The Globalization of Wahhabism

by Muqtedar Khan

 

Wahhabism: A theology of hate

America's war on terror has alerted the world to the dangers of intolerance and religious bigotry that are central to the ideological foundations of Wahhabism. The word "Wahhabi" essentially identifies a rather narrow and bigoted interpretation of Islam. The Wahhabis are

(1) extremely intolerant of "others" who do not share their specific religious beliefs;

(2) opposed to difference and pluralism;

(3) against civil rights;

(4) extremely anti-secular.

To them the sole purpose of the state/politics is to serve their exclusivist and bigoted interests.

With the aid of oil revenues and the socialization of returning foreign workers, the Wahhabi distortion of Islam has spread widely in the last thirty years. In the Arab world, in South Asia, and in East Asia, Islamic workers and Islamic institutions have received aid from Saudi Arabian sources (usually private individuals and foundations) that have slowly embedded Wahhabism in many Muslim societies.

The objective of Wahhabism is to revive the ritual and conceptual purity of Islam by seeking to eliminate the inclusion of culturally inspired practices under the rubric of religion. Yet its obsession with what is permissible and what is not has made it and its practitioners extremely intolerant of difference and otherness. This growing intolerance of the other has moved the practitioners of Wahhabism so far from the central peaceful and pluralistic principles of Islam that Wahhabism has become an ugly and ruthless caricature of a faith that, according to its foundational text (The Holy Qur'an), was sent as a mercy to humanity.

When Prophet Muhammad established the first Islamic state in Medina, people of other faiths were free to practice their religions and had the same rights as Muslims in religious as well as political matters. But today in Saudi Arabia, the only Wahhabi state in the world, Christians and Hindus have very few rights and are prohibited from religious practice. They are not even allowed to celebrate their festivals openly. While Wahhabis today continue to fund the construction of mosques in India and in the West, they remain staunchly opposed to the construction of any temple or any church in Saudi Arabia. This is not only intolerant but also hypocritical.

But we must pause before we judge Wahhabism as an Islamic byproduct. Wahhabism is a global condition and not some Islamic initiative unleashed upon the rest of the world. From the world's oldest democracy to the world's largest democracy one can see the festering of Wahhabi movements, sowing seeds of hatred, bigotry, and intolerance against "others" and seeking to capture the state to make it an instrument of hate.

The rise of American Wahhabism

There is a similar group of bigoted religious fundamentalists in the United States who are undermining the secular character of America, subverting the peaceful message of Christianity and polluting the socio-cultural environment of this country. I call them American Wahhabis because they, like their Muslim counterparts, are intolerant of otherness, oppose civil rights, do not believe in the separation of church and state, and hate people of other faiths. Rev. Jerry Falwell, Rev. Pat Robertson, and Rev. Franklin Graham are three of the most prominent, powerful, and vocal representatives of American Wahhabism.

Readers may recall that in the immediate aftermath of September 11, Reverend Jerry Falwell blamed abortionists, homosexuals, and the ACLU for angering God and causing Him to allow the attacks to take place. He later apologized for his statements when there was uproar from all sides of the political spectrum, including the President, who called Falwell's comments "inappropriate." This is a typical example of the shameless and insensitive opportunism that sought not only to politicize the tragedy of September 11 but also to incite hatred towards the groups that Rev. Falwell and his associates habitually target. If he was not strongly rebuked by nearly everyone who mattered, his crusade against the ACLU, gays, and feminists would have gained significant momentum as part and parcel of the war on terror.

In recent months American Wahhabis have unleashed a verbal assault on Islam and its religious symbols, unmindful of the hate they are inciting against Muslims in America and the anti-American sentiments they are generating in the Muslim world. Rev. Falwell and Rev. Pat Robertson have called the Prophet of Islam a terrorist and argued that Islam and its teachings themselves are the sources of violence. Rev. Franklin Graham has announced that Islam and its teachings are evil and wicked. These comments have caused protests everywhere, including religious riots in India that led to five deaths. Many Pakistanis have reacted angrily. They expressed their dismay by voting strongly in favor of a pro-Taliban and anti-American alliance in the recent elections in Pakistan.

The problem with the American Wahhabis and the Christian Coalition is not just their ideas and their hate-mongering, but the fact that they have a reasonably large following, sufficient to influence the outcomes of American elections. By virtue of its votes and its fundraising capacity the Christian Right exercises more direct power over the American Congress and the President than the mullahs of Saudi Arabia can over the decisions of their king. Furthermore the close relationship between the President himself and Rev. Franklin Graham, and the association of other members of his administration, such as Attorney General Ashcroft, with the Christian Right, is extremely disturbing. It is not a coincidence that the first group to benefit from George W. Bush's impulse to finance faith-based programs was Rev. Pat Robertson's. Is it possible that the very purpose of the federal initiative to support faith-based programs is to allow the Christian Right to intertwine its operations with those of the federal government?

