Wahhabism, the Saudi Arabia-based
puritanical heresy at the base of Islamism
by Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi
June 02, 2002
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Islamism
- a late 20the century totalitarian ideology that violates Islamic
principles |
Like other
totalitarian ideologies, contemporary Islamism is blindly utopian. It
implies a wholesale denial of history; the Islamists’ model of an ideal
society is inspired by the idealised image of seventh-century Arabia
and an ahistorical view of religion and human development. It is based
on anachronistic thinking that rejects modern concepts of pluralism and
tolerance. And it ignores a history of Islam that is rich in models of
heterogeneous social organisation and adaptation to the times.
Two Views of Politics in Islam
The traditional view understands the role
of politics in terms of what the Qur’an teaches. It indicates that
prophets were sent to humans to teach them truths about God, ethics,
ways to achieve prosperity in this world, and beatitude in the
hereafter, and to warn about the consequences of injustice and
sinfulness. A prophet who is called to preach in a stateless milieu has
to assume a role of political leadership; this mantle fell on Moses, as
it did to Muhammad (peace be upon both of them). Islamic tradition
teaches that when this happens, the two roles are combined by accident;
political leadership is not a necessary element of the prophetic
mission. By way of confirmation, note that the Qur’an uses different
titles to describe the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) but none of
them refers to his political function. Verses 33:45-46 say that he was
sent as a witness (shahid), a bearer of glad tidings (mubashshir),
one who warns (nadhir), as some one who calls
to God (da ‘i ila Allah), and as a shining light (siraj
munir). Nowhere does it say he was sent as a political leader or a
head of state.
Islamists, however, have a very different
interpretation. For them, building an Islamic state is the central
achievement of the prophetic mission. Conflating the role of the Muslim
scholar with that of a political leader, they hold that the spread of
Islam cannot be separated from the creation of what they call the
Islamic state.
They argue that "Islam is both religion
and government" (al-lslam din wa dawla); and this serves the
basic description of their creed. They neglect to mention, however,
that this expression is found in neither the Qur’an, the Hadith (sayings
and doings of the Prophet Muhammad), or in any other of the
authoritative Islamic sources.
Two Views of Jihad
In similar
fashion, the Islamists deform the meaning of jihad. In traditional
Islam, military jihad and all other forms of material jihad constitute
only the external aspect of jihad, while the inner dimension of jihad
is the struggle that a Muslim undertakes to purify his soul from
mundane desires, defects, and egotism. Jihad is not limited to the
military arena but denotes striving hard toward a worthy goal.
According to some sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him),
"the best jihad for women is performing a valid pilgrimage,’’ while
"the jihad for someone who has old parents is taking care of them.’’
According to a well-known tradition, after coming back from a military
expedition, the Prophet Muhammad said, "We have returned from the
lesser jihad to the greater jihad" (raja’na min jihad al-asghar ila
jihad al-akbar). The Prophet was asked, "O, Messenger of Allah,
what is the greater jihad?" He answered, "It is the jihad against one’s
soul.’’
The
traditional understanding also includes a military meaning but military
jihad is strictly regulated by rules concerning its purpose, means, and
resolution.
Purpose: Qur’anic
verses permitting military jihad (22:39-40) indicate that it is not a
vehicle to expand Islam but to defend the rights of those who are
persecuted because of their religion.
"To those against whom war is made,
permission is given [to defend themselves], because they are wronged.
And verily God is most powerful for their aid. [They are] those who
have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right [for no cause]
except that they say, "Our Lord is God." Did not God check one people
by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down
monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of
God is commemorated in abundant measure."
Note the
inclusion here of not just mosques, but "monasteries, churches,
synagogues" as places where God’s name is frequently mentioned and
places that must be protected, if necessary by recourse to war. These
lines indicate a militant defence of the right to religious freedom.
Self-defence:
The term "self-defence" means just that and must not be
stretched. The Qur’an (2:190) says, "And fight in the way of God
against those who fight against you, but do not exaggerate. Verily, God
does not love those who exaggerate." The typical example of this is the
story of Moses and the Egyptian, as narrated in the Qur’ an (28 :1 5-
1 6). To defend an Israelite being beaten by an Egyptian,
Moses killed the Egyptian. No doubt, the Israelite was a member of the
oppressed people, one of those who were persecuted because of their
religion and enslaved, while the Egyptian was one of the oppressors.
