Unintended Consequences. The Iraq invasion may promote the rise of Wahhabism in Iraq.
A Wahhabi sheds his disguise
By Ellen Barry, Globe Staff, 7/16/2003
BAGHDAD -- When Rifa'at Jassem told his parents the path he had chosen, his mother wept and his father raged, his classmates jeered, family friends grew distant. At 14, he set aside his love for soccer and began learning the skills of an underground resistance network.
The last three months have brought a curious flowering for Jassem, now 24. He shed his disguise, setting aside plaid shirts and slacks for the short tunic of his true faith. Today, he answers the question directly, with an innocent and gentle smile: Yes, he is a Wahhabi.
It was the American defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime that enabled the Wahhabis to emerge from decades of oppression. Yet, US policymakers now say they are concerned that Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia are attempting to influence events in Iraq, most immediately by carrying out attacks on American soldiers. A more long-term worry, in post-9/11 Washington, is that the austere Wahhabi fundamentalism that inspired Osama bin Laden will draw a large following in the chaotic atmosphere of Iraq.
Whether that will happen is difficult to predict. As various Islamic movements have emerged as open political forces, Wahhabism remains the shadowy, decentralized network that developed under Hussein's strict repression. In a cosmopolitan, moderate Muslim country, most Iraqis speak of Wahhabism with contempt. But adherents say the body of believers is larger than anyone knows, and is bound to grow -- whether in the open or underground depends on the freedoms granted by the American occupation.
In Iraq, said one Islamist, the only force that could fuel growth of Wahhabism is anger.
''It is not suitable ground for this movement,'' said Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi newspaper editor who has been critical of fundamentalist groups. ''My only answer for that is the frustration of the Arab world, which makes people seek out simple ideologies. [Wahhabism] offers that.''
For centuries, Wahhabis have attempted to seed their beliefs among the young men of Iraq -- in recent years, largely through cassette tapes and photocopied texts -- but Hussein kept its growth under strict control. Sheikh Adnan Al Ani, who was banned from public speaking after accusations of being ''one of the backbones of Wahhabism,'' remembers the day in 2000 when Hussein abruptly notified him that the ban had been lifted and he could continue preaching.
Hussein's shifting policies were an outgrowth of his relations with his neighbors, religious scholars say. Wahhabi preachers had significant freedom until the invasion of Kuwait in 1991, when Iraq's relations with Saudi Arabia went sour, said Muhan Bashar Mohammed, head of the dogma department at the University of Islamic Law. At other times, when rising Shi'ite resistance was a concern, Wahhabism was given breathing space.
Wahhabism, like the related fundamentalist Salafism movement, espouses a puritanical, at times supremacist view of Islam grounded in strict interpretation of the Koran, Islamic scholars say. It is not indigenous to Iraq, but arrived from the land that is now Saudi Arabia. The movement was formed in a spasm of disgust by an 18th-century Saudi cleric named Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who returned from a visit to Iran intent on stripping away the ostentation and hagiography he had seen among the Shi'ites. Vowing war against other forms of Islam, especially Shi'ism, Wahhab converted the Saud tribe, an alliance which has survived until the present day.
Two hundred years after bloody Wahhabi attacks on the southern Shi'ite cities, many Iraqis speak of the fundamentalists with a shudder, and some say they fear that the beliefs will take hold among young people.
''If we stay here in Iraq without a government, without police or an army, that would be a catastrophe. These fanatic ideas arise from poverty, from lack of work,'' said Abdul Qadr Al Galani, the head of a prominent Sunni religious school in Baghdad. ''They work underground, and when they find a convenient time, they grow like the growth of cancer.''
Young men have seen the Wahhabis at mosques, gathering boys around them in rapt circles.
This was the way they reached 12-year-old Rifa'at Jassem, the clever, restless son of an uneducated warehouse security guard. Of the seven young men who gathered around their instructor, a low-ranking officer in the Iraqi army, Jassem was the one who heard the message.
''It was the first time I had heard words like this,'' he said. ''I felt like I was lost and had been found.''
He was, his family recalled in an interview, a normal boy, an enthusiastic soccer player. But Jassem said he had already realized that his chances of graduating from university were remote.
To the swirling questions -- ''What's the reason for losing so many years of my life? What was my position in life?'' -- the 12-year-old boy found a serene answer in Wahhabism, he said.
In those days, to openly practice Wahhabism -- by possessing written material or wearing the traditional short gown and beard -- was to risk arrest, so he learned to transport his materials secretly. More painful, he said, was telling the news to his parents, who are Shi'ites.
Eventually his father noticed the peculiar gestures that Wahhabis use as they pray: Instead of holding his hands by his sides, Jassem crossed them over before him. The reckoning that followed within the family was so wrenching that years later, Jassem winces thinking about it.
''They consider it as being heathen,'' Jassem said. ''I was stuck between two fires: the hostility of the family and the path I had chosen to follow.''
In Washington, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York and his staff held meetings last week on the growth of Wahhabism in Iraq. They aired concerns that fundamentalists may have found common ground with Ba'ath loyalists, and are cooperating in attacks on American forces. Meanwhile, Saudi aid organizations have begun pouring resources into reconstructing Iraq, an effort that analysts say could be a cover for recruitment. Al Ani said it is unclear, at this moment, whether Salafists or Wahhabis will have the option of operating in the open. As Shi'ite organizations have declared themselves one by one, suspected Wahhabis are being scrutinized more than others by American forces, and the repression could return to the close surveillance of Hussein's day, he said.
''Still we don't know the American policy and where it's going,'' he said.
The young men, meanwhile, are waiting for direction. Jassem spends his days loading food in the market, and dreams of a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. He has begun to feel an intense hatred of America, and calls attacks against American troops ''regal.''
''I don't feel freedom even now. This feeling has been replaced by a deeper and uglier feeling of being occupied,'' Jassem said, with a mild smile. ''There will be a time when Wahhabis will no longer be a minority in Iraq. This time is starting now.''
Globe correspondent Bryan Bender contributed to this story. Ellen Barry can be reached at barry@globe.com
This story ran on page A15 of the Boston Globe on 7/16/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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