The theology of hate emanating from American Wahhabis is designed to Christianize America - to undermine its multicultural ethos, its welcoming posture towards immigrants, and its openness to the practice of other religions. American Wahhabis are determined to create a militant Christian nation that will wage crusades abroad and conduct inquisitions at home. In the November 2002 elections, the Christian Right distributed over seventy million voter guides. Its spokespersons publicly claim that it was their support that has enabled the Republicans to win the Senate back and strengthen their hold on the House. The growth of American Wahhabism will directly undermine American secularism and dismantle the dream of the Founding Fathers, who imagined America as the "city on a hill," the beacon of freedom and tolerance. These people wish to make it into a modern version of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Hindu Wahhabis and their genocidal policies

In the last two decades, India has experienced the growth of Hindu nationalism. This Hindutva movement is just another manifestation of the Wahhabi theology of hate. The Hindutva movement constructs Muslims as its other, and blames them for all of India's real and imaginary problems. The movement then calls for a purification of India by the legal, cultural, and now physical elimination of Muslims from the Indian landscape.

The movement began with the modest objective of eliminating the Muslim identity from India's legal system, which recognizes different faith communities, by imposing (against the wishes of the Muslim minority) a common law. It then graduated to defining India as a Hindu state.

This equation of Indian nationalism with Hinduism automatically estranges Muslims (and other minorities). They are demonized as anti-national, and their lives, their properties, and their religious symbols have become fair game for Hindu mobs. In the last ten years alone, over 10,000 Muslims have been killed in riots all over the nation.

The most egregious massacre took place last year (February-March 2002) in the state of Gujurat. It had the complete cooperation of both the local and national governments, who not only aided in the genocide of over 2,000 Muslims but also worked hard after the tragedy to cover it up. As international human rights groups and media have already reported, not only were thousands killed, but there was widespread looting and arson of targeted Muslim properties. Women were raped, undressed, and paraded, before being burnt alive along with children - even as police watched, refusing to stop the pogrom.

These actions were allegedly the response of an angry mob to the arson of a train in which over fifty-eight Hindus were burnt alive by Muslims. Forensic reports have since brought this scenario into question, raising the ugly specter of the frame-up of a community for the explicit purpose of justifying a premeditated plan to massacre thousands of Muslims.

Many Hindutva movement leaders have expressed satisfaction at what happened in Gujurat. They continue to ratchet up the decibel levels of their rhetoric of hate against minorities and are determined to create a Hindu nation, armed with nuclear weapons, that will wage war against its enemies abroad and at home to realize their vision of a pure and powerful Hindu India.

The future of coexistence

Sociologists believe that globalization is having a destabilizing effect on societies by cutting away at their traditional roots and suspending them in a flux of global commercialism. In response to this alienating experience, identity-based movements are taking root in various societies in order to construct local solidarities based on traditional values. This return to "original values" is a systemic response to globalization. It can only be countered by adding a moral and value-based component to globalization. If globalization could manage to create, along with consumerism and materialism, a convergence of people's preferences toward cosmopolitan virtues such as tolerance, religious pluralism, and cultural openness, then perhaps anti-globalist movements such as Wahhabism will not grow ever more widespread.

Clearly the rapid restructuring of social conditions because of globalization is destabilizing enduring conceptions of self and community. This generates deeply felt insecurities, which then manifest in the form of hostility toward others. Those interests - multinational corporations and wealthy industrialized states - that stand to benefit from and do indeed promote globalization, must take stock of the current state of affairs. They must realize that they cannot milk the cow without also establishing a sustainable program to nourish the cow. Along with championing economic liberalization and intellectual property rights, these interests must also invest in global social capital - sustainable development, poverty reduction, and, most importantly, sustaining symbols of civilization and culture.

For example, small campaigns by multinational corporations to reconstruct the Buddha statue destroyed in Afghanistan, to rebuild the mosques decimated in Gujurat, to build a memorial at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, to establish rest areas on the trail to the top of Mt. Fuji, to establish a rehabilitation fund for Catholic priests and their victims caught up in the Church's sex scandal, to establish a global network of corporate-sponsored schools for bridging the educational and digital gap between the developed and the underdeveloped worlds - these could go a long way toward ameliorating the anti-globalization sentiment that is now becoming a element of global culture. Such projects would cost billions. However, that is a pittance in comparison to the profits that will be made from open global markets, and these projects may well become tax-exempt in several countries around the world.

In this way corporations could claim to be contributing, not just to globalization, but also to the development of the global public good. Contentment is the best balm for curing hate and intolerance.

 

Muqtedar Khan, PhD, is Director of International Studies at Adrian College in Michigan. He is the author of the recent book American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom.