LONDON – The word “Wahhabism” has become a boogeyman in the west, deemed responsible for the radicalization of Muslims around the world. And since Wahhabism is a strain of Islam that has its origins in the Arabian Peninsula and is the dominant religious doctrine of Saudi Arabia, that country is often viewed as the prime culprit in the propagation of violent extremism.

But blaming Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia for Islamist radicalism is a dangerous red herring. This single-cause explanation distracts from the complex political, economic and psychological reasons people join terrorist groups. In doing so, it impedes our ability to effectively fight terrorism.

Wahhabism is, in fact, a loaded, anti-Saudi synonym for Salafism, a puritanical strain of Islam that encourages emulating the “salaf,” or predecessors, the first followers of the Prophet Muhammad. Salafism has historically been apolitical and the overwhelming majority of Salafis are not violent.

Most Islamist militants have nothing to do with Saudi Wahhabism. The Taliban, for example, are Deobandis, a revivalist, anti-imperialist strain of Islam that emerged as a reaction to British colonialism in South Asia. Most members of Al Qaeda follow a radical current that emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement that defined itself largely in relation and opposition to the West and its values. While some terrorists do identify as Salafi, Islamic sects that are ideologically opposed to Salafism — Naqshbandi Sufis and Shiites, among others — have engaged in violent jihad in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

And yet much of the Western news media and far too many pundits put forward a different picture entirely, pinning the blame for terrorism on Wahhabi ideology emanating from Saudi Arabia. These arguments lead one to imagine that European terrorists end up joining the Islamic State by wandering the streets of Paris or Brussels and stumbling upon a Saudi-funded mosque. In this mosque, they read a single book, “The Book of Monotheism,” by Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab, the 18th-century sheikh who founded Wahhabism. A week later, the book’s fundamentalist message inspires them to travel to Syria’s front lines or to plot terrorist attacks in Europe.

The reality is much more complex. Most of the perpetrators of terrorist attacks in Europe have been petty criminals who were known to drink alcohol and take drugs. Their radicalization has little to do with theology. Some European Muslims reportedly purchased books like “Islam for Dummies” before embarking on journeys to take part in jihad in Syria. What they all have in common is a belief that the Muslim world and the West are locked in an irreconcilable clash of civilizations.

It is similarly inaccurate to condemn Wahhabism or Saudi Salafism for the jihadist groups that have emerged in the Arab world in recent years. Tunisians account for the largest foreign population in the Islamic State. The group’s top ranks emerged from Iraq. Syria, of course, is a hotbed of jihadists of all stripes. And yet, these countries until recently were ruled by secular dictators, who banned Saudi missionary activities and, in the case of Iraq and Syria, viewed Saudi Arabia as an adversary.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has been engaged in missionary activities in India, building mosques, schools and social service centers. And yet barely any jihadists have emerged from among India’s population of more than 170 million Muslims.

The revival of a politicized form of radical Islam, which has been taking place in the Arab world since the 1970s, is not driven just by ideology, but by the failure of Arab governments to meet the expectations of their own populations and the brutal reprisals they have employed to quell demands for better, more transparent governance. Like the social and psychological alienation that drives some European Muslims to join extremist groups, this root cause must be addressed in order to truly fight terrorism.

There is no doubt that while certain strains of Salafism are intolerant, intolerance does not necessarily lead to terrorism. Ideological intolerance is a problem in its own right, one that carries risks and dangers and requires its own treatments. But conflating its dangers with the causes of violent extremism can diminish the effectiveness of serious counterterrorism efforts.

It is Saudi Arabia — the country accused of promoting ideas that lead to violent extremism — that has effectively harnessed religion to fight radicalism. Saudi Arabia has fought Al Qaeda not only operationally, but also by countering its ideology with religious arguments. Scholars have been mobilized to condemn both terrorist acts and rhetoric. Salafi scholars have been instrumental in the success of the rehabilitation programs for those convicted of aiding and abetting terrorism.

