File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎276r] (560/834)

351 —
THE WAHHABITE MOVEMENT.
We give below a translation—made in the Arab Bureau,
Cairo,—of an account of the Wahhabite movement, taken from
Tagbuch einer Reise in Inner-Arabien, written by Professor
Julius Euting, the Archaeologist and Explorer. Euting’s
sojourn in Hail dated from November 1883 to January 1884 :—
“ Shortly before the middle of the last century, there arose,
in the heart of Arabia, a simple man who felt himself called to
be the reformer of Islam—Mohammed, surnamed Abd el-Wahab,
the son of a poor shepherd, Suleiman, of the tribe of the Beni
Tamim. Born in the year 1116 a.h. —that is, 1696 a.d.— in the
small village of el-Ayena, he had pursued his pious studies at
Basra, Baghdad and Damascus, and gone on pilgrimage to the
holy places ; but it was just through this personal intercourse
with the pillars of orthodoxy and from observation of what went
on at the holy places, that he acquired a profound abhorrence of
the excrescences of his religion. The mechanical system of
ritual To which orthodox Mohammedan theology had gradually
shrunk ; the mere formality of the acts of piety, prevailing
especially at the holy places at Mecca and Medina ; the venera
tion—bordering on idolatry—of numerous local saints, filled
him with loathing and wrath, and he determined to protest
openly against them. He was little loved, on account of his
fanatical nature, in Horeimeleh, where he had settled ; and even
in his native town—el-Ayena—he made himself so hated that
he had to flee to Deraiyya. That was about the year 1750,
probably earlier. Here he succeeded in converting Sheikh
Mohammed ibn Saud of the tribe of the Wuld Ali (of the
Anaza), and through this combination of religion and politics
he provoked a movement which was to shake the whole Islamic
world. The principles of his doctrine—which he claimed did
not differ in any particular from the original and pure religion
of Mohammed—were as follows. There is only one God, and
no intermediary is needed between men and their Lord. All the
prophets were but bearers of the divine message, and have no
claim whatsoever to personal veneration. Saints are there none;
priestly privileges are to be condemned ; splendid ceremonies
and costly temples are also evil things. Burial shrines with
their heaped up treasures are places of idolatry, and, therefore,
are to be condemned to destruction. The enjoyment of tobacco,
the wearing of ornaments and fine raiment—especially silk—is
sinful, just as every outward expression of worldly pleasure,
music, dance and games. On the other hand, incumbent on all
believers are prayer five times a day ; the keeping of the month
of fasting ; the pilgrimage to Mecca; the payment of the
believer’s tax (originally one hundredth part of his income) and
the duty of war against all false co-religionists, who are to be
treated as the equals of unbelievers (kujfar) and idolaters
(gmushrikin).