Wahhabism Is A Crushing Burden on Islam and the Kingdom

It began in the 19th century as a reform movement in Najd, central Arabia. By the late 20th century, Wahhabism has degenerated into a police theocracy. A near co-ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The great founder of the Kingdom, Abdel-Aziz Al-Saud, with an eye on legitimating his family's authority over a kingdom of 5 parts, reached an agreement with Al El-Sheikh, the descendants of Abdel-Wahhab, the reformist founder of Wahhabism. The Saudis would rule the new State; Al El-Sheikh would oversee religious affairs.

The Saudi family kept its bargain, including funding Wahhabism. The Wahhabis kept on interpreting Islam narrowly, and their authority expansively. What began as Islamic reform praised by Sheikh Al-Azhar, Muhammad Abdoh, ended up by a monstrous creature for whom Al-Azhar of today feels the jitters.

When 9/11 happened, the majority of the criminal attackers of America were Saudi nationals. Leading to intensive concern abroad about the dangers of Wahhabism. Several books reflected global unease. Including an important book by Natana Delong-Bas, entitled Wahhabism Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Like other sources, this book raises a central question. "How can contemporary extremists like Osama Bin Laden (a Saudi) use Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's ideology to justify global jihad?" (page 227). The founder of Wahhabism, in his writings, never made jihad an individual burden. He stressed the legal justifications of who is to carry out jihad, under what circumstances, and for what purposes.

The departure of his successors from that narrow and restrictive interpretation of jihad (self-policing and the right to national self-defense within your own national borders) created an atmosphere and circumstances contributing to world-wide Islamophobia. Wahhabism did not create ISIS. But it availed it of an incubator in which its poisonous ideology grew. Threatening Islam and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself.

Of course, it is ridiculous for the U.S. Congress to adopt legislation enabling the families of the victims of 9/11 to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for reparations. This is a legal monstrosity. There is no way an attorney of any of these families could produce probative proof that officials of the Kingdom conspired with the criminals of 9/11 to strike. I was tempted to offer my services as a defense attorney to deflate such outrageous claims. But I curbed my enthusiasm.

This issue of official Saudi culpability is expected to go nowhere. But it does not mitigate the burden by which Wahhabism is dragging Islam and the ruling family into unpredictable directions. That is because Wahhabism is caricaturing the faith of 1.7 billion Muslims. Causing idiots like Donald Trump to call for a ban on the entry of Muslims to America; stimulating the rise of the European Right against immigrants; and causing all Muslims in the diaspora to always remain on the defensive.

A case in point regarding the degenerative Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is the case against the Saudi preacher Ahmed Al-Ghamdi. Fully exposed in a lengthy article in the New York Times of July 11, 2016. Authored by Ben Hubbard, a staff reporter (and a Christian) writing from Jidda under the title of "Secrets of the Kingdom: Into the Heart of Wahhabism."

I shall track his main findings, in order to offer a rebuttal based on Islamic Law to the responses which that fair-minded journalist has uncovered for a global audience. From the contrast between what Ben Hubbard was told, and the rules of Islamic jurisprudence which I teach as a law professor in New York City, the reader might perceive the gulf between Sharia and Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia.

As we embark on this comparison, let us note that Islamic Law derives from the Quran, the authenticated traditions of the Prophet Muhammad in word and conduct, and ijtihad (the application of common sense by Islamic experts to issues where there is no text). In addition, Islamic Law is modifiable or supplemented by legislation, man-made law.

The lack of understanding of this mix has led 38 states of the 50 American states to ban in their State Courts the mere mention of Sharia. This legal error by these states stems directly from Wahhabi practises or advocacy through their supported Madrasas and other institutions throughout the world.

A further damage inflicted by Wahhabis had led the US to ban the importation of copies of the Quran from abroad into the US. A retaliation measure against Saudi ban of the importation of the Bible into the Kingdom.

Wahhabism has also led to the banning of the construction of minarets in Switzerland, and protests by American communities against the construction of mosques. They also caused infiltrating police informants in American mosques to monitor sermons, and the institution by American Congressman Peter King of congressional hearings on Muslim cooperation with the FBI and other law enforcement agents. Thus Wahhabism is a main source for the world politics of fear from Islam. It created a mythical linkage between  Islam as a faith, and jihadism as global terror.

Now to the Ghamdi case. Ahmed Qassim al-Ghamdi has worked most of his adult life for the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, a wahhabi religious police organization. Now he is in self-imposed retirement. No job, fearing the threat of torture for daring to evolve away from Wahhabism into a thinking human being questioning their flagrant interpretation of Islam.

A top member of the Saudi religious establishment, Sheikh Saleh Al-Luhaidan addressed the Ghamdi matter. As if instructing the State on how to handle Ghamdi's progressive views, he issued this threat publicly: "There is no doubt that this man is bad. It is necessary for the State to assign someone to summon and torture him." A Khomeini style call for violence against a Muslim scholar, Ghamdi, who, through resort to the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, is perceived as an apostate.

Backing up this threat for daring to stand up for a distorted Wahhabism, another Saudi religious leader described Ghamdi as "troubled and confused;" and "he is not really a Sheikh," though he has a doctorate in Sharia.

