The Kingdom of Hashemi Arabia

Great Debates
1

World War I has ended, and Sharif Huseyn has been confirmed as Protector of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. However, he’s not secure. He sees the growing power of ibn Saud and the Wahabis and is frightened. So, in fear of his position and life, he attacks the Nejd, where he wins a remarkable victory. Ibn Saud is taken to Mecca in chains and beheaded, and Huseyn hunts down and slaughters all the Wahabis he can catch. Now, with no powerful rivals, and with the tacit support of the British, he declares himself King of Arabia.

What happens next? How do the next 80 years change without the Sauds and a well funded Wahabi movement?

2

“What If” is the funnest game for history buffs. Have you read If the South Won the Civil War by McKinley Kantor?

One fly in your ointment is that it was the British who (having set up Sharif Husayn in 1916) turned against him and unleashed the Wahhabis on him in 1924. The usual perils of being a client ruler in the employ of an imperial state. When your usefulness to them is done, they’ll toss you aside and supplant you with a new client. Just ask Saddam Hussein.

But OK, let’s play…

  1. The Turkish Republic abolishes the caliphate. The last Ottoman caliph, Mehmet VI, is sent packing. Sharif Husayn sees his opening (this really happened as described—Husayn proclaimed himself the new caliph, was roundly ignored by everyone, and was soon deposed by Wahhabis). That sets the stage for fantasy-land:

  2. King Husayn ibn ‘Ali, having consolidated his power over most of the Arabian peninsula, convenes the Pan-Islamic Council at Mecca. Delegates from all Muslim lands acclaim him the new caliph. Despite murmurings about the legitimacy of such a proceeding, Husayn’s lineal descent from the Prophet trumps all objections.

  3. Husayn dies and is succeeded by his son Faysal, who convenes a council of ‘ulama’ declaring him the new caliph.

  4. Faysal needs to bolster the legitimacy of his rule by emphasizing Islamic character. He establishes Islamic universities at Mecca and Medina, and an annual conference of ‘ulama’ at Hajj time. He is careful to emphasize equal participation from all four of the legal schools, to ensure the universality of his appeal.

  5. The British, having been out of favor with the Hashemites since their plot to back the Saudis was uncovered, are passed over for oil prospecting contracts in favor of the Americans. The British concentrate on exploiting Iranian oil.

  6. The Egyptian fundamentalist leader Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, participates in the Hajj conference. Invited to join a Sufi dhikr session at the Ka‘bah, he experiences a spiritual transformation and returns to Egypt determined to make his movement a gentle and mystical revival. He attracts Sufi followers from the middle classes and professionals, and teaches that Sufism and science are compatible, and that Muslims must cooperate with the believers of other faiths, as the 12th-century Sufi master Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-‘Arabi had taught.

  7. A branch of al-Banna’s Muslim Sufi Brotherhood opens dialogue with a Hasidim society among the Jewish immigrants to Palestine, and they announce a joint venture to explore the common roots of Islam and Judaism. The British authorities are suspicious and plant agents to break it up…

3

Well, with the obvious disclaimer that it is really impossible to say…

Iraq - No change. Attempts to maintain the Hashemite dynasty would likely fail in this alternate world, just as they did in the real one. Arabia is separated from the major cities of Iraq by considerable expanses of desert and would have had neither the time nor the military force to re-assert Hashemite rule after a coup.

Jordan - Minor, but probably insubstantial change. Jordan would likely feel more secure, but they already had their own dynastic powerbase and, again, there is some distance between major centers in sparsely populated Arabia and Jordan.

Israel - No substantive change. The Hashemites in Arabia would be as conservative, probably more so, than the Jordanians ( who fought in '48 and '67 and would have fought in '73 if they had had more modern air defenses installed in time ). Though doubtless more moderate than the Saudis, it would only be a matter of degree and really the Saudis have always been peripheral at best in this conflict. Their major contribution, funding, would have likely still have been available for the PLO, but perhaps not for some of the most extremist factions.