The event could even have been described as a legitimate form of jihad.
The Qur’an, however, does not support this opinion, and condemns Moses’
reaction as exaggerated. Moses himself asks forgiveness for his excess.
Means: Military
jihad must be waged by a regular Muslim army against another army.
Terrorist acts against civilian populations are not included in the
definition of jihad.
Peaceful
solution: When a former enemy is ready to stop hostilities and is
looking for an opportunity for peace, Muslims must stop fighting and
also look for a peaceful solution. The Qur’an (8:60-61) says: "if they
incline towards peace, incline thou also towards it, and put thy trust
in God."
This
traditional understanding of jihad as warfare to defend the weak, using
armies, and open to reaching an accord has been replaced by an
aggressive, guerrilla-style warfare that rejects anything less than
total victory and a total defeat of the one who is perceived as the
enemy (whether non-Muslim or non-Islamist Muslim). The Islamist version
of jihad includes and legitimises terrorism against civilian targets
such as churches, synagogues, and cemeteries and even against elderly
people, women, and babies. Not withstanding the clear Islamic
prohibition on suicide, it also includes suicide operations. A recent
fatwa by Mufti Farit Salman, deputy president of the Council of Muftis
of the European States of Russia, eloquently condemned such behaviour
in the aftermath of the sacking of Joseph’s Tomb, a Jewish shrine in
Nablus:
"There are many fanatics in the Holy Land
who with their intelligence swayed by Satan wrecked the tomb of the Man
of Allah, Joseph, peace be upon him; wrecked the tomb of the man whom
the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad (blessings and peace upon him), met
and conversed with in his ascension to the throne of Allah; wrecked the
tomb of one of the dear prophets whom the Holy Qur’an disclosed as a
model of physical and spiritual splendour and of humility . . .How
could Muslims do such a thing? No! Those who gave hand to destroy a
sanctuary of ours are not of us!... Woe unto those who desecrate the
name of names, who demolish tombs of the prophets, synagogues,
churches, mosques!"
Wahhabism
The origins
of modern Islamism trace back to the beginnings of the Wahhabi movement
in the early eighteenth century.
Wahhabism was
a puritanical uprising based on reinterpreting written Qur’anic law
without the enlightened support of expertise embodied in the Qur’an and
the Hadiths, known as the Sunna. Wahhabis pay lip
service to adherence to the Sunna, but in reality reshape it according
to their ideology. Many prophetic sayings which constitute the
immediate source of Sunna are rejected by means of captious arguments,
as soon as they result in tenets incompatible with Wahhabism. When
Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al Wahhab (the eponym of Wahhabism) started
preaching, the mufti of Medina declared Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s belief a
heresy and formally excommunicated him by issuing a fatwa, the
text of which said:
"This man is leading the ignoramuses of
the present age to a heretical path. He is trying to extinguish Allah’s
light, but Allah will not permit His light to be extinguished, in spite
of the opposition of polytheists, and will enlighten every place with
the light of the followers of Sunna."
Sheikh Hisham
Kabbani, chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, describes
the rise and the development of Wahhabism as follows:
"The premise of this new, narrow ideology
was to reject traditional scholars, scholarship, and practices under
the guise of "reviving the true tenets of Islam" and protecting the
concept of monotheism."
Ibn ‘Abd
al-Wahhab encouraged a new interpretation of Islamic law and permitted
his acolytes to apply it in light of their own understanding,
regardless of their level of expertise in juridical matters. Whoever
did not agree with this revolutionary approach he considered outside of
the fold of Islam – an apostate, disbeliever, or idolater – and thus
someone whose blood could be shed, whose women could be raped, and
whose wealth could be confiscated.
|
Saudi
Arabia's founder Ibn Saud, whose victory spread Wahhabism to the wider
world |
The dismantling of the Ottoman Empire
after World War I gave the Wahhabis an opportunity to impose their
beliefs and their rule on Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula, which they
did not lose. The Wahhabis first conquered the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina, transforming these two sanctuaries from centres for the
transmission of the Sunni heritage into places for propagating a
primitive and literalist cult to Muslims coming from every part of the
world. Second, the Wahhabis set up the Saudi state.
