The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam From the Extremists (9 page)

Although the rebellions of the eighteenth century were quashed, the rebellions of the late nineteenth and early twenti- eth centuries presented a very different situation. From the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries, Arabia was a very tribal society with a large number of prominent families vying for dominance over all others. But particularly the Hijaz area of Arabia, as opposed to the Najd area, was very culturally di- verse, with all types of customs and theological orientations

forming a very complex mosaic of beliefs and practices. Even jurisprudentially, in Mecca and Medina, which are in the Hijaz, there were Shafi’i, Hanafi, Maliki, and Hanbali schools of law and judges. There were also Sufi orders and Shi’i ju- rists, leave alone a sizeable Shi’i population in different parts of the Hijaz. The annual pilgrimage to Mecca looked like a virtual festival of highly diverse practices and rituals mirroring the rich diversity of the Muslim world itself, all of which were accommodated and tolerated by the Ottoman authorities. This diversity of beliefs, theologies, rituals, and practices was anathema to the Wahhabis, and one of their stated goals was to get all pilgrims to the holy sites to abide by a single version of rituals, which they considered to be the only legitimate practice of the faith.

A trinity was formed that would forever change the face of Arabia, and perhaps the Muslim world. This trinity consisted of the Al Sa‘ud family, the Wahhabis, and the British. The Al Sa‘ud family sought to defeat all other contenders and rule over Arabia; the Wahhabis sought to enforce their puritanical brand of Islam on all of Arabia; Britain wanted a strong cen- tral government in Arabia that would serve British interests by granting exclusive oil-mining concessions to British compa- nies, and they also wanted to further weaken the Ottoman Empire by wrestling Mecca and Medina away from its con- trol. In order to achieve their objectives, rather opportunisti- cally, the British did not put all their eggs in one basket, and initially supported several strong families simultaneously, like the Rashidis, the Hashimis, the Banu Khalids, and the Al Sa‘uds, all of whom were fighting for dominance over Ara- bia.
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The relationship between the Al Sa‘uds and the Wahhabis dated back to 1744, when Muhammad Ibn Sa‘ud (d. 1762), the ruler of al-Dir’iyya, a small town in Najd, gave ‘Abd al-

Wahhab sanctuary and a territorial base when the jurists of Najd were up in arms against ‘Abd al-Wahhab because of his fanatic and unprecedented actions. By allying themselves with the Wahhabis, the Al Sa‘ud family gained a zealous fighting force and an ideology that gave them a clear advantage over other families contending for British favor and power. The Al Sa‘uds provided the Wahhabis with financial support and, through their British connections, much-needed arms. In turn, after conquering territories and installing the Al Sa‘uds as the legitimate political rulers, the Wahhabis expected the Al Sa‘ud family to give them free rein over all religious affairs. With this winning combination, in the twentieth century the Al Sa‘uds eventually were able to get the full attention of the British, who put their full weight behind the Al Sa‘ud family as the legitimate rulers of what would become Saudi Arabia.
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Although the alliance between the Al Sa‘uds and the British, a Muslim/non-Muslim alliance, was not consistent with Wah- habi teachings, it is important to recognize that according to the Al Sa‘uds and Wahhabis, their alliance was not motivated by convenience or practical necessity but by a genuine shared ideological motivation and sincere conviction. Pursuant to this view, the Al Sa‘uds converted to Wahhabism, and the two forces formed an (un)holy union that continues to this day. Whether out of convenience or conviction, the bond between the Al Sa‘uds and the Wahhabis became powerful.
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In fact, the Wahhabis destroyed all the rich diversity that once existed in the region of Hijaz, especially in Mecca, Medina, and Jed- dah, and they forced all of Arabia to submit to the rule of Al Sa‘ud.
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Importantly, throughout the various stages that led to the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932—the failed so-called first Saudi state (1745–1818), the failed second state (roughly from 1824 to 1891), or the third, successful state

