Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud

Britain and the Rise of Wahhabism and the House of Saud
Volume IV Issue 361 - 16 January 2004
Dr. Abdullah Mohammad Sindi*

I. INTRODUCTION:
One of the most rigid and reactionary sectsin all of Islam today is Wahhabism. It is the official and dominant sect in Saudi Arabia whose sole constitution is the Holy Qur’an.
Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia’s ruling House of Saud have been intimately and permanently intertwined since their births. Wahhabism created the Saudi monarchy, and the House of Saud spread Wahhabism. One could not have existed without the other.
Wahhabism gives the House of Saud legitimacy, and the House of Saud protects and promotes Wahhabism. The two are inseparable because each supports the other and depends on it for survival.
“Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” with its religious police keeps a watchful eye on the Saudi public.
Wahhabism is highly self-centered and extremely intolerant of progressive ideologies, other religions, and other Islamic sects such as Shia and Sufi. It despises Arab Nationalism with a great deal of passion, yet it promotes “Saudi” nationalism, despite the fact that any nationalism is considered a violation of Islamic theology due to the concept of Islamic Ummah (“nation”). Wahhabism considers itself to be the only correct way in all of Islam, and any Muslim who opposesit as heretic or non-believer.
II. THE BIRTH OF WAHHABISM:
Wahhabism was born in the middle of the 18th century in the sleepy desert-village ofDir’iyyah located in the Arabian Peninsula’scentral region of Najd. The Wahhabi sect derives its name from the name of its founder Mohammad Ibn Abdul-Wahhab (1703-92).
Born in the Najdi small desert-village of Uyayna, Ibn Abdul-Wahhab was a zealot preacher who married a total of 20 wives (no more than 4 at a time) and had 18 children. (1)
Before becoming a preacher, however, Ibn Abdul-Wahhab traveled extensively for years for business, pleasure, and educationto Hejaz, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and India.
Although Ibn Abdul-Wahhab is considered to be the father of Wahhabism, it was actually the British who initially impregnated him with the ideas of Wahhabism and made him its leader for their own sinister purposes to destroy Islam and the Muslim Ottoman Empire.
The intricate details of this intriguing British conspiracy, which are beyond the scope of this article, are to be found in the memoirs of its master spy, titled “Confessions of a British Spy” from which the following two paragraphs are drawn. (2)
While in Basra, Iraq young Ibn Abdul-Wahhab fell under the influence and control of a British undercover spy nicknamed “Hempher” who was one of many spies sent by London to Muslim landsin order to destabilize the Ottoman Empire and create conflicts among Muslims.
Hempher, who pretended to be Muslim, went by the name of “Mohammad” and cunningly established a long-term intimatefriendship with Ibn Abdul-Wahhab. Hempher, who showered Ibn Abdul-Wahhab with money and gifts, completely brainwashed him by convincing him that most Muslims should be killed because they had “dangerously violated” the basic tenets of Islam by becoming “heretics” and“polytheists”.
Hempher also fabricated for him a wild dream in which he supposedly “saw” Prophet Mohammad “kissing” Ibn Abdul-Wahhab between the eyes, telling him youare the “greatest”, and asking him to be his “deputy” to save Islam from “heresies” and “superstitions”.
Upon hearing Hempher’s dream, Ibn Abdul-Wahhab was wild with joy and became more determined than ever to assume the responsibility of establishing a new Islamicsect to “purify” and “reform” Islam.
In his memoirs Hempher described Ibn Abdul-Wahhab as “extremely unstable”, “extremely rude”, “morally depraved”, “nervous”, “arrogant”, and “ignorant”. The British, who viewed Ibn Abdul-Wahhab as a“typical fool”, also arranged ....
III. THE FIRST SAUDI-WAHHABI STATE: 1744-1818
After returning to Najd from his trips, Ibn Abdul-Wahhab began to preach his wild ideas in Uyayna. However, because of his rigid preaching, he was thrown out of his birthplace. He then went to preach in nearby Dir’iyyah where his dear friend Hempher and other undercover British spies joined him.
Ibn Abdul-Wahhab ordered women to shave off their heads in order not to “seduce” men with their hair. (3)
He also mercilessly killed a local adulteress in a crowded public square by brutally smashing her head with a large heavy boulder. (4)
While Islamic punishment for adultery is stoning, but only with small stones, Muslim scholars disagree as to whether the punishment was actually intended to kill.
Although many people opposed Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s rigid teachings and actions including his own father and brother Sulaiman, who were both religious scholars, British undercover spies and money succeeded in cajoling an insignificant Dir’iyyah sheik, Mohammad al-Saud, to support him. (5)
In 1744, al-Saud joined forces with Ibn Abdul-Wahhab by forging a political, religious, and marital alliance. With this union between them and their families, which is still in existence today, Wahhabism as a religious and political movement was born. By this joint venture each head of the al-Saud family (House of Saud) assumed the position of a Wahhabi Imam (“religious leader”), while each head of the Wahhabi family was guaranteed control over religious interpretation.
Ignorant people, not by means of knowledge or persuasion, but by pure violence, bloodshed, and terror, spread Wahhabism in the Arabian Peninsula. As a result of the 1744 Saudi-Wahhabi alliance, a small Bedouin army was established withthe help of British undercover spies who provided it with money and weapons. (6)
In time this army grew into a major menace that eventually terrorized the entire Arabian Peninsula up to Damascus, and caused one of the worst Fitnah (“violent civil strife”) in the history of Islam. In the process, this army was able toviciously conquer most of the Arabian Peninsula to create the first Saudi-Wahhabi State.
For example, to fight what they consideredMuslim “polytheists” and “heretics”, the Saudis-Wahhabis shocked the entire Muslim world in 1801 by brutally destroying and defacing the sacred tomb of the martyr Hussein Bin Ali (Prophet Mohammad's grandson) in Karbala, Iraq, a particularly holy shrine to Shia Muslims. They also mercilessly slaughtered over 4,000 people in Karbala and stole anything that was not nailed down. It took over 4,000 camels to carry the huge loot. (7)
Again in 1810 they ruthlessly killed many innocent people across the Arabian Peninsula. They raided and pillaged many pilgrimage caravans and several major cities in Hejaz including the two holiest cities of Makkah and Madinah. In Makkah they turned away pilgrims, and in Madinah they attacked and desecrated Prophet Mohammad’s Mosque, opened his grave, and sold and distributed its valuable relics and expensive jewels.
These Saudi-Wahhabi terrorist acts and blasphemous crimes aroused the deep anger of Muslims around the world including the Ottoman Caliph in Istanbul. Asthe official ruler of the Arabian Peninsula and the guardian of Islam's holiest mosques, Caliph Mahmud II ordered an Egyptian force to be sent to the Arabian Peninsula to punish the Saudi-Wahhabi clan. In 1818, an Egyptian army led by Ibraheem Pasha (son of Egypt’s ruler) destroyed the Saudis-Wahhabis and razed their desert capital of Dir’iyyah to the ground.
The Wahhabi Imam Abdullah al-Saud and two of his followers were sent to Istanbul in chains where they were publicly beheaded. The rest of the