What’s Wahabi? Where’s the Good Info?
I’m even willing to go to a old fashioned library If I have to.
ThanX in advance,
simonX
Wahabi ( also spelled Wahhabi ), refers to a highly puritannical, fundamentalist subsect of Sunni Islam, peculiar to the Arabian penninsula, specifically Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which was founded by one Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahab in the 18th century. A decent short introduction to its early history and major beliefs can be found here:
http://www.1upinfo.com/country-guide-study/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia40.html
It should be noted that the term “Wahabi” is occasionally used as a synonym for “fundamentalist”, but that is an incorrect usage. There are a variety of flavors of Islamic fundamentalism and Wahabism is only one of them.
It also shouldn’t be confused with “wasabi”, also known as “Japanese horseradish” ;).
- Tamerlane
On google…a search for wahabi returned 7k hits. You can probably find what you need there.
As for what it is…it’s a fundamentalist Islamic sect, practiced primarily in Saudi Arabia.
Tamerlane
thanX. I’m sure I’ll enjoy.
My plan was to avoid wading through the rest of the 7k hits to find the good stuff. ThanX though
I like wahabi peas! But I’ve got to go to a specialty grocery store for them. I also keep a tube of wahabi in my fridge, for sushi making.
Sorry, that last one was me. Little Mercotan was posting earlier today, and neglected to log off.
Spell it Wahhabi with the double h if you want to search. The single-h version is a mispeling.
The single best account of Wahhabism is the recently published book The Two Faces of Islam by Stephen Schwartz*. This is the only book available in English that explains the subject thoroughly. You should definitely read this book if you’re serious about learning about Wahhabism.
One thing Schwartz points out in this history is that a separate movement arose in Egypt that was unconnected with Wahhabism. It was called Salafism and was not as extremist as Wahhabism. In recent years the Wahhabi international propaganda appropriated the epithet “Salafi” and they call themselves that, as the international Communists used to go around calling themselves “Socialists” to disguise their real agenda.
*Not the same Stephen Schwartz who composed Godspell. This one is a historian.
Weren’t the Taliban Wahhabists? Granted (if they were) it was imported, but then again, so was Islam as a whole.
Just to point out that folks can disagree, I’ll note that I find Mr. Schwartz’s take to be excessively reductionist. Or perhaps just single-minded. Not that he’s wrong about the unpleasantness of Wahhabism, but I do think he puts too much emphasis on it’s impact as a specific ideology and not enough on other sources of Islamism.
I also think he is a little guilty of seeing official Saudi conniving under every bed.
For instance IMHO this recent article is a little over the top: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6977
“Saudi conspiracy to impose Wahhabism on the Kurds”? Eh, I think that’s a reach. There’s a difference between Saudi “sheikism” and al-Qaeda “salafism”, however much Mr. Schwartz may regard them as one and the same.
But then I think Jomo Mojo ( who I respect a great deal ) and I have argued the influence of Wahhabism before :).
I thought he was primarily a journalist? Not that it really matters, of course.
- Tamerlane
I would like to thank Tamerlane and all other factually accurate posters for their responses. Past that, I wish to condemn the Wahhabist clerics for their virulent (anti-Muslim) teachings and support of Pakistani Madrasas that bred up the Taleban. I feel that they are a central and systemic poison to the entire Middle East region.
The leadership was heavily influenced by Saudi-financed madrassas that pushed Wahhabi ideology. This seems to have had a crystallizing effect on said leadership. Perhaps the clearest manifestation of Schwartz’s thesis ;).
However at base the Taliban’s theology is rooted more in indigenous ( well, a little more indigenous that Wahhabism, anyway ) Deobandism, mixed with local conservative cultural accretions. A very similar theologic take as Wahhabism, that was ialso influenced by Wahhabi thought at an early stage ( though it was developing even before that contact ). It is different in several ways, though. Hanafi vs. Hanbali school of jurisprudence for one. A much greater tolerance for Sufi elements for another ( bizarre as it seems, Mullah Omar is or was actually a Naqshbandiyya and the Taliban were at least moderately tolerant of the major Sufi orders in Afghanistan, with the exception of cracking down on the Chishtiya order’s use of singing and music ).
- Tamerlane
We had a poster who came here a few months ago and spammed his Islamic Message board.