Third, expansionist Wahhabism, like other
forms of totalitarian ideology, seeks not just to take possession of
the whole Muslim world by replacing Sunni Islam with the so-called
Salafi school but even to expand its influence beyond it. Dogmatic
uniformity has since then begun to suffocate the humane and enlightened
Islamic tradition. Since the 1950s, the Muslim Brethren (al-lkhwan
al-Muslimun), an organisation founded in Egypt in 1929, has been
the main instrument for propagating Wahhabi influence internationally.
After Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in
the mid-1950s, the Saudis needed allies against his secular
revolutionary policies. So the Saudi leaders supplied financial support
to the Brethren. From then on, the vast majority of Muslim Brethren
adopted Wahhabi doctrines.
The governments of some Muslim countries,
knowing that human and civil rights, democracy, and equality between
men and women could represent the end of their power, support Islamism.
They work against peace between Israel and its neighbours, fearing that
a pacified Middle East could create serious problems for autocratic and
feudal systems. Not surprisingly, the Palestinian Hamas is one of the
important Muslim Brethren-controlled organisations in the Middle East.
Radicalism in the West
These
problems are not limited to the Muslim world but are now also found in
the West. Local branches of the radical organisations that promote
terrorism in the Middle East are taking root in Western countries. They
represent not more that 10 percent of the total Muslim population in
those countries but they control the main Muslim organisations and most
of the mosques in western Europe and North America. They are a
worldwide, organised network, using acronyms, but always ensuring that
the Muslim Brethren is the inner circle behind the scenes. They claim
to represent all Muslims and get a respectful reception from
non-Muslims, who know no better.
This
situation has many causes, but the principal one is that while
traditional Islam is multifaceted and spontaneous, Islamism is
forwarded by a worldwide network of activists funded by the Saudi and
some other Gulf governments. Those looking for ways to prevent Muslim
minorities in Europe and North America from turning to Islamism find
that the Gulf countries represent the main obstacles. Ironically, then,
the structure of the Muslim Brethren is supported, in other words,
mainly by those countries that are regarded as friends of the West.
Muslim Brethren are often appointed as imams of important mosques,
especially in democratic countries where there is no ministry of
religious affairs to check their orientation, and where imams with the
expected permission to teach (ijaza shar’i) are the exception.
The West is
both loved and feared by Islamists. They cannot hope to defeat it
militarily so instead they aim to influence it from within. In part,
this means that Islamists divide their work between militants and more
moderate-sounding types. Militants execrate the US government and call
for its destruction, while the more moderate Islamists are honoured
guests at the White House.
The United States
The danger is
that radical groups could become the official representatives of Muslim
immigrants in the West. Let us review the situation in the United
States.
Sheikh
Kabbani, of the Islamic Supreme Council of America and a disciple of
Nazim ‘Adil al-Qubrusi, declared at the US State Department:
"We would like to advise our government,
our congressmen, that there is something big going on and people do not
understand it. You have many mosques around the United States.... So
the most dangerous things are going on in these mosques that have self
appointed leaders throughout the United States. The extremist ideology
makes them very active.
"We can say that they took over 80
percent of the mosques in the United States….This means that the
ideology of extremism has been spread to 80 percent of the Muslim
population, mostly the youth and the new generation."
Sheikh
Kabbani is trying to show Westerners the reality behind the deceptive
facade. The great majority of all mosques in democratic countries–not
only in North America, but in most of western Europe as well–are
controlled by extremists.
Looking at
two organisations in specific, the Council for American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) is a Muslim Brethren front organisation in the United
States that lobbies against journalists and scholars who dare to write
anything about Islam at variance with the Brethren’s Islamist agenda,
such as advocating diversity in Islam. Notwithstanding CAIR’s evident
connection to Hamas, it is accepted by the US government as a
legitimate representative of the Muslim American community. Likewise,
the American Muslim Council (AMC) is another branch of the Muslim
Brethren. According to Khalid Duran, "The AMC’s most remarkable feat
was to obtain the monopoly on the training of Muslim chaplains for the
US Army (which is like Teheran entrusting the training of its
Revolutionary Guards to the US Institute of Peace)." Thus, while
non-Islamist Islamic organisations like the Association for Islamic
Charitable Projects are more or less ignored by the US government,
Muslim American soldiers receive spiritual assistance from Islamist
chaplains.
