Wahhabism, the version of Islam serving as Saudi Arabia's guiding ideology and named after one of the country's founding fathers (Muhammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhab, 1703–92), is often popularly associated with rigidity and—particularly after 9/11—terrorism.Footnote 1 A concept that seemingly embodies the inflexible character of Wahhabism is al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ (loyalty and disavowal). The concept has its origins in pre-Islamic times. The term tabarruʾ (from the same root as barāʾ) seems to have meant severing ties between family members or the expulsion of unruly tribesmen.Footnote 2 It was later incorporated into Islam and the Qurʾan, as expressed, for example, in Sura 9 (also known as sūrat barāʾa), where it is said to have expressed the breaking of treaties between Muslims and non-Muslims.Footnote 3 The term walāʾ was used in pre-Islamic times to refer to various kinds of ties between patrons and their clients (mawālī),Footnote 4 but its Qurʾanic use seems to indicate religious loyalty among Muslims.Footnote 5 The two concepts together became highly important among Shiʿi MuslimsFootnote 6 and, partly through the writings of Taqi al-Din Ahmad b. Taymiyya (1263–1328),Footnote 7 were adopted by the scholars of Wahhabism.Footnote 8 In Wahhabi writings, walāʾ refers to the loyalty that all Muslims should show to God, Islam, and their co-religionists in every sphere of life, while barāʾ denotes the notion that Muslims should disavow all other things so as to stay away from anything considered un-Islamic. Wahhabi scholars thus believe that al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ is the guiding principle for Muslims’ relations with kuffār (infidels, non-Muslims) and use it to make a strict distinction between Islam and everything else.
The civil war that took place at the time of the second Saudi state (1824–91) had a great impact on the development of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ among Wahhabi scholars. Although several Western studies deal with this period in detail,Footnote 9 general works on the Saudi state pay little attention to 19th-century Arabia.Footnote 10 Yet important events during that century—including not only the civil war but also the invasions by external enemies—produced Wahhabi writings that continue to reverberate in the scholarly debate on al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ. This article focuses on how al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ is contested in Wahhabi discourse and how events on the 19th-century Arabian peninsula, particularly the Saudi civil war, have influenced these contestations over the meaning of the concept.
The article starts with an overview of the Saudi civil war and the religious debate it generated, based mostly on secondary sources. I then show how both the war and the debate have had an impact on the role of scholars in Saudi Arabia. First, I analyze how prominent Saudi ʿulamaʾ in the past few decades have tried to present al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ as an apolitical concept strictly relevant to societal and religious issues, a position that has squared with Saudi policies. Second, I turn to the writings of radical Wahhabi scholars in the past twenty years to show how they, in contrast to leading (and mostly state-affiliated) ʿulamaʾ, have interpreted al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ as applicable to the affairs of state, including Saudi Arabia's foreign policy. This political interpretation of the concept is often expressed through the notion of al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār (asking non-Muslims for help, thereby showing them loyalty) that was developed by some scholars during the civil war. These last two sections of the article are based almost entirely on primary texts in Arabic and on fieldwork in several countries, including Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of this article is twofold. First, I intend to show that al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ is a highly contested concept among Wahhabi scholars and that their interpretations have developed into two distinct trends: one, used by quietist Wahhabi scholars, relates strictly to societal and religious issues and is referred to as “social” in this article; the other, used by radical Wahhabi scholars, is applied to the Saudi state's internal and external policies and is labeled “political” here. Second, I try to demonstrate that these two trends are partly a result of the enduring legacy of the second Saudi state, which continues to resonate in scholarly writings on the subject of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, and thus to show how one Wahhabi concept has changed over time and that Wahhabism is less uniform and inflexible than is popularly believed.
