A Brief Introduction to the Islamic Reformist Movement of Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab
Intellectuals in the West, and especially the United States, are frantically looking for the intellectual root cause or causes of what they call terrorism, especially in the Muslim world. Some of them now think that they have stumbled on that root cause; it is something called Wahabism. It is almost certain that the overwhelming majority of Westerners, even those who are concerned with the problem of terrorism, have never even heard of the word ‘Wahabism’. It is for the sake of such folks that this brief account is written. It attempts to give such readers a true picture of the teachings referred to as Wahabism so that they may see for themselves whether it has any special connection with what is now called terrorism.
But since terrorism is a vague term on whose meaning there is not even a shred of agreement, let us, for the sake of argument, define it in a way that is acceptable to those who are looking for its root cause in the Muslim world. Terrorism, then, is any act of unjustified violence. A terrorist would then be any individual or country that commits such an act or, in the case of countries, even harbor its perpetrators. Is Wahabism related in any way to this crime? The best way to give an informed answer to this question is to have a comprehensive view of Wahabism: the life of its founder, his teachings, his struggle against opponents, and his achievements.
Wahhabism
Wahhabism is the name given by the opponents, even enemies of Sheikh Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab to his teachings. Neither he nor those who agreed with him called his teachings by that name, for the simple reason that neither he nor they believed that he came with a new ideology or philosophy or established a heretical sect. The only thing that he believed he was doing was to teach people the fundamentals of their religion as they are stated in very clear terms in the Qur’an (the true word of God) and the Sunnah (the sayings and practices of Prophet Muhammad). He did not even claim that he came with any new understanding or interpretation of those Divine words. In explaining them he followed in the footsteps of all the earlier famous scholars of Islam whom people know and trust, but of whose teachings many came to be ignorant.
The Active Reformer [1]
Who was this man the danger of whose teachings the West has suddenly discovered three hundred years after his birth (in 1703)? He was born in the small village of Uyayna, in Najd, the eastern region of what is now Saudi Arabia. His biographers tell us that even as a child he was not only very religious but also very intelligent and eloquent. He memorized all of the Qur’an before he was ten. Even with the little knowledge that he had as a young man of twelve, he could see the great divergence between what he learnt and what was happening in his society. He did not like the passive attitude of the scholars of his village, and started advocating the true religion, which he came to know. Finding no good response in his village, he migrated to the Western part of Saudi Arabia, called Hijaz, to perform hajj and to acquire more knowledge. Having achieved what he had traveled for, he went back to his town to continue his studies under his father.
He felt that his thirst for knowledge was not quenched by what he had already acquired under his father and the learned men in Hijaz, and decided therefore to make a trip to Iraq to meet more learned people and benefit from them. He arrived in Basra in 1724 where he met a great learned man who had the same feeling towards the sorry state of Muslims, and who, like the Sheikh, believed that something had to be done. Thus, while in Basra, the Sheikh did not confine himself to studying, but took an active part in fighting the many deviant innovations which had become for many people part of the Islamic religion, like the veneration of saints and their tombs. He did win some supporters, but his enemies were greater. These included an extremist Shi'ah sect that was famous for those deviant practices, which he considered to be forms of worship that contradicted the basic Islamic doctrine that no one except the one true God should be worshipped. He was forced by these deviant groups, under threat of death, to leave Basra. After a very difficult journey he went back to join his father in his new town of Huraymila in Najd, in about 1727, to continue his program of studying, teaching and preaching for about fifteen years. News of the Sheikh and his activities started to spread, especially because of the many messages he was in the habit of sending to important personalities: learned people, rulers and anyone in a position of leadership. As a result, people started to flock to his town to express their