Although the entire article is not related to the topic of discussion, this much of it is:
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, founder of Wahhabism, was born in 1703 in the Central Arabian region of Najd, now the locale of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Advocating rebellion against the Ottoman Caliphate, al Wahhab condemned as unbelievers Muslims who enjoyed music, participated in festivals, or showed too much compassion or mercy. This zealot may have burned out in the desert of Arabia but for the chance occurrence that in 1744 he sought refuge in a village ruled by a local family famous for banditry, known as al Sa'ud. The al Sa'ud family and al Wahhab formed an alliance to conquer local settlements. By 1788 the Wahhab-Sa'ud alliance controlled most of Arabia and this provoked an inevitable counter reaction by the Ottoman Empire. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries the Sa'ud family fought for control of Arabia. As well as joining forces with a religious movement, the Sa'ud family also made an alliance with Britain to oppose the Ottomans, and this British connection paid dividends when the Ottoman Empire vanished after the First World War. The pattern was set: religious extremism at home and an alliance with the strongest foreign power abroad.
The Wahhabis have extraordinary hatred of Shiism -- in 1801 they attacked the Shia holy city of Karbala in Iraq, murdering thousands of citizens and desecrating the tomb of Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet -- and are easily the most conservative of the four schools of Sunni Islam. The Wahhabis are distinguished by being more opposed to "unbelievers" within Islam than unbelievers of other faiths. Thus, when the Saudi royal family finances the expansion of Wahhabism to other lands through the support of schools, the building of mosques, or aid to extremists like the Taliban, they are threatening the Sunni majority that already exists in those countries.
nationalpost.com
Sun Tzu
...now what we need is a devout Wahhabi to discuss the other side of the case. |
