Sunni Feedback on The Issues of Infallibility and Ahulbayt [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

From: azolfag@phoenix.

princeton.

edu (Ali Zolfaghari) Subject:Re: Wahhabis Date: 15 Aug 93 04:28:16 GMT
Assalamu Alaikum:
In article hassan@cs.

ubc.

ca (Moustafa Hassan) writes:
There are many scholars, most notably Ibn Teymiyyeh and Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, that are very misunderstood, but I'll limit the discussion to M.

'Abd al-Wahhab.
To begin with, Arabia was, at a time in history, as mixed up and full of bid'ah as many of the other Muslim
countries today.

Comparing Ibn Taymiyeh to Mohammad Ibn abdul Wahhab is like
comparing apples and oranges.

Yes they are both contraversial
but one (ibn Taymyieh) was an early scholar who had some unique ideas even though I and
a lot of Muslims do not agree with them, Ibn Abdul wahhab however was a pseudo-scholar that appeared under the British influence and
was used by non-muslims (British) in their quest to bring the Arabian
peninsula under a unified rule of an ally Ibn-Saud family in their bid to weaken
the Ottaman empire through the control of the holy sites of Islam.

These
are historical facts.

Ibn Abdul Wahhab issued declarations (fatwa) that branded evry
muslim in Arabia who was in dispute with the Ibn Saud family a Kafir
Through Bida'a.
Yet for him to declare Islamic the hereditary rule of KINGS (malik)
from Ibn Saud family was the biggest Bidaa around in Arabia.

He
announced in his infamous fatwa that the ruling of Arabia should be a hereditary
right of the sons of Saud (who by the way was related to him through
marriage of his daughter).

Many wars followed the fatwas that Ibn abdul Wahhab issued and
in those wars with the help of the british and through declaring other
tribes Mushrik, the Saud family from Najd managed to become the
undisputed tribe in Arabia.

All of us have seen the recent events in
Arabia and it is easy for us to see how these similar events happened in the past.

The
ldea of Wahhabism is strictly a political affair of the early colonial
era rather than an Islamic movement with Fiqh bases.

That is why
it is never thought of as a madhab even though they have tried to make it into one.
(I'm originally from Egypt, and I include Egypt in this list of countries filled with bid'ah.
I'm not protecting 'Abd al-Wahhab because I'm from Arabia.
)

I don't think of Egypt as a country full of bidaa.
To say that all Islamic countries are filled with bidaa takes a
lot of nerves.
Are you trying to tell us that Arabaian Hijaz
is not!! because they stick to Wahhabism, That somehow is an inconsistency that all of
us can see through.
The rule of Kings is and has been the biggest Bidaa in Islam and
that started with Muawiayah the son of Hind (The woman who ate the
heart of Hamza, prophet's (sawaws) uncle) and the first of Umawi (ummayad)
Khulafa.
The bidaa that affects the leadership of muslims is the gravest
of all bidaas.

Isn't it?

Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab is disliked for three reasons:

1.
He did follow a single madh-hab, or school of
thought.
(some stuff deleted)
No my brother, he is disliked for the reasons I cited above.

2.
Ignorance.
He fought many of the
psuedo-scholars of his time.
The pseudo-scholars gained power and
prestige by people following their traditional practices, so they
slandered him and opposed him.
Many true Muslims today
still oppose him because they were taught that his teachings are heretical;
this is not true.

It IS true my brother.
Do you want me to cite you the
infamous fatwa I mentioned above, by him.
No other real scholar of Sunni madhab has EVER declared a family
to be rightful hereditary ruler of Muslim land, that is against Islam.

Let me bring you an example:
It is said that the son of Imam Ahmad was a judge for the
stablishment of Khalifa at the time, something he did with displeasure and just
because he felt the need for the people to be judged according to Islam.
He
later left his post since he was in dispute with the hereditary
khalifah kingdom.
He calculated all the money he earned from his post and bought
bread with the money to give to the poor because he even disliked the money he
was paid.
He told his household to let the poor receipient of the bread
know that the bread was bought with the money from the khalifah and that
he did not consume any of the bread himself.
He did that to have
a clear conscious.
The poor did not accept the breads even though they were hungry.
The breads rotted, and he ordered them be thrown in Euphrates
river, and he NEVER ate fish from Euphrates till he died.
That is how strongly the real Ulemma disliked the Kingdom and
kinghood.
The terms Malik (king) and malik of all
maliks were the terms most disliked by our prophet (sawaws).

3.
He was Arabian, and there seems to still be
quite a bit of racism in the Muslim world.
Racism is futile,
and more importantly is against Islam.
We should not feel contempt
towards a scholar (or any person) simply because he's from a certain part of
the world.
The leaders of all four Madhabs of Sunni sect and alot of other
respectable ulema are arabic, Your statement is not logical my brother.