CIVIL WAR IN THE SECOND SAUDI STATE
Background to the Civil War
The alliance between Muhammad b. Saʿud, the founder of the first Saudi realm, and Muhammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhab, which started in 1744 and still serves as the basis of Saudi Arabia's governing system, led to a successful imposition of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab's doctrines on an expanding territory. The ambitions of the alliance between the Al Saʿud and the Al al-Shaykh did not stop at the central Arabian region of Najd, where the families originated. Other parts of the Arabian peninsula, including the Hijaz in the west, with its two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, were added to the Saudi realm in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The ruling Ottoman Empire increasingly viewed the expanding Saudi state as a threat, particularly after the latter conquered the holy places in the Hijaz at the expense of Ottoman control. It therefore called upon the new ruler of Egypt, Mehmet ʿAli, whose army was possibly the most powerful in the region and whose state was nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, to reconquer the Hijaz on behalf of Istanbul.Footnote 11
Mehmet ʿAli's armies arrived on Arabian soil in 1811 and conquered not only the Hijaz but also the rest of Saudi territory in the years that followed, effectively ending the first Saudi state by sacking its capital, al-Dirʿiyya, in 1818.Footnote 12 One factor that helped the invading armies was that some Arabians living under Saudi rule switched their allegiance to the Ottoman state. Having been forced to adopt Wahhabism as the ruling doctrine and to suffer the consequences of regular raids aimed at expanding the realm, many had been rather reluctant supporters of the alliance between the Al Saʿud and the Al al-Shaykh. Some therefore welcomed the invasion of Mehmet ʿAli's armies and even called for the resumption of Egyptian attacks during a truce between the warring parties in 1815. Not surprisingly, the Saudi rulers and Wahhabi ʿulamaʾ viewed these calls for foreign invasion as grave acts of disloyalty.Footnote 13
Amidst the turmoil caused by the war, one Wahhabi scholar addressed this issue of disloyalty. Sulayman b. ʿAbdallah Al al-Shaykh (1785–1818), a grandson of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and one of the most important Wahhabi ʿulamaʾ of his time, wrote a treatise entitled al-Dalaʾil fi Hukm Muwalat Ahl al-Ishrak (Evidence Against Loyalty to the Polytheists), in which he addressed this topic through the concept of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ. Sulayman argues that if Muslims show loyalty (muwālāt, linguistically related to walāʾ) to polytheists (mushrikūn), they become like them and thus, in effect, turn themselves into kuffār as well.Footnote 14 Wahhabi scholars included the Ottomans in this category of polytheists, probably because of their allegedly strong connections to Sufism and to popular practices such as visiting graves, which Wahhabis condemned as shirk, as well as their “un-Islamic” laws and their long-held enmity toward the Al Saʿud and Wahhabism.Footnote 15
Sulayman's treatise on loyalty to polytheists, interpreted in the context of Saudi–Ottoman rivalry, added a new political dimension to the concept of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ by applying the general term of loyalty to Islam to a situation in which two states were involved in a conflict. Before that time, writings on al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ and on its underlying principle of separation between Islam/Muslims and other religions/non-Muslims—as found in the works of Ibn Taymiyya,Footnote 16 Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab,Footnote 17 and othersFootnote 18—mostly encompassed personal religious practices, such as refraining from engaging in relations with non-Muslims by not traveling to “infidel” countries.Footnote 19 Sulayman's treatise thus gave the concept a new dimension. Although the first Saudi state collapsed shortly thereafter, his work survived, and the extrapolation of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ from the social to the political sphere would be used during the civil war to change the concept even further.
ʿAbdallah, Saʿud, and the ʿUlamaʾ
Although the victory of the Egyptians over the Saudis had been complete, the latter quickly regained power. The occupation of the Arabian peninsula by Egyptian troops had resulted in oppression and hardship for the population and when another member of the Al Saʿud, Turki b. ʿAbdallah, tried to restore his family's rule, he found enough support to reconquer his lost homeland. The capture of the new capital, Riyadh, in 1824 marked the beginning of the second Saudi state.Footnote 20
The new state—notwithstanding a renewed Egyptian invasion in the 1830sFootnote 21—was fairly successful, particularly during the reign of Turki's son Faysal, but this changed dramatically when Faysal died in 1865 and his son ʿAbdallah became the new ruler. ʿAbdallah enjoyed support from the Wahhabi scholars and his succession of his father seemed obvious. The legitimacy of ʿAbdallah's rule was challenged militarily, however, by his brother Saʿud. Although ʿAbdallah was able to retain control for several years, Saʿud succeeded in gaining power at the expense of his brother in 1871, and a civil war grew out of the conflict between the two siblings. It continued for more than a decade, eventually weakening the state so much that it was easily overrun by Muhammad b. Rashid, the leader of a rival Arabian dynasty, thereby ending the second Saudi state in the late 19th century.Footnote 22
The relevance of the second Saudi state and the civil war in particular to the development of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ lies in the scholarly debate that took place during this period about a decision made by ʿAbdallah. In his attempts to repel Saʿud's efforts to rule the land, ʿAbdallah had called on the “polytheistic” Ottoman rulers in neighboring Iraq for military aid. The help came, and ʿAbdallah temporarily cooperated with the Ottomans.Footnote 23 Most ʿulamaʾ believed that the precarious situation and Saʿud's illegitimate claim to the throne necessitated the action. A powerful minority, however, stated that ʿAbdallah's decision amounted to loyalty to polytheists by asking the “infidel” Ottomans for help in fighting other Muslims (al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār).Footnote 24 One of these, Hamd b. ʿAtiq (d. 1883–84), went further and applied excommunication (takfīr) to Muhammad b. Ibrahim b. ʿAjlan, a Wahhabi judge, for supporting ʿAbdallah's decision.Footnote 25
Much as the Egyptian occupation of Arabia in the early 19th century led to a new dimension of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ through the treatise by Sulayman, events during the civil war pushed the development of the concept further through a book written by the aforementioned Ibn ʿAtiq. In Sabil al-Najat wa-l-Fikak min Muwalat al-Murtaddin wa-l-Atrak (Fleeing and Separating from Loyalty to Apostates and the Turks)Footnote 26—which partly builds on the earlier work by SulaymanFootnote 27 and has been all but ignored by Western scholars of the second Saudi stateFootnote 28—Ibn ʿAtiq argues that Muslims should not only refrain from giving loyalty to non-Muslims but should also actively disavow them. He even states that Muslims only show their faith properly if they disavow “infidels,”Footnote 29 thereby shifting the emphasis from inadmissible walāʾ to compulsory barāʾ.
