Counter-ideology for Wahhabis

[MilesTogo]

AM and other mods, a humble request - Please delete the thread if you think it is not worthy of discussion and debate. I have no intention to bait or flame or troll or offend any member. Plus you are most welcome to edit my post, if you feel necessary, to have a constructive and informative debate. Thanks.

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I have often heard members like muse say few rich Arabs have been shipping a wrong and dangerous Islamic ideology out of Arabia into rest of the Muslim world. I think it is called "Wahhabi" ideology. I am not an expert so please correct me if I am wrong. Anyways, the questions I have for the members are as follows:

[1] It seems from reading the views of other members here that one reason some Arabs have been successful in spreading their ideology is because they are rich. Do you think that even without the money, they will continue influencing the rest-of-the-Muslim world, simply because they are Arabs?

[2] I understand that this ideology can be countered by more peaceful ideologies from the non-Arab Muslims. Do you think non-Arab Muslims are doing enough not only to prevent the spread of Wahhabi ideology and but also to neutralize the source and how hard is it to fight this ideology?

Thanks

 

[EjazR]

There are some misconceptions here and you are not alone in that.

First of all 'Wahabbi' is considered a derogatory term, what you want to say is salafi. And not all arabs follow the salafist path. Infact probably majority of them do not. Its strong base is ofcourse in Saudi Arabia followed by Gulf countries and Egypt.

Salafi or Ahle-e-Hadith is type of movement but it is not as sinister or evil as it is made out to be. The movement was intiated by an Arab scholar hailing from the Najd region of Saudi Arabia. This is the area around Riyadh and only started about a century ago. Not everyone in Saudi Arabia is a salafi, just like not every one in Italy is catholic. There is difference of opinion with other Islamic scholars on many issues and ofcourse there are extremist elements in every group and the salafis are no exception. I don't agree with salafis on many things but studying thier books and teachings I can't agree that they could promote violence or terrorism that is doen by Taliban, LeT, AQ, JeM type groups. These are all politcally active groups while Salafism does not have anything to do with politics.

For example, salafi scholars have condemned suicide bombing as haram even if its for Jihad (aka Palestinian suicide bombings), OBL had been exiled from SA, OBL declared salafi scholars as kafirs as they don't follow quran (according to him) So although they might have some extreme approach to some matters, they can't be blamed directly for terrorism


The ideology that IS causing extremism and violence is what you may call Qutubism. That is basically the idea of using Islam for grabbing political power. Syed Qutb and Hassan Al Banna from Egypt, Mawdudi from Pakistan established the idea of using Islam for political power and were more influenced by the ideas of colonialism, fascism, communist revolutions and arab nationalism rather than any basis of Quran and Hadith. Most of these ideologues had no understanding of fiqh or Islamic Jurisprudence.
Another perversion that Qutb introduced was takfir (excommunication), i.e. very easily declaring muslims as non-muslims, without looking at the basis in Islamic jurisprudence.

Now even with this hate-filled and perverted ideology, this fringe group would have been a minimal threat. The problem was because most muslim majority countries had to legitimise their rule, they used and supported these groups through money and para-military training and inducting them in security forces. This applies to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan Egypt Algeria and many other countries. In Arab countries these groups were used as counter to communist activists and arab nationlists with covert and overt support from western countries at time. In Pakistan military dictators would use private religious groups to target political opponents in the name of Islam so that they can get more power. Ofcourse there was also the proxy war use in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

The Afghan War in the 80s these groups got an extra boost where the CIA and other intelligence agencies provided them top notch bomb making and sabotage techniques which they were able to develop themselves later. Financing from the arab countries also helped in bankrolling them.

By the 90s, most arab countries realised their folly as battle hardened and trained militants started returning. Algeria had to go through a decade of violence and so did Egypt. Saudi Arabia is still battling AQ and affiliated militants. Infact, many of these ideolouges took politcal asylum in western countries to run away from their govt.