One of the things that I found odd on the board in question was a universal dislike and outright hostility towards Wahhabist Islam.
I’ll post a link in a bit, if the mods have no problem with it.
I should however point out that there may be some Saudi conniving under every other bed :D.
I don’t want to underplay the frequently pernicious and significant role the Saudi government has played in the spread of Islamic radicalism ( until the end of the Cold War with the complicity and cheerleading of the U.S., who saw in the spread of Islamist theology a dandy counter to Nasserist socialism and its frequent “ally”, Soviet communism ).
I just think Schwartz overplays it a bit.
- Tamerlane
I dug up this article for Cyberpundit a bit ago and I think it gives a decent overview of Islamism and its various strains. You’ll note it acknowledges the important effect of Saudi money and Wahhabi theology on modern radical Islamism, while still covering its other origins:
http://www.angelfire.com/az/rescon/islfnd.html
- Tamerlane
Tamerlane, as a slight hijack, I’ve frequently been impressed by your thorough and wide-ranging knowledge of all things Islamic. Did you study Islamic history formally, or is this the result of a more personal interest?
Bibliovore: Formal training is nothing staggering - two semesters worth of upper-division Islamic history in college. But I had an interest both before those classes ( that grew out of other areas of historical interest that intersected with the Islamic world ) and after that led me to pursue the subject quite a bit more on my own.
If I’d had stronger linguistic skills and a bit more gumption, I might have pursued it into grad school, but ultimately it’s just a hobby :). ( and I was a weird biology/history double-major who never could decide what to focus on anyway - it was far too enjoyable being a generalist 
).
- Tamerlane
SimonX of the OP, and anyone else who is interested, please read this interview with Stephen Schwartz in the Atlantic Monthly April 2003 issue. It presents the essential gist of his book in an easy-to-access online form. It will do until you get a chance to actually read his book.
As a left-liberal American, I feel a little dismayed that Schwartz has turned into a neocon. Apart from our disagreements on non-Islamic U.S. domestic politics, I still agree wholeheartedly with him on the Wahhabi issue. I just think it’s ironic that he has aligned himself with Bush, as have the Wahhabi-dominated American Muslim organizations he attacks. In the 2000 election they were all staunchly Republican.
I think I have Schwartz figured out. He is in love with Bosnia. He was so hurt by his perception that the international Left in the 1990s refused to advocate help for Bosnia and Kosovo, that he reacted by turning neocon. If this was true of the Left, or of certain Leftist individuals, to the extent that it was true, I would agree that it’s a valid criticism. Bosnia and Kosovo deserved help. Kudos to the Jews like Elie Wiesel who kept insisting that Bosnia had to be helped to prevent another genocide. The tragedy, and the perception that the Left didn’t want to help against Miloševic, was so upsetting to this sensitive, intelligent man that it drove him into the arms of the Republican neocons. I agree that Miloševic had to be stopped; Europe and America are culpable for allowing genocide to continue while they watched. I don’t, however, think it’s a valid or sufficient reason for turning neocon. I don’t claim that my side is free from errors, but it’s still better than the right wing which is excessively dominated by America’s equivalent of Wahhabis, the political Christian fundamentalists.
Anyway, that’s only a side issue; don’t want to get too sidetracked here. The real point is that Schwartz fell in love with Bosnia because there he found a living society in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike had lived for centuries in peace and harmony, where each group contributed to their shared culture. This was made possible by the pluralistic, liberal Sufi Islam established there by the Ottoman Turks. As a Jew, Schwartz was touched to find that Muslims and Jews in Sarajevo had long been friends and that there was hope for the two religions to live side by side peacefully. He embraced Sufism for its liberal religious pluralism and its love of beauty and music. He wants to tell the world the truth that this is what Islam was really meant to be.
To those Americans who keep demanding that Islam “needs a Reformation,” Schwartz cautions: Uh-uh, be careful what you ask for. Islam already had its “reformation,” and it was Wahhabism, and it went horribly wrong. The Europeans abetted the Wahhabi revolt because they wanted it to undermine the Ottoman Empire. The West had no idea that the Wahhabism it encouraged through its policies would one day (September 11, 2001) turn around and bite it on the ass. Schwartz wants America and the world to understand the liberal Sufi side of Islam as the hope for the future. The choice is as clear-cut as can be.