As mentioned previously, Ibn ʿAtiq was strongly against ʿAbdallah's call to the Ottomans (“the Turks”)Footnote 30 for help, and he wrote this book specifically to condemn it.Footnote 31 This view was shared in the writings of the leading Wahhabi scholar at that time, ʿAbd al-Latif b. ʿAbd al-Rahman Al al-Shaykh (d. 1876), who sided with Ibn ʿAtiq in the debate. He openly scolded ʿAbdallah for his “loyalty” to the Ottomans and wrote letters defending his view, including one to Ibn ʿAjlan, who had supported ʿAbdallah's call for help, in which he stated that “as for the question of asking them [the Ottomans] for help, that is controversial, but the correct [view] is . . . that it is absolutely forbidden.”Footnote 32 Instead of showing loyalty to the Ottomans by asking them for help, ʿAbd al-Latif called on Muslims in general and Saʿud in particular to wage jihad against them.Footnote 33
The writings of Ibn ʿAtiq and ʿAbd al-Latif show that these scholars were willing to criticize the rulers for what they believed were grave mistakes and that they used the concept of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ to express their criticism. Together with the earlier treatise by Sulayman, these writings reinterpreted the meaning of the concept by giving it a political dimension that was relevant to interstate relations. As we will see, the scholars realized that the collapse of the second Saudi state deprived them of their power base and diminished their influence. This realization proved to be the most important legacy of the second Saudi state for politically quietist Wahhabi scholars.
THE QUIETIST LEGACY: AL-WALĀʾ WA-L-BARĀʾ AS A SOCIAL CONCEPT
The shock of the second Saudi state's collapse caused Wahhabi scholars to rethink their positions vis-à-vis the state, in part because the collapse meant the loss of a strong ruler who could guarantee their influence and protect them. This, in turn, was detrimental to the unity and stability of the community (jamāʿa) of Muslims they envisioned. Because they realized that their ideas could only be implemented under the protection of a leader, they vowed to remain subservient to the ruler and avoid the fitna (chaos, strife) of civil war in the future.Footnote 34 This attitude could be seen in their writings, which began stressing samʿ (listening) and ṭāʿa (obedience) to the ruler as necessary for the survival of the jamāʿa and indeed of Islam itself. This was summed up in the expression lā dīn illā bi-jamāʿa wa-lā jamāʿa illā bi-imāma wa-lā imāma illā bi-samʿ wa-ṭāʿa (there is no religion except through community, no community except through leadership, and no leadership except through listening and obedience).Footnote 35
It should be pointed out that the obedience of the Wahhabi scholars to their ruler was not absoluteFootnote 36 nor was it caused by the shock of the civil war. The tradition that Muslim scholars should be subservient to their ruler, provided he applies Islamic law (shariʿa), is centuries older than the second Saudi state and was applied by Wahhabi scholars long before the conflicts between the two princes.Footnote 37 The civil war provided a strong impetus for the scholars to reinforce their subservience, however, and this trend continued and even increased in the 20th century under the first king of the third Saudi state, ʿAbd al-ʿAziz b. ʿAbd al-Rahman (d. 1953), and his successors.Footnote 38Al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ is one religious concept in which the subservience of the scholars was reflected. As they increasingly shied away from criticizing their rulers, they often avoided the controversial 19th-century writings, stripped al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ of the political relevance that it had acquired, and turned it into an apolitical and strictly social concept that was applicable only to interpersonal relations.Footnote 39
This process of presenting al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ as a social concept by 20th-century Wahhabi scholars was accomplished first of all through a thorough explanation of the concept's meaning and its roots in the Qurʾan. On the basis of numerous verses, such as Q. 5:51, 58:22, 60:1, and 60:4, the scholars concluded that forbidden walāʾ entailed friendship, love, and affection for non-Muslims and their religion. They concluded that Muslims should instead treat non-Muslims by showing them barāʾ, equated with disassociation, hatred, and enmity.Footnote 40 The way many Wahhabi scholars applied this in practice clearly shows that they had abandoned the political relevance of the concept that could be discerned in the 19th-century writings mentioned previously. A major theme in their treatment of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ was and still is participation in non-Islamic feasts. Muhammad b. Ibrahim Al al-Shaykh (d. 1969), for instance, a former mufti of Saudi Arabia and one of the most prominent Wahhabi scholars of the 20th century, states that God has given Muslims only two feasts (ʿīd al-fiṭr and ʿīd al-aḍḥā)—adding any other would mean “resembling the unbelievers” (mushābahat al-kuffār), which is forbidden (taḥrīm).Footnote 41 Other Wahhabi scholars also assert that it is not permissible to participate in the feasts of Jews and Christians or to congratulate non-Muslims on the occasion of their religious holidays.Footnote 42 A second recurring theme in social interpretations of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ is the permissibility of greeting non-Muslims. Two major Saudi scholars who have paid special attention to this are ʿAbd al-ʿAziz b. Baz (d. 1999) and Muhammad b. Salih al-ʿUthaymin (d. 2001). Based on a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, both conclude that it is necessary to distinguish oneself from non-Muslims by never greeting them firstFootnote 43 or using a hand gesture—considered part of the manners of non-believers—to greet another Muslim instead of saying al-salāmu ʿalaykum.Footnote 44
