Natana DeLong Bas’ Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad is not a bad book, but it is not a particularly helpful book either. One of its strong points is how adroitly DeLong-Bas eases the reader into topics. This is no small feat since the protagonist is Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (d. 1792) , a controversial Shaykh who lived during the eighteenth century. The reformer made an alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud, ruler of a small market town Diriyya, and this led to the formation of a state which claimed to live under the guidance of the Shariah and tried to bring the pastoral tribes all around it under its guidance too. More than I care to admit, the book was a page-turner for me, in spite of its moderate heft.
However, the simplicity comes at a price. The narrative, especially when it discusses Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab, is afflicted by a linearity that becomes unconvincing after a while. The book proves incredibly readable throughout, but the one-dimensional character that DeLong-Bas chooses to maintain for the Shaykh quickly becomes a cartoon superhero- too good for his own good, so to speak, and quite unbelievable.
Sources
The book’s early sections are devoted to shedding light on Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s personal life and early teachings. Here, DeLong-Bas relies on two main sources, Ibn Ghannam (d. 1810) and Ibn Bishr (d. 1873). Both were historians who started their respective biographies of Shaykh ibn Abdul Wahhab after the latter’s death. There should be no illusion that both Ibn Ghannam and Ibn Bishr wrote objective accounts of the Shaykh and the events that went on around him. As DeLong-Bas acknowledges:
…it is important to note that they tended to be supportive of the Wahhabi movement. As a result, they tended to portray the most positive aspects of the movement.
Most people who praise the book tend to dismiss the importance of this qualification. It is important. Ibn Ghannam and Ibn Bishr wrote their chronicles to serve a political and religious agenda. In other words, they were Wahhabis themselves and writing with a long history of success and conquests in their mind 1.
The histories suffer from a paucity of dates, though this is not to say that dates are never mentioned. However, the historians’ methodology fairly resembles that of the four Gospels in the New Testament. The focus is not on dates, but on events. It was thus convenient for Ibn Ghannam and Ibn Bishr to select certain events in the Shaykh’s life for special emphasis, and arrange them so that they paralleled that of Prophet Muhammad’s life. Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s forced departure from several towns and his eventual flight into the territory of the al-Saud clan is thus portrayed as a hijra, or emigration from an area of disbelief to one of belief.
DeLong-Bas acknowledges that the literary technique exists, but denies that the attempt is a literal effort to exactly mimic the ‘life and times of Muhammad 2‘. Frankly, I cannot see why it is even important to draw this distinction. It seems irrelevant and a little distracting.
Given her primary sources, it is inevitable that her book would only be a re-enactment of the official Wahhabi history, albeit written in a contemporary, reader-friendly style.
Sea of corruption
I expected more, but DeLong-Bas does not venture much beyond Ibn Ghannam’s and Ibn Bishr’s method of historical reporting. Her insights are limited to refining the justifications that both Ibn Ghannam and Ibn Bishr offer for some of the excesses that occurred during Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s career. Their main thrust is that the environment that surrounded Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab was steeped in disbelief and corruption, and that both evils were perpetuated by the scholars themselves. Although DeLong-Bas makes clear that the historians had not intended for their biographies to be hagiographical after the manner of Sufi Shaykhs, there is nonetheless an unmistakable sense of destiny associated with the arrival of Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab into this apparent sea of corruption. Admirers of the Shaykh make no secret that they consider him to be a mujaddid, a personality who appears every thousand years or so to bring Islam back to its true bearings.
DeLong-Bas proposes that the scholars who opposed Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab were directed by less than noble intentions. Loss of power and income were the chief motivations. This allegation is far too simplistic, however. It effectively masks the sheer variety of emotions and motives that drive any individual. Moreover, the allegation also ignores the fact that opposition to the Shaykh arose at a very early stage of his career, and from no less a place than the heart of Islam, Mecca itself.
A well-organized epistle penned by a contemporary of Ibn Abdul Wahhab, al-Tandatawi, indicates that the four chief muftis of Mecca were well aware of Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s core teachings 3, and indeed, were keen on exposing them. The four muftis were the representatives par excellence of the four schools of Islamic law, namely, Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi’i and Hanbali, and had given their stamps of approval to Al-Tandatwi’s concise refutation of Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s teachings. However, what surprises is not the epistle itself, but how early it was produced and where it was produced.
Al-Tandatawi’s document was written in 1743, when a Wahhabi movement did not yet exist and Ibn Abdul Wahhab was struggling to attract followers in the small town of al-Uyayna. The weakness of Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s position at this time is proven by the relative ease at which town leaders regularly threw him out. It is extremely unlikely that the authorities in Mecca- who had the entire Ottoman empire behind them- considered him to be more than a pesky distraction who had become notorious for destroying the tomb of an important Muslim figure.
The opposition to Ibn Abdul Wahhab had not been rooted in self-serving interests- a notion that ironically serves typical Wahhabi justifications for its own importance- but to the peculiar teachings expounded by him. Moreover, the early date of Mecca’s response to Ibn Abdul Wahhab contradicts the idea that the leading scholars of that time had been reactionary and had only acted when they felt that their positions and income were being threatened.
