Is Wahhabism merely an aberration in contemporary Islamic thought?
11 Oct, 2007
Many Westerners are still living in fool’s paradise buying the
apologist’s soft-sold idea that Wahhabism is a minority view of the
Islamic world. The reality indicates just the other way around. The
proliferation of Wahhabistic philosophy is so widespread all across
the globe that it can hardly be considered an aberration. From
Pakistan to Qatar, from Bangladesh to Afghanistan, the common belief
system among Muslim masses is very much close to Wahhabite ideology.
Ironically, this was not quite so in the yesteryears. Thirty-five
years ago, before the oil boom made the Arabian Peninsula into
economic giant, Arab countries did not have any political leverage
on Muslims of the South Asia whose population constitutes the
majority of the Islamic world. Islam was the Mughal emperors’
religion who ruled India for two hundred years. The Mughals were not
keen on imposing Sha’ria law in the kingdom. If Islam in its pure
form is intolerant and anti-pluralistic, the Islam being practiced
under Mughal raj was far from this characteristic. The same was true
in Indonesia, Malaysia and even in Afghanistan only a few decades
ago. I can give an analogy in this regard. It is as if a poisonous
snake went into hibernation during all these years. The Seventh
Century’s Islam did not have the large tentacle to control and
purify all the localized and "impure" versions of the religion
prevalent among non-Arab Muslims spread all around the world. There
was Sufism in Indian subcontinent, which was perceived as nothing
but heresy by the Wahhabists. Then, there was "Europeanized" Islam
in the Balkans and former Soviet Union, which evolved as highly
liberalized or deviated from the puritanical form of Islam.
After the liquid gold was discovered in the Arab land and after the
Westerners made the Arabs rich overnight, the imperialistic ambition
of Arab Islamists evolved in no time. During this development, the
Westerners kept a blind eye because to many strategists, export of
Arab Islamic imperialism was seen as antidote to the spread of
communism. Thus, the sleeping snake woke up and the world changed
forever.
I like to emphatically say that the philosophical war is a crucial
factor in the present day global political discourse. To win the war
is not only a PR exigency, the need to convince the constituencies
is no less important. A political change even if peacefully
transformed could turn out to be hostile to freedom and democracy.
Islamic apologists of our time would say, to be true to the spirit
of democracy every one should adhere to the people’s wishes in the
polls even if they had chosen the Islamists. Their argument would be
if people give mandates to the victors with a theocratic agenda, we
should all support that. That is the reason they are critical of
USA’s role in Iraq where they are apprehensive of Uncle Sam’s motive
concerning possible election victory for the theocrats.
Today, if anyone wants to analyze the political philosophy of
Islamist parties in any Third World Muslim majority country, what
will he or she encounter? Almost one hundred percent Islamist
parties follow the dictums of Wahhabism. The present situation in
Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province in Pakistan should be
an eye opener. Through peaceful means in the polls, the Pakistani
people expressed their wishes. They vowed to turn these regions into
Wahhabite utopia. Step-by-step, these provinces are veering to the
direction of Afghanistan under the Talibans. In Bangladesh, there is
hardly any Islamic political group, which is not propagating
anything other than Sha’ria-based society. On the other hand, their
organizational bases are being strengthened as days go by. Although
many Muslim countries are not fully theocratic, the family law being
practiced in most of these nations is either Islamic law or Sha’ria-based
law. In essence, Sha’ria already got a foothold in most of the
Muslim societies of the world. Even in a country like Malaysia, a
divorcing Muslim woman has to face all the hurdles of Islamic
jurisprudence. It is only a matter of time when the process of
Islamization (read Wahhabization) in all the Muslim countries would
be completed.
Philosophy of Wahhabism is nothing but the Islam in its original
form that continued until the rein of four caliphs. The present
trend in the global Islamic scene is like reverting to the roots.
Other than transforming Islamic politics through electoral process,
Wahhabism has started to dominate most of the Muslim insurgencies.
Once upon a time, secular nationalists led Kashmiri independence
movement. Today, this is more or less a Wahhabite movement. We
notice a parallel situation in Chechnya as well. It goes without
saying that the anti-Soviet armed struggle in the Soviet occupied
Afghanistan was conducted by different factions of Wahhabite groups
under the guise of freedom fighter or Mujahedins. Adding to the list
would be all the jihadist Palestinian militant organizations
determined to wipe out Israel from the face of our earth following
the dictum of Holy Scripture from which the Wahhabites draw
inspiration.
Many American academicians dealing with the subject of Wahhabism do
not have any clue what is going on in the Islamic world these days.
They are probably living in fool’s paradise. In America, all the
so-called mainstream Islamic organizations are soft on Wahhabism. In
America, almost all the mosques are run by Wahhabite Imams, which
receive constant infusion of petrodollar from abroad and along with
it they receive instruction what to say during khutba on Sabbath day
prayer. It goes without saying that in America the backers of
Wahhabism enhanced many prestigious academic institutions’ funds.