Among other issues to which al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ is applied are the various conditions under which one may travel to non-Muslim countries and how one should behave there so as not to show any loyalty to “infidels”Footnote 45; how to avoid resembling them in dress, behavior, or namesFootnote 46; and how to conduct everyday relations with Shiʿi Muslims.Footnote 47 These rulings have two things in common. First, they serve to keep Muslims away from anything that might stain the purity of their beliefs and lead to loyalty—expressed as love, affection, or friendship—for supposedly un-Islamic things. Second, they deal only with social issues and do not address anything political that might lead to criticism of the state. This is also how al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ is presented in Saudi schoolbooks.Footnote 48 On the rare occasions that such scholars deal with political issues in their writings, their arguments and conclusions avoid references to the 19th-century events or works mentioned previously (even if these are highly relevant)Footnote 49 and clearly show their subservience to the Saudi state. Ibn Baz, for example, despite his statements that having a meal with Christians is only admissible under certain conditions,Footnote 50 that brotherhood or friendship between Muslims and Christians is contrary to the shariʿa,Footnote 51 and that disavowal and enmity, not dialogue, are the correct way to deal with Jews and non-Muslims in general,Footnote 52 does not condemn (political) efforts to establish peace (ṣulḥ) with Israel (“the Jews”) because bilateral issues such as the exchange of ambassadors supposedly do not require true friendship (mawadda) or loyalty (muwālāt).Footnote 53 Similarly, Salih b. Fawzan al-Fawzan (b. 1935), one of the most prominent Wahhabi scholars alive, states that the necessity to disavow non-Muslims and their beliefs means that one can still engage in trade relations with them, a common practice of the Saudi state.Footnote 54
The fact that many Wahhabi scholars apply al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ only in the social sphere is perhaps not surprising considering their traditional (and doctrinally supported) attitude of obedience to the rulers, especially after it was reinforced following the civil war.Footnote 55 Yet some Wahhabi scholars go even further. They do not just strip the concept of its political components but also try to counter the claims that helping unbelievers or asking them for help against Muslims (al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār)—the dimension of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ that Sulayman, Ibn ʿAtiq, and ʿAbd al-Latif condemned as unbelief (kufr) during the first and second Saudi states—are necessarily acts of kufr. Without actually denying the validity of the arguments of the 19th-century scholars mentioned, the Wahhabi scholar Hatim b. ʿArif al-ʿAwni, in a book distributed by the Saudi-sponsored Muslim World League, claims that unbelief in one's heart is a necessary condition for wrongful walāʾ to lead to takfīr. Asking “infidels” for help in fighting other Muslims, in other words, does not turn one into a kāfir unless it is accompanied by clear proof of unbelief in one's heart. This means that only Muslims who openly state that they renounce Islam by showing loyalty to non-Muslims can be called kuffār. Since Muslims are highly unlikely to recant their faith openly when asking non-Muslims for help, this basically disqualifies al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār (and al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ in general) as a tool that may be used for excommunicating Muslims.Footnote 56
Another scholar who has gone to new lengths to depoliticize al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ is the aforementioned al-Fawzan, who dedicated an entire book to explaining the 19th-century treatise by Sulayman. Although he acknowledges that Sulayman's text deals with two countries that are at war with one another and thus implicitly admits that al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ may have some relevance at the state level, his explanation of the text is remarkable. He claims that Sulayman wrote this treatise condemning this kind of betrayal not because some Arabians had asked “polytheist” outsiders for help but because they provided aid to a particular army (that of Mehmet ʿAli) whose intent was to destroy Islam. The plan of the invading armies, according to al-Fawzan, was not to solve a strictly military or territorial conflict but to “uproot the creed of the unity of God [ʿaqīdat al-tawḥīd] and support grave-worshipping [qubūriyya].”Footnote 57 With this argument, al-Fawzan effectively defangs Sulayman's treatise, since any modern-day application of its reasoning would have to involve a state that wants to destroy Islam. As no country in the world has that policy objective—even though some Muslims believe otherwise—any analogy with present-day Saudi Arabia's ties with the United States, for example, would be erroneous.
