From the “neglected duty” to Daesh
Amidst the conflicts that arose because of ISIS in the Middle East, one has to question how such a movement is organized, what are its goals, but more important, where do its ideology and thus its legitimacy stem from? ISIS’s ideological lineage is important because it lays the foundation for further research that ties repression with extremism. There are four ideological stages that Wahhabism has gone through: from the politicization of its original ideology under Muhamed Ibn AbdelWahab till modern times. This politicization has led to the current radicalization in such groups as al-Qaeda and ISIS. This chapter examines the different stages of ideological transformation Wahhabism has gone through. The chapter starts from an individual level of radicalization exemplified by Abdel Salam Faraj1 and then engages in an international level analysis of Wahhabi transnationalism, examining the movement’s foundation and its developments.
Islamic fundamentalism is a term that was used by the media after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The contemporary reference post 9/11 has changed the language about Islamic political activism under the rubric of terrorism. In this mood of generalization, we are losing sense analytically of what John Esposito has referred to as the “quiet revolution.” The changes that are taking place in many Muslim countries are not the ones we usually see on television or read about in the newspapers.
In an effort to discern the quiet revolution from terrorism, it is necessary to start by providing a definition of the term jihad. The speed and strength of cultural change in Muslim countries cannot be limited to a certain movement and its political expediency anymore. Therefore, it is important analytically to focus on the populist sentiments towards the word jihad among Muslims.
In The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, jihad is defined as follows: “holy war, a Divine institution of warfare to extend Islam into the abode of struggle, or to defend Islam from danger” (Glasse, 1989: 209–210). Netton defines jihad as a “holy war”; he writes that “the word derives from an Arabic root meaning basically to ‘strive’” and that “all Muslims are obliged to wage a spiritual jihad in the sense of striving against sin and sinful inclinations within themselves: this is the other major sense of jihad” (Netton, 1992: 136–137). The differences between those two definitions precisely point out the issues addressed in this research: Is jihad synonymous with “holy war,” or does jihad portray a broader concept that befits the general ethos of Islam?
In response to this question, an analysis of a violent Islamic activist will aid the understanding of the word. Faraj2 added jihad as the sixth pillar of Islam (the other five being (1) al-shahada, professing one’s beliefs that there is One God and that Muhammad is his prophet; (2) praying five times a day; (3) fasting during the month of Ramadan; (4) zakat, almsgiving; and (5) al-hajj, going on a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime).
First, Faraj views his jihad as the true jihad. He comments on other non-violent Muslim activists:
Some of the Muslim activists say that the right road to the establishment of an Islamic state is the non-violent call (da‘wa), and the creation of a broad popular base. This does not bring about the foundation of an Islamic state. Nevertheless, some people make this point the basis for their withdrawal from true jihad.
(Jansen, 1986: 185)
Faraj further illustrates his point by citing the Quran: “Few among my servants are thankful” (34.13).
Faraj differentiates between what he calls true jihad and by implication any other type of jihad, which by implication would be false. He does not make references to the Quran or the Hadith (the Prophet’s sayings): the two most important primary sources that guide all Muslims regardless of their creed. He further emphasizes this when he writes,
Some people have misunderstood what I say and have taken it to mean that we should refrain from the nonviolent call to Islam altogether. This however is the refutation of those who see it as their aim to create a broad base and in doing so forget about true jihad, or even hinder or obstruct true jihad in order to realize this peaceful aim of theirs.
(Jansen, 1986: 187)
Second, even when he cites the Quran to prove that only a select few, “a minority” will be on the straight path, he fails to cite the whole verse:
They (in reference to the Sons of David) worked for him. As he desired, making arches, images, basins, as large as reservoirs, and cooking caldrons fixed in their places: “Work ye Sons of David, with thanks! But few of my servants are grateful.”
(34.13)
Therefore, when Faraj takes only part of the verse he totally disregards the context and the story behind the verse; that is the depiction of a minority that follows the straight path whereby they will save the rest of the believers is not presented in this specific verse.
Again differentiating “true” from “false” jihad, Faraj stresses that
[w]hoever frankly admits that he has no knowledge of the way in which Islam regulates jihad must know that the regulations of Islam are simple and easy for someone who sincerely dedicates his intentions to God. Such a person must consciously formulate the inner intention of fighting for God’s cause and from that moment the regulations of jihad can easily and simply be studied, and in a very, very short timeThe matter then has no need for much study. When someone wants to increase his knowledge above this elementary level he can freely do so, but to postpone jihad for the sake of the quest for knowledge is the line reasoning of someone who has no case worth considering.
