Wahhabism

“ The Hijaz and some sea-ports, such as Jedda and others, are at present absolutely under the Turkish Government; while Bahrein, Oman and its capital Muscat, and Yaman are more or less independent. Between Nejd and Syria a new and promising kingdom has sprung up under Telal.
The time perhaps may come, and perhaps not far distant, when the Turks will disappear altogether from Arabia, and Wahhabism and independent tribes will alone remain. Another Muhammad or another Abdul Wahhab may some day again appear, and bring together the tribes under one rule for a time. ”

“ The Wahabi state founded by Abd-el-Wahab in the Nejd was modelled on the theocratic democracy of the Meccan caliphs, and when Abd-el-Wahab's princely disciple, Saud, loosed his fanatic hosts upon the holy cities, he dreamed that this was but the first step in a puritan conquest and consolidation of the whole Moslem world. Foiled in this grandiose design, Wahabism, nevertheless, soon produced profound political disturbances in distant regions like northern India and Afghanistan, as I have already narrated. ”

“ And, in religion, as in politics, the desert Arabs kept the faith of their fathers. Scornfully rejecting the corruptions of decadent Islam, they held fast to the simple theology of primitive Islam, so congenial to their Arab natures.
Into this atmosphere of an older and better age, Abd-el-Wahab was born. Displaying from the first a studious and religious bent, he soon acquired a reputation for learning and sanctity. Making the Meccan pilgrimage while still a young man, he studied at Medina and travelled as far as Persia, returning ultimately to the Nejd. ”

“ WAHHĀBIS, a Mahommedan sect, the followers of Ibn ‛Abd ul-Wahhāb, who instituted a great reform in the religion of Islam in Arabia in the 18th century. Mahommed ibn ‛Abd ul-Wahhāb was born in 1691 (or 1703) at al-Ḥauţa of the Nejd in central Arabia, and was of the tribe of the Bani Tamīm. He studied literature and jurisprudence of the Hanifite school. After making the pilgrimage with his father, he spent some further time in the study of law at Medina, and resided for a while at Isfahan, whence he returned to the Nejd to undertake the work of a teacher. ”

“ The Wahabi would wage, if they dared, perpetual war not only against the infidel, but against such perverted individuals as those who go to worship at Mecca and other sacred shrines. The founder of this revival is reported to have beaten his sons to death for drinking wine, and to have made his daughters support themselves by spinning, but at the same time he felt himself entitled to give to a fanatical follower, who courted death for his sake, an order for an emerald palace and a large number of female slaves in the world to come. ”

“ They look to the good old days of early Islam and try to restore them.
The first is that of the Wahhabites, so called from Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (Slave of the Bountiful) , its founder, a native of Najd in central Arabia, who died in 1787. His aim was to bring Islam back to its primitive purity and to do away with all the usages and beliefs which had arisen to cloud its absolute monotheism. But attempts at reformation in Islam have never led to anything but the founding of new dynasties. ”

“ It is probably a mere consideration of interest that prevents the people rising en masse,
[p.360] and re-asserting the liberties of their country. And I have heard from authentic sources that the Wahhabis look forward to the day when a fresh crusade will enable them to purge the land of its abominations in the shape of silver and gold.
The Masjid al-Nabi, or Prophet's Mosque, is the second in Al-Islam in point of seniority, and the second, or, according to others, the first in dignity, ranking with the Ka'abah itself. ”

“ Wahābi.— The Wahābis are a sect of Muslim revivalists founded by Muhammad ibn ' Abdu'l Wahhāb, who was born in A.D. 1691. Wahābyism has been defined as the Puritanism of Islam, "hated by the so-called orthodox Musalmāns, as the Lutherans were hated by Leo, and the Covenanters by Claverhouse."* [1] It is recorded, in the Manual of North Arcot (1895) , that since 1806 (the year of the Vellore mutiny) "two alarms have been raised in the district, both at Vellore, which is largely inhabited by Muhammadans. ”