Sheikh
Abdul Hadi Palazzi is secretary-general of the Italian Muslim
Association (AMI) and director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian
Islamic Community. He lectures in Muslim history at the Research
Institute for Anthropological Sciences in Rome. Origionally published
in the Middle East Quarterly, Summer, 2001. © Middle East
Forum.
For the
entire article see: The
Review - Islam perverted
TO THE EDITOR:
[This letter respond to:
Daniel Pipes, "Are Muslim Americans Victimized?"
Commentary, November 2000. That article may be accessed at
http://danielpipes.org/articles/200011.html.]
I read Daniel Pipes's
article with the utmost interest, and I completely
agree with his refutation of the claim that "discrimination is now part
of daily life for American Muslims."
Apart from those limited
forms of bias
to which religious or ethnic minorities are exposed in every part of
the
world, Muslims in the United States enjoy the full range of religious
and
political freedoms, which would be simply inconceivable in most of
their
countries of origin. In fact, many Muslims who are running from
dictatorship
and oppression naturally see the United States as the country where
their
aspirations can be satisfied.
Even so, I must add that
the Muslim community
in the United States does experience victimization, in one respect,
though
not at the hands of government or the media. Rather they are victims of
their "representatives," the leadership of extremist organizations like
the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the American Muslim Council,
the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Islamic Society of North
America,
all of which completely distort the image of who Muslims are and of
what
they stand for.
The vast majority of
American Muslims belong
to the Sunni confession, while the leaders of these organizations are
all
Wahhabis, acting only in the interest of the Saudi regime that funds
them
and determines their projects and programs. The real paradox is that
Muslims
who live in America have their leadership appointed by the rulers of
Saudi
Arabia.
Moreover, these
organizations that are
ready to raise their voices to protest against "discrimination"
suffered
by American Muslims have never spoken a word to condemn groups like
Hamas
and Hezbollah that try to legitimize terrorism "in the name of Islam,"
or to condemn regimes like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hasan Turabi
in Sudan for causing the death of thousands of innocent Muslims. This
silence
about crimes perpetrated against Muslims, and about crimes perpetrated
"in the name of Islam," contributes to the impression that Muslims
really
do support terrorism.
Finally, the tendency of
these organizations
to launch hate campaigns against those intellectuals and media
operators
who denounce and expose their radical agenda only serves to make
matters
worse.
SHAYKH ABDUL HADI
PALAZZI
Director
Cultural Institute of
the Italian Islamic
Community
Rome, Italy
A Warning to Muslims against the
Bid'ahs
preached by Muhammad Ibn
'Abdi-l-Wahhab
by Shaykh Abdul Hadi Palazzi and
Zubair Qamar
Praised by
Allah, Lord of the worlds, and blessing and peace upon the best of His
creatures, the Prophet Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdi-Llah, upon his noble family,
his pure wives, his purified Sahabahs and upon all those who follow his
path till the Day of resurrection. This paper has been compiled under
the supervision of Shaykh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Director of the Cultural
Institute of the Italian Islamic Community as a mean to seek Allah’s
favor and as a warning against the founder of the heretic
Wahhabi-Salafi cult and against the bid’ahs he preached. May Allah save
this Ummah from bid‘ahs and dalalah, and preserve us on the right path
followed by Asyaduna al-akramin. Amin.
Rasul-Ullah
(sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) said: "Allahumma, bless Yemen,
Allahumma, bless Sham." He was asked: "And what about Najd?" He
answered: "From Najd Shaytan’s horn will rise."
He
(sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) also said: "Beware of Shaykhu-n-Najdi,
since he is Shaytan."
He
(sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) also said: "There will be people who
come from the eastern side of Arabia who will recite Qur’an, but their
recitation will not pass beyond their collarbones. They will go out of
Islam as swiftly as the arrow goes through the prey. Their sign is
shaving their heads."
