What is Wahhabism Meaning, History, Teaching, Ideology | Strange Military Stories

Shaikh Muhammad Ibn Abd Al Wahhab is the founder of Wahabism. 

Wahhabis actually consider the term pejorative and prefer to call themselves al-Muwahhidun or  al-Tawhid, “Those who uphold the unity of God.” By these terms, Wahhabis presume an exclusive claim on Tawhid, The Oneness of God, the fundamental principle of Islam.

History

Al Wahab was born in 1703 in Nejd in Central Arabia. At the age of 10, Al Wahab learns the Quran and found a lot of discrepancies in what was mentioned in the Quran and what was being practiced in reality. 

AI Wahab noticed people deviating from the path advocated in Quran by worshipping saints and tombs, which were practices that were completely against the Quran. 

AI Wahab began to preach the ideas of the Quran which went against the existing practices of people. 

In 1724, AI Wahab went to Basra in Iraq and found many followers and sympathizers in Basra, among whom ere several prominent persons. However, he was asked to leave Basra, In 1727, AI Wahab came back to his village Uyayna in Nejd from Basra. In his village, Al Wahab again began to preach his ideas which were not appreciated by the ruler of Nejd who ordered him into exile. Al Wahab reached a small emirate in Arabia by the name Diriya. The king of Diriya was Mohammad Ibn Saud. 

Monotheism

Al Wahab preached in Diriya, he began to increase his followership. This was not appreciated by Ibn Saud who wanted Al Wahab to leave Diriya, but Ibn Saud's wife, being a follower of Al Wahab, convinced Ibn Saud to let him stay in Diriya. Al Wahab's ideology was based on monotheism. In Kitab at-Tawhid book, Al Wahab explains that Muslims should only follow Allah, and those who believe in one God are true Muslims. He said that all others who are Muslim but believe in practice other than Allah and monotheism live in a state of Jahiliya. 

Al Wahab demanded conformity to one God or Caliph and advocated that the true followers of unity and monotheism, who are the chosen ones, can eliminate non-true Muslims like Sufis and Shias, and so on. When Al Wahab preached these doctrines in Diriya, Ibn Saud saw in these doctrines a grand design to enforce conformity, gain acceptance, and expand his empire in other emirates of Arabia. 

Ibn Saud began his territorial expansion and conquest over other emirates of Arabia on the pretext of the enforcement of Wahabi doctrine and gave birth to a unified Arabia which was now called Saudi Arabia (derived from the name of Muhammad Ibn Saud).

Wahhabi Teachings Incorporate 

• The concepts of hejira (flight from non-Wahhabi traditions).
• takfir (ex-communication of other Muslims as infidels).
• armed jihad as not only permissible but obligatory against unbelievers and non- Wahhabi Muslims, who are stigmatized as mushrikin or idolators.

Wahhabism owes its influence to a personal and political alliance that Ibn al-Wahhab forged with Muhammad ibn Saud, the ruler of Diriyya, in Najd. Ibn Saud pledged his support to Al-Wahhab in waging jihad against all those who deviated from Wahhabi doctrines in return for religious sanction for his military campaigns. Nevertheless, Wahhabism remained a marginal and heterodox tendency within Islam until Abd al-Azziz ibn Saud expelled the Hashemites from the Hejaz, the region containing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and established the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.

Ikhwan and Wahabi Ideology

Flag of Ikhwan

After the death of Ibn Saud, his successor Abdal Aziz also used territorial expansion and violence to ensure the spread of Wahabi ideology and this is how, after the unification of Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism emerged as the core ideology of the ruling state and ruling family. Abdal Aziz established an army of people named Ikhwan to spread Wahabi ideology through forced coercion. The members of Ikhwan used to slaughter people who did not conform to the Wahabi ideology. 

The Ikhwan soldiers used to wear black clothes, raise black flags, and wear a black robe to cover their faces. It is this Ikhwan spirit which is visible in the ISIS today. In the period during the Second World War, the US and Saudi Arabia developed an alliance whereby the US would buy Saudi oil in return for money, arms, and ammunition, and Saudi was allowed to export Wahhabism in the Middle East to gain hegemony in the Middle East. Saudi used the money to provide training to West Asians and also provided support to extremists who Would seek conformity. 

The ideological underpinnings of ISIS, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda trace their roots to Wahhabism. Post the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the CIA revived the Ikhwan spirit, leading to the formation of the Al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia used it to expand its influence and hegemony, while the US used the ideology and its army to contain the Soviet.

