1826

*During the early 1800s, Wahhabism exerted influence over India.  In 1826, Sayyid Brelwi began to introduce concepts of Wahhabism to India.

Wahhabiya (Wahhabism) is an Arabic term which refers to a fundamentalist movement that took its name from Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792), an Islamic reformer from the 18th century of the Christian calendar, who was born in Arabia.  Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab was influenced by Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Taymiyya.  Having provoked negative reactions among his entourage, ‘Abd al-Wahhab sought refuge with Muhammad ibn Sa‘ud, the ruler of ‘Anaza from 1735 to 1765.  The Saudi family, after taking power in Arabia, made Wahhabism the official state doctrine.  Wahhabism is a fundamentalism that rejects all innovations, especially the brotherhoods and the cult of saints. 

Although, the name “Wahhabiya” was given to the movement by its opponents, the adherents of the movement have preferred to call themselves “Unitarians” (muwahhidun), because of their fervid emphasis on the divine unity and their corresponding diligence in uncovering and rooting out all attitudes and acts which could be regarded as idolatry.

Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab was born near Riyadh of a branch of the Tamim tribe and received a sound Islamic education.  He traveled widely in search of learning and became expert in Sufi doctrine as well as in the more orthodox Islamic sciences.  Gradually his leanings became thoroughly Hanbalite.  Though he was often at the center of controversy, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s uncompromisingly strict religious views were accepted by the tribal chief Muhammad ibn Sa‘ud of nearby Dar‘iya. Religious authority was assumed by Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, political and military power by Ibn Sa‘ud.  This venture determined the future of the movement, which has continued to the present day as a powerful religio-political combination in Arabia, where the Sa‘udi dynasty and Wahhabi fundamentalism dominate absolutely.

Dar‘iya soon became a theocratic state and the center of an increasingly vast territory. Ibn Sa‘ud’s able son, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, continued military conquests, with Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab as religious guide.  After the reformer’s death the fortunes of the Sa‘udi dynasty continued to advance.  Its territorial dominion eventually included all of the Hejaz and Najd, and much of the rest of the Arabian Peninsula from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.  The Wahhabis even went beyond Arabia in attacks on Damascus in Syria and Najaf in Iraq.  Later there was a significant branch of the movement in India. 

The nineteenth century brought forth reversals to the Sa‘udi dynasty, and Ottoman punitive expeditions, under Egyptian command, finally overthrew the fires Wahhabi empire in 1818. But early in the present century the Sa‘udis regained their old position under the great ‘Abd al-‘Aziz II, who was crowned king of Hejaz and Najd in 1930.  His descendants continue to rule the modern kingdom of Saudia Arabia.

Wahhabi reforms were aimed at excising all beliefs and behavior not soundly rooted in the pristine period of Islam, roughly the first three centuries.  Thus, the Qur’an, the Sunna, and the four orthodox Sunni law schools -- fiqh -- were regarded as the normative sources for faith and order.  All else was viewed as bid‘a -- heresy.  Two classical figures had an especially forceful influence on the formation of Wahhabi doctrine: Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the founder of the most conservative law school, and Ibn Taymiyya, the activist Hanbalite jurist, who wrote scathing denunciations of the veneration of saints.

The central issue around which the Wahhabi reforms revolved was the popular cult of saints.  The building of mausoleums, especially of the mosque-tomb type, and visiting them for veneration and blessings were declared to be shirk.  Early Wahhabis ruthlessly destroyed many shrines and stamped out all activities associated with them.  They scrutinized all aspects of their fellow believers’ behavior, to judge it as deviant or pure.  In this they were reminiscent of the Kharijites of early Islam.  They were particularly hostile toward Sufism in all forms, although ironically they resembled a Sufi order in the way in which they organized into cooperatives for work and, when necessary, holy warfare.

Centering all in absolute devotion to the one, transcendent, sovereign God, the Wahhabis declared that it is shirk to seek intercession of any creature with God (except for with Muhammad on the Last Day), or to utter any other than God’s name in prayer.  It is unbelief to deny divine predestination in all things, to interpret the Qur’an allegorically, or to claim knowledge of religion based on anything other than the Qur’an, the Sunna, or the consensus of the early orthodox legists.  Further, the rosary was forbidden in the meditation on the Divine Names (although the fingers could be used to keep count, as the Prophet is reported to have done.)  Mosques were to be utterly simple and functional, with neither minarets nor decorations.  Even celebration of the Prophet’s birthday -- mawlid -- was forbidden.

While the Wahhabis were relentless and at times cruel in their punishment of heresy -- and by their standards a very wide range of otherwise innocuous and commonplace attitudes and activities could be construed as such -- at bottom they were animated by an intense moral fervor which sought in all things to purify the total environment for the proper service of God.  Arabian Islam had sunk to a low level, and both private and public behavior in the sacred pilgrimage centers of Mecca and Medina was frequently corrupt and unrestrained. The Wahhabi movement as a reform movement began to revitalize Arabian Islam.

The Wahhabi movement is significant also because it was a thoroughly indigenous, pre-modern reform within the bosom of Islam and not a reaction to Western ideas and incursions, as was the case with later movements across the Muslim world.

In spite of its fanatical puritanism and early excesses, Wahhabism did inspire later reformers in widely dispersed regions to overcome the stagnating effects of blind conformity to outmoded views and to make new efforts in applying the Qur’an and the Sunna to changing times.  In a sense, Wahhabism can be characterized as an imposing Muslim expression of the “Protestant principle,” which is “guardian against the attempts of the finite and conditional to usurp the place of the unconditional in thinking and acting.”

In more contemporary times, it is the Wahhabi movement which the oil riches of Saudi Arabia have allowed the Saudis to export to other lands.  Thus, Wahhabism has taken root in Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  In Afghanistan, the disciples of Wahhabism, the group known as the taliban, succeeded in taking control of the country and, for a while, imposing Wahhabism throughout the land. 

              

Wahhabi doctrine was introduced into India by Sayyid Ahmad Brelwi (1786-1831).  He established a permanent center in Patna, marched against the Sikh cities of the Punjab and took Peshawar in 1830.  His adherents started an insurrection in Lower Bengal.  In 1870, the older Muslim communities of India, both Shi‘a and Sunni, dissociated themselves from the Wahhabi doctrine of Holy War.