Muhammad Ibn
‘Abdi-l-Wahhab was a descendent of the Bani Tamim tribe and was born in
the Uyaynah village (Najd) in 1111 H. (1699 M.). His father was a
learnt Hanbali scholar, and sent him to study tafsir, fiqh and tasawwuf
in Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, Basrah and Damascus, as well as in Iran and
India. His attitude, from the beginning, was very much polemic, and he
took active part in scholarly debates. During this period, he received
the surname "Shaykhu-n-Najdi". He contacted many Shaykhs of tasawwuf,
and tried his best to be appointed as a khalifah. This request of his,
however, was not accepted, since the Shaykhs realized he was too must
influenced by kibr and by the desire to become a leader.
At the age
of thirty-two he came back to Najd and started working as a teacher for
Bedouins; he also started exercising ijtihad, and accusing Sunni
scholars and Ahlu-t-tasawwuf of bid‘ahs. In 1143 H. (1730 M.) he met a
leader of a gang of marauders called Muhammad Ibn Sa’ud, whose main
activity was plundering travelers in the desert of Najd. Since most of
those Bedouins living in Dar’iyyah were completely unlearnt, Ibn
‘Abdi-l-Wahhab could easily convict them of his theories; Ibn Sa’ud and
him made an agreement, according to which the former was appointed as
the "Amir", and the latter as the "Shaykh". The "Shaykh declared he was
ready to publish "fatawa" where non-Wahhabi Muslims were described as
apostates and idol-worshippers; this point of view obviously
represented a sort of "religious justification" for Ibn Sa‘ud’s gang.
They were not, anymore, robbers and criminals, but "mujahids",
authorized to kill "kuffars", to plunder their properties and to rape
their women.
The "Shaykh"
also appointed some "wakils" and send them to preach Wahhabism in
Mecca, but scholars living in the Blessed City were ready in
understanding how dangerous this doctrine was. Sayyid Ahmad Zayni
Dahlan as-Shafi‘i (ramimah-Ullah) was the Chief Mufti of Mecca. In
wrote in the book "Al-Futuhatu-l-Islamiyyah":
"To deceive
the ‘ulemas in Mecca and Medina, those people sent emissaries in
al-Haramayn, but these missionaries were not able to answer questions
asked by Sunni scholars. It became evident that they were ignorant
bid‘ah holders. Muftis of the four madhhabs wrote a fatwa that declared
them kuffars, and this document was distributed in the whole Jazirah.
The Amir of Mecca, Sharif Mas‘ud Ibn Sa‘id, ordered that the Wahhabis
should be imprisoned. Some Wahhabis fled to Dar‘iyyah and informed
their leader of what was happening."
Muhammad Ibn
‘Abdi-l-Wahhab’s brother, Sulayman Ibn ‘Abdi-l-Wahhab (ramimah-Ullah),
studied his works and tried his best to invite him to tawbah. At least,
when he realized verbal admonitions had no effect, decided to write a
book called "As-Sawa’iqu-l-Ilahiyyah fi-r-Raddi ‘ala-l-Wahhabiyyah". It
contains a detailed refutation of his brother’s heresies, and states:
"One of the
dalils showing that your path is heretic is the hadith sharif narrated
by ‘Uqbah Ibn Amir and collected in the Sahihayn [Bukhari and Muslim]:
‘Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) ascended the minbar, and
it was the last time I saw him on the minbar. He said: ‘I do not fear
that you will become mushrikuns after me, but I fear that, because of
worldly interests, you will fight each others, and thus be destroyed
like the peoples of old.’ The Messenger of Allah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi
wa sallam) foretold all that would happen to his Ummah until the end of
the world. This hadith sharif shows that he was certain of the fact
that this Ummah will never worship idols. By saying so, he destroys
Wahhabism from its roots, since Wahhabi books say that Ummah
al-Muhammadiyyah is involved in polytheism, that Muslim countries are
full of idols, and that Muslim graves are houses of shirk. They also
claim that someone who does not accept to consider mushrikuns those who
ask for intercession by the graves is himself a kafir. On the contrary,
Muslims have been visiting graves and asking for the intercession of
awliyas for centuries. No Islamic scholar has even called such Muslims
mushrikuns.