OPEC - No change. Hashemite Arabia would have just as much motive to help organize and take a leadership role in such an organization as the Saudis did.

Relations with the West - Minor change. Saudi Arabia has been staunchly pro-Western. Hashemite Arabia would almost certainly ( barring unforseen but quite possible internal reaction ) have remained so as well. The only substantive difference might have been that a HA would likely have been more British and less U.S.-oriented than SA.

Role as regional power-broker through economic influence - No change.

Role in spreading and promoting religious fundamentalism - Ah, here we would have change. As guardians of Mecca and Medina it is a foregone conclusion that the Hashemites would have been somewhat conservative. But they weren’t anywhere near as strict as the Wahhabis. However…The Hashemites did not enjoy the tribal loyalty in the Nejd that they did in Hijaz. Wahhabism would have either gone underground or simmered uneasily under Hashemite rule. Tribal rebellions in the east would have been likely ( successful? impossible to say ). So I imagine ObL’s would have still been possible. Still, funding of religious conservative movements would have been far less thorough, if they even occurred at all. Two likely scenarios:
A) Turn towards fundamentalism anyway as a counter to anti-royalist leftism.
B) Internal war with religious fundamentalists

Would this mean fundamentalism would be less of a problem today? Quite possibly, but only by a matter of degree. Remember that Saudi Arabia is not the primary ideological font of modern fundamentalism, despite the erroneous labeling of fundamentalists generally as “wahhabis” in some areas. Far more important worldwide has been the influence of Indian, Iranian, and Egyptian theologians and from a practical point of view the events in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria, and Egypt. Radical jihadists-slafists would still be an issue. How much of one in comparison is pretty tough to say.

MHO.

  • Tamerlane
4

Tamerlane, the radical militant Wahhabi fundamentalism that the Saudis used to establish Saudi Arabi was a force cultivated and harnessed by them. They established Wahhabi institutions to propagate it, and given the vast sums of oil wealth, they have pushed it and propagandized it throughout the Muslim world to an alarming degree. There is hardly an American mosque you can go into (apart from the little ethnic ones for Albanians & so on) that isn’t filled with the Wahhabi literature they distribute for free.

Remove that factor, and substitute for it the much more moderate Hashemite approach to Islam, and I believe the influence of their oil wealth in promoting traditional Islam, far milder in comparison to Wahhabism and tinged with Sufism, would have made a significant difference to the Middle East and the whole Muslim world. Wahhabi ideas infected the fundamentalists in the other countries you mentioned largely through the Hajj at times when Wahhabis controlled Mecca — at the beginning of the 19th century, and from the 1920s onward.

At the time when the Wahhabis were out of power, and the Sufi-tinged Ottomans ruled Mecca, in the mid-to-late 19th century — how soon we forget — it was an era of good feeling and rapprochement between progressive Muslim thinkers and the West. If the Hashemites had held Mecca all this time, they could have played a substantial role in moderating the Muslim world. Remember how ‘Abdallah I of Jordan, although at first he opposed Israel in 1948, right after that he reached an understanding with them (for which he was assassinated). If all of Arabia had been like that, the Hashemites could have helped to cool down the world situation. Their lineal legitimacy would have gone a long way to establish their religious credentials so that they would not have had to rely on strict fundamentalism and they would have been freer to promote moderate traditional Islam.

You’re right about one thing, the Wahhabi tendencies in Najd would have resurged at some point and would have to be put down. This in fact was what happened in 1928 and again in 1979: the ultra-Wahhabis revolted against the pragmatic policies of the Saudi kingdom. What could the Hashemites have done? My scenario suggests promoting education, which Najd had never known in its history. An ignorant people, long neglected and the more easily swayed by religious extremism. Without the Saudis fanning the flames of Wahhabism, perhaps the Hashemites might have had a chance to promote education, progress, and moderation in Najd. With one important caveat: they would have needed to root out the corruption endemic in their government, which was not a slamdunk. The corruption is what helped to bring them down.

