The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (14 page)

CHAPTER VIII

T
HE
M
ARRIAGE OF
S
AUDI
P
OWER
AND
W
AHHABI
T
EACHING

The rejection of modernity in favor of a return to the sacred past has a varied and ramified history in the region and has given rise to a number of movements. The most important of these was undoubtedly that known, after its founder, as Wahhabism. Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) was a theologian from the Najd area of Arabia, ruled by local sheikhs of the House of Saud. In 1744 he launched a campaign of purification and renewal. His declared aim was to return to the pure and authentic Islam of the Founder, removing and where necessary destroying all the later accretions and distortions.

The Wahhabi cause was embraced by the Saudi rulers of Najd, who promoted it, for a while successfully, by force of arms. In a series of campaigns, they carried their rule and their faith to much of central and eastern Arabia and even raided the lands of the Fertile Crescent under direct Ottoman administration. After sacking Karbala, the Shi‘ite holy place in Iraq, they turned their attention to the Hijaz, and in 1804–1806 occupied and—in their terms—cleansed the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. By now they were clearly confronting and challenging the Ottoman sultan, whom the Saudi ruler denounced as a backslider from the Muslim faith and a usurper in the Muslim state.

The Ottoman Empire, even at this stage of its decline, was able to cope with a desert rebel. With the help of the pasha of Egypt and his forces, the task was completed in 1818, when the Saudi capital was occupied and the Saudi emir sent to Istanbul and decapitated. For the time being, the Saudi state ceased to exist, but the Wahhabi doctrine survived, and from about 1823 another member of the House of Saud was able to reconstitute the Saudi principality, with its capital in Riyadh. Once again, the chieftains of the House of Saud helped and were helped by the exponents of Wahhabi doctrine.

The rise of Wahhabism in eighteenth-century Arabia was in significant measure a response to the changing circumstances of the time. One of these was of course the retreat of Islam and the corresponding advance of Christendom. This had been going on for a long time, but it was a slow and gradual process, and began at the remote peripheries of the Islamic world. By the eighteenth century it was becoming clear even at the center. The long, slow retreat of the Ottomans in the Balkans and the advance of the British in India were still far away from Arabia, but their impact was felt, both through the Ottomans on the one side and in the Persian Gulf on the other, and was surely reflected among the pilgrims who came to Arabia every year from all over the Muslim world. The ire of the Wahhabis was directed not primarily against outsiders but against those whom they saw as betraying and degrading Islam from within: on the one hand those who attempted any kind of modernizing reform; on the other—and this was the more immediate target—those whom the Wahhabis saw as corrupting and debasing the true Islamic heritage of the Prophet and his Companions. They were of course strongly opposed to any school or version of Islam, whether Sunni or Shi‘ite, other than their own. They were particularly opposed to Sufism, condemning not only its mysticism and tolerance but also what they saw as the pagan cults associated with it.

Wherever they could, they enforced their beliefs with the utmost severity and ferocity, demolishing tombs, desecrating what they called false idolatrous and holy places, and slaughtering large numbers of men, women, and children who failed to meet their standards of Islamic purity and authenticity. Another practice introduced by Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab was the condemnation and burning of books. These consisted mainly of Islamic works on theology and law deemed contrary to Wahhabi doctrine. The burning of books was often accompanied by the summary execution of those who wrote, copied, or taught them.

The second alliance of Wahhabi doctrine and Saudi force began in the last years of the Ottoman Empire and has continued to the present day. Two developments in the early twentieth century transformed Wahhabism into a major force in the Islamic world and beyond. The first of these was the expansion and consolidation of the Saudi kingdom. In the last years of the Ottoman Empire, Sheikh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn Saud (born ca. 1880, ruled 1902–1953) played skillfully on the struggle between the Ottomans on the one hand and the expanding British power in eastern Arabia on the other. In December 1915 he signed an agreement with Britain whereby, while preserving his independence, he obtained a subsidy and a promise of assistance if attacked. The end of the war and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire ended this phase, and left him face to face with Britain alone. He fared very well in this new arrangement and was able to expand his inherited realm in successive stages. In 1921 he finally defeated his longtime rival Ibn Rashid in Northern Najd and, annexing his territories, assumed the title sultan of Najd.