Now, this is something that is not unique to Islam, any religion or ethnic based nationalism woudl result in the same scenario. So the white skinheads like KKK (white race) or Nazis in Germany (white race and christian supremacy over jews) are examples of this. Even in India we are seeing the backlash of using relgion in politics with Hindu extremists blowing up bombs and commiting terrorist activities. These fringe groups look at democracy and say that they have failed them only because they could'nt get power. Hence terrorism is the only way to (a) get revenge or (b) destabilise the govt. and get power through a coup or somthing similar.


Bottom line any polical organisation that mixes religion soley for the sake of gaining power is bad news, and these should be nipped in the bud

Some further reading for Salafism: http://www.thewahhabimyth.com/



Now my personal opinion is that because the Indian scholars and ulema have not been used by the state for political ends unlike in the muslim majority countries, they have continued to maintain the original and "politcal influence free" and pure Islamic teachings. Indian scholars are well respected by Salafi scholars as well and I know of their deep appreciation for many religious works done by Indian scholars. But certainly Indian scholars along with other scholars from other countries can play a leading role in bringing religious institutions out of political influence and focus back on spirituality and universality of Islam.

 

[MilesTogo]

Do you imply that evils of such Arab influences are exaggerated here on PDF?

 

[logic]

Taliban and extremist elements follow this najdi ideology that authorize them to pick and choose and interpret verses of the holy text and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) the way they want to interpret them. They look at things out of context and are much similar to Anarchists that do not belive in any authority.

They are just like the KKK that have nothing to do with christianity.

Taliban KKK and all such organizations are religious thugs that only use the guise of religion for there own ulterior motives and claim imunity from any guilt or persecution.

There aim is to force Muslims of the world to follow the evil Saudi ideology. They do not regard smuggeling as a sin. They are involved in extortions and they are mainly funded by corrupt rich arab elite that do not have the courage to do anything hence they hire there henchmen to do their dirty work for them.

Why do non of the leaders are suicide bombers and only the brain washed tennagers are used as a kosher meat to further there devious aims?

They prop up in all places where US needs there help to justify there actions. OSAMA BIN LADIN is was and always will be an agent of CIA.

These people have killed innocent muslims and non muslims alike. They also take responsibilty for there crimes against humanity and take pride in them too.

 

[EjazR]

@Milestogo

Can you clarify what you mean by Arab influences? If you are talking about male domination, revenge killing to uphold honor, women not driving e.t.c. these are tribal culture and nothing to do with Islam. This same concepts are held as "important" or even "Islamic" by tribal people in FATA although they have nothing to do with Islam.

Salafi (aka Wahhabi) doesn't have anything to do with this directly. Like I mentioned before many don't agree with many things in Salafi thought from a theological perspective, but to say that they support AQ or OBL is not stretching the truth, but outright false. OBL lives in exile precisely for this reason. If he was captured or comes back to Saudi Arabia he would most probably be executed. OBL on the other hand refers to the salafi scholars as kafirs.

There is no learned scholars of Islam with Taliban, let alone Arab scholars. If you ever have a chance to go through their propaganda videos, you will see that they always plead and request the ulema(scholars) to support or join their cause. OBL is a businessman, Zawahiri a doctor, and the same thing holds for TTP. Most of them actually attend regular schools even for a few years. The madrassa training is not centre's of Islamic learning or traditional madrassas but more like para-military training camps with indoctrination and some memorization of Quran thrown in with no understanding of what they read. These were setup during Zia's time and continued to flourish by wealthy sympathizers

Of course that doesn't mean that there are no Saudi or Arab supporters of this fringe ideology. Some estimates say 70-80% of AQ is Saudis and Yemenis. And because some of these supporters are wealthy they have more of an impact. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the alien ideology is what has been propagated by Syed Qutb (An Egyptian) and related ideologues like Hassan Al-Banna, Zawahiri e.t.c Most of them were not religious scholars but Engineers, doctors and so on. There were indigenous ideologues in Pakistan as well like Mawdudi. All these are relatively new only about 4-5 decades old and influenced by Colonial, Communist revolutions and Fascist ideologies and have a lot in common with them.

