XLVIII.—THE WAHHA′BI′S.
This sect was founded by Muhammad, son of Abdul Wahháb, but as their opponents could not call them Muhammadans, they have been distinguished by the name of the father of the founder of their sect, and are called Wahhábís.[1]
Shekh Muhammad was born at Ayína, a village in the province, of Arad, in the country of Najd, in the year A.D. 1691. Having been carefully instructed in the tenets of the Muslim religion, according to the teachings of the Hambalí sect, he in due time left his native place, in company with his father, to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca. At Madina, he was instructed by Shekh Abdullah-ibn-Ibrahím, of Najd; and, it is supposed, that whilst sitting at the feet of this celebrated teacher, the son of Abdul Wahháb first realized how far the rigid lines of Islám had been stretched, almost to breaking, in the endeavour to adapt its stern principles to the superstitions of idolatrous Arabia. He accompanied his father to Harimala, and, after his father's death, he returned to his native village of Ayína, where he assumed the position of a religious teacher. His teachings met with acceptance, and he soon acquired so great an influence over the people of those parts that the Governor of Hassa compelled him to leave the district, and the reformer found a friendly asylum in Deraiah, under the protection of Muhammad-ibn-Saud, a chief of considerable influence, who made the protection of Ibn-Abdul-Wahháb a pretext for a war with the Shekh of Hassa. Ibn Saud married the daughter of Ibn-Abdul-Wahháb, and established in his family the Wahhábí dynasty, which, after a chequered existence of more than a hundred years, still exists in the person of the Wahhábí chief at Ryadh.[2]
The whole of Eastern Arabia has embraced the reformed doctrines of the Wahhábís, and Mr. Palgrave, in his account of his travels in those parts, has given an interesting sketch of the Wahhábí religionists, although he is not always correct as to the distinctive principles of their religious creed.
In the great Wahhábí revival, political interests were united with religious reform, as was the case in the great Puritan struggle in England; and the Wahhábís soon pushed their conquests over the whole of Arabia. In A.D. 1803, they conquered Mecca and Madina, and for many years threatened the subjugation of the whole Turkish empire; but in A.D. 1811, Muhammad ʾAli, the celebrated Pasha of Egypt, commenced a war against the Wahhábís, and soon recovered Mecca and Madina; and in 1818, his son, Ibrahím Pasha, totally defeated Abdullah, the Wahhábí leader, and sent him a prisoner to Constantinople, where he was executed in the public square of St. Sophia, December 19th, 1818. But although the temporal power of the Wahhábís has been subdued, they still continue secretly to propagate their peculiar tenets, and in the present day there are numerous disciples of the sect not only in Arabia, but in Turkey and in India. It is a movement which has influenced religious thought in every part of Islám.
The leader of the Wahhábí movement in India was Sayyid Ahmad, who was born at Ráí Bareli, in Oudh, in A.D. 1786. He began life as a freebooter; but about the year 1816, he gave up robbery, and commenced to study divinity in one of the mosques at Delhi. After a few years study, he performed the pilgrimage to the sacred city; and, whilst at Mecca, attracted the notice of the learned doctors by the similarity of his teaching to that of the Wabhhábí sectaries, from whom the city had suffered so much. He was soon expelled from the town, and he returned to India a fanatical disciple of the Wahhábí leader. His success as a preacher was great, both in Bombay and Calcutta; and having collected a numerous following from the ranks of Islám within British territory, he proceeded to the northwest frontier of India, and preached a Jihád, or Holy War, against the Sikhs. On the 21st of December 1826, the war against the infidel Sikhs began, and almost every place in the Peshawur valley is, in some way, associated with this fanatical struggle. The mission of this Wahhábí leader was soon brought to an untimely end; for, in the battle of Bálakot, in Hazarah, in May 1831, when the fanatics were surprised by a Sikh army, under Sher Singh, their leader, Sayyid Ahmad, was slain.