(Jansen, 1986: 189)
There are two verses of the Quran that Faraj repeatedly cites to support his argument:
The verse of the Sword: “The abrogation of the command to be at peace with the infidels, to forgive them, to be passively exposed to them and to endure their insults preceded here the command to fight them.” Such a command to live in peace with the infidels is found in 114 verses in 54 Surahs. This is all abrogated by the verse of the Sword (9.5). Faraj continues to write: “It is strange indeed that there are those who want to conclude from Quranic verses that have been abrogated that fighting and jihad are to be forsworn.”
(Jansen, 1986: 195)
The second verse that Faraj repeatedly cites is Surah 2, verse 216. He argues: “Fighting is a duty upon all Muslims.” When God made fasting obligatory, he said: “Fasting is prescribed for you” (2.183). In regard to fighting the Quran says: “Fighting is prescribed to you” (2.216). The real character of this duty is clearly spelled out in the Quranic texts: it is fighting, which means confrontation and blood.
(Jansen, 1986: 199)
It is necessary to refer to the verses Faraj utilizes to build his argument for jihad in order to check the meaning and the context of those verses. First, the verse of the Sword, is preceded by the following one:
But the treaties are not dissolved with those pagans with whom Ye have entered into alliance and who have not subsequently failed you in aught, nor aided any one against you. So fulfill your engagements with them to the end of their term: for God loveth the righteous
(9.4)
But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans whenever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war; But if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: for God is oft-forgiving, Most Merciful
(9.5)
The reason that the preceding two verses are mentioned is that they clearly state that “[a]nd who (in reference to the people Muslims have entered into a treaty with) have not subsequently failed you in aught, nor aided any one against you” (9.4); that is if and only when the people you have a treaty with break their promise or aid others against the Muslims by means of treachery do Muslims resort to fighting; “when the forbidden months are past” and even then if the enemy shows signs of repentance, the Muslims should forgive them and make peace with them.
The second verse that Faraj utilizes is in Surah 2:
Fighting is prescribed to you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But God knoweth, and ye know not.
(2.216)
The verse that follows, however, is not mentioned by Faraj:
Those who believed and those who suffered exile and fought and strove and struggled in the path of God, they have the hope of the Mercy of God; and God is oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
(2.218)
The verses therefore are addressed to the community of believers who were forced into exile from Mecca to Medina, and any other communities that are exiled or persecuted because of their beliefs. Therefore, the summon to fight is in the context of exile and persecution. Faraj intentionally manipulates the text to justify his deeds.
Qutb3 is another example of an Islamic activist who wrote many books during his lifetime. He is one of the main ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and his works are widely read in the Muslim world in Arabic and in translation. Qutb starts his argument about jihad by denying that Islam calls on Muslims to force others to believe; he cites the Quran: “Let there be no compulsion in religion: truth stands out clear from error: whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And God heareth and knoweth all things” (2.256), that is the idea of coercing infidels, according to Qutb, abrogates the essence of religion (Qutb, 1967: 130).
Qutb clarifies that Islam, as a “world idea,” should aid in eradicating all forms of injustice (zulm), regardless of the peoples, country, religion or colour of skin: human beings should be salvaged from the destruction of their fellow men. It is in this context that Muslims should rise to jihad (Qutb, 1967: 131–132). He further stresses that Islam promotes peaceful coexistence when he cites the Quran:
O mankind! We created you from a single pair of male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other) Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you and God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).
(49.13)
Another verse from the Quran supports Qutb’s position on peaceful coexistence:
And dispute ye not with the People of the Book, except with means better than mere disputation, unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong and injury, but say, we believe in revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you, our God and your God is One, and it is to Him that we all bow in submission.
(29.46)
Qutb explains the limitations of engaging in warfare even with polytheists who do not believe any of the three heavenly religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Qutb, 1967: 134). Two verses in the Quran specifically address the limitations of engaging in warfare:
God forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for your faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them, for God loveth those who are just. God only forbids you with regards to those who fight you for your faith, and drive you out of your homes, and support others in driving you out, from turning to them for friendship and protection
(60:8–9)
Although many consider Faraj and Qutb as Islamic activists, and some would argue that they are both violent, yet, as exemplified in his writing, Qutb is not in agreement with Faraj’s interpretation of jihad.