For example if you look in India you have Praveen Tagodia (compare with Zawahiri) who is probably a very good surgeon but no Vedantic scholar, but still believes he is saving the Hindus from a conspiracy. But his situation is unlike in some Arab countries where dictators used these very groups to legitimize their rule and thus make them more powerful. In India it didn't gain much currency.

Similar examples can be taken from Nazi Germany (e.g. the German parliament was burned by Nazis to destabilize their govt. probably the first terrorist attack on a parliament of a country) or even be extremist right wing Israeli groups who basically ethnic cleansed about half a million Palestinian minorities out of pre-1967 Israel using their religion for political purposes.

In all these examples we have mixing up of politics with religion and the use of religious identity for political purposes. Personally I don't negate religion, I think its very important as it provides a moral compass and sense of spirituality for people. But it should be independent of state influence; neither should it try to influence the state.

If I would say what ideology needs to be countered I would say its Qutubism, and the way to counter it is to simply give airtime and media coverage to Islamic scholars of all thoughts and persuasion to disprove it. Because any young impressionable muslim can fall prey to it, he doesn't have to be from any specific group

 

[muslim282]

where and how this ideology came about is debatable and as far as l,m concerned not very important. Even the salafis (wahabis) can be split into two.
Of which the saudi salafis are of concern. You see who brought these people to the realms of power. You have to look back to the times of how the turkish caliphate and Islam as a one ummah was destroyed by arab nationalism (l,m talking about the middle east).
A famous man called Lawerence "of arabia" was sent by the british to cause un uprising among the arabs so that the middle east could be divided. The saud tribe which was a bedouin goat herding tribe was the first to sell it,s soul to the british master, they were also known to rob hajis (pilgrims) on the way to the holy lands. This tribe and their version of salafi ideology was promoted above all others in Arabia, they became kings from goat herders and even went on to name the country after themselves Saud e arabia which in fact was called hijaz.
The salafi ideology was suited initially to the west as a passive docile form of islam. The tables turned mainly around the Afghan soviet war era, where the saudi salafis declared a jihad on the communists in conjunction with the endorsement of the jihad by uncle sam himself. It was thought by uncle SAM that once these radicalised young jihadis finished with the soviets they would return home and over throw their Arab leaders and democracy would prevail in the muslim world. Well how wrong they were.
You now have one big sh.t sandwich which was well funded by the yanks, created by the british and now used by rich deviant arabs. Well it,s now time for the masters to take a bite of this sandwich.

 

[logic]

@Milestogo
In all these examples we have mixing up of politics with religion and the use of religious identity for politcal purposes. Personally I don't negate religion, I think its very important as it providfes a moral compass and sense of spirituality for people. But it should be independant of state influence; neither should it try to influence the state.

Without Religion there can be no basis for morality with morality there can be no justice without justice there is just HYPOCRISY.

 

[Coolyo]

Wahabism is a DISEASE that must be eradicated! The Sunnis and Shias of Pakistan must wake up to this great threat!

The same Wahabis that destroyed the shrines of so many of the family of the holy Prophet (S), and the Sahaba of the Prophet (S) are operating heavily within Pakistan!

The influx of Wahabism and its growth within Pakistan can be traced to Dictator Zia-Ul-Haq! As well as other politicians that promote religion from Saudi trained Wahabi/Salafi extremists (Whose ideology has nothing to do with Islam)!

Today I was watching when terrorists attacked the Islamic University of Islamabad!

In response to the attack, the Ahle-Hadith/Deobandi/Wahabi students started attacking army officials! They praised the Taliban and called a stop for the offensive in Waziristan!

Even in the 1940's the Wahabi-Mullahs were the main opponents against the creation of the state of Pakistan (within the Muslims)!

The Wahabi ideology traces its roots to NAJD and a man named Abd-Al-Wahab! They can be considered as the revival of the Kharji movement, or modern day Kharjis...