In a sense, this argument brings the development of the concept of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ full circle, returning it to its pre-19th-century quietist origins by recuperating Sulayman's treatise—one of the documents that first applied al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ to politics—into the strictly social interpretation of the concept. Al-Fawzan's book may indicate that the civil war had such a strong impact on Saudi scholars that they not only reaffirmed their obedience to the state but ultimately even incorporated one of the books that started applying al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ to inter-state relations into this tradition of subservience.Footnote 58
THE RADICAL LEGACY: AL-WALĀʾ WA-L-BARĀʾ AS A POLITICAL CONCEPT
The social interpretations of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ by recent Wahhabi scholars may give the impression that they are simply trying to mold the concept in such a way that it can be incorporated into their generally obedient attitude to the Saudi state. Yet this conclusion would not be entirely accurate, since some of these social interpretations of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, such as the need for Muslims to avoid non-Muslim feasts,Footnote 59 the proper way to greet “infidels,”Footnote 60 and the strict conditions under which believers may travel to or live in non-Islamic countries,Footnote 61 have long been part of SalafiFootnote 62 and Wahhabi literature. This is probably also why radical 20th-century Wahhabi scholars critical of the Saudi state have continued this dimension of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ.Footnote 63 One of the Wahhabi scholars who continued this tradition of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ as a social concept while simultaneously playing a prominent role in reintroducing its political relevance is the Palestinian–Jordanian Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi.Footnote 64
Al-Maqdisi (b. 1959) studied briefly in Medina in the early 1980s, where he first became acquainted with al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ and, more specifically, with the idea of al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār as defined by Sulayman and Ibn ʿAtiq.Footnote 65 He went on to write extensively about the concept in different ways; for the purposes of this article, his most important contribution was reintroducing the notion of al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār as an inadmissible form of walāʾ.Footnote 66 This was first expressed in his book Millat Ibrahim (The Religion of Abraham), in which he states that Muslims should show barāʾ to shirk and its adherents (mushrikūn) and that this is a condition of their true faith, preferably expressed through “jihad and fighting” against the mushrikūn.Footnote 67 Al-Maqdisi applies this version of barāʾ against the rulers of the Muslim world (including Saudi Arabia), whom he accuses of un-Islamic forms of walāʾ.Footnote 68 In short, he reintroduces the political element of the concept of al-walā wa-l-barāʾ by turning it into a call for jihad against nominally Muslim states. Interestingly, he arrives at this conclusion by making extensive use of the 19th-century Wahhabi writings that point to the political relevance of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, although he does so in an anti-Saudi, revolutionary mode that probably was never intended by the 19th-century scholars. Whereas quietist Wahhabi scholars often try to avoid these writings or at least their political implications, al-Maqdisi quotes Sulayman, ʿAbd al-Latif, and especially Ibn ʿAtiqFootnote 69 repeatedly.