In summation of the presented arguments, there remains one verse of the Quran which clarifies the causes for any warfare:
To those against whom War is made, permission is given to fight, because they are wronged; and verily God is Most Powerful in their aid. Those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right, for no cause except that they say “Our Lord is God.” Did not God check one group of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, in which the name of God is commemorated in abundant measure. God will certainly aid those who aid His cause: for verily God is Full of Strength, Exalted in Might, able to enforce His Will
(22.39–22.40)
The verse clearly states that only in conditions of outright warfare should people defend themselves by fighting. The second verse also points out an important issue because it clearly equates the “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians) to Muslims in terms of (1) their right to fight against people who threaten their freedom of belief and (2) the protection by God against those who would “pull down monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques.”
The reflex to resort to violence is what Faraj was advocating in his book. However, if we take a look at what is happening currently in Egypt – fighting with the Egyptian Copts and burning their places of worship – the justification that Faraj offered for Sadat’s assassination is used by few as a way to justify their ill deeds. It is therefore important to stress that the legal interpretation of the text depends on a holistic approach, an approach that analyses all the textual sources and does not rely on broken verses from the Quran just to serve its purpose.
Negotiation and conflict management rely heavily on deciphering the relevance of context and that is why when one analyses the texts in the Islamic tradition, one is more capable of understanding whether the faith and its followers are inherently violent. The fact of the matter is that Faraj, first and foremost, selectively quotes the Quran, a primary source in Islam, to justify his ideas; second, he utilizes secondary sources more than primary ones in his argument to legitimize the use of violence.
Faraj, like others who seek violence as an answer, relies on the work and interpretation of Ibn Taymiya,4 a scholar who wrote about jihad in the face of the Mongol invasion of Syria and other Muslim territories. Ibn Taymiya argued fiercely for the use of force because the Syrians were fleeing and leaving their land and belongings behind. So, in an effort to hold their positions and fight against the invasion, Ibn Taymiya wrote assertively about combat and its necessity. Currently, Ibn Taymiya’s work is considered to be one of the main sources that incite warfare. On examining the “Doctrine of Jihad” by Ibn Taymiya (Peters, 1996: 43–54), we see that he uses Quranic verses the same way that Faraj did; that is the verses either are irrelevant to the argument being made (waging violence/war) or are truncated to cater and serve the argument for war. Moreover, Ibn Taymiya utilizes secondary sources in his essay about jihad, which is the same method that Faraj follows in his writing as indicated earlier.
On the other hand, if one examines a more contemporary essay by Mahmud Shaltut, one will find that he argues from a different perspective in his analysis of primary sources on the issue of jihad.5 Shaltut, who focused on finding commonalities between the Muslim sects, was especially interested in bringing the Shiites and Sunnis closer. Shaltut not only recognized the importance of citing the Quranic verses in their entirety but adhered vehemently to the idea that to understand what the Quran has to say about a topic, one needs to analyse all the verses connected to this topic in the whole book. Shaltut emphasized that contextualization is necessary to build any argument or opinion based on and derived from the Quran. Shaltut built on Mohamed Abdu’s liberal thoughts, but he specifically called for the analysis of the text from a liberal holistic point of view. This latter point is clear when he compares the “fighting verses” with the “forgiveness verses”; that is he emphasizes the balance between the need to defend oneself by engaging in war and the need to forgive. Shaltut stresses the importance of unity in the face of differences, he was concerned with bringing different sects together and, therefore, he stressed unity as a priority rather than divisions in Muslim societies.
Therefore, based on the writings of Qutb, Boisard and Shaltut, it is evident that jihad is only a means of self-defense and that instigating violence according to their interpretations is abhorred by the faith. The spirit of the law and text (the Quran) guide those authors’ idea of jihad.
According to Shaltut’s commentary on some of the Quranic verses,
[i]n these verses and the principle they contain with regard to the reason and the aim of fighting, there is not a single trace to be found of any idea of conversion by force. On the contrary, these verses, like the previous ones, say in plain and distinct words that the reason for which the Muslims have been ordered to fight is the aggression directed against the, expulsion from their dwellings, violation of God’s sacred institutions and attempts to persecute people for what they believe.