The holy Prophet (S) says the following about Najd, in a translated hadith:

The Messenger of Allah, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, said,

"O Allah bestow your blessings on our Shaam. O Allah bestow your blessings on our Yemen." The people said, "O Messenger of Allah, and our Najd." I think the third time the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, said, "There (in Najd) will occur earthquakes, trials and tribulations, and from their appears the Horn of Satan."

Reported in al-Bukhaaree [Book of Trials, Chpt. 'The afflictions will come from the East' 9/166 no. 214 Eng. Trans]

EVEN Allama Iqbal declared these Wahabis as ENEMIES of Islam!

 

[Coolyo]

The Same Saudi Arabia, which traces its origins on the blood of Turkish-Muslims (Sunnis),

has its foundations upon the Wahabi/Salafi/Ahle-Hadith movement:

 

[Coolyo]

AM and other mods, a humble request - Please delete the thread if you think it is not worthy of discussion and debate. I have no intention to bait or flame or troll or offend any member. Plus you are most welcome to edit my post, if you feel necessary, to have a constructive and informative debate. Thanks.

I commend you for this thread!

This issue must be exposed and light must be shed on the issue!

Please mods, keep this thread alive and running!

In order to understand the threat, we must first understand their ideology!

[1] It seems from reading the views of other members here that one reason some Arabs have been successful in spreading their ideology is because they are rich. Do you think that even without the money, they will continue influencing the rest-of-the-Muslim world, simply because they are Arabs?

The Petro-dollars of Saudi Arabia is largely responsible for the massive growth of Wahabism/Salafism in the last few decades!

In order to destroy the enemy (the TTP, Al-Qaeda, and their friends) you have got to destroy the ideology that fuels the fire of their destruction so much! That ideology is Wahabism/Salafism! Therefore, Saudi influence must be stopped...

[2] I understand that this ideology can be countered by more peaceful ideologies from the non-Arab Muslims. Do you think non-Arab Muslims are doing enough not only to prevent the spread of Wahhabi ideology and but also to neutralize the source and how hard is it to fight this ideology?

Islam is what can counter the newly formed ideology of Wahabism/Salafism (by newly formed I mean the 1700's)!

Just like the Muslims had to deal with the Kharjis, we can deal with the Wahabis as well!

Tyranny can only go on for so long!

 

[MilesTogo]

@Ezaj

Let me reframe :-

Absent wahhabism/salafism, will Pakistan in particular be in a better position to tackle current Talibani crisis? or it doesn't matter much?

 

[EjazR]

@Ezaj

Let me reframe :-

Absent wahhabism/salafism, will Pakistan in particular be in a better position to tackle current Talibani crisis? or it doesn't matter much?

It will matter little. Ofcourse extremist elements among any group is a problem and Taliban sympathisers can be from any group not just salafis. Extremists should be eliminated but by targetting salafis as a whole is not needed and will be counter productive. You're not targetting the ideology that promotes extremism or terrorism, infact you can actually use religious salafi scholars to actually counter these very fringe groups like AQ, LeT JeM e.t.c.

The problem is politicisation of Islam and the ideology that Islam requires you to establish some sort of sharia state or that Caliphate should be re-established. Syed Qutb talk about this by referring to move away from jahilia to hakimiyah. This concept is flawed and unIslamic. You have "moderate" groups like Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb-ut-Tahrir that promote this way of thinking. Politcal groups like JI and JUI in Pakistan that do the same. LeT HUJI e.t.c. use the same ideology and add the militant component.

TTP and AQ are an extension of this ideology where they have just extended their terrorism to even civilians now. But their flawed aim is the same as even the moderate groups like JUI, Hizb-ut-Tahrir e.t.c which has no basis in Islam and most of their leaders are not even Islamic scholars. They basically use Islam for politcal purposes. This has to be stopped. Another example although not exactly close is Zaid Hamid, who also uses Islam in politcal terms in most of his talk. Although he doesn't call for terrorism, its through people like these that you see how impressionable young people can be moved to violence. It is this concept first propounded among muslims by Syed Qutb that is to be countered.