Al-Maqdisi's efforts to show the relevance of these 19th-century writings and to make his own case through them were taken to the next level in al-Kawashif al-Jaliyya fi Kufr al-Dawla al-Saʿudiyya (The Manifest Revelations of the Unbelief of the Saudi State). In this work, he scolds Saudi Arabia for various errors,Footnote 70 including the regime's ties with the United States, and claims that the United States is the real power behind the Saudi throne.Footnote 71 What is important about this accusation is that al-Maqdisi frames it as an issue of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, approvingly citing a report that claims that “the complete loyalty of the government of Saudi Arabia to the United States and its reliance on it [the United States] have totally robbed it of the freedom to take decisions.”Footnote 72 He further states that Saudi Arabia “pretends to rule in accordance with Islam and its laws . . . but it is an infidel liar [kādhiba kāfira] . . . because of its loyalty to the enemies of the religion [muwālātahā li-aʿdāʾ al-dīn].”Footnote 73 He believes that the Saudi relationship with America is directed against Islam and goes on to quote several Wahhabi scholars to show that “helping the polytheists and aiding them against the Muslims is kufr.” To complete his reintroduction of al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār, he points to the relevant writings by Sulayman and Ibn ʿAtiq and the similarities between Saudi Arabia's ties with the United States and Arabian calls for Ottoman help in the 19th century.Footnote 74
The importance of this rediscovery of the 19th-century political interpretations of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ in al-Kawashif al-Jaliyya is twofold. First, it shows that at least one Wahhabi concept could be used against the Saudi state and that Wahhabism as an ideology could therefore not automatically be equated with its subservient version, which the regime has tried to promote. Second, al-Kawashif al-Jaliyya, which deals so extensively with the country's ties with the United States, appeared shortly before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. As a result of this conflict, the Saudi government decided to invite 500,000 U.S. troops to protect it against a potential attack by Iraqi dictator Saddam Husayn. This decision to invite “infidel” soldiers from a country that many saw as an enemy was a controversial one in ruling circles as well as among the ʿulamaʾ and led to astonishment in the broader Muslim world.Footnote 75 In Saudi Arabia itself it led to a wave of protests and petitions by various groups that was not fully brought under control by the regime until the mid-1990s.Footnote 76 Most important for this study, al-Maqdisi's book criticizing Saudi–U.S. ties and comparing them with the 19th-century call for help from the Ottomans suddenly became highly topical. Although it took some years for the book to permeate the circles of radical Wahhabi scholars and thinkers,Footnote 77 its comparison between the Saudi calls for Ottoman and American aid helped initiate a revival of the notion of al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār, which many quietist scholars had tried to reason away.
Reclaiming the Past: Beyond the Gulf War
While al-Maqdisi played a role in reviving the notion of al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār, it did not feature very prominently in his writings, and it was therefore left to others to further develop this aspect of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ. One book that did so was the anonymously written al-Nizam al-Saʿudi fi Mizan al-Islam (The Saudi System in the Balance of Islam). Part of the book deals with al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ and, on the basis of the 19th-century scholars mentioned previously, sharply criticizes Saudi Arabia. It states that “the scholars of the Muslims agree that the state, community or individual that helps the enemies of Islam against the Muslims with money, men, weapons or espionage and information [al-tajassus wa-l-maʿlūmāt] is excluded from Islam [khārij min al-milla].”Footnote 78 The book then compares this description with Saudi Arabia's behavior and concludes that the country's ties with the United States constitute the type of relationship that scholars should condemn, specifically naming the Saudi invitation of 500,000 soldiers during the Gulf War as an example.Footnote 79
Although the identity of this book's author(s) is not entirely clear, it is certain that it was at least partly written by Saudi exiles in London.Footnote 80 From the late 1990s onward, these critics of the state were joined by radical scholars from inside Saudi Arabia, most prominently by what Hegghammer refers to as the “Shuʿaybi school,” a group of radical scholars centered around Humud b. ʿUqalaʾ al-Shuʿaybi (1927–2002), a retired professor at Imam Muhammad b. Saʿud University who sympathized with al-Qaʿida and approved of “9/11.”Footnote 81 The group proved instrumental in promoting the political dimension of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ into an influential position espoused by many other Wahhabi radicals. This process was started by al-Shuʿaybi himself. In al-Qawl al-Mukhtar fi Hukm al-Istiʿana bi-l-Kuffar (The Preferred View on the Ruling of Asking the Infidels for Help), he deals extensively with the notion of al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār, as the title suggests, and is very clear in his judgement. He interprets the concept in a political way and refers specifically to states, concluding that asking non-Muslims for help in fighting other Muslims is forbidden.Footnote 82 He claims that asking a state for help in fighting other Muslims is even worse than asking individuals, because states are more powerful and can thus do more damage to Islam.Footnote 83 Although Humud b. ʿUqalaʾ, who explicitly refers to ʿAbd al-Latif's 19th-century writings on this issue,Footnote 84 does not mention Saudi Arabia in his book, his sympathy for al-Qaʿida as well as the statements referred to previously seem to speak for themselves.