Yet here is a host of indicators on the fact that it is the religious Wahhabi establishment, the State within the State, which is troubled and confused:

• The non-admission of the existence of "Wahhabism." For them, that term is called "true Islam." A form of takfirism (apostasy) in reverse. As if the rest of the Muslim world, which does not follow their practices is on the wrong path;
• Flowing from this draconian non-recognition of any other religious practices are consequences including the suppression of Shiism in Saudi Arabia; the adoption of the non-Islamic term of "infidel" as descriptive of the entire non-Muslim sphere of humanity; and the unislamic attempts to proselytize world-wide;
• Forbidding the mixing between men and women unless they are related by marriage or blood. The Arabic term for gender mixing in Wahhabism is "ikhtilat." The wall between men and women is thus built in the workplace, in schools, in restaurants, in nearly every sphere of human activity beyond the walled homes of family life;
• This form of gender-based apartheid has led, among other things, to the denial of women rights. A full black cover from head to toe, except for slits for seeing. Prohibition of car driving. Non-travel without husband's permission;
• That is not all. There are also the arranged or enforced marriages, including for girls not yet of age. Ban on wearing make-up, unless unseen in public. Unequal pay. Non-access to courts except through male representations. In spite of that regime of anti-female total darkness, the Wahhabis bold-facedly dispute the obvious. They deny that Saudi women are deprived from basic human rights;
• Restrictions on commercial activities. These include the enforced closure of shops during the times of prayers; the regulation of display of a panoply of women clothing in shops;
• The awful textbooks for grade school children, instructing them from their tender years that: Christmas and Thanksgiving are forbidden; celebration of birthdays is to be avoided; music, dance, and such arts are "haram," meaning religiously forbidden; 
• Jihad, they claim, is the calling of every Muslim; and Islam, if not observed in the Wahhabi manner, would unravel, leading to the destruction of society.

All of the above, and more, are a close-minded interpretation of Islamic Law as derived from the Quran and the Sunna. Selective and desert-bound deduction by the descendants of the family of Al-Sheikh.

Turning now to the criminal justice system in Wahhabi-land, requiring a direct nexus to the Quran, the Prophet's tradition, and ijtihad, we now stand on booby trapped grounds. A booby trap is an explosive device designed to be triggered when an unsuspecting victim touches or disturbs a seemingly harmless object.

So it is with the case of public beheadings, cutting off of limbs, public flogging, and stoning for suspected adultery. All forms of corporal punishment said to be prescribed as Huddud Al-Allah (God's limitations, meaning criminal sanctions decreed in the Quran). A whole construction that suffers, even when on point, from the exclusion of: Modifiers provided by secular legislation; a rich history of Sharia which is premised upon being pro-defendant; and the practice of the Enlightened Caliphs (the first four successors of the Prophet Muhammad).

Number Two of these, namely, Omar, refused to accept the admission of a malfeasant who committed theft. And the Quran itself which made proving adultery impossible. For it called for four witnesses actually perceiving the act of penetration. Then you have the all inclusive Islamic adage of "pardon," or forgiveness by an authority, and even by the blood relatives of a murder victim.

The deep dungeon in which wahhabism has descended is their denial of the great label attached to Sharia since the inception of Islam. That label is: "Sharia Is Fit For Every Time and Every Place."

How? Due to its adaptability to changing circumstances. Evolution is the heart of survival. When Amre Ibn El-As invaded Egypt in the 7th century during the reign of Caliph Omar, he was armed with Omar's instructions not to interfere with Christian Orthodox practices of the Coptic population, to safeguard their churches and property, and not to force Islam upon them.

And that is "the True Islam," not as defined by the wahhabis, whose "charitable contributions" have funded jihadism, and whose restrictive ways of life have contributed to Islamophobia world-wide.

Countering the heavy damage perpetrated by wahhabism as a cult, the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, and Al-Qaeda and ISIS as criminal gangs whose crimes could be last seen in Nice, France, on July 14, 2016, the call came from Egypt for "A Religious Revolution." Al-Azhar was put in charge. And before El-Sisi assumed Egypt's presidency, the secular Constitution of 2014 was very vocal on these issues.

Article 2 of that Constitution which supplanted the Islamist Constitution of 2012 of the Morsi dark era, stipulated: "Sharia is the principal source of legislation." It is a call for "broad construction." This is because it does not provide for Sharia to be the only source of legislation. And it provides for the common sense construction that legislation cannot nullify general principles of the Quran.

This is bolstered by Article 3 whose language tracks that of Article 2. Article 3 states that "the principles of legislation for Egyptian Christians and Jews regarding their personal status (i.e. family law, inheritance, and the like) and their choice of spiritual leaders derive from their own religious practices." A constitutional recognition of the sanctity of Judaism and Christianity. You don't see the face of wahhabism in such provisions in the Constitution of Egypt which is home to one third of all Arabs.

Such Egyptian constitutional pillars are the foundation on which rests the Religious Revolution, now spearheaded by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. Ahmed Al-Taiyeb, a graduate of the Sorbonne.

