The “Wahhabi Myth”: Some Critiques on the “Confession of the British Spy”.

Ubah Abdusalam Seid

Part Two

On part one of this article, I described some incoherencies which I encountered in the book tilted “The Confession of the British Spy” (also called “The Memoirs of Mr. Hempher, the British Spy to the Middle East”). Now I proceed to rest of my critique which focuses on some of the book’s descriptions of the life and beliefs of Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab.

 Note for the new comers: This critique is about the book I aforementioned. The Ahbash claim the book is written by a British spy who misled Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab of Najd to create the “Wahhabi” sect in the first half of 18^th century. They insist that the book is an authentic one and it exposes the truth about the foundation and expansion of the sect called “Wahhabiya” which doesn’t exist in reality.

Unbelievable stories about Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab

1.      The British spy (Mr. Hempher ) narrated that he was introduced to a youngster called Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab in the city of Basra and the latter could understand “Turkish, Persian and Arabic” (page 23).

But most scholarly writers of the biography of Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (both Muslims and non-Muslims) don’t approve this. His official biography tells us that he could speak only Arabic.

2.      The narrator also said “Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab openly abuses the Turkish government and he was never speaking ill of the Iranian government”. (page 23)

This statement is clearly a political one. But it missed its target by making ibn Abdulwahhab more symphatic to Iranians than Turks. I say this because nobody can believe Muhammad Abdulwahhab prefers Shi’a Muslims (Iranians) than the Sunni Muslims (Turks). On the other hand, it is one of many statements which give us a clue to assume the writer himself was a Turk who tried to show the evilness of Ibn Abdulwahhab. (Remember that the Turks blame the “Wahhabi” movement for the big chaos occurred in Arabia in 18^th century).

3.      Like wise, the book tells us that Mohammed ibn Abdulwahhab was a close friend of a Shi’a cleric called Abdu-Rida (page 23). Could you believe this?

What we usually hear was the reverse. Ibn Abdulwahhab had been accused by many as an intolerant of the Shi’a Muslims. But the British spy teold us that Ibn AbdulWahhab was so close to the Shi’a people of Basra, a thing which doesn’t make sense.

4.      On page 24, when he described the religious stance of the young Mohammed Ibn Abdulwahhab, the spy said “He would completely ignore the views of the scholars, not only the scholars of his time and leaders of the four Madhabs bout also of the notable Sahabis such as Umar and Abu Bakr.”

Here is another point where the “spy” missed his target. He went to mere accusation that circulated around the Muslim world. We repeatedly hear this kind of accusations from the enemies of ibn Abdulwahhab. But in reality, the man hadn’t had such chauvinistic characters. He had due respect for the views of the Sahaba and the great scholars of Islam. We can witness this from his writings.  

5.      On page 26, the writer completely entered to mere blasphemy. He tells us that Muhammad of Najd (Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab)

a)      Disdained Abu Hanifa very much and he believed that he knew better than Abu Hanifa.

b)      He believed also “half of the book of Al-Bukhari is wrong”.

These are two of the mere lies that can approve the book was a forgery. You can see that two lies are inconsistent with the major objectives of the struggles of Muhammad Ibn Abdulwahhab. As we know, the major motto of his struggle was “Let us return to the way of the Salaf, the first three generations of Islam”. But “the British spy” narrated Ibn Abdulwahhab disdained Imam Abu Hanifa who was among the great scholars of the Salaf.

 On the other hand, the spy tells us ibn Abdulwahab said “half of the book of Al-Bukhari was wrong”.  Could you believe this? Did Muhammad Ibn Abdulwahhab believe so? What we know is the opposite. That is, next to the Holy Qur’an, he used to give priority to the Hadith books compiled by reliable traditionists like Imam Al-Bukhari. So nobody believes the notion claimed by the unknown British spy.

On the other hand, these two forged lies are other clues which initiate us to assume the book was written by a Turk. As we know, the Turks follow the Hanafi Mazhab and they claim Abu-Hanifa was born to a Turkish family. On the other hand, we know that Imam Bukhari was a national of Turkestan (the historical region of central Asia which includes the present day countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,  Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan ). The Turks were also originated from Turkestan. So by connoting that Muhammed ibn Abdulhab had great hate for Abu Hanifa and Al-Bukhari, the writer (writers) of the book were trying to show us that “the founder of Wahhabiyya”’ had a deep hate Turks.

Summary

As you see in the two articles,  “the Confession of the British Spy”, which is a major propaganda tool of the Ahbash party, is filled by horrible talks of the sort I told you. They still now continue to use the book as one of their major propaganda tools. However, Muslims are not fool as the Ahbash scholars do think. What we advise them is to stop lying and to come to the true path.

Allah knows all.