5

Oh, I don’t necessarily disagree with your possible scenario Jomo Mojo. But it is only one possible scenario ;).

I will say that I disagree that Wahhabism has been the driving ideological force in fundamentalism though ( driving economic force, probably ). The Muslim Brothers like Sayyid Qutb, the Deobandis like Mawlana Mawdudi, and fundamentalist Shi’a like Ruhollah Khomeini did not take their primary cues from Wahhabi theology ( and I might mention that really the Wahhabi tenure in the 19th century Hijaz was pretty brief and uneasy until Muhammed Ali expelled them ). I still think we would see some variety of Islamic extremism today, just as a natural reaction to factors in play during the colonial and post-colonioal eras.

I agree that there is question about how influential such movements would be without Saudi economic backing. But given that a lot of the early growth was in the disenfranchised pious middle-class and alienated lumpen proletariat, I’m betting we would still see a fair bit of activity. At best it might be less overt and widespread.

I do think the Hashmites would have had an impact, but I am perhaps a little less optimistic than you about how fundamental it would have been. Call me Mr. Cynical :).

  • Tamerlane
6

Mawdudi was not a Deobandi, but a self-starter. In fact, his group and the Deobandis are rivals. The Deobandis started in the 19th century, based on roots going back 500 years. The history of 19th-century Islam in India is really tangled and complex, but one major influence that shaped Deobandism was the “Wahhabism” (as it was called then) that entered India at the beginning of the 19th century as a result of the Wahhabi occupation of Mecca, from where Hajjis like Sayyid Ahmad brought its ideas to India. Ever since then, “Wahhabi” has been a nickname for Deobandis. The Taliban - al-Qa‘idah collaboration was facilitated by this connection in their backgrounds. Mawdudi sprang up in the 20th century, unconnected to the Wahhabis, and today his followers, never especially popular, have receded into the background.

Sayyid Qutb led a radical wing of the Muslim Brotherhood that was a sharp departure from the more moderate version of the founder, Hasan al-Banna. When al-Banna was assassinated by the Egyptian secret police, this radical wing got started. Qutb was the inspiration for the violent militants who plagued Egypt and much of the Middle East (like the Egyptian groups who perpetrated so much violence in the 1980s and 90s, but have now gone into remission). If al-Banna had lived, there’s a chance the radicals would not have grown as deadly as they did.

al-Qa‘idah’s extremism derived in part from this Sayyid Qutb violent tendency, but ideologically it owes more to the militant Wahhabism of Najd. The first king of Saudi Arabia, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman Al Sa‘ud, at first encouraged Wahhabi radicalism as a fighting force to conquer territory and gain political control over the Bedouins. As he built his state, he needed to discourage the rabid side of Wahhabism for a pragmatic approach. Cast aside, the Wahhabi radicals revolted and had to be put down. But their resentment continued to seethe: it burst out again in 1979, and fed into al-Qa‘idah in the 1990s. If ‘Abd al-‘Aziz hadn’t built them up in the first place, this raging force wouldn’t have plagued the Middle East the way it has been doing.

7

Jomo Mojo: You are absolutely correct about Mawdudi, my mistake ( you have an unnerving habit of catching my slopiness :slight_smile: ). Though as small as the Jama’at-e-Islami may be, Mawdudi’s writings, particularly Jihad in Islam, have arguably been very influential.

As for the Wahhabi influence on the Deobandis, I will concede there was some, however Shah Abdul Aziz and his disciple Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi were already fundamentalist Islamic revivalists before they ever arrived in Mecca in 1822, based on the work of Shah Abdul Aziz’s father, Shah Waliullah ( 1703 - 1762 ). I would say it was more convergent evolution than a straight exportation of doctrine. Despite many, many similarities the two theological schools follow different schools of jurisprudence ( I’m pretty certain, corrections welcome there ) and Deobandism has been said to be far more steeped in the traditions of Sufism ( paradoxically so - despite a presumed general distaste for such “modern” innovations ). I still say the “Wahhabi” label for them is innaccurate.