(Peters, 1996: 75)
The writers examined exemplify on an individual level how Jihad is interpreted in Islam: the chapter now turns its focus to the transnational movement: Wahhabism.
Wahhabism, as the chapter further explains, did not start out as a jihadi ideology, but it was utilized as a nationalist-defensive movement by Mohamed Ibn Saud against the Ottoman Empire.
It is important to note that Wahhabism came as a reaction to Ottoman rule in the 1700s (Hourani, 1983). The message of its founder, Muhammad Ibn Abdel Wahhab, was focused on monotheism (tawhid). In the midst of foreign and superstitious trends, he found it necessary to form the faith by adhering to its basic tenet, which is also how he described his movement and his followers: the Monotheists (al-Muwahideen; Delong-Bas, 2004: 9).
He also focused on the study of the Prophet’s sayings (plural: ahadeeth). Ibn Abdel Wahhab studied the context of the hadith rather than its chain of transmission which was a common practice at the time. The importance of primary sources to him was an essential feature of his reform and therefore opposed to the idea that Wahhabis are Hanbalis and therefore the most literalist interpretation of the faith. Ibn Abdel Wahhab was a reformist who sought to open the door to the interpretation of the textual sources and to avoid relying on secondary legal sources. Ibn Abdel Wahhab was a purist who thought that over time, Islamic legal interpretations were competing with the textual sources in Islamic legal thought. As Delong-Bas clearly states,
[h]e called for the sociomoral reconstruction of his society through greater adherence to monotheism (tawhid) and renewed attention to the Quran and hadith. He rejected imitation of the past (taqlid) in favor of fresh and direct interpretation (ijtihad) of the scriptures and Islamic law by contextualizing them and studying their content. He was a religious scholar. He established a protective relationship with a local political leader, who agreed to implement his religious teachings.
(Delong-Bas, 2004: 13)
Ibn Abdel Wahhab was fighting what, over time, was eroding the Muslim faith, that is the utter reliance on religious scholars by the people, idolizing their opinion and placing their interpretations on an equal footing with the texts. Thus, the religious scholar’s popularity gained power, although the faith itself is not hierarchical and is not institutionalized as is Catholicism, for example.
A second characteristic that plagues the literature that does not distinguish Wahhabis from Salafism is Wahhab’s condemning of violence. It is evident from Ibn Abdel Wahhab’s writing that he thought that fighting is a last resort to conflict resolution. It was common in Ibn Abdel Wahhab’s time for religious scholars to declare a person or group of people as non-believer(s) (kafir), if this person went against their will. This entailed not only losing credibility in a Muslim society but also subjected the person/group to war. In opposition to such teachings, he argued that there are principles in Islamic legal thought that clearly state how people could hold different opinions and the rules of differing (adab al-ikhtilaf). He wrote that any such attempts by the religious scholars are just to expand their own power and that Islam had nothing to do with alleging that other people are non-believers. Ibn Abdel Wahhab stated that calling others to Islam should basically rely on education and debate, not fighting. As a religious leader, after his alliance with Mohamed Ibn Sa’ud in 1744, Ibn Abdel Wahhab’s main tension in this alliance was to distance himself from Ibn Saud’s militaristic ambitions. (Delong-Bas, 2004: 32–33)
Ibn Abdel Wahhab thought that: “Jihad was not intended to serve as a means of acquiring power, wealth, or glory.” (Delong-Bas, 2004: 35)
However, as early as 1749, some of Ibn Abdel Wahhab’s followers assassinated a Saudi leader, Ibn Mu’ammar, because he was a detractor of Ibn Saud’s newly founded state. Delong-Bas asserts that “Ibn Abdel Wahhab’s goal of reforming Islam was overshadowed and ultimately overwhelmed by Muhammad Ibn Saud’s quest for state consolidation” (Delong-Bas, 2004: 38).
However, it is arguable that Ibn Abdel Wahhab’s message incited violence from its inception as early as 1749. Delong-Bas argues that if a Jihadi continuum were to be created that Ibn Abdel Wahhab’s writing would fall between classicists and modernists:
Clearly, although Ibn Abdel Wahhab shares some similarities with modernists in terms of content and approach, particularly with respect to the goal of establishing treaty relationships with non-Muslims rather than engaging them in warfare and in emphasizing education and verbal debate as the major means of the modern-ists in the face of European colonialism. In terms of content, he is closer to the modernists than he was to the classicists, but he does not fit neatly into either category (Delong-Bas, 2004: 239).