The stage was now set for a more crucial struggle, for control of the Hijaz. This land, including the two Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, had been ruled by members of the Hashimite dynasty, descendants of the Prophet, for more than a millennium, in the last few centuries under loose Ottoman suzerainty. The establishment of Hashimite monarchies, headed by various branches of the family, in Iraq and in Transjordan as part of the restructuring of the former Ottoman Arab provinces after the First World War, was seen by Ibn Saud as a threat to his own realm. After years of worsening relations, King Hussein of the Hijaz provided a double pretext, first by proclaiming himself as caliph, second by refusing to allow Wahhabi pilgrims to perform the pilgrimage to the holy cities. Ibn Saud responded by invading the Hijaz in 1925.

The Saudis’ war of conquest was a complete success. Their forces first captured Mecca; then, on December 5, 1925, after a siege of ten months, Medina surrendered peacefully. Two weeks later King ‘Ali, who had succeeded his father, Hussein, asked the British vice consul in Jedda to inform Ibn Saud of his withdrawal from the Hijaz with his personal effects. This was taken as an abdication, and on the following day the Saudi forces entered Jedda. The way was now open for Ibn Saud to proclaim himself King of the Hijaz and Sultan of Najd and its Dependencies on January 8, 1926. The new regime was immediately recognized by the European powers, notably by the Soviet Union in a diplomatic note of February 16 to Ibn Saud, “on the basis of the principle of the people’s right to self-determination and out of respect for the Hijazi people’s will as expressed in their choice of you as their king.”
¹
A formal treaty between Ibn Saud and Great Britain, recognizing the full independence of the kingdom, was signed on May 20, 1927. Some other European states followed suit.

Muslim recognition in contrast was slower and more reluctant. A Muslim mission from India visited Jedda and demanded that the king hand over control of the holy cities to a committee of representatives to be appointed by all Muslim countries. Ibn Saud did not respond to this demand and sent the mission back to India by sea. In June of the same year, he convened an all-Islamic Congress in Mecca, inviting the sovereigns and presidents of the independent Muslim states and representatives from Muslim organizations in countries under non-Muslim rule. Sixty-nine people attended the congress from all over the Islamic world. Addressing them, Ibn Saud made it clear that he was now the ruler of the Hijaz. He would fulfill his duties as custodian of the holy places and protector of the pilgrimage but would not permit any outside intervention in his performance of these tasks.

At the time he evoked a mixed response from his guests. Some dissented and departed; others accepted and recognized the new order. Notable among the latter was the head of the delegation of Muslims in the Soviet Union, whose leader, in an interview with the Soviet news agency TASS, announced that this Islamic Congress had recognized King Ibn Saud as Custodian of the Holy Places; it had also called for the transfer of parts of Jordan to the new Hijazi kingdom, and in general expressed support for Ibn Saud. Recognition from Muslim states and still more from Arab states took rather longer. Treaties of friendship were signed with Turkey and Iran in 1929, with Iraq in 1930, and with Jordan in 1933. The Saudi annexation of the Hijaz was not formally recognized by Egypt until the agreement of May 1936.

In the meantime, Ibn Saud proceeded rapidly with the reorganization and restructuring of his far-flung kingdom and in September 1932 proclaimed a new unitary state, to be called the Saudi Arabian Kingdom. In the following year he appointed his eldest son, Saud, as heir to the throne.

The same year saw the other major development affecting the region, with the signature, on May 19, 1933, of an agreement between the Saudi minister of finance and a representative of Standard Oil of California. Saudi politics and Wahhabi doctrines now rested on a solid economic foundation.

