Wahhabism and the Rise of the New Salafists

Theology, Power and Sunni Islam

Namira Nahouza

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781838609825
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

Wahhabism is often described as one of the most conservative branches of Islam and its fundamentalist approach seen as fuelling jihadist extremism. But what is the theological basis of Wahhabism? How do Wahhabi beliefs and doctrine differ from branches of Sunni Islam?
While previous scholarship has examined Wahhabism as a political phenomenon, this book turns attention to the complex religious issues that are central to its understanding. Tracing its roots in the 18th century up until the present day, Namira Nahouza shows why the Wahhabi movement has opposed traditional Islamic scholarship on the interpretation of the Qur'an and hadith. Of key importance, Nahouza shows, are the differing beliefs about the oneness of God and God's names and attributes, issues on which both Wahhabi and other Salafi groups are united. Based on extensive research into classical and contemporary Arabic religious sources, Nahouza presents the contours of Sunni theological debate and reveals how the Wahhabi movement became the predecessor to the Salafism we see today. In highlighting the far-reaching consequences of these theological divisions - both for Muslim communities and the world at large -the book fills a significant gap in existing research and is essential reading for scholars researching Islamic Theology, Islamic History, Security Studies and Islamic Radicalism.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC THEOLOGICAL ISSUES

The origins of the main theological schools

Reinhart writes, whilst retracing the history of Sunnism, that ‘Sunnism is a religious movement and, as such, it has a history within more general Islamic religious history.’ In trying to build an overview of this history, looking at the emergence of the theological schools can help.

Shortly after the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632, theological debates started to appear in the Muslim community. Originally, some of them were brought by political disputes. For example, when ‘Ali became the caliph, a group called the Kharijis opposed his caliphate on the basis that they considered him a sinner. Some others, however, did not want to open the issue of personal religious qualifications and considered that anyone who professes Islam was de facto a Muslim. This led to wider debates about whether committing sins precluded someone from entering Paradise or not and became known as the issue of ‘faith versus work’. One other debate consisted of discussing whether the Qur’an was created or not. A group called the Mu‘tazila held that the Qur’an was a created message sent by God to Prophet Muhammad and not part of the essence of God, whereas others refused that position, until this debate became a ‘cause célébre’¹ in Islamic theology and almost gave its name to the subject-matter ‘theology’ itself by calling it ‘kalam’, which in Arabic means ‘speech’.² Another well-known debate was the one between free will and predestination. In that debate, two polarised positions were formed by the ninth century: one held by the Mu‘tazila whereby man is considered to be created by God with a total free will, which would explain why there is a judgement in the hereafter, and one held by people associating themselves with the study of hadith, whereby man is considered almost like a ‘puppet’ with no independent choice, as everything is meant to happen by the Will of God. It is at that time that Muslim theologians, such as Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali al-Ash‘ari (d.935) and Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d.944), tried to find a middle position that would acknowledge the centrality of the Islamic scriptures, but without contradicting the requirements of the use of rational reasoning. Lapidus summarises the situation as such:

Dissatisfied with the excesses of Mu‘tazili rationalism, and appalled by the constricting literalism of the people of hadith, ninth and tenth century Muslim theologians tried to find a middle ground consistent with emphasis on the importance of hadith, but preserving some role for reason in the discussion of theological issues. Several such compromises were elaborated, but the most important in the history of Muslim theology was the work of al-Ash‘ari (d.935).³

She adds:

For example, on the problem of the createdness of the Quran, he held that it was uncreated but (. . .) pointed out that any particular copy of the Quran was created. On the question of free will, al-Ash‘ari held that all human acts are decided or created by God, but that man, by kasb (acquisition), has a certain responsibility for them. God is the ultimate author of man’s actions, but man is an instrument of and participant in these actions.⁴

Al-Ash‘ari is one of the main theologians whose ideas and teachings helped shape what became known as Sunni theology. Formerly a great student of the Mu‘tazili master al-Jubba’i in Basra, he would have succeeded him if it were not for a change of heart that took place around 912, whereby he joined the ranks of those subsequently called ‘Ahl al-Sunna’, that is, the Sunnis. He is said to have dreamed about the Prophet several times and that these dreams prompted him to ask questions to his Mu‘tazili teacher, the answers to which he could not provide. He soon abandoned Mu‘tazili affiliations and dedicated his time to developing rational arguments that were also in compliance with the teachings of the Qur’an and of the hadith.

This took place during the period of the Abbasids, that is, from the ninth century until the end of the eleventh. By the eleventh century, the Saljuq caliphate saw a consolidation of what became known as Sunnism. This consolidation has been described as a ‘Sunni recentering’ as it led to a ‘homogenization of religious life, a process through which Muslim scholars and others strove (not always with success) to eliminate various sources of contention within the Islamic community.’⁵

The importance of the issue of the Attributes of God

In this section, we will explore the issue of the Attributes of God and its centrality in terms of the Islamic creed. Although it might at first seem as peripheral or trivial, the issue of how to understand the ambiguous verses and hadith dealing with the Attributes of God has been considered important enough by some prominent Muslim authors to declare as not belonging to the Muslim community any person with diverging views on it. Seelye, the translator of the heresiographical book al-Farq bayna l-firaq by Ibn Tahir al-Baghdadi (d.1037),⁶ warned the reader in her introduction that in some parts, the book made ‘dull reading’ because of discussions about, as she put it, ‘whether Allah touches the Throne or not’. Seelye compares the debate to the ‘pettiness [of] the scholastic debates of the medieval Christian church, regarding the number of angels able to stand on a pin-point at one time, or the consequences attending a mouse’s eating the consecrated host’.⁷ However, the issue of touching the Throne or not was actually considered by the author whose work she translated as a vital point which could determine or nullify the Islamic faith of a person. This is why what the Salaf’s view on this issue is particularly important.