(commencing in 1902 and continuing until 1932)—the Al Sa‘ud family and the Wahhabis had formed a considerable legacy of intolerance, hate, and fanaticism, resulting in atroci- ties, massacres, and cruelty. This inhumane legacy became part of the past that would forever haunt the Saudi state and would also shape the ethical sensibilities of the type of Islam that the Wahhabis preached and spread around the Muslim world. The list of Saudi-Wahhabi sins of intolerance and cru- elty is long indeed. For example, the various Wahhabi rebel- lions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were very bloody, as the Wahhabis indiscriminately slaughtered Mus- lims, especially those belonging to Sufi orders and the Shi’i sect. In 1802, for example, the Wahhabi forces massacred the Shi’i inhabitants of Karbala,
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and in 1803, 1804, and 1806, the Wahhabis executed a large number of Sunnis in Mecca and Medina, whom they considered for one reason or another heretical.
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The number of those executed or massacred by the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance has never been counted, but from his- torical accounts it is clear that it is in the tens of thousands if not more. In the course of the second conquest of the Arabian Peninsula, for instance, acting under orders from Ibn Sa‘ud, the Wahhabis carried out 40,000 public executions and 350,000 amputations.
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In 1912, King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, from the Al Sa‘ud family, formed a fighting force known as the Ikhwan, constituted of Najdi religious zealots strongly committed to the thought of ‘Abd al-Wahhab. The Ikhwan fighting force was organized with the explicit purpose of overtaking Arabia, quashing all competing contenders for power, and establishing an Islamic state founded on the religious teachings of ‘Abd al-Wahhab. The Ikhwan played an effective role in establishing and ex- panding the king’s control, but they eventually became dissat- isfied with what they saw as his liberalism and willingness to

cooperate with non-Muslims—the British, in this case. In real- ity, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz was forced to learn a lesson that would painfully repeat itself decades later with the Saudi government’s experience with al-Qa’ida: the rage of fanaticism cannot be eas- ily controlled or manipulated by any government. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz had given the Ikhwan a free hand in massacring Muslims within Arabia, especially in Hijaz and Yemen. But rooted in ex- tremism, the Ikhwan were unhappy with ‘Abd al-‘Aziz’s direc- tives allowing for the use of modern inventions such as the telegraph, the telegram, automobiles, and airplanes in territo- ries under Saudi control. Even worse, the Ikhwan started mak- ing excursions and committing massacres in Iraq and in territories that are today a part of Jordan. They insisted on their right to continue to spread Wahhabism without regard to territorial borders invented by the British. At the time, these territories were under British occupation, and the massacres committed were deeply embarrassing to the British government because they occurred against populations that the British were legally obligated to protect. Furthermore, during their raids the Ikhwan ended up clashing with and killing British soldiers as well. In 1915, King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz had signed a treaty of “friendship and cooperation” with the British, and he was re- ceiving an extremely generous monthly annuity from the British government that he could ill afford to lose.

The Ikhwan also got into the habit of attacking and punish- ing pilgrims coming from all over the Muslim world to Mecca for engaging in what according to the Wahhabis were un- Islamic rituals. In many instances, the Ikhwan flogged and even executed pilgrims for performing rituals that violated the Wahhabi understanding of Islamic law, although according to other schools of thought those rituals were considered per- fectly valid. Not surprisingly, since ‘Abd al-‘Aziz was working hard to forge political alliances that would empower him

against his enemies in Arabia, the conduct of Ikhwan caused a diplomatic crisis not only with Britain but also with a number of Muslim states.

King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz tried to prevent the Ikhwan from raiding the territories under British control, and also tried to restrain the Ikhwan from interfering with pilgrims, but the Ikhwan were offended by what they saw as his willingness to compro- mise with heretical people and their evil practices. As a result, the Ikhwan rebelled against the king in 1929, but with the as- sistance of the British, who used their airpower to massacre them, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz crushed and disbanded the forces of the Ikhwan.
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The British duly rewarded their loyal subject by in- creasing King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz’s annuity and conferred upon him a knighthood in 1935
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(he was made a knight of the Order of the Bath). Although the tribal organization of the Ikhwan had been disbanded, this did not mean that the Sa‘ud family had abandoned Wahhabism. That was practically impossible. Wahhabism and the Al Sa‘uds had created a codependent rela- tionship in which one could not exist without the other. Most of the time, the Wahhabis served the state or those in power as much as the state or those in power served the Wahhabis.

In the areas that fell under their control, the Wahhabis in- troduced practices that considerably expanded the intrusive powers of the state into the enforcer of a narrowly defined code of behavior, which, in their view, was the only correct Islam. The relationship between the Al Sa‘ud family and the Wahhabis went well beyond a pragmatic relationship of mu- tual support. Rather, the Saudis and Wahhabis invented a model for how an Islamic state ought to behave in the modern world. According to this model, which became very influential among puritanical Muslims, the newly intrusive powers of the state severely restricted personal liberty and forced its unwill- ing subjects to abide by a very specific code of conduct, all in