"My brother
asks: ‘A hadith sharif says: "Of all that will befall you, shirk is
what I fear more." Is not this a dalil of the fact that a part of this
Ummah will be engaged in shirk?'
"I say: It
is inferred by many other hadiths that this hadith refers to
shirku-l-asghar. There are similar hadiths, narrated by Shaddad Ibn
‘Aws, Abu Hurayrah and Mahmud Ibn Labid (may Allah be pleased with all
of them), according to which the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa
sallam) feared that shirku-l-asghar would be committed by his Ummah. It
has exactly happened as it was foretold in the hadith, and many Muslims
are guilty of shirku-l-asghar. But you, in your ignorance, confuse
shirku-l-asghar with shirku-l-akbar, and the tragic consequence of this
mistake of yours is that you regard as ‘unbelievers’ those Muslims that
do not accept to call other Muslims ‘unbelievers’."
Another
contemporary scholar, Muhammad Ibn Sulayman Effendi (ramimah-Ullah)
wrote:
"O Muhammad
Ibn ‘Abdi-l-Wahhab, do not slander Muslims! I admonish you for Allah’s
sake! Does anyone of them says that there is a creator besides Allah?
If you have anything to argue against Muslims, please, show them
authoritative dalils. It is more correct to call you, a single person,
‘kafir’, than calling millions of Muslims ‘kuffars’. Ayah 114 of Surah
an-Nisa’ says: ‘If anyone contends with the Messenger after guidance
has been plainly conveyed to him, and follows a path other than the one
followed by Believers, we shall leave him in the path he has chosen,
and land him in Jahannam, quite an evil refuge!’ This ayah points to
the situation of those who have departed from Ahlu-s-Sunnah
wa-l-Jama‘ah."
When the
order from the Amir of Mecca reached the Khalifah in Istanbul, he
ordered Muhammad ‘Ali Pashah (ramimah-Ullah), governor of Egypt to move
to Najd and to stop the Wahhabi fitnah. The marauders of Ibn Sa’ud tied
to attach Mecca and fought against mujahids, but Allah gave the victory
to the Islamic army. Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdi-l-Wahhab was captured and sent
in chains to Istanbul. A Shari‘ah court found him guilty of homicide,
marauding and rebellion, while Muftis of the four madhhabs declared him
to be a kafir and murtaddid.
Among
Sunni ‘uleams who refuted Wahhabism we must also mention Sayyed Dawud
Ibn Sulayman, Mawlana Khalid al-Baghdadi, Sun‘ Allah al-Halabi al-Makki
al-Hanafi, Muhammad Ma‘sum as-Sarhindi, Muhammad Ibn Sulayman al-Madani
ash-Shaf‘i, may Allah be pleased with all of them. The latter was the
Shaf‘i Mufti of Medina, and was asked to write a fatwa against Muhammad
Ibn ‘Abdi-l-Wahhab. This fatwa is quoted in the book "Ashaddu-l-Jihad"
and says:
"This man is
leading the ignoramuses of the present age to a heretical path. He is
trying to extinguish Allah’s light, but Allah will not permit His light
to be extinguished, in spite of the opposition of mushrikuns, and will
enlighten every place with the light of Ahlu-s-Sunnah."
As-Sayyid
‘Abdur-Rahman al-Ahdal (ramimah-Ullah), the Mufti of Zabid, said,
"...in refuting them [the Wahhabis], it is sufficient to mention the
hadith of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam): ‘Their sign is
shaving their heads’, since no other innovators had ever done it."
The Wahhabis
also call themselves the "Salafis," believing that they follow the
footsteps of the pious Salaf, i.e. the Sahabahs, the Tabi’un, and
Atba’u-t-Tabi’in. The Wahhabis, however, have a route of knowledge that
traces back to Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdi-l-Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabi
movement, who lived in the 1700’s M., and before him to Ibn Taymiyyah,
another heretic who lived in the late 1200’s to early 1300’s M. Their
route of knowledge does not trace back to the time of the Prophet
Muhammad (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) or his pious followers whom he
praised. The Wahhabis, therefore, cannot be "al-Firqatu-l-Najiyyah", or
the Saved Sect, but are one of the other 72 deviant sects within the
Ummah, which the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) dispraised and
warned us about.