After Ibn Abdel Wahhab died in 1791 or 1792. (Delong-Bas, 2004: 40) Ibn Sa’ud’s political agenda expressed itself more clearly. Thus, with the death of Ibn Abdel Wahhab, it was easier to manipulate Wahhabi followers and scholars. The Wahhabi scholars started politicizing certain jurisprudential writings to justify their rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. By politicizing, here I mean taking words and ideas out of context to reach a political goal. The Wahhabi scholars started taking parts of Ibn Taymiya’s message about jihad in order to religiously justify their discontent with their Ottoman leaders. It is at this point that Wahhabi doctrine was and continues to be influenced by Ibn Taymiya’s work: “Ibn Taymiya provided a world view and ideology that allowed for revolution against an unfaithful ruler by denying him his status as a Muslim on the basis of his failure to fulfill his responsibilities to Islam” (Delong-Bas, 2004: 247). Again, like Ibn Abdel Wahhab, Ibn Taymiya did not incite violence, but he witnessed the Mongol invasion of Syria and repeated attacks by the Crusaders. Ibn Taymiya’s fervour for advocating armed attack was contextual because of the attacks by the Mongols and Crusaders, it was defensive in nature. However, taken out of context, his writing about the mutually exclusive spheres between the land of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the land of non-believers (Dar al-Kufr), led many Wahhabis and other violent offshoots in the Muslim world to use those texts to legitimize their own violence (Delong-Bas, 2004; Peters, 1996).
Thus, although Wahhabism started out with Ibn Abdel Wahhab’s focus on the difference between the imitation of jurisprudential thought and the interpretation of primary sources, that is texts (Taqlid versus Ijtihad), the followers of Ibn Abdel Wahhab ended up imitating Ibn Taymiya in their call for a holy war against the Ottomans in the early 19th century.
As a direct result of Abdel Nasser’s violent persecution of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, some of the Muslim Brothers migrated to Saudi Arabia in the 1960s (Lacroix, 2011: 51). Abdel Nasser, like any totalitarian leader, wished to crush the most powerful opposition in Egypt because of his personal goal of ruling the country. Although the Muslim Brothers were supportive of the 1952 coup and its leaders (Nasser was one of those leaders), he turned against them in 1953 before the attempt to assassinate him in 1954 (Mitchell, 1993). It is also documented that Nasser concurred that he was a Muslim Brother before the 1952 coup in a police investigation (Mitchell, 1993). However, because of the breakdown and heightened political tension in Egypt towards the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, because Egypt was still under British rule, the rise of Nationalists/Leftists, the divide from within the Muslim Brotherhood: all those tensions led to the secret apparatus’s (the armed wing of the Muslim Brothers in the 1950s) attempt on Nasser’s life in what was famously known as the “Manshiya” accident (Mitchell, 1993).
The Sahwa movement was then created on the basis of Wahhabism (which as previously mentioned was affected by Ibn Taymiya’s thought in its second wave) and the new immigrant Muslim Brotherhood thought, as I will clarify. Among the intellectual “fathers” of the new movement was Mohamed Qutb, the brother of the well-renowned Sayid Qutb, who was sentenced to death by Abdel Nasser in 1966. Muhamed Qutb was released from prison in 1971, after being tortured for six years without due process or the observance of basic human rights. After his release he travelled to Saudi Arabia where he was hired as a professor to teach Islamic law (Lacroix, 2011: 53).
Muhamed Qutb wrote,
There is no difference between the question of creed and the question of shari’a: either there is government according to God’s revelations (al-hukm bima anzala Allah), or jahiliyya and shirk (the association of God with other entities). For the knowledge of the Truth of God and just belief in Him imply granting sovereignty (hakimiyya) only to Him as they imply directing adoration (uluhiyya) only to Him… “Aqida (creed) and shari’a are the two sides of a single question; they emanate from a single source and lead to a single end. This source and this end are belief in God and submission (Islam) to him.”