approval and acceptance of his teachings, to know more about them, and to take part in the endeavor of spreading them. It was during this time that he wrote his most important and popular pamphlet, The Book of Tawheed (monotheism) That is God’s Right Against His Servants. But again the Sheikh was met with very strong opposition, and again he had, under threat of death, to leave the town and go back to his home-town, al Uyayna. He was welcomed and encouraged by the Prince of this town, a certain Uthman ibn Maamar, who accepted his teachings and became a strong supporter. To strengthen his bond with the Sheikh he gave him his paternal aunt in marriage. As a ruler, and in cosultation with the Sheikh, he started to promulgate the Shari'ah; he adhered very strongly to the Islamic principles of justice, and began to remove all remnants of injustices, and fight and punish criminals. News of all this spread in Arabia, as a result of which many rulers began to see in him a potential danger to their power. One of these was the ruler of Ahsa, Sulayman al Muhammad who wrote to Maamar telling him to either kill Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab or send him out of his city. Maamar could not afford to refuse because he used to depend economically on this Sulayman. So he told the Sheikh that there was no way for him to disobey Sulayman, and asked him in a polite way to leave. Thus after four years in his home-town he chose to go to the town of Dir’iya. It was natural for the Prince of Dir’iya, Muhammad Ibn Saud to hesitate in welcoming such a dangerous person in his land. But his wife, Moodhi, who had accepted the Sheikh’s teachings, persuaded her husband not only to allow him to stay, but to show great respect for him by going and visiting him at the house where he was staying. He did so, and gave the Sheikh the good news that he was to be highly respected and defended in his new abode. The Sheikh thanked him and gave him a summary of what he was calling people to. The ruler accepted and gave him allegiance that he would defend the truth (monotheism) and work against polytheism, and that he would adhere to God’s religion by enforcing the Shari'ah, inviting to what is good and prohibiting what is evil, and cooperate in defending it by the sword against those who waged war against it. Thus the pact was completed between the strong leader of a great movement, and the strong ruler of an important city in the region of Najd in Arabia. And it was as a result of this noble alliance that, in 1746, the modern state of Saudi Arabia was born, and its distinguishing characteristics defined.
Followers of the Sheikh in different parts of Arabia started to migrate to Dir’iya, which soon became like the religious, political and military capital of the region. Having settled peacefully in his new home, the Sheikh started to devote himself to his main vocation: teaching and writing. He offered regular courses for the inhabitants of his new town on the fundamentals of the religion, biography of Prophet Muhammad, and his method of conveying his message. In the meantime, he wrote a number of his books.
Having accomplished all this in Dir’iya, he felt that it was his duty now to make efforts to spread the message among Muslims in other towns and cities. To that effect, he began to send messages to princes, judges, and learned people inviting them to come back to true tawheed, to worship none but the One True Creator, Allah, answering questions about what he stood for, and denying what was falsely and maliciously attributed to him.
Seeing that his enemies did not confine themselves to passive opposition but engaged in propaganda warfare and were actually preparing to attack him and his followers militarily, he had no choice but to call his followers to jihad. These wars continued long after the Sheikh’s death in 1792. The ultimate outcome of these armed conflicts was the unification of the numerous emirates that existed at that time into one great country, the present Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The task of this ultimate unification was to be undertaken by one of the great descendants of Muhammad Ibn Saud: King Abdul Aziz.
The Great Teacher
His Method of Interpreting Religious Texts
There are natural and rational pieces of evidence supporting religious truth. But the main sources for this truth are textual: a book believed to be the word of God, as well as the explanations of that book given by the Prophet with whom that book was sent so as to convey it to other people. How can we find the truth contained in those words? This is similar to the question of how to find the truth in the book of nature. The answer agreed on for the latter is to follow the scientific method. Is there a similar method for discovering the truth which the texts express? Muslim scholars believe there is.