That helped to form a low-key Wahhabite lobby in U.S. academia.
It is crystal clear that the present-day Islam in most part of the
world including USA reflects pure Wahhabism. In short, there is only
one face of Islam, which is visible everywhere and that resembles
the old-face of Islam or Wahhabism. The sooner we understand this
plain truth the better is it for mankind.
- Name: Godot
- Date: Thursday October 11, 2007
- Time: 11:15:37 -0700
Comment
Islam and all religions in any "flavor" are bad: vanallah, jewberry or chrispassion!
- Name: pmk
- Date: Thursday October 11, 2007
- Time: 12:00:28 -0700
Comment
In the 1920s Wahhabism was still confined to Riyadh and parts of India. What is not made clear is why the rest of the Muslim world chose to accept Wahhabism rather than move forward. Was it sheer pride? A reaction to colonialism (a period where most Muslims knew more freedom than they had ever known under the Ottomans)? Is that why Islam regressed? Out of sheer spite?
- Name: No Sharia
- Date: Thursday October 11, 2007
- Time: 12:00:34 -0700
Comment
The article states what knowledgeable observers of islam have asserted for some time: Owing to technology, money and emigration the islamic center is now slowly eliminating the national, cultural versions of Islam and introduces everywhere the true, real tradional form of islam. Of course, it may in some details differ from the original but on the whole it agrees with the original version. This is extremely important. Moderate islam is revealed to be only this: it consists of some national, cultural and softer aberrations from the true faith.The implications for Western policies regarding islam are huge.Regards,No Sharia
- Name: vbv
- Date: Thursday October 11, 2007
- Time: 20:55:23 -0700
Comment
Wahabism is pristine EVIL,highly bigoted,intolerant,barbaric and against human civilization. It is a calculated move by the Saudis to establish this rotten and evilest and most intolerant form of islam to wield power and authority over the rest of the world to force Arab hegemony everywhere. Any opponent would be mercilessly murdered in the most cruel 'sharia' way so that Arab rule is established everywhere! This is the ulterior motive of the filthy ,barbaric,uncultured and uncivilized Arabs to 'islamise' the world and bring it under their rotten,criminal so-called "prophet",who did nothing but massacre,rape,rob, enslave women,indulge in sex-trade,etc. all in the name of a false religion!!! Arabs never in the history of the world did an honest day's work or built great civilizations like Egypt,Greece,India, China,Sumeria, Babylon,Persia,etc. They looted the Pyramids, Egyptian tombs,and caravans, bought and sold women in all their pre-islamic history and Mohamed just formalised these practices and gave it a cover of "religion" ,justifying it with tales from the bible distorted to serve his evil purposes. Wahabism or any other -ism are only shades or different hues of the same EVIL!
- Name: DESIRE FOR UNLIMITED SEX WITH 72 HOT SEXY HOURIES DRIVES MUSLIMS
- Date: Friday October 12, 2007
- Time: 00:23:57 -0700
Comment
WHAT DRIVES MUSLIMS TO JIHAD ??? THEY WUD BE LEAST INTERESTED IN FOLLOWING THE WORD OF ALLAH HAD IT NOT BEEN THE DESIRE FOR UNLIMITED SEX WITH 72 HOT HOURIES.
- Name: dhimmi
- Date: Friday October 12, 2007
- Time: 09:33:01 -0700
Comment
Wahhabbism/sunni/shia/ismailee/ahmadi/sufi - no matter what ISLAMISM it is - ISLAM is all evil,vile, poison,plague ,cancer, virulence of the world. There is no spirituality - repeat umpteen times - no spirituality ,even remotedly in ISLAM. It is all mundane virulency,ill will,animosity, hostility,hatred,intolerance, murder,killings,sex ,dogma,fascism that fills Qurran. Qurran/Islam do not qualify to be treated as spiritual. No humanistic values,no peace,no freedom,no democracy,no equality,no equality of women,no equality of religion in qurran. No questions of human existence asked, no answers found in qurran. Qurran appeals to mean,basic instincts of humans & turns a good human into a monstrous murderer ,killer,rapist,looter filled with rage,hatred, intolerance against nonmuslims. Islam has the distinction of being the evil which can turn a human into a devil. Dont believe in ISLAM/Qurran/Alla/Mo. period. Moslems must free themselves,liberate from this evil shackles of Islam & become peace loving,pluralistic,freedom loving, democratic persons with tolerance for all.