(Lacroix, 2011: 54)
In the process of making the ideological links to Wahhabism, Qutb and his experience in prison, as well as the death of his brother, created the persona and the anger expressed in his ideological work: in addition to making himself the leading theorist of the Wahhabi–Qutbist hybrid, Muhammed Qutb tried to mask those elements of his brother’s legacy that were incompatible with the political and religious environment of his adopted country. In particular, that involved sweeping Sayid’s very first works under the rug, such as Artistic Representation in the Koran (1945), whose references to art and music were considered incompatible with Wahhabi norms, and, especially, Social Justice in Islam (1949), whose arguments laid the groundwork for the theory of Islamic socialism, which was later given real substance by the Syrian Brother Mustafa al-Siba’i in The Socialism of Islam. In the Saudi political context of the 1970s, such leftist positions had obviously become untenable in the face of a government that claimed itself the champion of conservative Islam (Lacroix, 2011: 54–55).
The second man who was part of the religious revival (al-Sahwa) was Abdel al-Rahman al-Dawsani who was from Najd, he espoused Qutb’s ideas and became “the first sheikh to attack untiringly the deviations of Saudi liberals among the intelligentsia and in the nascent intellectual field” (Lacroix, 2011: 58).
The third well-known person in the religious awakening movement was Muhammed al Rashid or Abd al-Mun’im: he was of Iraqi origin and a former member of the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood before moving to Saudi Arabia. Al-Rashid was known for presenting the Wahhabi ideas in writing and combining Qutbist, Wahhabist, Ibn Taymiya and other ideas to form the ideological cornerstone of the revivalist (Sahwa) movement (Lacroix, 2011: 59–60).
One of the main characteristics that were later on imitated by all Salafist movements is their sanctification of everyday life, they
adopted a very strict code of conduct that they considered an emanation of the Islamic norm. In the process they borrowed widely from the practices of Wahhabi ulema, but although these practices had hitherto been the preserve of a small religious elite, the Sahwa made them a model applicable to everyone.
(Lacroix, 2011: 60)
Although the Saudi royal family, King Abdel Aziz and King Faysal, were welcoming of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s, they clearly did not want the Brotherhood to establish a branch of the movement. They were, however, allowed to help their brethren financially (Lacroix, 2011: 64). However, the Saudis who were in touch with the Muslim Brotherhood later on developed movements that collectively are known as “The Awakening/Revival” (Sahwa). The leaders of those groups were in touch with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, but they never formed a united front. The revivalists of Saudi Arabia became united only when they had political competition from a group called the Sururis established by an originally Syrian scholar in the late 1970s, named Muhammed Surur (Lacroix, 2011: 70). Surur denounced the Muslim Brotherhood for being “inclusive and pragmatic,” qualities that obviously Sururis frowned upon (Lacroix, 2011: 69).
Another well-known group that opposed the Sahwa was the “Ahl al-Hadith” group led by al-Albani, who revolted against the Wahhabi/Sahawi monopoly in Saudi Arabia. Although neither the Sururis nor the People of the Hadith (Ahl al-Hadith) were able to challenge, the Sahwa’s control over religious leadership, the latter’s criticism of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders is important:
In 1966, at a time when Islamists of all tendencies, as well as figures of the Wahhabi religious establishment like Ibn Baz, were paying homage to the martyrdom of Sayyid Qutb, who had just been executed at Nasser’s orders, al – Albani was one of the few sheikhs who dared express open criticism. He attacked Qutb’s conception of creed, in which, he argued, he detected signs of the doctrine of the oneness of being (wahdat al-wujud), defined by the Andalusian mystic Ibn Arabi (1165–1240) and identified with Sufism. Elsewhere al-Albani attacked the Brotherhood’s founder Hassan al-Banna, denouncing his positions contrary to the Sunna and insisting on the fact that al-Banna was not a religious scholar (‘alim).
(Lacroix, 2011: 86)
The importance of this lies in its comparison of the different Islamic activist groups in Saudi Arabia over the years ideologically and organizationally:
The allegiance/respect of Sayyid Qutb’s ideas was apparent in combining part of Sayyid Qutb’s writings with Wahhabism, which was also true of the Sururis. However, the Sururis, implicitly adopted the old exclusivist line, takfir was called for, while for the Brotherhood, faithful to the more inclusivist line of their counterparts throughout the Middle East, although any divergence from orthodoxy was extremely blameworthy, it did not necessarily imply exclusion from the community of believers. It is not surprising, therefore, that the individuals selected to represent the kingdom in meetings with Iranian ulema, notably through the Muslim World League, were almost systematically Brothers and never Sururis.