This ‘scientific’ method consists, in essence, in giving the words and expressions of the speaker the meanings usually intended by them in the language that he uses and the context in which they occur. This is what people do most of the time whether they are dealing with everyday speech among themselves, or with the written words of natural or social scientists, philosophers, economists, politicians, and others, because it is only in this way that language can perform its function as a medium of communication. People consider it dishonest to give the words of a speaker meaning that they do not convey. Religious texts, even those attributed to God, are no exception, because God speaks to us in the human language that we understand. This fact is very much emphasized in the Qur’an. We are told that the language of this book is Arabic, and that it was expressed in this language so that the human beings to whom it was first addressed may understand it. [2] To understand what the words of the speaker mean in the language that he uses, and then intentionally attribute to him meanings that his words do not convey, is to commit a great act of dishonesty, especially if the speaker is God Himself. If one does not believe in or like what one finds in a religious book that claims to be the word of God, one must be honest and courageous, and declare one’s rejection of that religion. God warns Muslims against this kind of dishonesty, which He calls tahreef, corruption of God’s statements. He tells us that some of the People of the book (Jews and Christians) were in the habit of doing this with God’s revealed words, and advises us not to follow their way. [3] (But it must be admitted that some so-called Muslims nevertheless do just that)
In his understanding of Islamic religious texts, Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab adopted the rational and scientific method. But even in this he was not an innovator; he followed in the way of the great leaders of the ahl-assunna school. Those who do not like this natural way of interpreting religious texts call it literalism, and thus condemn the Sheikh as being a literalist. Now, if by literalist is meant one who always sticks to what is called the literal meanings of words and expressions irrespective of their context, one who does not acknowledge the fact that words and expressions can sometimes be used figuratively, then neither the Sheikh nor any sensible person can be a literalist. The Sheikh, like all the Sunni scholars before him, gives words and phrases the meanings that the context determines. Some of those meanings can be what people call figurative. All that some Sunni scholars, like Ibn Taymiya, claim is that since the so-called figurative meanings are what the context determines, they are also real meanings. It is therefore, wrong, they say, to confine the meaning of real to the literal. And so just as it is wrong to give the literal words of a speaker figurative meaning, it is equally wrong to give figurative expressions literal meanings.
For some people with a relativistic bent, all ways of interpreting religious expressions are equally good. But they would not apply that rule to their own words. This, anyway, is a misguided way of interpreting speech, because it renders language useless as a means of communication which is its main function. It must be emphasized, however, that following the right method is no guarantee, neither in science nor in religion, against making mistakes. Its great advantage over whimsical and subjective ways of interpretation is that it lessens those mistakes, and makes it possible to correct them. Those who follow it come to similar conclusions most of the time, and even when they differ they can settle their differences or at least argue over them in a rational way.
Many Western writers do not like what they call the Wahabist interpretation of Islam because it stands in the way of what they urge Muslims to do: reinterpret their religion to make it compatible with the prevailing contemporary Western culture. How can a book be a book of Divine guidance if God is made to say what people want Him to say according to the cultural whims of their times and places? Is that not the worst kind of self-deception? If you are convinced (independently of what a holy book says) that the prevailing culture of your time is the only culture that suits that time, why then do you not just follow it? Why do you deceive yourself and pretend that in following it you are in fact following Divine guidance?
His Qualities as a Teacher
The mark of a good teacher is to pay close attention to the nature of the students, and to have the ability to address each type of student in the most appropriate manner. ‘Ali, the fourth caliph after the Prophet, is reported to have said, "Speak to people in a way they can understand. Do you want them to disbelieve God and His Prophet?"[4]
i. ‘Abd Al-Wahhab heeded that advice to the maximum and had the ability to put it into practice. Thus, whenever he wrote to scholars outside his Bedouin community – in Iraq, say – he would use classical Arabic of a high quality; but when he addressed his own people, even in writing, he would use very simple language, and would not even hesitate to use colloquial words and expressions that better convey his meaning to them. This persistent attention to the importance of conveying his message in a manner appropriate to his audience comes out very clearly in the fact that though he had the highest respect for a man like Ibn Taymiyyah, and though he very often quoted him extensively, his style was very different from his. Ibn Taymiyah had lived in Damascus at a time when it was teeming with philosophers, philosophical theologians, Sufis, Christian and Jewish scholars, scientists, and the like. But Ibn ‘Abd Al-Wahhab lived in a simple cultural milieu where there was no such erudition. He therefore steered clear of Ibn Taymiyah's style. While Ibn Taymiyah resorted to elaborate, and in many cases rational, arguments to buttress and defend Qur’anic teachings on theological matters, ‘Abd Al-Wahhab was mostly content with religious evidence. He avoided the subject of philosophical theology altogether. With the exception of his personal letters, his style is legalistic, concise, and somewhat terse.