Here follows the ideology of that Revolution which runs counter Jihadism and counter Wahhabism:

• In Abuja, Nigeria, in March 2016, he declares: "We believe that all revealed religions are from God." That ignoring this faith in all faiths has produced "the poisonous fruit of hate for Islam among the adherents of other religions." That "Islam, in the language of the Quran, is a term which does not refer to a particular faith. It is the name common to a collective faith which has been advocated by all prophets." That the Quran has stated: "We gave him (Jesus) the Scripture in which was guidance and light, and confirming what was before it of the Torah, and a guidance and an admonition for the pious." (Chapter V, Verse 46).

Later in March (March 22), the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar stood before the Bundestag in Berlin, to press on with the ideology of "the Religious Revolution." 

Quoting him, he declared: "It is not true what is said about Islam as a religion of combat. The term 'sword' was not mentioned even once in the Quran." That jihad includes "every effort designed to serve the needs of the community." That Muslims living in Europe "should become a part of the European fabric." That women in Islamic Law are "a full partner with men in rights and obligations... Islam is not the cause for marginalization of women. Her marginalization is the result of adhering to decrepit customs having nothing to do with Islam."

Then in May, 2016, on the eve of Ramadan, a holy month made bloody by jihadism in Muslim countries (Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq), Al-Azhar Rector declared in Paris: "It is wrong for some who pretend to speak in the name of Islam on Muslims to distance themselves from the Europeans." 

Then he advocated for "positive integration," whereby Muslims in Europe should espouse their new societies. Here he cited the Charter of Medina issued by the Prophet Muhammad. Calling it "the first constitution known to mankind," it advocated for equality before the law in rights and obligations for all citizens regardless of diversity of faith or ethnicity.

Where is Wahhabism from these universal principles of Islam advocated by the Rector of Al-Azhar which was established more than 1000 years ago? No where.

• No where when the religious police in Saudi Arabia knocks on doors of the homes of citizens to check upon their daily life;
• No where in the plethora of religious fatwas (religious opinions) calling for the death of Micky Mouse;
• No where in the Wahhabi opposition to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology because women are allowed to study with men on the same campus;
• No where when a fatwa is issued by a demented cleric declaring false eyelashes for women to be sinful;
• No where where another crazy fatwa is issued against "all you can eat buffets;"
• No where when the "Council of Grand Islamic Scholars" is allowed to issue anti-social decrees in Saudi Arabia making the exit of the citizens to countries abroad a respite from a suffocating atmosphere of enforced and retrograde conformity.

In all of this, one has to distinguish between Saudi Arabia as a State, and Saudi Arabia as Wahhabi land.

But Wahhabism, as a near cult, is a crushing burden, not only on Islam. But also on the Kingdom itself. For how can Saudi Arabia, with its unlimited potential for growth and prosperity, could catch up  with a world, including America, which is now exploring Jupiter?

Ghamdi is now in the center of a tsunami for daring to discover the simple truth about Muslim society during the time of the Prophet of Islam: Namely that ikhtilat (mixing men with women) was common. Women set at the Prophet's councils and even disagreed with him at times.

Now here is an advice for Wahhabism, whose excesses are now being partially curtailed by the State. If the form of woman's body causes you to be excited, don't get a fatwa. Get a psychiatrist. You need help. And cancel that travel ticket to Thailand and the Philippines. You may get venereal diseases resulting from undercover search for sexual pleasure. A false assumption of an appearance of virtue is a sin in Islam.

But it is OK for you to travel to Cairo, where belly dancing is an integral part of public entertainment. Gyrating on the same soil where Shajarat Al-Durr (The Tree of Pearls), a beautiful woman ruled over Egypt in the 13th century. The Seventh Crusade ended with her diplomatic dealings as a Muslim queen, with her counterpart, a Christian queen.

In their own peculiar ways, the Wahhabis have tribalized Islam. Thus it is out of the question for them to understand "The New Normal." Meaning, in this context, what David Brooks, in the New York Times of July 15 eloquently posited. He said: "Morality is not based on loyalty to people close to (you). It is based on a universal equality for all humans everywhere."

This is the core of Islam. Its primary source, the Quran, begins most of its verses by addressing itself to "the people" (Nas). All the people. All of humanity. Not only the segment which calls itself "Muslim."

It explains what Sheikh Mummad Abdoh, the great Islamic reformer of the 19th/20th centuries told the Egyptian reporters upon his return to Alexandria from Paris. Asked "How did you find the West?" His iconic answer was: "In the West, I found Islam. But here in the East, I find only Muslims." 

For in France, now the target of several major terrorist attacks within the last 18 months, counting the massacre in Nice on Bastille Day, has been the welcoming incubator of Islamic reform. Its liberties gave it the oxygen which it sorely lacks in its birthplace.


Note: We now begin work on my next book on the New Egypt: "The New Egypt: From Chaos to the Strong State (2014-2016)." It shall mainly consist of the blog postings over the period covered by the book. Additional material which did not appear in the blog postings will be included. Looking forward to resuming later on.