And this concept is generic among all religious and ethnic groups. For example, you have Hindu right wings groups calling for A Hindu Rashtra, German Christians who callled for establishing the third reich under the Nazis, Jewish right wing groups who want to have a "pure" Jewish state with no arab minorities.

The best way would probably be education by proper religious scholars on why this concept is wrong. Followed by objective reporting by mainstream media in countries instead of propogating conspiracy theories. Moreover media should give more airtime to mainstream scholars and not give airtime and popularise the groups who use Islam for politcal purposes.

 

[EjazR]

@Coolyo

Other than just rhetoric and you tube videos, what do you really know about Salafi (that's the correct name) and Deobandis? Can you give any specific rulings that support Osama Bin Laden or AQ from Salafi or "Wahabi" ulema? Like I mentioned in my previous post, there are clear fatwas from these ulema that declare suicide bombing haram even if it were in the path of Jihad, so who is responsible?

Do you know that Salafis do not consider Deobandi on the right path because of their importance to tasawwuf (sufistic) rituals? Salafis and Deobandis have their difference of opinions like many other sects do but its nothing to kill each otherover. This applies to all other sects.

If you go through my previous posts with a level head you will realise where the problem is. Zia's problem wasn't that he liked or promoted a particular sect. He was a dictator and had to legitimise his rule. To help with that he used the banner of Islam. Groups like JI e.t.c. had no problems in providing this legitimacy. Then he(as well as his arab and western backers) wanted to fight proxy wars in Afghanistan and later Kashmir. These politcal Islamic groups and their sold our mullas provided legitimacy to these as well under political influence by wrongly declaring Jihad is valid. Now these militant groups which had no understanding of Islam to begin with and were being used just as politcal tools are doing whatever they please thinking that they are doing the right thing by working to establish the "perfect" Islamic state.

 

[Musalman]

Salafi is like another sunni school the only difference between other schools and salafi school is that salafi do not follow any one Imam infact they try to interpret Islam from Quran and Hadith directly and if required get help from any of the Imam.
Taliban are not salafis they are deobandi which are basically the Hanafi school people where Alqaeda people are salafi or hanbali.
In India Mulana Azad (RA) Indian Congress President was also a salafi (he was number supper of caliph where as Arabs who are also salafi were against him) and is considered as a one of the most eminent scholar of Islam by Salafi Muslims of India. Mupla too are salafis.

You can not mix politics with school of thoughts

 

[EjazR]

Just adding to Musalman, the shortfall IMO for salafis is that not everyone can interpret directly from Quran and Hadith unless they have been trained to do so and have studied Islamic jurisprudence and fiqh. That is where some people can wrongly interpret things when they don't folow the guidance of a Islamic scholar or have not themselves studied Islamic theology or fiqh

Maulana Azad was a descendant of a lineage maulanas. His father was from Bengal settled Pathan while his mother was an Arab from Mecca. He was educated according to the traditional theology curriculum, Azad learned Arabic and Persian first, and then philosophy, geometry, mathematics and algebra. He was taught at home, first by his father, later by appointed teachers who were eminent in their respective fields. Seeing that English was fast becoming the international language, Azad taught himself to read, write and speak the language. So it would be understandable for him to be able to directly interpret from the Quran and Hadith because he was qualified to do so. And he used this theological basis to talk support democracy, hindu-muslim unity, secularism and fight for independance agains the British and modern education. And this IMO was only possible because he wasn't under any undue politcal influence and was qualified in Islamic theology.

When you compare him to for example some of the Saudi scholars, they are almost always politcally influenced by the ruling establishment - the saud family and have to compromise and sometimes give some patently wrong rulings. Further some of the "not qualified" salafis can deviate as well and when they turn into extremists saying that only their way is right and everyone is wrong, instead of apprecaiting any differnce of opinion, that's where you have problems