Interestingly, DeLong-Bas herself provides ample evidence of Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s general deviation from mainstream Muslim thought. For example, she reports a religious edict issued by him, fatawa-wa-masa’il, in which the Shaykh discussed the actions of a close Companion of the Prophet, Abu Bakr (d. 634). Abu Bakr had been the first caliph of the Islamic community, and during his tenure (see The Political Careers of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs), had established the practice of the caliph serving as a paid guardian over the people. Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab expressed vehement disagreement with the decision saying that Abu Bakr had mis-applied vague Quranic verses to justify the ruling. The Shaykh goes on to label Abu Bakr’s decision as:
“…the most astonishing part of his ignorance 4“.
In the same edict, Ibn Abdul Wahhab described Abu Bakr’s claim that such spending was for public good as:
…an awesome lie 5.
The last accusation is particularly ironic, since Abu Bakr was so famous for his honesty that he was nicknamed The Truthful. Nevertheless, Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s harsh criticism of Abu Bakr is a radical departure from the reverence that mainstream Muslims typically have of the Companions of the Prophet.
Whoever speaks well of the Companions of the Messenger of God, his chaste wives, and his purified progeny is absolved of hypocrisy. The pious scholars of the past and those after them who follow their path- the people of goodness and tradition, of understanding and profound scholarship- should be mentioned only in the best manner. Anyone who speaks ill of them has deviated from the path 6.
Pagans
DeLong-Bas mounts a stout defense of Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab. She argues that Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s writings seldom, if ever, contain the call to do violence on any person or group. I am inclined to agree. She then carefully acknowledges that some of his partisans were extreme, but explains that this was in spite of his teachings instead of because of it.
Consequently, the Shaykh also cannot be blamed for inspiring latter-day extremists like Osama bin Laden. I disagree, not least because this is too simplistic and generous a conclusion. While Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab might have been careful to remove any mention of violence in his writings, which he knew would be scrutinized by the leading scholars of his time, he was not squeamish about labeling the greater part of the Muslim world as being pagans who had lost sight of tawhid, or to be more accurate, his idea of divine unity. In an essay found in al-Durar al-Saniyya 7, the Shaykh wrote:
And I shall mention to you something of what Allah mentioned in His Book as a response to the words used as an argument against us by the pagans of our time…
Although violence is not explicitly called for in Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s writings, it is enough that they nurture and sustain a climate of religious superiority for his followers, and condemn the rest of the Muslim community into the realm of disbelief, or in less extreme cases, into the realm of religious innovation (bida).
Violence is hence not shaped by an explicit instruction, but by an attitude of narcissism. At its peak, this narcissism has led to tragic rampages and slaughters, like the massacre of thousands of Shia Muslim at Kerbala in 1802. At its most benign, the narcissism has led to a general scorn of non-Wahhabi Muslims. In a widely reported incident, King Abd al-Aziz was alleged to have told his English adviser John Philby 8:
“Why”, he said, “if you English were to offer me your daughters to wife I would accept her, making only the condition that any children resulting from the marriage be Muslims. But I would not take the daughters of the Sharif or of the people of Mecca or other Muslims, who we reckon as Mushrikun.”
I would therefore argue that the violence perpetrated by Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s followers are the logical conclusion to his teachings. The ease with which most extremists, past and present, are able to adopt and customize Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s paradigm for reform is proof of this.
Accusing Sufism
Even as DeLong-Bas seeks to absolve Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s of any blame in shaping the worldviews of latter-day extremists, she curiously suggests that Sufism might have played a part in some of these extremists, most notably Osama bin Laden. As evidence, DeLong-Bas cites Osama’s description of a “great peace” overcoming him during battle. Unwittingly perhaps, she acknowledges that the essence of Sufism is peace and firmness in the face of tribulation, but that does not detract from the ridiculous nature of the evidence for Osama’s so-called Sufism. In fact, I debunked this in an earlier article: Usama’s bedtime story.
Her second piece evidence is the allegation that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the chief ideologue of Osama’s terrorist outfit al-Qaeda, is a major Sufi shaykh. I have not been able to discover which Sufi brotherhood (tariqa) al-Zawahiri aspires to. Like DeLong-Bas’ first piece of evidence, I consider this fragile, but for a different reason. She fails to explain, for instance, the uneasy compromise with Sufism that some activists in Salafism have reached. This is especially true for the Ikhwan-flavored Salafism that Ayman al-Zawahiri aligns himself with. It is a well-known fact that Hassan al-Banna (d. 1949), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt (Ikhwan al-Muslimoon), had co-opted many Sufi methods of organization. The Sufism that this type of Salafis (see my previous post, Three Flavors of Salafism) cautiously accept, however, is not the classical Sufism of the tariqas, with highly-delineated spiritual stages, special forms of incantation, and devotion to a Sufi Shaykh.
Even as reformist movements like Ikhwan oppose the classical definition of Sufism, they did not fail to grasp the age-long appeal of the word, especially amongst ordinary Muslims. So, they re-apply it to a regime which is hardly more than a system of ethics bearing on practical life and good behavior 9.