Wahhabis The following article is written by a Sunni brother
From: bdogan@eecs.

wsu.

edu (Bilge Dogan)
The founder of Wahhabism was Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab of Banu
Tamim tribe.
He was born in Uyaina village near Huraimila
town in the Najd Desert in 1111 and died 1206(1792).

Formerly, with the
idea of travelling and trading, he went to Basra , Baghdad, Iran, India
and Damascus, where he won the name Shaikh an-Najdi
because of his clever and defeatist attitude.
He saw and learnt a
great deal at these places and set his heart on the idea of becoming a chief.
He
had thought it proper a to found a new religious reformation and
movement to reach his goal , and, in preparation for this goal, attended
the lectures of the Hanbali 'ulama' in the blessed city of Medina
and later in Damascus for some time.

When he went back to
the Najid, he wrote pamphlets on religious subjects for villagers.
His
harmful, heretical ideas which he took from Mu'tazila and other bid'a-groups and introduced in these small books deceived many ignorant
villagers, particularly the inhabitants of Dar'iyya and their ignorant
chief, Muhammed ibn Sa'ud (grand grand father of saudi royal family) as
a tool to disseminate his reformation which he named Wahhabism.

He introduced himself as the qadi and Muhammed ibn Saud as the
Hakim.
He had it declared that both would be succeeded only by their
children
In 1306 when the book Mirat al-Haramain was written, the
amir of the Najd, 'Abdullah ibn Faisal, was a descendant of Muhammed ibn
Sa'ud, and the qadi, that is, the head of religious affairs, was a
descendant of Muhammed ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab.

Mumammed ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's father , ''Abd al-Wahhab,
who was a pious pure alim in Medina, his brother Sulaiman ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab
and his masters had apprehended from his statements, behaviour and heretical ideas, which he frequently had put forward as
questions to them when he was a student in Medina, that he would harm Islam
from inside in future.

They advised him to correct his
ideas and the Muslims to avoid him.

But they encountered the very
thing they were afraid of very untimely, and he started disseminating his
heretical ideas openly under the name of Wahhabism.

To deceive
the ignorant, stupid people, he came forward with reformism and innovations
much impetuous to deem as kafirs the true Muslims who followed the
Ahl as-Sunnat wa'l-Jamaa.

He regarded it polytheism to ask
Allahu taala for something through the mediation of the Prophet or other
Prophets or awliya and to visit their graves.

According to Muhammed ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, the person who
talks to the dead, when praying near a grave becomes a mushrik ( Fat'h
al-majid , p208) He asserted that attributing an action or effect to someone or something beside Allah, for example , saying
[such and such] medicine cured or I obtained whatI asked
through our master Rasulullah was polytheism, and the Muslim who said so
would become polytheist.

Although the false documents Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab
made up to support his statements were nothing but all lies and slanders,
the ignorant people who couldn't distinguish right from wrong, the unemployed , opportunists and the hard-hearted soon accepted his
ideas and took part of his side and regarded the pious Muslims of the
right path as kafirs.

When Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab applied to the rulers of Dar'iyya
with the view of disseminating his heresies easily through them, they
willingly cooperated with him with the hope of extending their territories
and increasing their power.

THey strove with all their
might to disseminate his ideas everywhere.
They declared war
against those who refused and opposed another in joining the army of Muhammed ibn
Sa'ud when it was said that it is halal to plunder and kill non-Wahhabis.
In 1143, Muhammed ibn Sa'ud and Muhammed ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab hand in arrived at the conclusion, that those who wouldn't accept
Wahhabism were kafirs and mushriks and it was halal to kill them and
confiscate their possessions, and publicly announced their declaration
seven years later.

Then Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab started
fabricating ijtihad when he was thirty-two years old and announced his false ijtihads at
his forty.
As-Sayyid Ahmad ibn Zaini Dahlan, Mufti of the blessed
city of Mecca, described under the topic Al-fitnat al-Wahhabiyya
the heretical tenest of Wahhabism and the tortures of the Wahhabis inflicted
upon Muslims (Al-futuhat al-Islamiyya, v2, p228-233, Cairo 1968) Hw wrote: To deceive the Ahl as-Sunna 'ulama' in
Mecca and Medina , the Wahhabis sent their men to cities, but these men
could not answer the questions of ulama.
It became evident
that they were ignorant heretics.

A verdict about their being
disbleivers was written and issued everywhere.

Sharif Mas'ud ibn
Sa'id , Amir of Mecca, ordered that the Wahhabis shall be imprisoned.
Some
Wahhabis fled to Dari'yya and told what had happened to them.

The ulama of Hijaz belonging to all the four madhhabs,
including Muhammed ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's brother Shaikh Sulaiman and also
his masters who trained him studied Muhammad's books, prepared
answers to his disunioninst writings, which were distructive to Islam, and
wrote, to call the attention of Muslims, well-documented books in
refutation to his heretical writings and proclaimed Wahhabite tenets to be heretical and harmful.

Bilge Dogan