Ibn Saud lacked either political ambition or religious zeal; his motivation was primarily defensive, preservationist, and in complete conformity with the acquiescent, essentially non-expansionist nature of Wahhabism.
While classical Sunni Islam defines jihad in terms of offensive warfare directed at the non-Muslim world, Wahhabism views it in defensive terms, directed principally against non-Wahhabi Muslims, and restricts its declaration and conduct to the ruler, to whom obedience is absolute.
This attitude is illustrated by the staunch, consistent pro-Western foreign policies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar the other Wahhabi state. It also is illustrated by the total absence of any public manifestation of popular anti-Western opposition, even with regard to the all-important issue of Palestine.
The onset of the Cold War led to the slow though steady transformation of traditional Wahhabism. Due to its anti-atheistic and pro-capitalist tenets, Islam in general and Saudi Islam Wahhabism in particular became an effective tool in US foreign policy in combating pro-Soviet and anti-Western secular and nationalistic ideologies in the Middle East and the Muslim world at large.
The United States also supported the importation en masse into Saudi Arabia of a large number of Islamist political activists, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, hizb al-tahrir the Party of Liberation , who had fled the secular, pro-Soviet regimes in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Algeria. It is they who, while paying lip service to Wahhabi rituals, penned a manifesto declaring the ultimate target of Islamization to be all facets of knowledge and professional activity.
Officially renamed the Educational Policy of Saudi Arabia, the manifesto was adopted by the Saudi government in and implemented immediately. This policy, which remains in force, has not just shaped the education of Saudi students, but also millions of non-Saudi children and youths who began to flock to the country beginning in the mids. It's not just in the Middle East either.
Last month, a report by the Henry Jackson Society claimed that Wahhabist Saudi funding was sponsoring extremism in the UK, having "primarily taken the form of endowments to mosques and Islamic educational institutions, which have in turn played host to extremist preachers and the distribution of extremist literature. According to The Guardian , it added, "A number of Britain's most serious Islamist hate preachers sit within the Salafi-Wahhabi ideology and are linked to extremism sponsored from overseas, either by having studied in Saudi Arabia as part of scholarship programmes, or by having been provided with extreme literature and material within the UK itself.
The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia has declared that "the ideas of extremism, radicalism and terrorism do not belong to Islam in any way". In an opinion piece for the New York Times last year, one observer said that Wahhabism had become a "boogeyman" in the West, and that blaming the movement for terrorism was a "dangerous red herring". For example, it said, most of the Taliban come from a different Islamist strain known as Deobandis and that al-Qaeda also follows a different creed.
IS has been put on the back foot of late, with the group losing Mosul to Iraqi forces. Still, the extremists remain a force to be reckoned with. For the last six months, The Guardian reports, Theresa May's government has been sitting on its own report into the foreign funding of extremism. The delay, critics allege, is because it focuses on Saudi Arabia, a major trading partner.
Last month, a UK high court ruled that the government can continue selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Britain has been heavily criticised for selling billions of pounds' worth of arms to the country, which has been fighting a proxy war in Yemen against Iran and the Houthi rebels. Skip to header Skip to main content Skip to footer. From the s to the early s, Saudi political fortunes had their ups and downs. During periods of political strength, Wahhabi clerics used their monopoly over religious authority to construct a puritanical religious culture by suppressing dissent and excluding non-Wahhabi Muslims.
Citing the religious duty to bear enmity toward infidels and friendship toward believers, Wahhabi clerics even tried to ban travel to neighboring lands such as Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, for fear that interaction with non-Wahhabi Muslims, whom they considered infidels, would lead to sympathy with them and their religious ideas. Consequently, Wahhabi clerics made obedience to the ruler a religious duty.
This is in accord with the Sunni Muslim tradition that believers must obey a ruler who upholds Islam as long as a ruler does not command believers to violate Islamic law. Since the s, conformity has been enforced by religious police with the authority to enforce gender segregation, the closure of shops and offices at prayer times, and public morality in general. At such moments, the clerics typically resist before reaching a compromise.
That was the pattern when rulers first admitted infidel Westerners for the sake of developing oil resources in the s, and when they introduced television and schools for girls in the s. The clerics did their best to limit the impact of these changes. If the ruler would no longer support the ban on allowing infidels to live in Saudi Arabia, they would be confined to residential enclaves in order to minimize interaction that might corrupt Saudi ways.
If the ruler insisted on allowing television, then the clerics would have censorship powers over programming. And if the ruler opened schools for girls, then the clerics would be put in charge of them. Crafting a lasting compromise has proven elusive because of complexities embedded in history, theology, geography, and politics. The division between Sunnis and Shiites goes back to early Muslim history.
After the death of the Prophet, Muslims could not agree on how to choose leader. Over time, theological differences deepened the gap between Shiites and Sunnis. Shiism endows the imams with something akin to apostolic authority. Hence, Shiite religious life includes prayers seeking the intercession of the imams and celebrations honoring the imams. In the eyes of Wahhabis, it is all pure idolatry. The extraction and export of oil is essential to Saudi prosperity, therefore episodic Shiite unrest poses enormous risks to the national economy.
The rise of modern national governments under Sunni rulers in all those countries, except Iran, has fostered a common sense of grievance among Shiites facing sectarian discrimination. In response, Shiite communities spawned transnational movements devoted to defending their interests. Against this complex background, Saudi rulers have generally struck a compromise between Wahhabi doctrine that would suppress Shiism and the need for stability that would be threatened by implementing Wahhabi doctrine.
Islamic Sects. Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. Umar ibn al-Khattab. Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd. Uthman ibn Affan.
Omar Ibn al-Khattab. Salah al-Din al-Ayubbi.
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