“ Some writers regret the suppression of this once powerful sect of Mohammedans, believing that, if continued, they would have been instrumental in overthrowing the Moslem faith, and making way for a purer religion; but for ourselves, we see little occasion for these regrets. The Wahabees must not be supposed more favourable to a pure faith than are those by whom they have been overthrown. If they must be regarded as reformers, they only attempted to correct a few absurd and scandalous practices: the impious and abominable dogmas of the Koran they left untouched ”

“ At the end of the first year of his caliphate Abu Bekr saw Arabia united under Islam. The new national feeling demanded that all Arabs should be free men, so the caliph ordained that all Arab slaves should be freed on easy terms. The solidarity of Arabia survived the first foreign conquests. It was not intended that Arabs should settle in the conquered lands except as armies of occupation. Thus it was at first forbidden that Arabs should buy or possess land in these countries. Kūfa was to be only a military camp, as was Fostat in Egypt. ”

“ Wahhábíism simply amounts to this, that while it denounces all other Musalmáns as polytheists, it enforces the [112] Sunnat of the Prophet with all its energy. [97] It breaks down shrines, but insists on the necessity of a pilgrimage to a black stone at Mecca. It forbids the use of a rosary, but attaches great merit to counting the ninety-nine names of God on the fingers. It would make life unsocial. The study of the Fine Arts with the exception of Architecture can find no place in it. ”

“ Their religious tenets are still professed by many of the Arabs, and allowed to be orthodox by the most learned of the ’Ulama of Egypt. The Wahhábees are merely reformers, who believe all the fundamental points of El-Islám, and all the accessory doctrines of the Kur-án and the Traditions of the Prophet: in short, their tenets are those of the primitive Muslims. They disapprove of gorgeous sepulchres, and domes erected over tombs; such they invariably destroy when in their power. ”

“ The above technical exposition of Wahhábí tenets shows how much stress they lay on a rigid adherence to the doctrine of the "Unity." "Lá-il-láha, Il-lal-lá-hu" (there is no God but God) is an eternal truth. Yet to the Musalmán God is a Being afar off. In rejecting the Fatherhood of God he has accepted as the object of his worship, hardly of his affections, a Being despotic in all He does, arbitrary in all His ways. He has accepted the position of a slave instead of that of a son. Wahhábíism emphasizes the ideas which flow from the first article of the Muslim creed. ”

“ But more active and persistent—were that possible—than the proselytizers just mentioned, are the legions of zealots known as dervishes who now count nearly a hundred different orders and millions of members. Among them are all classes of people from the humblest hamal to the proudest shah and sultan. They count untold thousands of such ardent reformers as the Wahabis and Sanusiyahs who are undoubtedly the most powerful propagators of Islam that the world has yet known. The last named order has zawivas or lodges with six million oath-bound members in northern Africa alone. ”

“ They again took another start at a later period, but neither was this permanent; a purely Arab State, and that, too, founded upon religion, can be kept together for any length of time only by rulers of uncommon efficiency. At present the Wahhabite kingdom, properly so called, is powerless; it is subject to that of the Shammar, which lies to the north of it, and the prince of which, Ibn Rashíd, a ruler of extensive tracts, is also a professor of Wahhabitism, though with none of the fiery zeal of earlier times. ”

“ It is not merely Islam. These shores from the dawn of knowledge have been one of the most fertile couches of the animal, man; here the young barbarian has been born and bred, and passed away, through all the centuries, and every civilization of the West has been seeded in conquest, and has flowered in cities, typical capitals, and withered away, leaving among the native race its ruins in their fields, in their blood, on their faces—like the Christian cross still tattooed on Kabyle foreheads. It is a race that assimilates but is not assimilated. ”

“ If the Jew did not step aside quick enough there was a sharp curse, a blow or a kick. And the jeering, contemptuous Muslim passed on while the Jew bowed more deeply than ever.
They were dressed in the traditional costume of the Oriental Jew, long gowns of dark cloth, little skull-caps, and now and then a black or yellow turban. Unlike the European Jews, they were fine, tall, straight, broad-shouldered men, with the hook-nose, the fierce eyes, and the fighters' chin of the Bedawin. But always they gave way before the conquering race, always they bowed deeply before the Muslim. ”