the name of enforcing God’s law. Instead of the state’s em- bracing and tolerating a wide set of diverse religious and cul- tural practices, as used to exist in Ottoman Mecca and Medina, for instance, the state abolished all appearances of re- ligious pluralism and enforced a strict orthodoxy. In the Saudi model, the state created and empowered what is in effect a re- ligious police force, and this force played the dual role of en- forcing the strict orthodoxy sanctioned by the state and destroying all expressions of religious diversity or dissent. In- variably, Wahhabi conduct was committed in the name of en- forcing God’s law, but in reality it enforced a very narrow and idiosyncratic view of Islamic law that was strongly at odds with then-prevailing Muslim beliefs and practices. For in- stance, the Wahhabis regularly flogged the residents of territo- ries under their control for listening to music, shaving their beards, wearing silk or gold (this applied to men only), smok- ing, playing backgammon, chess, or cards, or failing to ob- serve strict rules of sex segregation; and they destroyed all the shrines and most of the Muslim historical monuments found in Arabia.
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The Wahhabi practice of destroying the tombstones of the Prophet’s family and his esteemed Companions caused an enormous amount of trauma and controversy around the Muslim world.
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Like the Taliban’s infamous destruction of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan, the destruction of tombstones of the Prophet’s family and Companions in Mecca, Medina, and Jubila was unprecedented in Islamic history. These tomb- stones were preserved and revered by Muslims for well over a thousand years and some of the gravesites were turned into shrines, which were visited by millions of Muslims through the centuries.
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In another unprecedented action that offended the sensibilities of many Muslims, Muhammad bin ‘Abd al- Wahhab cut down a tree (known as Shajarat al-Dhib) in an

area known as Wadi Hanifa near Jubila—a tree that was more than a thousand years old and that was of great historical sig- nificance.
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This wanton destruction of historical sites was all done in the name of protecting Islam from the threat of re- adopting pagan practices.

They also introduced the first reported precedent of taking roll call at prayers: they prepared lists of the inhabitants of a city and called off the names during the five daily prayers in the mosque, and anyone absent without a sufficient excuse was flogged.
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Being the caretakers of Mecca and Medina, the Wahhabis were uniquely positioned to enforce their version of ortho- doxy upon Muslim pilgrims from around the world. As an in- dication of the limited popularity of the Wahhabi creed at that stage of its development, the uncompromisingly austere prac- tices of the Wahhabis during pilgrimage led to several clashes with pilgrims coming from Africa and Southeast Asia. In 1926, for example, the Wahhabi hostility to all forms of musi- cal instruments led to a crisis between Egypt and Saudi Arabia when Egyptian soldiers carrying the ceremonial palanquin to the sound of bugles during pilgrimage were attacked and beaten, and their musical instruments were destroyed. The cri- sis was resolved when King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz made some concilia- tory statements toward the Egyptian government, but that was the last year that the Egyptians were able to perform their an- nual ceremony to the sound of bugles and music. The Wah- habis also criminalized all forms of Sufi chants and dances in Mecca and Medina, and eventually in all of Saudi Arabia.
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One of the acts that ‘Abd al-Wahhab committed in Arabia, which generated a great amount of turmoil and opposition, was the stoning to death of a woman accused of adultery. His- torical sources state that no one had been stoned to death in Arabia in a very long time, and that many jurists were horri-

fied by what they considered to be the inhumane execution of this woman.
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This historical report is intriguing, because today stoning people to death is carried out all the time in Saudi Arabia without raising as much as an eyebrow.

Before they solidified their power base in Arabia, the Wah- habis, with their fanatical and cruel practices, often generated widespread protests from Arab and non-Arab Muslim coun- tries, leading to politically embarrassing situations for the Al Sa‘ud family. In order not to lose the much-needed political support of Muslim states, the Saudis (both before and after the modern state of Saudi Arabia was founded) often dealt with these embarrassing situations by issuing conciliatory statements aimed at alleviating Muslim anxieties about what would become of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
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But other than the exceptional circumstances leading to the violent suppression of the Ikhwan in 1929, the Al Sa‘ud rulers did lit- tle to restrain or moderate the practices of the Wahhabis. Through the 1930s and 1940s the Saudi government over- came all sense of restraint regarding the fanatic practices of Wahhabism, and strengthened its claim over the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. With that claim came the exclusive right to define the rituals that could legitimately be performed in the holy cities. By the 1950s the Saudi government no longer made conciliatory statements toward Muslim countries or apologized for the practices and excesses of the Wahhabis. While the Saudi government continued to rely on the support of the British government (and increasingly the American gov- ernment as well), it no longer needed the support of other Mus- lim countries. Wahhabism had become firmly established in Saudi Arabia and also in the nerve center of Islam, Mecca and Medina. Because of the twin factors of non-Muslim support and the discovery of oil, the Saudi government was in a posi- tion to withstand the criticism of moderate Muslim countries.