On The Past, Present And Future Of Wahhabism

Very recommendable!

" ... [In the mid-18th century] Wahhabis were not just declaring takfir (excommunication) on people but were also fighting them as part of a jihad. ... In all phases of his preaching, however, he was insistent that true believers must show hatred and enmity to non-Wahhabi Muslims. ... When Wahhabism began, its adherents dismissed the vast majority of nominal Muslims as polytheists. This is because they were seen to be worshiping at the grave sites of saints and prophets. It was a duty for Wahhabis to pronounce takfir on these so-called polytheists and to show them enmity and hatred. ... For more than 150 years, Wahhabism was perceived by most of the world’s Muslims as a radical heresy. Only in the early 20th century did the Wahhabis come to an accommodation with mainstream Sunni Islam. ... The first Saudi state, which reigned in the first 60 years of the 18th century, adhered to militant Wahhabi doctrine. The second Saudi state maintained this identity in the 19th century. The third Saudi state, which was established in 1902 by King Abdulaziz Al Saud [Ibn Saud], began as a militant Wahhabi state but gradually shed this character. Ibn Saud deployed Wahhabi warriors to conquer the Arabian Peninsula in the first decades of his rule, but he later fought a war against the most radical of these militants. The kind of Wahhabism that prevailed thereafter was more restrained and subdued.

The Saudi leadership’s support for this kind of Wahhabism continued until just a few years ago, when Mohammad bin Salman (MbS), the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, started more forcefully to put Wahhabi clerics in their place. MbS’s vision is to create a Saudi Arabia less wedded to the religious establishment. ... For anyone who subscribes to Wahhabism, Shiism is a horrible polytheist heresy that ought to be eradicated. Anti-Shiism is endemic in Wahhabism. For today’s jihadis, as for traditional Wahhabis, Shiism is a much greater threat to true Islam than Christianity, Judaism, or the values of the West in general."


Hoover Fellow Profile: Cole Bunzel On The Past, Present And Future Of Wahhabism | Hoover Institution: Cole Bunzel is a Hoover fellow at the Hoover Institution. A historian and Arabist, he studies the history and contemporary affairs of the Islamic Middle East, with a particular focus on violent Islamism and the Arabian Peninsula. He is currently writing a book about the origins and history of Wahhabism, a fundamentalist sect of Sunni Islam. In this interview, Bunzel discussed