ii. Leaders of social reform movements usually come with ideas with which people are not familiar, and are therefore prone to encounter challenge, criticism and opposition. While the leader and the elite around him might be able to defend their new thinking in the face of this opposition, the rank and file of the movement cannot do so. But the movement consists mainly of these common people, and the opposition might adopt a strategy of defying and embarrassing them by asking them questions they cannot answer, in the hope of weakening their hold on those new beliefs, and thus weakening the movement. This happened to ‘Abd Al-Wahhab's followers, and he realized the importance of giving these people confidence in themselves and arming them with simple arguments they could understand and use effectively, even against people who were much more learned than they were. He encouraged them not to be intimidated by people who were known to be more learned than they because even a learned person is weak so long as he is on the side of falsehood, and a layperson is strong so long as he adheres to the truth. To this end, he divided arguments for them into two categories: general arguments which even a lay person could use to answer any objection, and specific answers to the most commonly raised questions
iii. He did not confine himself to speaking in general terms, or merely stating what the Qur’an or the Prophet said, but was in the habit of giving examples from actual life of deviations from Divine guidance. It was this that stirred many of the common people against him. It was easy for such deviant people to accept the fact, for example that only God should be invoked, and that invoking other than Him was a violation of the testimony that Allah alone is to be worshipped. It was too much for them, however, to be told that this applies to their invoking saint so-and-so. But then it was only by telling them this that they would understand and, hopefully, change their ways.
iv. He constantly reminded his students of the important fact that it was not enough to learn and be convinced; one must act upon the truth one comes to know. One must have a very clear and practical standpoint against adversaries and enemies of that truth. This was very important especially at the time when the movement was engaged in actual combat with those enemies and adversaries.
v. While he, like all the great leaders of the Sunni school, had great respect for the earlier generations of great leaned people, he never followed any one of them in everything he said, but was in the habit of going by the evidence. And he himself was treated in this way by learned men of his own school who had great respect for him; they also dared to differ with him when the evidence seemed to them not to be on his side.
vi. The Sheikh concentrated on religious evidence, as I said before, but he did not neglect to use very simple and clear rational arguments, especially those that have a basis in the Qur’an. We will see a good example of this in the next section.
His Teachings
The Sheikh was a teacher of almost all the Islamic sciences. He wrote some commentaries on the Qur’an; he dealt with the science of hadith; he wrote on the biography of the Prophet; he described the proper ways of performing acts of worship like prayer; he expressed his opinion on detailed matters of fiqh (Islamic rulings); he emphasized the importance of good manners, and so on. However, the one thing to which he devoted most of his time and energy, and which gave his movement its defining characteristics and earned him the title of mujaddid, (renewer or reformer) was the question of tawheed, (the fact that God alone should be worshipped.) We will therefore concentrate on this topic in the brief summary of his teachings that we give below.
This man devoted himself, as we said, to urging Muslims to go back to the true fundamentals of their religion, from which there was a general deviation in almost all the Islamic world, especially at his time. Now the most fundamental of those fundamentals is the belief expressed in words that are on the lips of every Muslim almost all the time: la ilaha illah allah, muhammadur-rasoolu-lah, there is no god (worthy of worship except Allah) and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab saw that although everyone uttered those words, very few of them understood what they really meant and what they implied. He was once asked to explain the meaning of la ilaha il-la allah, and replied by saying that what is meant is not just to say it without understanding its meaning; even hypocrites say it. So to be a true Muslim one must know what it means and one must love it. The Prophet described the Muslim as one who says it sincerely. The expression ‘There is no god to be worshiped except Allah’ consists of negation and affirmation. It denies uloohiy-ya, the right to be worshipped, to anyone other than Allah; not even Prophets, including Prophet Muhammad, have that right; and not even Angels, including the Archangel Gabriel, have that right. It affirms it to God only. This is the message of all true Prophets of God. He then explained that this right to be worshipped was exactly what people of his time attributed to some persons whom they believed to be saints. True, they did not call any of them ilah, god, but they believed them to be capable of doing things that only God can in fact do, and believed them therefore to be worthy of being feared and depended upon. They believed that their help and power was to be invoked and that they could be taken as intermediaries between them and God.