Western interest in Middle Eastern oil dated from the early twentieth century and was mainly operated by British, Dutch, and French companies. American interest began in the early 1920s, with growing concern about the depletion of domestic oil resources and the fear of a European monopoly of Middle Eastern oil. American companies initially entered the Middle Eastern oil market as junior partners in European combines. Standard Oil of California was the first American company to undertake serious oil exploration. After some inconclusive efforts in the Gulf states, Standard Oil finally turned to the Saudis and in 1930 requested permission for a geological exploration of the eastern province. King Ibn Saud at first refused this request but then agreed to negotiations, which culminated in the agreement of 1933. One of the factors which induced the king to change his mind was no doubt the depression that began in 1929 and brought a serious and growing deterioration in the finances of the kingdom.

Less than four months after the signature of the agreement, the first American geologists arrived in eastern Arabia. By the end of the year, the exploratory mission was well established, and in the following year American teams began the extraction and export of oil. The process of development was interrupted by the Second World War but was resumed when the war ended. Some indication of the scale of development may be seen in the figures for oil extracted in Arabia, in millions of barrels: 1945, 21.3; 1955, 356.6; 1965, 804.8; 1975, 2,582.5.

The outward flow of oil and the corresponding inward flow of money brought immense changes to the Saudi kingdom, its internal structure and way of life, and its external role and influence, both in the oil-consuming countries and, more powerfully, in the world of Islam. The most significant change was in the impact of Wahhabism and the role of its protagonists. Wahhabism was now the official, state-enforced doctrine of one of the most influential governments in all Islam—the custodian of the two holiest places of Islam, the host of the annual pilgrimage, which brings millions of Muslims from every part of the world to share in its rites and rituals. At the same time, the teachers and preachers of Wahhabism had at their disposal immense financial resources, which they used to promote and spread their version of Islam. Even in Western countries in Europe and America, where the public educational systems are good, Wahhabi indoctrination centers may be the only form of Islamic education available to new converts and to Muslim parents who wish to give their children some grounding in their own inherited religious and cultural tradition. This indoctrination is provided in private schools, religious seminars, mosque schools, holiday camps and, increasingly, prisons.

In traditional Islamic usage the term
madrasa
denoted a center of higher education, of scholarship, teaching, and research. The classical Islamic madrasa was the predecessor of and in many ways the model for the great medieval European universities. In modern usage the word madrasa has acquired a negative meaning; it has come to denote a center for indoctrination in bigotry and violence. A revealing example may be seen in the backgrounds of a number of Turks arrested on suspicion of complicity in terrorist activities. Every single one of them was born and educated in Germany, not one in Turkey. The German government does not supervise the religious education of minority groups. The Turkish government keeps a watchful eye on these matters. In Europe and America, because of the reluctance of the state to involve itself in religious matters, the teaching of Islam in schools and elsewhere has in general been totally unsupervised by authority. This situation clearly favors those with the fewest scruples, the strongest convictions, and the most money.

The result can perhaps be depicted through an imaginary parallel. Imagine that the Ku Klux Klan or some similar group obtains total control of the state of Texas, of its oil and therefore of its oil revenues, and having done so, uses this money to establish a network of well-endowed schools and colleges all over Christendom, peddling their peculiar brand of Christianity. This parallel is somewhat less dire than the reality, since most Christian countries have functioning public school systems of their own. In some Muslim countries this is not so, and the Wahhabi-sponsored schools and colleges represent for many young Muslims the only education available. By these means the Wahhabis have carried their message all over the Islamic world and, increasingly, to Islamic minority communities in other countries, notably in Europe and North America. Organized Muslim public life, education, and even worship are, to an alarming extent, funded and therefore directed by Wahhabis, and the version of Islam that they practice and preach is dominated by Wahhabi principles and attitudes. The custodianship of the holy places and the revenues of oil have given worldwide impact to what would otherwise have been an extremist fringe in a marginal country.

The exploitation of oil brought vast new wealth and with it new and increasingly bitter social tensions. In the old society inequalities of wealth had been limited, and their effects were restrained—on the one hand, by the traditional social bonds and obligations that linked rich and poor and, on the other hand, by the privacy of Muslim home life. Modernization has all too often widened the gap, destroyed those social bonds, and through the universality of the modern media, made the resulting inequalities painfully visible. All this has created new and receptive audiences for Wahhabi teachings and those of like-minded groups, among them the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and Syria and the Taliban in Afghanistan.