In the 1990s, Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, Abdul Aziz ibn Baz, issued a fatwa condemning suicide operations. The current grand mufti, Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, is also on record advocating against Saudis’ joining groups fighting overseas and, in keeping with traditional Salafi teachings, has called on all Muslims to remain obedient to the legitimate leader’s dictates and avoid any form of organized political activism.

Blaming Wahhabism or Salafism for violent radicalism is not merely an intellectual slip or an injustice to Salafis, it is a distortion that stands to obstruct fighting violent radicalism and understanding its causes. Any religious ideology adopted by radicals is often a mask for other issues. Blaming or even destroying an ideology like Salafism will not end radicalism.

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* This article was originally published in the New York Times newspaper.

10 Comments

  • Usman Pervaiz Malik

    Usman Pervaiz Malik

    February 23, 2017 - - 11:51 am

    Wahabiism has nothing to do with khwarij

  • Hajara Inna Futa

    Hajara Inna Futa

    February 23, 2017 - - 3:36 pm

    I understand you don’t like how the West is accusing Wahabbism of propagating terrorism. But it is also unfair to shift the blame on other Muslim sects in your defence. After all, we’re all Muslims.
    Moreover these Western non Muslims do not care about the different sects of Muslims. To them, we’re all the same.

  • Crescent International

    Crescent International

    February 23, 2017 - - 7:45 pm

    The takfiris/wahhabis did not emerge in a vacuum. They have been financed, trained and armed by a number of countries for their nefarious designs to subvert Islamic awakening from within. This press release type piece is a conjecture at best. Somehow all previous Muslims got it wrong and Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab came and figured everything out, including the “fact” that for 100s of years Muslims were committing Shirk, so they decided to demolish so many of the historical sites in Mecca and Medina and instead build malls. Out of 12 works by Muslim scholars republished by Daesh, seven are by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. A former imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Sheikh Adil al-Kalbani declared with regret in a television interview in January 2016 that Daesh leaders “draw their ideas from what is written in our own books, our own principles.”From the Taliban in Afghanistan to the pro-independence movement in Chechnya to the organ-eating militias in Syria, these organizations, funded and schooled by the pseudo-scholars emanating from Riyadh, have ended up killing each other and declaring one another kafirs, once the external threat was reduced, instead of focusing on building a progressive Islamic society and state. Conduct elementary research before pontificating.

  • Afsheen Fasihuddin

    February 23, 2017 - - 10:48 pm

    The objective of this article is incredibly biased and pathetic. My response to the author of this article is that I can recognize the effort you tried to make here of blaming other sects to justify the violent and radical ideology of these wahabi extremists, and you might have succeeded in gaining the support of people similar to those of your kind, but I personally just wanted to express my distaste towards you and your thoughts here.

  • Yasemin Peker

    Yasemin Peker

    February 24, 2017 - - 3:11 am

    I get the point why u posting this. Nevertheless, wahhabis are no muslims, since they believe in things that is against Islamic Knowledge :/

  • Zahra

    February 27, 2017 - - 4:20 pm

    This article is rife with inaccuracies, grandiose claims and false pretenses that are not based in history, political thought, religious studies, Islamic theology, Islamic comparative studies, to say the least. Desperate attempts to separate “radicalism” and Wahhabism are simply stated and are supposed to be accepted at face value. The author provides ZERO attempts at substantiating these claims and in effort, insults the intelligence and reasoning abilities of the readers. Not to mention the utter dismissal and erasure of Wahhabism from the violence, bloodshed, genocide, and human destruction: bodily and material from individuals to whole civilizations in the Muslim countries is simply ignored. The voices of the marginalized are Ahmedis, Shias, and Sufis (Barelvis, etc) that have been and continue to be annihilated thanks to Wahhabi apologists that look at blood of Shias on their hands and in effect have shrugged their shoulders and moved on. The fact that you suggest that there is a separation of radicalism and Wahhabism is a travesty and eternal shame. Even Abdul Wahhab and Allama Hilli had more civil, rational and morally based discussions than what you put forth.

    • Zahra

      February 28, 2017 - - 9:04 am

      Correction last sentence should be: *Ibn Taymiyya (father of Wahhabism) and Allama Hilli.

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