- Name: Phildas Bhakta
- Date: Friday October 12, 2007
- Time: 09:40:39 -0700
Comment
Dear Sir, I must disagree, especially on your statement that the Mughal's Islam was in anyway tolerant. It was not. But of course, the suffering of the Hindus and Sikhs under the Islamic regimes of the Mughals is never talked about. Yet, there are plenty of proofs and reports from Mughal's own islamic records and evidences, about the systematic destruction od hundreds of thousands of Hindu temples, the genocides of hundreds of thousands of Hindus, the rape and conquest and harrasment of non muslims. What we get today is a politically correct, sterile and sanatized version of "India's muslim empire's history (and of other invaded nations). It is only by the sheer defiance and resistance of the Hindus and Sikhs, that India is not a Islamic hell now. Wahaabism, and other such movements are not expreme, but simply very faithful to the so called prophet of islam, and of his practices. Study the Haadith, his life, and the Koran, and you find that the core of the ideology is nothing but intolerance, hatred and total disrespect for anything that does not follow Mo and his megalomaniac and psychotic fantasies. In order to have peace, any system that preaches the "one way only" path, the "them and us" polarity, must be discredited and rejected as the most grave and disastrous human errors ever commited. May it be any form of Monotheism (which were all spread via bloodshed), communism, Nazism, Extreme Capitalism etc. Monoistic ideologies are the problem, and islam is its most dangerous and deadly form, perfected into a form of Arabis fascism with no exit possible. Islam is the problem, in our case. There is no "tolerant islam", never will be. Study it's bloodstained history, Mo's own life and deeds in the haadith and the koran. The islamic "prophet", resources and "holy scriptures" are the source and the reason for the murdereous and completely intolerant nature of Mohammedanism. There is no such thing as "Islamophobia", but rather Islam's phobia of everything non Islamic! Remember, Islam is treacherous but very clever and is very good at manipulating things, such as portaying itself as the victim, when in truth it is the agressor. Remember the koran condones and encourages DECEPTION at one of it's choice tools of expension. Now, does a real God need to use deception and oppression to assert itself? Allah is nothing but the overblown alter ego of a bitter and vengeful, frustrated poor Arab peasant, who was an unwanted sickly child, with no solid and lovin, caring family to bring him up. Sincerely yours,
- Name: Truth Seeker
- Date: Friday October 12, 2007
- Time: 19:54:23 -0700
Comment
Contrary to all the negative propaganda against it, Wahabism is the true and real Islam. It seeks to introduce what is written in the Quran and what Muhammad had said or done in his lifetime for the Muslims to follow in their lives. If anyone says that it is not true, in that event, I would like to ask him/her: Is not Islam based on the Quran, and if any Muslim can follow the true/real Islam without relying on it, and on the saying and the deeds of its Prophet?
- Name: DH
- Date: Saturday October 13, 2007
- Time: 03:04:00 -0700
Comment
The suggestion that their were no "Wahhabist" tendencies in South Asia before the Arab oil boom is claptrap. The Indonesian Padri movement in the early nineteenth century was such a movement devoted to stamping out vestiges of pre-Islamic practices led by people who had gone on haj to Mecca and learned there that Allah likes bloodshed. "Wahhabists" call themselves "al-Muwahhidun" - the same as a much earlier "purification" sect in North Africa, which was corrupted to "Almohad" by their Christian opponents in Spain. So what if "sufism" is a "heresy" to "Wahhabists". There have been plenty of Sufis eg al-Ghazali who subscribed fully to the jihad ideology, Islam or the sword for polytheists and the enforcement of jizya on the followers of "permitted" religions. No my friends. The current upsurge in Jihad activity is simply the latest round in the cycle that has incessantly repeated itself somewhere or other in the Islamic world during the past 1400 yrs. It only differs in the scope that modern technology has given jihadis to kill in hitherto unavailable ways and coordinate their activities as never before.
- Name: Truth Seeker
- Date: Saturday October 13, 2007
- Time: 09:51:23 -0700
Comment
Ignorant people, including the stupid Hindus of India, proclaim that the Mughals were the tolerant rulers of their country and that they did not force their ancestors into Islam. If it was true, then can anyone tell me where the name "Hindu Kush" came from and what does it mean? Can anyone refer me to a place or a range of hills or mountains on earth that is called "Muslim Kush?"
- Name: vbv
- Date: Saturday October 13, 2007
- Time: 20:15:16 -0700
Comment
To 'Truthseeker' --- Nobody said that mughals were tolerant rulers. Akbar may have pretended tolerance to consoldate his hold in India ,but others were as barbaric ,uncultured and uncivilized as any fanatic ,murderous,stupid,idiotic moronic,and bigoted as any muslim can be. Hindu Kush is a name wose origin can be attributed to the Earlier muslim mauraders like Mohamed of Ghazni who took over 100,000 hindus captive after a deceitful attack and cruell killed them on their way back to Afghanistan. It is nothing to be proud of ,murdering thousands of innocent and unarmed people taken captive in slavery. It is barbaric and uncivilized. Only a muslim can think of such cruelty. The mughal rulers were as intolerant as any of the worst muslims in the world and Auragazeb was the worst bastard of them all.Wahabism is a trash of islam,the original islam that encourages murder,deceit,rape,slavery,massacres,plunder,cheat all in the name of the most barbaric,uncivilized ,most intolerant and bigoted creed 'Islam'. What is islam's contribution in this world other than misery and suffering to the common human ? You can see the evidence all around in the so-called islamic countries everywhere. You can take your islam,wahabism and your filthy immoral prophet and flush them down the filthiest toilet!!!