(Lacroix, 2011: 123–124)
The Sururis were more literal and exclusionists in their view of the faith, which always affected their view of the Sahawis. The Sururis were keen on always bringing to the fore how the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and elsewhere were not as traditional in their understanding of the faith. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood ideologue al-Ghazali’s writing about women’s equality or Sa’id Hawa’s writing about Sufism (Lacroix, 2011: 124–125).
As a result of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, as well as other Muslim countries’ leaders, started sending their respective Islamic activists to fight the Soviets and regain Islamic lands that were under the threat of occupation. The regimes’ encouragement of those activists was tactical in that it distracted the Islamists from domestic politics, and it was also an easy way to reduce their numbers in an armed struggle. The group that was led by Abdallah Azzam and Osama bin Laden was known as the young jihadis in Saudi Arabia. They recruited youth from the Sahwa (Saudi Muslim Brotherhood).
Till this day the Sahwa’s legacy lives on in Saudi Arabia and remains as the major ideological influence on the ground. The Sahwa leaders’ amalgam of some of Qutb’s ideas with Wahhabism was an effort to make those ideas more indigenous for local consumption. The Sahwa’s control over many government agencies and, specifically, the educational system shaped its legacy and effect on Saudi activists, which continue to live on even currently.
The Gulf War in 1990 was also a game changer because Saudi Arabia ceased to be isolated from regional conflict. The involvement of Saudi Arabia in the Gulf War led to a divide that was created between members of the Sahwa regarding the legitimacy of having American forces on Saudi soil and those differences split the movement:
The Sahwa had split into three components laying claim to this ambiguous legacy. One was a “new Sahwa” made up of ulema who had once again become committed to the exclusive logic of the religious field and refrained from any politicization. The others were the Islamo-liberals and the neojihadis, who tried for a few years to relaunch the mobilization until they were crushed by repression without having achieved the success they had hoped for.
(Lacroix, 2011: 267)
The Salafis of Egypt started growing as a group in the late 1970s. They represented a reaction and an expression of ambition to lead and control the Muslim world. The Salafis were also welcomed by the Mubarak regime to ward off its major political challenger: the Muslim Brotherhood. The Salafis of Egypt comprised two major groups:
The Protectors of Sunna6 (Jama’at Ansar al-Sunna):
This is the largest Salafi group in Egypt and it maintains strong relations with the Sahawis/Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. The group managed to spread into different governorates and its extensive spread in terms of sheer numbers and influence was especially evident in the governorate of Alexandria. This group has similar branches in countries like Sudan, Eritrea, Chad and Central African countries. This is not to say that these groups are unified; however, they adhere to the same religio-political ideology (Ahmed, 2013: 7). The ideological leader of TPS is Mohamed el-Fikki. The rules and guidelines of TPS largely reflect the contemporary Wahhabi convictions, such as the principle of monotheism (al-tawheed), the rejection of Sufis and Shiites and the unequal treatment of women (Ahmed, 2013: 8).
The Legal Association of the Followers of the Qur’an and Sunna:7
This group was created before the TPS, and they were purely a religious group with no interest in politics, till the 1970s. LAFQS is closer to the Muslim Brotherhood in its ideology and practice. The group critiqued the government in its publications; however, like the Muslim Brothers, they did not want to uproot society; they maintained that change should be gradual. The Wahhabis also influenced the group in that they wanted to change how people were reverting to heretical practices (Sufism).
Both those groups had no political hierarchy and were not initially interested in politics till recently (Ahmed, 2013: 9). The position of the Salafis changed erratically on the eve of the 25 January 2011 revolution. One of the Salafis rejected the revolution in a public speech, claiming that it is Islamically illegal to revolt against the leader of the country. Again, in April 2012 a Salafi made a public statement against the revolutionaries, expressing that they should return to their homes and that whoever gets killed in the confrontation with the regime is not a martyr. (Ahmed, 2013: 9–10)
However, on 15 June 2011, a Salafi Party was created: the Enlightenment (al-Nur), that is after the fall of Mubarak. The main Salafi who pushed for this tactical change was Emad Abdel Ghafour, who was living in Turkey and returned a few months before the 25 January revolution (Ahmed, 2013: 10). The Salafis claimed that their sudden interest in politics came about because they refused to deal with the corrupt Mubarak government like the Muslim Brothers; that is they refused to run for elections, did not join the revolution and so on because they claimed that they always distanced themselves from the corruption, unlike the Muslim Brothers. The Salafis attempted to delegitimize the Muslim Brothers by basically claiming that they were part of the political system under Mubarak.