Summary of Ash‘ari theological arguments

A summary of the Ash‘ari and Maturidi worldview and explanation of the oneness of God will help present why this issue defined one’s classification by the theologians as an orthodox Muslim. Ash‘ari and Maturidi theological positions have been dominant from almost immediately after the Salaf. Ash‘ari and Maturidi books have long been part of the core reading material of the most famous Sunni universities of the Muslim world.⁸ The most famous scholars of the Muslim community from the tenth century have been either active Ash‘aris or, if theology was not their specialisation, greatly influenced by Ash‘arism whenever they dealt with ambiguous verses, or whenever matters of the creed were touched upon. As explained earlier, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari (d.935) and Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d.944) are two theologians deemed by their followers to have brought a systematic vocabulary and methodology to the explanation of Muslim beliefs, in line with what the scholars of the Salaf used to say. Al-Ash‘ari and al-Maturidi are considered part of the Salaf period, as they were both born during the third century AH. These two theologians are deemed to have done for ‘aqida, that is, issues of belief, what the founders of the four Sunni schools have done for fiqh [jurisprudence]: that is, to systemise it in a coherent, organised way and with a comprehensive vocabulary, while at the same time aligning themselves to the methodology of the Salaf.

In the conception of the world of the Ash‘ari and Maturidi scholars,⁹ the entire universe is everything except God.¹⁰ As all entities are created by God, they all have a beginning given to them by God, whereas God is the only One who does not have a beginning.¹¹ To ask the question ‘If God created everything, then who created Him?’ would equate to saying that the Creator is a creation. Indeed, a creation is something that did not exist and then came to be. As it was created, this necessitates that it was brought from the state of non-existence into existence. Bringing something from the state of non-existence into the state of existence is the meaning of creating, which can only be applied to God. The Arab linguists recognise that khalaqa – to create – can, as in English, be used to mean ‘to produce or to fabricate,’ when applied to human beings, but they point out that the meaning of ‘bringing things from the state of non-existence into existence’ should be used only in reference to God. This is because humans can produce chairs and tables from wood, but cannot make wood appear from nothing. This would be creating, and this type of creating applies only to the Creator, God.¹² Therefore, if all created things have in common the fact that they have a beginning, to state that God has a beginning would equate to saying that the Creator is yet another creation. This would necessarily imply that there is no difference between the two. In summary, if all created things have in common the attribute of having a beginning, then it must be the case that God does not have this attribute.¹³ Similarly, anything which is attributed to God cannot be attributed to the creation.¹⁴ If the Creator and the creations had even one attribute in common then God would not be the Creator. This is substantiated by a hadith of the Prophet considered sound (sahih): ‘God existed and there was nothing else’.¹⁵ The Prophet explicitly mentions that God existed and nothing else did, that is, no sky, earth, Throne, physical entity, time or place. Time and place constitute ‘other than God’ and the hadith states that there was nothing ‘other than God’. The maxim according to which God exists without time and place originates from this reasoning. He does not need time and place as it is impossible that He would change.¹⁶

The Ash‘ari and Maturidi scholars emphasise that the Qur’an expresses that God does not need any of His creation as He is perfect. To illustrate this, they quoted the Qur’anic verse ‘Indeed Allah is independent of need for the worlds (al-‘alamin).’ [3:97] The Ash‘aris define the worlds as being composed of only two elements: bodies (ajsam, pl. jism) and attributes (a‘rad, pl.‘arad).¹⁷ A body is anything that has a length, width and depth. An atom is the smallest particle of substance and it is indivisible.¹⁸ When two atoms are joined, this is called a body.¹⁹ Bodies are themselves subdivided into two categories: tangible and intangible. Tangible bodies are those that can be grasped by the hand, like trees or human beings, and intangible bodies are those that the hand cannot grasp, like light, souls and the wind. As God created all bodies, whether tangible or intangible, He is necessarily entirely different from these bodies. The same reasoning applies to the attributes (‘arad). Attributes do not exist by themselves as separate entities. Unlike bodies, they need...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figure
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Transliteration, Translation, Abbreviation and Links
• Theological Glossary
• Introduction
• 1. Introduction to Islamic Theological Issues
• 2. Historical Perceptions
• 3. Wahhabism: A Historical Overview
• 4. Modern Approaches Since the Rise of Wahhabism
• 5. A Vision of History Opposed to Sunni Islam
• 6. Case Studies on the Debate Around the Attributes of God and its Consequences
• Conclusion Scholarly and Strategic Implications of the Study
• Appendix: Two Detailed Interpretations by al-Razi
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• eCopyright