In many of
his "fatawa," Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdi-l-Wahhab labeled Muslims as "kuffars"
if they did not agree to his heretical teachings, which opposed the
orthodox Islamic beliefs that Muslims had been adhering to for over a
thousand years (known as Ahlu-s-Sunnah wa-l-Jama‘ah). When the true
Sunni Muslims disagreed with the newly formulated Wahhabi cult, the
blood of countless Muslims, including plenty of scholars of
Ahlu-s-Sunnah, was made halal by the command of Muhammad Ibn
‘Abdi-l-Wahhab.
Although
thousands of Muslims were massacred by the deviant Wahhabis, the
scholars of Ahlu-s-Sunnah continued to refute them in their books. An
example is what the Mufti of Mecca, Ahmad Zayni Dahlan al-Makki
ash-Shafi‘i (rahimah-Ullah) wrote in a work titled
"Fitnatu-l-Wahhabiyyah", stating:
"In 1217 H.
they [the Wahhabis] marched with big armies to the area of at-Tayf. In
Dhu-l-Qa‘dah of the same year, they lay siege to the area the Muslims
were, subdued them, and killed the people: men, women, and children.
They also looted the Muslims belongings and possessions. Only a few
people escaped their barbarism."
"They [the
Wahhabis] plundered what was in the room of the Prophet (sall-Allahu
'alayhi wa sallam), took all the money that was there, and did some
disgraceful acts."
"In 1220 H.
they [the Wahhabis] lay siege to Mecca and then surrounded it from all
directions to tighten this siege. They blocked the routes to the city
and prevented supplies from reaching there. It was a great hardship on
the people of Mecca. Food became exorbitantly expensive and then
unavailable. They resorted to eating dogs."
What better
person could the British have used to fulfill their motto, i.e. "divide
and conquer?" The British were laughing at Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdi-l-Wahhab
and his followers for plundering, looting, and killing Muslims in the
name of Islam, causing Muslims in Mecca to resort to eating dogs, in
addition to fighting Muslim armies sent by the Ottomans, e.g. Muhammad
‘Ali Pashah (rahimah-Ullah) of Egypt and his army.
This was
indeed a fulfillment of the interests of the British, as well as
entertainment for them. Contemporary members of the Sa'ud house are
descendants of Muhammad Ibn Sa’ud, the heretic who collaborated with
Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdi-l-Wahhab, to cause a Muslim bloodbath in the name of
"Jihad." Their monarchy has existed since the Wahhabi movement
originated, and they continue to raise the Dajjal’s banner to this very
day. They have destroyed the maqams of our four Imams around al-Ka’bah,
and identifying the place where the imam of salatu-l-jama‘at must stand
in Masjidu-l-Haram is today quite difficult. The sanctity of al-Haram
is profaned five times each day, since the Wahhabi "imams" stand too
close to al-Ka‘bah, in a place that is not justified in the light of
fiqh.
The
discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia in the 1930’s has enabled the
Saudi-Wahhabi kingdom to become rich, and their leaders have used their
wealth to disseminate the Wahhabi doctrine all across the globe. They
have built printing presses in Egypt, Syria, and even the United States
to print beautiful books to attract the laypeople so that they may fall
into their trap. The problem is that many new and naive Muslims are
falling into the Wahhabi trap, and are propagating their false doctrine
in Muslim Student Organizations, universities, and mosques – especially
in the East Coast of the United States.
The Wahhabis
are known for parroting the slogan of "Qur’an and Sunnah," without any
profound understanding of the two sources of Islam, and are known for
slandering scholars of Ahlu-s-Sunnah like Imams Suyuti, Imam Abu Hamid
Ghazali, Imam Nawawi, (ramimahum-Ullah) among others. The great Hanafi
scholar, Imam Muhammad Amin Ibn Abidin (ramimah-Ullah), stated that the
Wahhabis of today are reviving the creed of the Khawarij of the past.