Other “members” of the “Shuʿaybi school” also emphasized this political dimension of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ in their writings but in a slightly later and different international context. Whereas the Gulf War and Saudi Arabia's call for help from the United States in 1990 had rekindled the interest in al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār, the terrorist attacks of “9/11” and the “war on terror” launched by the United States in response gave new relevance to the term. Despite two U.S.-led wars against Muslim countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), Saudi Arabia retained its strong relations with the United States, and radical scholars therefore took the political relevance of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ to a new level, criticizing Saudi Arabia not so much for asking kuffār for help as for actively helping kuffār.Footnote 85
Within the “Shuʿaybi school,” the most extensive—though not the onlyFootnote 86—treatment of the inadmissibility of helping kuffār fight other Muslims is undoubtedly al-Tibyan fi Kufr Man Aʿana al-Amrikan (The Demonstration of the Unbelief of Those Who Help the Americans) by Nasir b. Hamd al-Fahd (b. 1968).Footnote 87 The author first gives a lengthy overview of what he sees as American immorality and debauchery and of the U.S. “war on Islam”Footnote 88 and then points out that supporting the United States in its fight against Muslims equals kufr. Although, like Humud b. ʿUqalaʾ, al-Fahd does not mention Saudi Arabia by name, it seems clear that this book is (also) aimed at Saudi Arabia. As Al-Rasheed states: “Al-Fahad's interpretations, although coined in an abstract manner, indirectly implicate the Saudi regime, which was increasingly seen as a regime willing to offer iʿana (assistance) to Americans during their war on Afghanistan.”Footnote 89 Such behavior is roundly condemned by al-Fahd, who states that
The infidel Crusader attack [al-ḥamla al-ṣalībiyya al-kāfira] that the enemies of God [the Americans] and their friends [awliyāʾuhum] from among the other infidels and hypocrites lead is targeting Islam and the Muslims, so know that helping them in their war, be it with the body [bi-l-badan], weapons, the tongue, the heart, the pen, money, advice [al-raʾy] or something other than that, is unbelief and apostasy from Islam.Footnote 90
He then backs up his claims with numerous sources, making extensive use of the relevant writings by Sulayman, ʿAbd al-Latif, and Ibn ʿAtiq, explicitly pointing to the 19th-century events that motivated Sulayman and Ibn ʿAtiq to write their treatises.Footnote 91
The political interpretation of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ among radical Wahhabi scholars has not remained limited to the “Shuʿaybi school.” It had a major impact on radical Saudi activists in the 2000s, including those of al-Qaʿida on the Arabian Peninsula (QAP).Footnote 92 As Hegghammer points out, these militants needed religious justification for their violent actions from authoritative Wahhabi scholars and thus sought advice from the “Shuʿaybi school.”Footnote 93 The political interpretation of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ was adopted by, for example, QAP leader Yusuf al-ʿUyayri (d. 2003), who tries to refute the idea—expressed by scholars such as the aforementioned Ibn ʿArif al-ʿAwni—that al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār needs to be accompanied by unbelief in one's heart in order to lead to expulsion from Islam.Footnote 94 Al-ʿUyayri dismisses this idea and claims that Saudi Arabia's loyalty to America and other allies prevents many Saudi scholars from speaking out against those countries’ atrocities against Muslims. By doing so, the scholars sully the image of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, he claims.Footnote 95 Similarly, the QAP-affiliated author Muʿjab al-Dawsari, who wrote a summarized version of al-Maqdisi's al-Kawashif al-Jaliyya, describes Saudi Arabia's misplaced loyalty as “respecting them [the kuffār], praising them, helping them, aiding them and associating [with them] against the Muslims without clear disavowal of them. This is apostasy [ridda].”Footnote 96 Other radical Saudi militants who adopted this interpretation of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ include QAP members Abu Jandal al-Azdi,Footnote 97 Sultan b. Bijad al-ʿUtaybi,Footnote 98 Hamd b. Rayyis al-Rayyis,Footnote 99 and al-Qaʿida activist Abu ʿUmar al-Sayf.Footnote 100
The politicized version of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, which seems to have derived either directly from the works of al-Maqdisi or from the “Shuʿaybi school,” thus developed into a position held by many Saudi radical activists and scholars. Although some of the writings by Saudi militants seem to have lost the direct connection with the 19th-century events that inspired the reinterpretation of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, they can nevertheless be seen as indirect continuations of the writings produced in that era. Moreover, the political interpretation of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ was widely adopted beyond Saudi radical circles, for example, by al-Qaʿida's Ayman al-Zawahiri,Footnote 101 and has in fact become so mainstream among radical Islamists that Brachmann (rightly) calls the concept “one of the most important doctrinal elements of Jihadism.”Footnote 102
Apart from the concept's widespread adoption by radical scholars, the actual development of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ was taken one step further by Muhammad al-Masʿari, a Saudi without a formal religious education living in London who is very critical not only of Saudi Arabia but also of Wahhabism. He believes Wahhabism deals with all kinds of trivial issues that should not even be discussed and has described it as “backward” and “weak” and some of its ideas as “rubbish.” This attitude is reflected in his treatment of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, which he states should not be equated with issues like love and friendship or greeting non-Muslims first. These, he believes, are “major Wahhabi fundamental blunders.” Instead, he believes that al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ has to do only with war and peace. People can adopt each other's customs and traditions without violating the principle of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ as long as they are loyal to the right side when a war starts, according to al-Masʿari.Footnote 103
