wahhab's writings, she asserts, provide 'a vision that offers hope for the future'.

A fellow academic, British-born Hamid Algar - who now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Wahhabism: A Critical Essay (Islamic Publication International, 2002) - disagrees.

He told The Straits Times: 'She asserts without proof or demonstration that (the Wahhabi) movement was broadly typical of 18th century Islamic movements. I affirm, as I did briefly in my book, that it was an isolated, even aberrant phenomenon.'

In his book, a caustic critique of Wahhabism, Professor Algar says that the Wahhabi movement, as espoused by Abd al-Wahhab, was 'intellectually marginal' and 'does not occupy a particularly important place' in the rich history of Islamic thought.

He adds that Ms DeLong-Bas' focus on Abd al-Wahhab's writings also results 'in an excessively abstract, ahistorical presentation' of the Wahhabi ideologue. As a result, 'he is exculpated from the coercive acts he and his followers undoubtedly committed'.

He describes it as 'ludicrous' for Ms DeLong-Bas to assert that Abd al-Wahhab's primary emphasis was on peaceful persuasion and preaching, given the historical record of the movement.

Censuring Ms DeLong-Bas for 'sanitizing' the record, as he put it, he notes that she mentions the 1801 destruction, by Wahhabists, of a shrine famous as the burial place of the Prophet's grandson, Imam Husayn ibn Ali, in Karbala in southern Iraq, but leaves unsaid the massacre that accompanied it.

In his book, Prof Algar quotes a Saudi chronicler of the time, Uthman Abdullah Bishr, who said the marauding Wahhabis slew 2,000 people 'in the market and their homes'. Other accounts set the number at 4,000.

They also desecrated the grave of the imam.

Prof Algar notes that, while Ms DeLong-Bas 'has read and summarized some of the writings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, on matters of Islamic law, more than previous English-language writers on the subject, she fails to assess them critically.'

This he attributes to her lack of overall knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence. Her references on Islamic law were 'almost all in English', he notes.

SAUDI APOLOGETICS?

THERE are other reservations. Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl of the University of California at Los Angeles slams the book as part of 'Saudi apologetics'.

Indeed, Ms DeLong-Bas' detailed look at Wahhabism was financed by the Riyadh-based King Abd al-Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives, as she says in her preface. To the cynical, that would prove that the book's intellectual integrity was suspect.

But Prof Esposito explains that Ms DeLong-Bas was given only 'a limited amount of funding' that enabled her and her husband to travel to Saudi Arabia for a week or two. Researchers accept these grants all the time, he adds.

Perhaps, history will be the final judge of the worth of Ms DeLong-Bas' work. 

WHAT'S WAHHABISM

MUHAMMAD Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's central theological doctrine was tawhid, or absolute monotheism. Although monotheism's origin lies with Abraham, the common ancestor of Muslims, Jews and Christians alike, Abd al-Wahhab taught that absolute monotheism is the distinctive feature of Islam alone, writes Ms Natana DeLong-Bas.

He also believed that the doctrine of tawhid was diluted by such popular Muslim practices as requests for intercession by saints, and worship at holy tombs and shrines. To him, such practices amounted to idolatry, and made one an unbeliever and an apostate - a crime punishable by death.

This concern - some say obsession - with Islamic purity drove Abd al-Wahhab to seek to restore Islam in Arabia to its 'original' state, by ridding it of practices and beliefs added over the centuries.

For example, he sought to eliminate, by force if necessary, such developments as art, music, poetry and all humanistic fields of study, particularly philosophy.

Source: The Straits Times