Al-Saud (Mid-eighteenth century) 

Abdulaziz (1902 to 1953) 1932-Saudi Arabia is established

King Saud

King Faisal

King Khalid

King Fahd

King Abdullah

King Salman (Since 2015)

Read how The campaign of the Khalistan Referendum 2020 is a brainchild of ISI of Pakistan.

ISIS Meaning, Territory and Relations with india

ISIS full form

ISIS/ ISIL logo 

ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) has the black flag with the words La ‘ilaha ‘illa-llah means “There is no God but God” . Underneath is a white circle emblazoned with black writing reading "Mohammed is the messenger of God".

ISIS and India relations

The latest challenge that has emerged in the Middle East is of the Islamic State (henceforth referred to of the Gulf War-I. as the ISIS). To understand the origin of the ISIS, we need to trace back to the period of the Gulf In 1990, when the Gulf War-I began, in Iraq, Saddam Hussein used chemical and biological weapons against his adversaries. The US supported Kuwait in the war but as the war ended, it failed to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. As the UN imposed sanctions against Iraq and isolated it, it was believed that a weak Iraq under Saddam Hussein would lead to a palace coup against Saddam and the would be a subsequent regime change.                            

In 1998, the US passed a law signed by Clinton authorising 97 billion US dollars to replace the regime of Saddam with a democratic regime in Iraq. The task was entrusted to the CIA. However, the 9/11 attacks changed all equations. In 2001, the US President was empowered with the Authorized use of Military Force (AVMF) to declare a war on Afghanistan and Iraq for which the US President would not require authorisation from the UN Security Council. This led to the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001and of Iraq in 2003. After the end of Gulf War, the UN had instructed Iraq to remove and dismantle all its chemical and biological weapons. Iraq had not complied with the directions of the UN. In November 2001, the UN Weapon Inspector Hans Blix informed the Security Council that Iraq is in possession of weapons of mass destruction. On 20 March 2003, after the failure of Iraq to dismantle the weapons of weapons mass destruction, the US invaded Iraq and launched Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Saddam was captured in December 2003 and hanged subsequently after court's verdicts. After Saddam's capture, the ground was prepared in Iraq for democratic elections. Before we move further, we have to keep a few things in mind. Firstly, the Muslims living in Iraq are Shia and are in majority.

Secondly, Saddam was a Sunni Muslim. The situation in Iraq under Saddam was that Shia-majority nation was controlled by Sunni minority and a Sunni leader. When the US invaded Iraq, the US was determined to side with the Shias as they constituted the majority. This created an inherent sense of betrayal and a rising number of Sunni extremist groups who unleashed violence and chaos in Iraq. One such prominent group was Jamaat al Tawhid Wa-i-Jihad (JTD). It was founded in 1999 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Jordan. Al-Zarqawi developed proximity to Al-Qaeda's Osama Bin Laden in due course of time. In 2004, the JTWJ performed bay'ah and joined the Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The commonality of Al-Qaeda and JWT in Iraq was the deep anti-Shia sentiment

In 2006, Al-Zarqawi took steps to bring other pro-Sunni, anti-Shia groups fighting in Iraq under a uniform banner and succeeded in knitting the organisations under Majlis Shura-al-Mujahideen (MSM).

Al-Zarqawi was killed in the same year in a US air strike. He was succeeded by Al-Masri, with the Al- Qaeda in Iraq now transformed into Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Abu Ayyub al-Masri announced that the new goal of ISI was to capture the territory of Iraq which had passed into the hands of Nour Al Maliki (the Shia ruler who assumed power after elections in 2005 in Iraq). Al-Masri clarified that the goal of ISI is to establish Sharia in Iraq.

The ISI began to capture the lands of the Anbar province in Iraq where Sunni disenchantment with Shias was very high. The US forces in Iraq in 2007 began to take help of Shawat al-Anbar to tackle ISI.

As the US used Shawat al-Anbar, they began to successfully wipe out ISI. In 2010, al-Masri died and was succeeded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Al-Baghdadi began to rework the structure of Islamic state of Iraq. He decided that the group needs to broaden its thinking and reach. Al-Baghdadi repositioned the group, shifted base to Syria and renamed the group as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). The shifting of ISIL in Syria upset the Al-Qaeda in Syria fighting against the Assad government and they decided to split from ISIL. Al-Baghdadi, on 21 June 2014, announced a new goal of ISIS or ISIL that is the establishment of a Caliphate once again in the Islamic world, followed by its establishment in rest of the world later. Al-Baghdadi, on 29 June 2014, designated himself as the Caliph Ibrahim. The ISIS has vowed affiliation to the Salafi-Jihadi ideology.