[3] But, as in the case of the Wahhábí leader of Eastern Arabia, the propagation of the religious tenets did not cease with Sayyid Ahmad's death, and within the last thirty years Wahhábyism has widely influenced religious thought amongst the Muhammadans of India. The people who hold the doctrines of the Wahhábís do not always combine with them the fanatical spirit of either the son of Abdul Wahháb, or of Sayyid Ahmad Khan; they speak of themselves as Ahl-i-Hadís, or the people of the traditions, or those who interpret the teaching of the Qurán by the example of Muhammad; but there can be but little doubt that the religious principles of, the Wahhábís of India are identical with those of the Wahhábís of Arabia, although it does not follow that they are imbued with exactly the same fanatical spirit. It must, however, be remembered that there is no separation between Church and State in the principles of Islám, and that Muhammadans only cease to be fanatical and disloyal under foreign rule when they are certain that opportunities for resistance do not exist. In the fatwá (decision) given by a number of learned doctors of Lucknow and other places, dated 17th July 1870, it was stated that "it is necessary that there should be a probability of victory to the Musalmáns, and glory to the people of Hindustán. If there be no such probability, the Jihád is unlawful."[4]
The Wahhábís speak of themselves as Muwahhid, or Unitarians, and call all others Mushrik, or those who associate another with God; and the following are some of their distinctive religious tenets:—
1. They do not receive the decisions of the four orthodox sects, but say that any man who can read and understand the Qurán and the sacred Hadís can judge for himself in matters of doctrine. They, therefore, reject Ijmaʾ after the death of the Companions of the Prophet.
2. That no one but God can know the secrets of men, and that prayers should not be offered to any Prophet, Walí, Pír, or Saint; but that God may be asked to grant a petition for the sake of a saint.
3. That at the last day, Muhammad will obtain permission (izn) of God to intercede for his people. The Sunnís believe that permission has already been given.
4. That it is unlawful to illuminate the shrines of departed saints, or to prostrate before them, or to perambulate (tawáf) round them.
5. That women should not be allowed to visit the graves of the dead, on account of their immoderate weeping.
6. That only four festivals ought to be observed, namely, ʾId-ul-Fitr, ʾId-ul-Azhá, ʾA′shúráa, and Shab-i-Barát.
7. They do not observe the ceremonies of Maulúd, which are celebrated on the anniversary of Muhammad's birth.
8. They do not present offerings (Nazr) at any shrine.
9. They count the ninety-nine names of God on their fingers, and not on a rosary.
10. They understand the terms "sitting of God," and "hand of God," which occur in the Qurán, in their literal (Haqíqí) sense, and not figuratively (Majází); but, at the same time, they say it is not revealed how God sits, or in what sense he has a hand, etc.[5]
- ↑ Vide a Wabhábí book entitled Sulh-ul-Aklwán, by Sayyid Allama Daud, of Bagdad.
- ↑ The following are the names of the Wahhábí chiefs, from the establishment of the dynasty:—Muhammad-ibn-Saud, died A.D. 1765; Abdul-Azíz, assassinated 1803; Saud-ibn-Abdul Azíz, died 1814; Abdullah-ibn-Saud, beheaded 1818; Turkí, assassinated 1830; Fayzul, died 1866; Abdullah, still living. Fayzul and his son Abdullah entertained Col. Sir Lewis Pelly, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., who visited the Wahhábí capital, as Her Britannic Majesty's representative, in 1865.
- ↑ The remnant of the Sayyid's army formed the nucleus of the Wahhábí fanatics, who are now stationed at the village of Polosí, on the banks of the Indus, on the northwest frontier of British India.
- ↑ Vide Hunter’s Indian Musalmáns, Appendix II. Dr. Badger, in his article in the "Contemporary Review," June 1875, questions whether there is any real affinity between the Wahhabyism of India and Najd, but we believe they are identical in principle and spirit.
- ↑ On this account the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Sonship of Christ do not present the same difficulties to the mind of a Wahhábí which they do to that of a Sunní.