At any rate this influence, however pervasive or not, would not have been stopped by Captain Amazing’s proposed Hashemite conquest a century later ;).

As for al-Qaeda - While I certainly agree that ObL and certain of the leadership takes their cues from Wahhabism, I am skeptical whether the same could be said for the Algerian and Egyptian elements, which are more likely to be following the Qutb tradition.

Regardless, I heartily agree that Wahhabism is a blight on Islam and Saudi removal would have retarded the spread of fundamentalism. But if there had never been a Muhammed ibn Abdul Wahhab, I would still bet dollars to doughnuts that we would still see fundamentalist extremism in the Islamic world.

MHO only, as always.

  • Tamerlane
8

You probably would, but would it be as effective without Saudi money and ideological support?

9

Nope. But personally I am unsure at just how much less effective they would be. Too many variables to account for in alternative histories :).

My WAG is that it would be more underground. However I don’t see the Wahhabis as having been much of an influence on Khomeini for example. So you still ( likely ) have the Iranian revolution and organizations that follow from it like Hezbollah in Lebanon. And I would argue that organizations like Hamas are not dependant ideologically or economically on Saudi largesse ( though they may benefit from it ).

Afghanistan might well have been different, in that barring Saudi influence, less money may have been channeled into folks like Hekmatyar and more into folks like Massoud. But even here we are still talking about a culturally reactionary area in which the CIA definitely liked the idea of building up fundamentalist relgious groups as a good ideological counter to communism ( indeed, they backed Saudi efforts for decades right up until the end of the Cold War ). And we also have the Deobandi influence issue, where Jomo Mojo and I seem to disagree a bit on Wahhabi impact.

Dunno. But it would be less of a problem, I agree.

  • Tamerlane
10

Khomeini owed nothing to Wahhabism. The Wahhabis and Shi‘ites have always been mortal enemies. So all other things being equal, take Wahhabism out of the picture and there still would have been Khomeini. Most of the Sunni fundies think Shi‘ites are anathema and openly killed them whenever they could get away with it (as did the Taliban). If reports of al-Qa‘idah remnants being given shelter in Iran are true, that would be extraordinary, since the two tendencies would never have considered cooperating previously. But I strongly doubt it.

11

There’s a good book out now, a book I wish had been published several years ago. It is must reading for anyone wanting to know about Islam at all. The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa‘ud from Tradition to Terror by Stephen Schwartz (New York: Doubleday, 2002). It is the first book explaining what Wahhabism is really about for the general reader. It also contrasts that with the predominantly good side of Islam—namely, Sufism—the pluralistic, liberal, open-minded, gentle, loving Islam that for some reason the media pundits and headlines are all ignoring. This book will help to make it plain why I posted the opinions in this thread that you have read.

The three best books for the general readership I can recommend on the contemporary Islam problem are The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong, Unholy War by John Esposito, and the aforementioned The Two Faces of Islam by Schwartz. I feel it’s important to emphasize these three because the authors actually know what they’re talking about, and because in the past year so much horrible rubbish has been published about Islam that is either ignorant or outright disinformation.

The Clash of Fundamentalisms by Tariq Ali gets honorable mention. A left-wing Pakistani-British atheist intellectual sees the Bush regime’s and al-Qa‘idah’s worldviews as mirroring each other to a very uncomfortable degree. The rest of the world has to be punished by being caught between these two fundamentalisms. The hilarious cover picture shows Shrub morphed into a fundie al-Qa‘idah mulla.

For a good read about the gentle, intellectually enlighted tradition in Islam, I recommend The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity by Seyyed Hossein Nasr (HarperSanFrancisco, 2002). One chapter is titled “Compassion and Love, Peace and Beauty.” Dr. Nasr is a Sufi professor at George Washington University.

I wonder what Collounsbury thinks about this important question.