As opposed to the Muslim Brothers, the Salafis were against the idea of a “civil government” and saw this notion as a roundabout way to create a secular government. The Salafis also agreed to democratic practices but vehemently disagree with democratic ideas such as the sovereignty of the people. Salafis believe that sovereignty is God’s, which highlights their similarity to the Sahawis/Wahhabis, in congruence with the Qutbist principle of the “sovereignty of God” (al-Hakimiya li’Llah) in his late writings.
The Salafis rejection of a civil government (i.e. non-religious/non-sectarian) was also because they feared that Islamic law would not be observed in the new constitution. In the midst of post-revolutionary turmoil, the Salafis public reactions drew attention to the group:
(Ahmed, 2013: 11)
ISIS is a by-product of the US military’s intervention in Iraq: aside from its high-ranking personnel, who mostly belong to Saddam’s military, there are also members who defected from al-Qaeda in Iraq. An example of that is Ayub al-Masri, who joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1970s/early 1980s, then went on to Afghanistan to fight with al-Qaeda in 1982. Al-Masri was killed in 2010 by US forces near Tikrit, Iraq. Abu Ayub al-Masri was responsible for creating al-Qaeda’s branch/cell in Iraq in 2003 (New Terror Chief, CNN transcripts, 15 June 2006).
The two executive branches of ISIS are (1) “Al Imara,” where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the “caliph” and Abu Ali al-Anbari and Abu Muslim al-Turkmani are his deputies and (2) the Shura Council, the council responsible for basically justifying the killing and any religious edicts that the “al-Imara” sees fit. The Shura Council also oversees the rest of ISIS personnel and leaders.
Theoretically and historically, the council could de-throne Abu Bakr (the “caliph”); however, given the hierarchy and ruthlessness of “al-Imara,” it is highly unlikely that the council would challenge the “caliph.”
The ideological foundation of ISIS is based on its predecessor’s: the “Islamic State of Iraq,” established in 2006. Its first leader was Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who became an arch-Salafist in 1985 (CNN: The Anatomy of ISIS, 10/27/2014).
After the death of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2010, the council swore in Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the current “head of state”/“caliph.” Abu Bakr’s rise to power was also supported by state failure in Syria after the Arab Spring uprisings. Although Abu Bakr faced difficulty in subordinating the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra: al-Golani, defections from Jabhat al-Nosra and the credibility of power, organization, weapons and training: all paved the way for Abu-Bakr’s leadership of ISIS (CNN: The Anatomy of ISIS, 10/27/2014).
Therefore, as illustrated in this chapter, ideologically al-Qaeda’s version of Wahhabism, and therefore Salafism, too, has both affected ISIS’s claims to justice and legitimacy.
A number of factors examined here have led to ISIS’s growth:
The main hypothesis of this chapter was that the growth of Wahhabism affected the transformation and threat of a more militant Islam throughout the Muslim world; however, through research and the clear ideological delineation, it was discovered that not only are the second and third waves of Wahhabism causal to militancy and the spread of it but also that increased repression, in this case, by the Egyptian regime under Nasser, radicalized Islamic activists to the extent that more than twenty years this radicalized ideology was fighting the moderate Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Thus, this chapter is further proof that political repression results in the radicalization of political movements as expressed in the case of the Sahwa and Salafi trends in today’s Muslim political activist landscape.
The chapter also correlates the repression cycle, which led to an intensification of radicalization and militancy. Therefore, with current repression in the Middle East, ISIS is just another in a long line of militant violent movements in the contemporary Muslim world.
1 Abdel Salam Faraj is one of President Sadat’s assassins who wrote a manuscript on the reasons for killing Sadat, titled The Neglected Duty.
2 One of Sadat’s assassins on 6 October 1981.
3 A late Islamic activist who was the Muslim Brotherhood’s main ideologue.
4 Ibn Taymiya was a Syrian Hanbalite jurist.
5 Mahmud Shaltut served as Sheikh al-Azhar and its rector from 1958 to 1963 (Peters: 59).
6 The Protectors of Sunna hereafter are referred to as TPS for short.
7 The Legal Association of the Followers of the Qur’an and Sunna is referred to as LAFQS hereafter.
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