He has nevertheless been influenced by Wahhabism and by al-Maqdisi in particular, as indicated by the fact that he took al-Kawashif al-Jaliyya as the basis for a book of his own.Footnote 104 More important than this book, however, are his writings about al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ,Footnote 105 in which he gives detailed descriptions of what the term entails and criticizes scholars such as al-Fawzan, whom he accuses of defining all kinds of unimportant acts as forms of faulty walāʾ. He also states that at the same time al-Fawzan and others were addressing such issues of allegedly misguided walāʾ in the personal sphere, they “did not see anything wrong in accepting hundreds of thousands of infidel American soldiers [in 1990] to fight Iraq and destroy it.”Footnote 106 The mistake that al-Fawzan and others have made, according to al-Masʿari, is to equate the prohibition of “resembling the infidels” (tashabbuh al-kuffār) with al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ. He believes these are actually two different issues; the former is simply sinful behavior while the latter refers to grave acts of kufr in times of war and peace.Footnote 107
Al-Masʿari ultimately defines “loyalty” as “helping the infidel soldiers, allying with them . . . supporting them, aiding them against the Muslims, revealing the security and military secrets of the Muslims to the infidels, inciting the infidels to fight the Muslims or helping them in preparing for war on the Muslims.”Footnote 108 Al-Masʿari thus defines walāʾ in a political way, similar to how it is defined in the writings of Sulayman, ʿAbd al-Latif, and Ibn ʿAtiq in the 19th century and of modern-day radical Wahhabis. Unlike them, however, al-Masʿari completely discards the social aspects of the concept that the other scholars all retained or at least did not reject. Al-Masʿari's definition is thus the polar opposite of those of the Wahhabi scholars who see al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ as a purely social concept. He reinterprets the concept in such a way to suggest that generations of scholars have been wrong about al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ and that only ʿulamaʾ who saw the political side of the concept caught a glimpse of its true meaning. Just as al-Fawzan tries to incorporate Sulayman's treatise on aiding kuffār against the Muslims during war into his own social interpretation of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, al-Masʿari, by equating the 19th-century political dimension added to al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ with the concept itself, has brought it back to what seems to be its final radical destination.Footnote 109
CONCLUSION
The concept of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ (loyalty to Islam, Muslims, and God and disavowal of everything else) has developed in various ways in Wahhabi discourse since the 19th century. The ways the interpretations of the concept have changed are related in part to the civil war that caused the collapse of the second Saudi state (1824–91). The state's downfall caused Saudi religious scholars, who realized that they needed a state to guarantee their protection and influence, to adopt or reinforce an attitude of quietism and subservience to the Saudi king, resulting in strictly social interpretations of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ, at the expense of the political aspects of the concept that had been developed in several treatises in the 19th century.
In the 1980s, however, the political aspects of these writings were rediscovered by the radical scholar Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, who saw their potential as Wahhabi weapons against the Saudi state and its close relations with the United States. By using the inadmissibility of al-istiʿāna bi-l-kuffār (asking “infidels” for help)—as developed by 19th-century Wahhabi scholars vis-à-vis the Ottoman Empire—against the current Saudi state, al-Maqdisi helped revive a powerful discourse. This became particularly salient after the Saudi king asked the United States for help against Iraq in 1990. That decision caused other radical Wahhabis, particularly the scholars of the so-called “Shuʿaybi school,” to develop the concept of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ further. This process led to a trend of wide-scale adoption of the concept's political interpretation by radical scholars and activists of al-Qaʿida on the Arabian Peninsula and beyond, which resulted in Saudi Arabia being criticized on the basis of writings that represented part of what it was supposed to embody as a Wahhabi Islamic state. Al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ in its political version eventually became a mainstream concept among extremist jihadis and for at least one radical thinker lost its social relevance—which was the only dimension acknowledged by quietist scholars—altogether.
The development of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ in Wahhabi discourse shows that the concept is a highly contested and flexible one and that the civil war has had a major impact on this process, albeit in contradictory ways. For quietist scholars, the civil war's relevance was that it emphasized the need for unity and obedience to the ruler because only he could guarantee the security of their position. For recent radical scholars, however, it was precisely the 19th-century writings emphasizing the political dimensions of the concept that were considered important, since they could be used to challenge the current Saudi state on its own terms. Considering the fact that all these Wahhabi scholars and thinkers involved in developing al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ believe that they truly grasp the meaning of the concept, even while they are diametrically opposed to one another, Wahhabism should probably be seen as somewhat more flexible and heterogeneous than is popularly assumed.
