Why Identify Islamist Terrorists With Wahhabi Ideology, Ask New Age Islam Readers

Dear Mr. Sadaf, You are spot on: “New Age Islam takes the name of Wahhabis, only to push the silent and peaceful Wahhabis to take a stand and oppose these people ... being violent.” I wish some other intellectuals on the site also had the sense to understand this. I am quoting you from another thread. Your comment is being quoted in full below along with some other comments to provide a perspective.

 

Wahhabism has been spread aggressively since the 1744 pact between Muhammad bin Saud and Muhammad ibn ʿAbdul Wahhab which marked the emergence of the first Saudi state. But even before that Mohammad Abdul Wahhab had started implementing his perverted ideas of stoning women to death and destroying Islamic heritage buildings with the help of Uthman ibn Mu'ammar, the ruler of his native village Uyayna in Najd. He had personally organised the stoning of a woman accused of committing adultery a la Taliban and Boko Haram in our times. Even before meeting Ibn-e-Saud he had destroyed the grave of Zayd ibn al-Khattab, a companion of Prophet Muhammad (saw), whose shrine was revered by the local population. After the pact with Ibn-e-Saud, of course, a wave of killings and destruction of Islamic heritage sites started.

 

So aggressive Wahhabi preaching and practice of forcible conversion to Wahhabism (which was considered synonymous with Islam, as Wahhabis do not consider non-Wahhabis Muslim), killing of those who did not convert, and destruction of Islamic heritage has been going on for almost 300 years. Wahhabis consider themselves non-sectarian, as they want only their sect to remain. Once all Muslims are forced to convert to Wahhabism or killed, sectarianism will vanish. Mohammad Ibn-e-Abdul Wahhab’s mentor Ibn-e-Taimiyya was violently opposed to the idea of different people interpreting Quran in their own way. He just wanted his own interpretation to prevail.

 

However, petrodollar has given the spread of Wahhabism an immense impetus. It has been there for quite some time (discovery of oil in 1938 and large-scale exploitation after World War II), but the volume of petrodollar quadrupled all of a sudden at the end of 1973 following the Arab-Israeli war of October 1973. And since then the crude oil prices have been spiralling much to the detriment of peaceful, inclusive Islam.

 

So you are not wrong in linking the declaration of Ahmediyas as non-Muslim in Pakistan in 1974 to the profusion of petrodollars which started flowing madly in several places including Pakistan from early months of the same year. The Arabs just did not know then what to do with so much money all of a sudden. Henry Kissinger went into overdrive, teaching them how to give back the money to the West, implementing his policy called “recycling of petrodollars”. In Kissinger’s recycling Arab Bedouins technically possessed all the money but had to spend it in buying enormous amounts of weapons, (that they didn’t need and which Americans continue to use), and in losing millions overnight in the casinos of the West, to which Wahhabi grand muftis do not object as this is part of their 1744 pact.

 

However, the West did not object to Saudis massively increasing the volume of money they spend on indoctrination of Muslims around the world into Wahhabi ideology and forcing them to adopt seventh century Arab cultural norms and practices like stoning women to death if they dared to show the slightest amount of independence. All that happens in Saudi Arabia in terms of treatment of women or happened in Afghanistan under Taliban (and probably will happen again) was a manifestation of Wahhabi ideology in action. The West did not object because Wahhabism had helped them defeat the last Muslim Khilafat, Turkish Khilafat-e-Osmania, and would (they apparently hope) help them destroy Islam finally, something crusaders had failed to do in the absence of Wahhabism. Have you noticed the reverence with which Wahhabism is treated in the Western media: they call it a puritan sect. This leniency towards Wahhabism continues even after 9/11 in which 16 out of 19 terrorists were Saudi Wahhabis and the rest Egyptians schooled in Wahhabi ideology.

 

According to this ideology, Muslims should never befriend non-Muslims including those Muslims who are not yet Wahhabi. There is a reason why the West is helping Saudi Wahhabism’s latest project: to install Al-Qaeda dictatorship in all erstwhile secular Muslim dictatorships. Have you not noticed the Wahhabi demand in largest-circulated Pakistani newspapers: “Kafirs (Shias) convert to Islam (Wahhabism), or pay jizya, or leave the country, or be responsible for being killed, your women being made concubines of your Wahhabi killers, and children being enslaved by them.”  This is not just a demand: it is being implemented.

 

If this is also the ideology of people who go in the name of Bareilvism, or Sufism, I have no hesitation whatsoever condemning them. I have no information of Sufi/Bareilvis emulating Wahhabis in the practice of intolerance, exclusivism, supremacism as a group. Wahhabised individuals from these sects too maybe doing things which, of course, we will always condemn. I see no occasion, AT THE MOMENT, to go after Sufi/Bareilwis. Even if some of them are worshipping graves, that is a manifestation of their personal belief system. But as long as they are not forcing others to worship graves, I have no reason to condemn them. If I don’t like that I will speak and write about that, even address them personally as long as they are willing to listen, but not force them to listen to me and do as I do.

 

In their bid to prove that not just its Wahhabi interpretation, but Islam itself is an intolerant, violent, supremacist religion, Messrs. Naseer Ahmed and Mohd Yunus (Rational) are hunting for quotations from Sufis and Bareilwis. I am glad they are doing that. This will increase our knowledge. It will correct some of our perspectives. It has at least, sown doubts in my mind about the personality of Mujaddid Alf-e-Saani and told me that he was not a Sufi buzurg as he did not believe in wahdat al wajood. I already know about the takfiri ideas of Ahmed Reza Bareilwi and condemn them. I have called for all kafir-manufacturing factories to be closed, not just Deobandi, and reiterate that position. But there is a gulf of difference between present-day Wahhabis and others in terms of their practices. If my house is on fire, I will first fight the fire and those who continue to light it. Once I have extinguished the fire and survived, I will think of other issues. These other issues maybe far more important, but I cannot focus on them until I am under attack.

 

Qabr parasti is vastly exaggerated issue. Very very few Muslims are jahil enough to consider any saint God; they just request them to do sifarish with God, so they are not actually worshipping those saints. However, some of their practices do create the impression that they are worshipping: they go too far beyond showing legitimate reverence. But should they be killed for this and the shrine itself destroyed?

 

Anyone who simply wants to stay away from qabr parasti can do that without identifying oneself with Wahhabism. It’s not Wahhabis alone who abhor such jahilaana practices. Wahhabis alone, however, kill and destroy and force people to follow them. This is why they have to be opposed. As you said, Dear Mr. Sadaf: “New Age Islam takes the name of Wahhabis, only to push the silent and peaceful Wahhabis to take a stand and oppose these people.” If I may add a word, New Age Islam is not happy to do that. We do that with a very heavy heart. Only because it has to be done. At least we feel so. We may be wrong. But we feel that the time for pussyfooting is long past. Pakistan is a gone case. But Indian Muslims may perhaps be brought back from the brink. The total Indian Muslim silence over West Bengal Muslims demonstrating in support of Bangladeshi war criminals has shaken me up. Until today I haven’t heard a single voice of dissent, except, of course, a few on New Age Islam. I hope there is still time for us Indian Muslims.

Author's Note

The Author has been write in the field of Islamic World News.