It is perhaps a testimony to the arbitrariness of the Osama-Sufi connection that DeLong-Bas devotes only a few lines to it. In fact, the brief assault on Sufism clarifies the main intent of DeLong-Bas’ book. It is is to defend Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab from the charges that have been leveled against him since the start of his controversial career, but on terms familiar to sympathizers of the Shaykh.
Conclusion
The book is enjoyable but incomplete. It demands the reader to accept only one viewpoint, that of the official Wahhabi history. It is hard to classify DeLong-Bas book as an academic treatise when its sources are limited to just one side of an otherwise controversial event in Islamic history.
It is to DeLong-Bas’ credit that she dared to embark on the project. Given the nature of the subject, she must have expected the worst kinds of criticism. On the one hand, I can fully understand why admirers of Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab would hail this book as ground-breaking. It translates key literature associated with Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s life and teachings. More importantly, the book’s easy language make it very accessible to an audience who want to discover more about the Shaykh’s life, but do not possess the requisite linguistic skills to approach the primary sources themselves. On the other hand, I do not believe that it will go far in changing the minds of the Shaykh’s detractors.
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[...] http://higher-criticism.com/2009/05/review-of-wahhabi-islam-natana-delong-bas.html Interestingly, DeLong-Bas herself provides ample evidence of Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s general deviation from mainstream Muslim thought. For example, she reports a religious edict issued by him, fatawa-wa-masa’il, in which the Shaykh discussed the actions of a close Companion of the Prophet, Abu Bakr (d. 634). Abu Bakr had been the first caliph of the Islamic community, and during his tenure (see The Political Careers of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs), had established the practice of the caliph serving as a paid guardian over the people. Shaykh Ibn Abdul Wahhab expressed vehement disagreement with the decision saying that Abu Bakr had mis-applied vague Quranic verses to justify the ruling. The Shaykh goes on to label Abu Bakr’s decision as: [...]
Fear Allah and don’t slander a person because of the claims of another person.
Next time please check the Arabic text of what shaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab said before making such an accusation against him, rahimahullah.
Here is the Arabic text of what shaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab said in al Fatawa wal Masail:
الوجه الخامس: وهو أن يقال لهذا الجاهل المركب : من استدل قبلك بهذا الحديث على أن الحاكم إذا أراد أن يوصل الحق إلى مستحقه يجوز له أن يشترط لنفسه شرطاً فإن حصل له , وإلا لم يفعل؟ فإن كان وجده في كتاب الله فليبين مأخذه. وما ظنه بأهل العلم الأولين والآخرين الذين أجمعوا على ذلك؟ لا يجوز أن يظن أن إجماعهم باطل وأنهم لم يفهموا كلام نبيهم حتى فهمه هو.
وأما استدلاله بأن الناس فرضوا لأبي بكر رضى الله عنه لما ولى عليهم كل يوم درهمين, فهذا من أعجب جهله, ومثل هذا مثل من يدعي حل الزنا الذي لا شبهة فيه, ويستدل على ذلك بأن الصحابة يطأون زوجاتهم! وهذا الاستدلال مثل سواء بسواء! وذلك أن استدلاله بقصة أبي بكر رضي الله عنه تدل على شدة جهله بحال السلف الصالح, فإن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم كان يعطي العمال من بيت المال, وكان الخلفاء الراشدون يأكلون من بيت المال ويفرضون لعمالهم: ولا أعلم عاملاً في زمن الخلفاء الراشدين لا يأكل من ذلك, بل الزكاة التي هي للفقراء جعل الله فيها نصيباً للعمال الأغنياء, ولكن أبا بكر رضي الله عنه لما ولى واشتغل بالخلافة عن الحرفة, وضع رأس ماله في بيت المال,واحترف للمسلمين فيه, فأكل بسبب وضع ماله في بيت المال وبسبب الحرفة, فأين هذا من أكل الرشوة التي حرمها الله ورسوله؟ وأين هذا من الحاكم الذي إذا وقعت الخصومة فأكثرهم برطيلاً يغلب صاحبه؟ ( سبحانك هذا بهتان عظيم).
And here is the whole page:
http://www.kl28.com/books/showbook.php?bID=95&pNo=4&words=%CE%E1%C7%DD%C9&method=2
As you can see, those attacks by shaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab were directed at the person who was using that action in the time of Abu Bakr radiyallahu anhu to claim that bribery is permissable.
It was not directed at Abu Bakr radiyallahu anhu.
He explained how that action was correct, and how it can’t be used as evidence for their falsehood.
Salaam,
I believe the part that natana mentions this dubious incident is on page 55 of her book. Here it is:
http://books.google.com/books?id=kCzAypOHHjEC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&&source=bl&ots=XmTuCueWu6&sig=wrvb6MUQAJGcp0ZO6BmgpvyPEw0&hl=en&ei=cUAqSuiCMJOgkQXnkbmICw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result
[...] Read rest of the review here [...]