- Name: vbv
- Date: Saturday October 13, 2007
- Time: 20:21:46 -0700
Comment
To 'Truthseeker' --- Nobody said that mughals were tolerant rulers. Akbar may have pretended tolerance to consolidate his hold in India ,but others were as barbaric ,uncultured and uncivilized as any fanatic ,murderous,stupid,idiotic moronic,and bigoted as any muslim can be. Hindu Kush is a name wose origin can be attributed to the earlier muslim mauraders like Mohamed of Ghazni who took over 100,000 hindus captive after a deceitful attack and cruelly killed them on their way back to Afghanistan. It is nothing to be proud of ,murdering thousands of innocent and unarmed people taken captive in slavery. It is barbaric and uncivilized. Only a muslim can think of such cruelty. The mughal rulers were as intolerant as any of the worst muslims in the world and Auragazeb was the worst bastard of them all.Wahabism is a trash of islam,the original islam that encourages murder,deceit,rape,slavery,massacres,plunder,cheat all in the name of the most barbaric,uncivilized ,most intolerant and bigoted creed 'Islam'. What is islam's contribution in this world other than misery and suffering to the common human ? You can see the evidence all around in the so-called islamic countries everywhere.Islam spreads tyraany and is anti-democratic,it has no respect for human rights or human dignity and self-respect. You can take your islam,wahabism and your filthy immoral prophet and flush them down the filthiest toilet and no sane person would regret it!!! The world would certainly be peaceful ,happy and prosperous without the filthy creed of islam!
- Name: Dhimmi too
- Date: Monday October 15, 2007
- Time: 11:19:25 -0700
Comment
ISlam in any color ,flavor ,appearence is abhorable, abominable, disgusting,repulsive, evil,racist, intolerance, fascist ,jihadist culture. Islam has no value,no compassion, no human rights, no respect for women, children,nonbelievers, Dhimmis,kurs,infidels. It is wrong to call ISLAM as a religion. ISLAM is a blood thirsty,violent, vengeful,intolerant ,fascism. All the basic tenets of ISLAM /Qurran proves this. ISLAM is not religion nor spiritual - but mean,wicked, darkest ,cruel theology which is primitive, backward - seeks to destroy human spirit & mind. There need not be any argument on this - but it is really puzzling to see how this cult of death called ISLAM ,this plague called ISLAM survived - the answer is - force ,vengence,terror, fear,intimidation, killing of any opposition.
- Name: Life in the Northwest of a small island
- Date: Thursday October 25, 2007
- Time: 05:17:14 -0700
Comment
The sheer folly of ignoring the spread of the Wahhibi doctrine is mind blowing. Oddly it poses a massive threat to the Saudi regime but they do nothing except torture and imprison rather than reform it. Maybe if the Bush's and the Saudi's weren't so close finacially, then something would be done about the spread. The sheer damage of the corruption of formerly pacifist versions of Islam can't be exaggerated. We are reaping a whirlwind, and the apologists for this form of Islam will pay the price as much as anyone. http://no-pc.blogspot.com/
- Name: Dead Cat Man
- Date: Sunday October 28, 2007
- Time: 08:21:30 -0700
Comment
More to the point,those of us in the Muslim community who are not Wahabbi-inclined should 'understand this plain truth'before it's too late-one Salafi/Wahabbi on his/her own,cursing all that disagree with them is bad enough,but lots of them[a 'haemorrhoid' of Wahabbis,perhaps]spells and has spelt danger.The main reason that Wahabbis hate the idea of democracy is that many Muslims dislike the sods,too!
- Name: Dead Cat Man
- Date: Sunday October 28, 2007
- Time: 08:34:21 -0700
Comment
Also-the appearance of the Wahabbi strain of Islam was foretold by Prophet Mohammed [SALALLAHU ALAYHE WA SALAM]when he was asked to bless various people he [saw]was gathered with.The only place that the Prophet [saw] refused to bless was Najd[now part of Saudi Arabia],where Ibn Wahab,the founder of this vile sect,later came from in the 18th century.Only bad and dire things [to put it succinctly]would come from Najd.Makes me wonder why Wahabbis A.Have a selective and set approach to history B.Like to withold Islamic knowledge that might lead to them being questioned by other Muslims.The plot sickens...