If you want to have full understanding of this, he says, remember that the Arabs whom the Prophet considered to be kafirs (deniers of truth) did believe not only in the existence of God, but believed Him to be the only rab (one who creates, provides, brings life and causes death, and the only one who runs the affairs of the world). They also used to pray, make pilgrimage, and abstain from certain unlawful matters for fear of God; but nothing of this caused them to be counted among the Faithful.[5]
Allah says;
“To every nation We sent a Messenger (to tell them): worship none but God, and keep away from tagoot[6] (false gods)” [Qur'an, 16:36]
To be a true believer, one must therefore deny such false gods and believe that it is wrong to worship them. One must hate this kind of worship and consider those who practice it as unbelievers. A tagoot (false god) is anyone (or anything) that is worshipped besides God, and who approves of being so worshipped. There are many such false gods, but the topmost are five:
a. Satan, who invites people to worship gods other than Allah. Allah says:
“Did I not enjoin you, O children of Adam, not to worship Satan? He is your manifest enemy” [Qur'an, 36:60].
b. The unjust ruler who alters God’s legislation. Allah says,
“Do you not see those who claim that they believe in what has been sent down to you and what was sent down before you, but who wish to go to the tagoot – whom they have been ordered to reject – for judgment? (Such are the people whom) Satan wishes to lead far astray” [Qur'an, 4:60]
c. One who does not rule or judge according to Divine legislation. Allah says
“And those who do not rule (or judge) by what Allah sent down are unbelievers.
[Qur'an, 5:44].
d. Any one who claims to know ghayb (that which is beyond the reach of human beings) Allah says that:
He is “the knower of ghayb; He does not reveal His ghayb to any except the one who He chooses to be His Messenger.” [Qur'an, 72:26-7]
e. A person who approves of being worshipped. Allah says,
“And any one of them who says, ‘I am god other than God’ We shall recompense him with hellfire; it is thus that We recompense the evil-doers.” [Qur'an, 21:29]
And remember: a person does not become a believer in God unless he rejects the tagoot. Allah says,
“And those who reject the tagoot and have faith in God are the ones who have held fast to the strong handhold that never breaks, and Allah is the All-Hearer and All-Knower.” [Qur'an, 2:256]
This kind of talk about one’s religion is now unfashionable in the West. Many Western intellectuals and politicians, as well as those who have been influenced by them in other parts of the world, including the Muslim world, tend to think that it is this kind of attitude towards religion that is at the basis of what they call extremism, and even terrorism. To live in modern pluralistic societies one has to be tolerant towards other religions, they say. But one cannot be tolerant, they think, if one believes that his religion is the only true one. One who holds such a belief about one’s religion is bound to condemn other religions and ideologies as being false, and as such, of not being worthy of love or even respect. Some even go to the extent of claiming that if you believe that your adversary is on the side of falsehood, then you have to believe that it is legitimate for you to take his life.[7] How do we respond to these claims?
First, there is no way of avoiding questions of truth and falsehood. It is impossible for a believer in the relativity of truth to be consistent. And anyway, the fact is that the overwhelming majority of human beings are believers in the possibility of distinguishing truth from falsehood. So if one believes that what one holds is the truth, one has to believe that its contradictory is falsehood. As to religion in particular, it cannot, by its very nature be based on any kind of doubt. One cannot say that one believes in God, just in case there might be one, or that one believes in Muhammad just in case that what he claims might be true. Any such doubt about one’s religion, whether it is harbored in the heart or expressed in words disqualifies a person for being a believer. But fortunately, it is not impossible to condemn a person’s belief as being false, and yet tolerate the one who holds that belief and even treat him well. This, in fact, is what the Qur’an urges Muslims to do.