“ WAHABIS, wä-hä'bḗz, WAHHABIS, or WAHABITES. A reforming sect in Islam, named after its founder, Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1691-1787) . He was born in Aarad, a district west of Nejd, the central province of Arabia. He traveled as a student of law as far as Basra, and perhaps Damascus, and brought back home with him from his observations the conviction of the necessity of reformation in his faith. ”

“ To swear by the name of the Prophet, of 'Alí, of the Imáms, or of Pírs (Leaders) is to give them the honour due to God alone. It is Ishrák fi'l adab—'Shirk in association.'
Another common belief which Wahhábís oppose is that Musalmáns can perform the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) , say prayers, read the Qurán, abide in meditation, give alms, and do other good works, the reward of which shall be credited to a person already dead. ”

“ When they address the Hindu, saying, "We are one with you," "We teach the original Hinduism of your fathers," it is simply to add: "Baha is the fulfillment of your books, follow him." When they allow the Jewish Bahai of Hamadan still to consort with the Jews as a Jew, and to be baptized and pass as a Christian at the same time, it is an inclusiveness which is unjustifiable and deceitful. It is teaching tagiya or religious dissimulation to other races after the manner of the Persian Shiahs. ”

“ East. At last Islam became conscious of its decrepitude, and with that consciousness a vast ferment, obscure yet profound, began to leaven the 250,000,000 followers of the Prophet from Morocco to China and from Turkestan to the Congo. The first spark was fittingly struck in the Arabian desert, the cradle of Islam. Here at the opening of the nineteenth century, arose the Wahabi movement for the reform of Islam, which presently kindled the far-flung "Mohammedan Revival," which in its turn begat the movement known as "Pan-Islamism." ”

“ They believe jihad or religious war, is not out of date, but incumbent on the believer. 11. They condemn minarets, tombstones, and everything that was not in use during the first years of Islam.
There is no doubt that Abd-ul-Wahab honestly tried to bring about a reform and that in many of the points enumerated his reform was strictly a return to primitive Islam. But it was too radical to last. It took no count of modern civilization and the ten centuries that had modified the very character of the Arabs of the towns not to speak of those outside of Arabia. ”

“ The death of Islamism had been already proclaimed, when the Wahabees burst forth from their mountain fastnesses and flamed through Arabia with a religious fervour unknown in modern times—a warning and a lesson to men not to class even Mohammedanism with the things of the past. Has not the Sick Man become proverbial? ”

“ They may begin with a saintly reformer, but in the first or the second generation there is sure to come the conquering disciple; religion and rule go together, and he who meddles with the one must next grasp at the other. The third stage is the extinction of the new dynasty and the vanishing of its party into a more or less secret sect, the vitality of which is again directed into religious channels. The Wahhabites were no exception. Their rule extended from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, touched al-Yaman and Hadramawt and included some districts of the Pashalik of Baghdad. ”

“ At his death in 623 Mahomet left Arabia practically unified. It is true that rival prophets were leading rebellions in various parts of Arabia, that the tax-collectors were not always paid, and that the warriors of the land were much distressed for want of work owing to the brotherhood of Arabs proclaimed by Mahomet. The tribes were a seething mass of restlessness, their old feuds ready to break out again. But they had realized that they had common interests. The power of the foreigner in Arabia was broken. Islam promised rich booty for those who fought and won, paradise for those who fell. ”

“ In fact, it seems as if designed, in conjunction with the refined theology of ancient, and the sublime visions of modern idolaters, to teach us that, without Divine guidance, the loftiest human {292} conceptions on subjects connected with God and religion invariably err; the ignorant and the instructed are equally wrong; "the world by wisdom knows not God."
The Wahabees are a modern sect of Mohammedan reformers, whose efforts have considerably changed the aspect of the religion of the Prophet. ”