It is also known that the Khawarij wrongly understand the meanings of
ayahs in the Qur’an and falsely attribute ayahs meant for non-Muslims
to Muslims. The Wahhabis are notorious for reviving this Kharijite
practice. Moreover, the Wahhabis have a passion for trying to find
faults among the mujtahids such as the noble Imam Abu Hanifah, Imam
Shaf‘i, Imam Malik, and Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. They try to find faults
in their methodologies, while they do not possess a methodology of
their own. Hence, Wahhabi "scholars" who have graduated from Wahhabi
universities in Saudi Arabia are never taught a methodology to enable
them to understand the Qur’an and Sunnah. This is why they are in a
constant state of self-contradiction, confusion, and fitnah among the
Muslim population.
It is the
scholars of Ahlu-s-Sunnah wa-l-Jama‘ah who must awaken the Muslims and
warn them by bidding the lawful and forbidding the unlawful Wahhabi
doctrine by efficient means of da‘wah. An anti-Wahhabi campaign must be
formulated and strengthened to defend the Ash‘ari and Maturidi creeds,
the Hanafi, Shaf‘i, Maliki, and Hanbali madhhabs, and the numerous
tariqahs of tasawwuf, of which the majority of Muslim scholars have
been a part of.
And all
praise is for Allah, Lord of the worlds.
WARNING
Wahhabis
today call themselves "Salafis," in an attempt to confuse the Muslim
masses that they adhere to the methodology of the pious Salaf, or
predecessors, i.e. the Sahabahs, the Tabi’un, and Itba’u-t-Tabi’in. For
example, some of the true Salaf applied ta’wil, or figurative
interpretation, to Allah’s Attributes. Imam Bukhari gave a figurative
interpretation of wajh to mean "Allah’s Dominion," in Suratu-l-Qasas,
ayah 88. This can be found in the Sahih of Bukhari in the Chapter
"Tafsir ul-Qur’an." Plenty of other examples exist of how the
Wahhabi-Salafis oppose the practices of the true and pious Salaf.
The
following writers are representatives of this cult. Their followers
call them "Shaykhs", and Muslims must stay away from their books,
papers and Web pages, and do not confuse them with real Sunni scholars:
-
Yusuf
al-Qaradawi al-Misri (the one who says that salah in al-Aqsa is
"haram". He unites the errors of Wahhabis and the errors of Ikhwanis in
a new form of heresy. He also claims that suicide terror attacks
finalized to the assassination of civilians are "lawful" in Islam).
-
‘Abdu-l-‘Aziz
Ibn Baz (the deceased official "Mufti" of the Saudi regime and their
Rabitah, who oppressed Ahlu-s-Sunnah in al-Haramayn).
-
Muhammad
Nasiru-d-Din al-Albani (a recently disappeared pseudo-muhaddith from
Albania who classified hadiths according to his unlimited fantasy and
forbade women to wear golden ornament).
-
Abu
Aminah Bilal Philips (a ultra-Wahhabi from Jamaica who forges claims in
the history of fiqh, full of slanders and absurd accusations against
Ahlu-s-Sunnah).
-
Muhammad
Nubar Yahya Silmy (a propagandist of Wahhabism in Sri Lanka who is very
much hostile to the Sunni ‘aqidah).
-
Shiraz
Mohammadali (a former Shi'ite from Sri Lanka who
converted to Wahhabism and fanatically supports all of al-Albani's
heresies)
-
Abu
Bilal Mustafah al-Kanadi.
-
Muhammad
Saleh ibn Al-Uthaymin (an anthropomorphist who believes that Allah is
"located in the upper direction").
-
Saleh
Fawzan Al-Fawzan.
-
'Abdur-Rahman
Rosario Pasquini (an Ikhwani propagandist in Milano who, because of
senescence, supports linguistic bid'at like "Allah is monopersonal" -
sic! - "Muslims are islamocratics", wa na'udhu bi-Llah, afala
yatadhakkarun).
----------------------------------
Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi
is secretary-general
of the Italian Muslim Association (AMI) and director of the Cultural
Institute
of the Italian Islamic Community. He lectures in Muslim history at the
Research Institute for Anthropological Sciences (IFOSCA) in Rome.
Copyright © AIJAC 2001
Last Updated 28
September, 2001
Cultural Institute of
the Italian Islamic
Community
http://shell.spqr.net/islam/
mailto:islam@spqr.net
Source: Warning
against Muhammad Ibn Abdi-l-Wabbah's bid'ahs
This page was produced by Joseph
E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious
History Analyst
Brooklyn, New York
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