Allah does not forbid you, concerning those (of the disbelievers) who do not fight you on account of your religion, and who do not force you to leave your homes, that you be good to them and treat them fairly; indeed Allah loves those who are fair. [Qur'an, 60:8]
Islam allows Muslim men to marry Christian and Jewish women in spite of the fact that it describes the claim that God had a child as the most abominable blasphemy. Is there a contradiction in this? By no means. Such a belief is necessarily hateful to a Muslim, but it is the duty of Muslims to do their best to deliver people from such false beliefs. They cannot however, force them to accept the true belief because the Qur’an tells them that there is no compulsion in religion. Belief is something that one has to voluntarily choose. But one way of persuading people to see the truth is to treat them nicely and generously and be sincere in wishing for them to be delivered from error.
As to the question of love and hate, it is obvious that these are feelings of which no human being can be devoid. The question is therefore not whether it is good to love or hate; rather it is what to love and what to hate. It is unfair to hate someone for something over which he has no control, like his race or the color of his skin, or the shape of his body. It is also wrong to hate the truth and love falsehood. Muslims are urged to love the truth, especially the most important of all truths, namely that only God is worthy of being worshipped. By loving this truth one comes to naturally love those who accept it, and advocate it and defend it. It is equally natural to hate those who hate it and do their best to stand in its way.
Let us now go back to the Sheikh’s teachings. Some deviant theologians, he tells us, thought that to worship none but God, one must deny His attributes, because they mistakenly thought that to affirm attributes like seeing or hearing is to be an anthropomorphist. The fact, however, is that worshipping none but God cannot be complete without affirming Divine attributes. To worship none but God is to believe that He alone is the ma`bood (the one to be worshipped). But this is an attribute. And the fact that He alone is the ma`bood, implies that He alone is the All-Knowing and All-Powerful. These two attributes are the basis of all the other attributes, as Allah says,
It is Allah, Who created seven heavens, and of the earth the like thereof. His command descends among them that you may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah encompassed every thing in His knowledge. [Qur'an, 65:12][8]
The Sheikh reiterates the fact that his belief in the names and attributed of God is the belief of the ahl as-sun-na: that he believes in all the attributes of which God described himself in his Book, and in the words of His Prophet without corrupting their meanings or negating them. “I believe” he says, “that there is nothing like God, the All-Hearing and All-Seeing. I do not deny any of the attributes that He ascribed to Himself; I do not liken Him to any of His creation, nor do I believe His attributes to be similar to those of His creation. This is because no one has the same name as His, no one is equal to Him, nor is any one is His peer; He is not to be judged by comparison to His creation; He has better knowledge of Himself and of others, and He is more truthful, and better in speech.”[9]
The evidence for his (Muhammad’s) being the Messenger of God is based on reason and revelation. As for Revelation, the matter is clear. As for reason, the Qur’an draws attention to the fact that:
a. It does not become God to leave His creation without guidance in the form of orders and prohibitions. Allah draws attention to this in His saying,
“And they did not give Allah His due when they said that He never sent down any thing to any person.” [Qur'an, 6:91]
b. The person who claims that he is the Messenger of God must either be the best of human beings or the worst of them and the greatest liar. But the distinction between these is very easy. There are many ways by which it can be known. Allah draws attention to this by saying,
“Shall I tell you on whom do the devils descend? They descend on every great criminal liar.”[Qur'an, 26:221-22]
c. The testimony of the People of the Book according to what they find in their books, as Allah said,
“Allah is sufficient as a witness between you and me, and also those who have knowledge of the Books.” [Qur'an, 13:43]
d. The Qur’an, which is the greatest rational evidence. He challenged them to produce even a chapter like it, but they failed, and no one has since been able to produce any thing like it, in spite of the Prophet’s numerous enemies in every age.
e. The fact that God helps those who follow him even if they are the weakest of people.
f. And that he lets down his enemies and punishes them in this world even if they were the strongest and most numerous of people.[10]
g. The fact that Muhammad was not a literate person (he could neither write nor read) and that he did not receive knowledge from any learned person. No one even claimed that he was his mentor. But he nevertheless came with the knowledge included in earlier Divine Books, as God says,
“You never used to read a book or write it with your own right hand; (had it not been so) the falsehood mongers would have (found reason) to be suspicious” [Qur'an, 29:48]
His Adversaries
As one can see from this brief account of Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab’s life, he engaged in two kinds of activities: to call Muslims back to the true teachings of their religion of which they had become ignorant, and to lead a movement that would bring about a change in society according to the true teachings he was advocating. Each one of these activities engendered enemies for him: many of the common people did not like him for condemning some of their religious beliefs and practices as completely un-Islamic. People in positions of authority: rulers, tribal and religious leaders, and foreign powers, saw in his movement a threat to their interests. The motives of these two groups were entirely different, but there was nonetheless a kind of unholy alliance between them. People in positions of authority would not have cared a damn for his teachings had he been a mere professor of theology. But to be the leader of a movement that sought to use power to achieve its ends was a different matter. In their war against him, and to rally the support of the common people, they waged a nasty war of propaganda against his teachings, often accusing him of things he never said, nay, even vehemently denied. Thus in spite of the fact that the Sheikh never tired of emphasizing the fact that he was not an innovator but a follower, that he did not come with anything different from what the great leaders of the Sunni school stood for, that in matters of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) he was a follower of the Hanbalite school, and that he had no problem with people following other schools – in spite of all this, the unfair propaganda which continues until this day pictures him as a heretic. And it is this propaganda that some quarters in the West are now exploiting to wage their war against very ordinary Islamic activities, like the building of mosques and Qur’anic schools to which no Muslim, not even the most aggressive of the Sheikh’s enemies, would object.
Many movements, Islamic and non-Islamic, are very short-lived. The beliefs and thoughts on which they are based do not have a strong hold even on the minds of those who join the movement. So once they face adverse circumstances, or even when the special circumstances which induced them to first join the movement change, they leave it and forget about it. But the teachings of other movements continue to have their strong hold on generation after generation of its members. Such was definitely the case for Sheikh Abd Al-Wahhab’s movement.
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[1] Material in this section is mainly from, Sulayman Ibn Abdil Aziz al Hiqayil, hayatu –shaykh Muhammad Ibn Abdil-Wahab, and his true teachings, Riyadh, 1999, pp. 25-64.
[2] See verses like, 12:2; 41:3; 43:3.
[3] See for example: 4:46; 5:13: 5:41
[4] Fath al Bari, vol 1, p.127
[5] Mualafat al shaykh al imam Muhammad ibn Abdil Wahab, collected by Abdil Aziz and others, part one, pp 363-66, Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
[6] Tagoot comes from a word that means to exceed bounds. A tagoot is thus one who exceeds his bounds as a creation of God, and wants to be treated as god.
[7] Thus, referring to Muslims, President Clinton says in a lecture at George Town University on November, 7. 2002, a “We are incapable of ever having the whole truth. They believe they got it. Because we don't believe you can have the whole truth, we think everybody counts and life is a journey. Hopefully we get wiser as we make this journey, and we learn from each other, and we think everybody ought to be entitled to make the journey. They believe that because they have the truth you either share their truths or you don't. If you're not a Muslim, you're an infidel. If you are and you don't agree with them, you're a heretic, and you're legitimate target.
[8] Al durar as-saniya, vol 2, pp.111-13
[9] Ibid, vol 1, pp. 29-30.
[10] Majmoo’at ar-rasael wa-l masael an-najdiya, vol 4, pp. 28-9.
