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EDITOR'S NOTE:
The Saudi-US Relations Information
Service is pleased to present this important work and thanks the author and
the NYU Law Review for permission to reprint it. The complete article is
available on-line.
"From Exclusivism to
Accommodation: Doctrinal and Legal Evolution of Wahhabism" originally
appeared in the New
York University Law Review ( 79 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 485 (2004)).
"From
Exclusivism to Accommodation: Doctrinal and Legal Evolution of Wahhabism"
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From
Exclusivism to Accommodation: Doctrinal and Legal Evolution of Wahhabism --
Part 5
By Abdulaziz
H. Al-Fahad
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Collapse
of the Saudi State and Rise of the Rashidi House:
Conservatism Under Siege
The Saudi
civil war concluded unhappily for the ruling house.
Through a combination of Saudi blunders and Rashidi shrewdness, the
House of Rashid was able to end Saudi rule and dislodge the last Saudi ruler,
Abd al-Rahman (d. 1928) -- father of King Abd
al-Aziz, the founder of the modern Kingdom (d. 1953).
The old polarization among the religious scholars
continued unabated, but unlike the earlier disputes regarding Abd Allah's
actions, the debate now reflected the conflicting sympathies of the supporters
of the House of Saud and the House of Rashid.
The old themes -- who is and who is not a Muslim -- earnestly were
pursued, and there was significant hostility within the scholarly community.
Both Saudis and Rashidis were closely interested in these debates, the
most critical of which revolved around the status of the Ottomans, who
happened to be allies of the House of Rashid.
The
conflict was most pronounced in the region of al-Qasim, which, towards the
beginning of the nineteenth century, had become a pivotal actor in Najdi
politics and profoundly affected the balance of power between pro-Saudi forces
in the south and the Rashidi power base in Ha'il in the north.
As noted
above, a plurality of opinion in al-Qasim always held that the exclusivism of
the southern Wahhabis was the main reason for the invasion of foreign forces;
this plurality explicitly or implicitly advocated a less strident attitude
towards the outside world. Because of its strategic location as a major artery through
which pilgrims traveled from Iraq and eastern Muslim lands to Makkah and
Madinah, as well as its fairly extensive commercial contacts with the Levant
and more distant lands, countervailing influences always found their way into
the region, and provided an antidote to the conservatism of the southern
scholars. This growing countercurrent was apparent
by the middle of the nineteenth century, and it blossomed under the auspices
of the Rashidi dynasty.
The
conservative Wahhabis were alarmed by the loss of power of the House of Saud,
their traditional ally, and by the disintegration of the country. To the east,
the Ottomans came and occupied the most fertile part of the realm and became
entrenched as the conservative Wahhabis had feared, and in the process
emboldened the otherwise weak anti-Wahhabi factions.
To the far north, the Rashidis, in alliance with the rest of their
tribe, the Shammar, one of the dominant nomadic groups, were consolidating
their hold and presented a substantial threat to the detribalized southern
Najdis. The Rashidis also
maintained at least an understanding, if not always an alliance, with the
Ottomans, the archenemies of the Wahhabis.
In the middle was al-Qasim with its fractious and sometimes bloody
politics. And it was in al-Qasim
that many of the decisive battles, both theological and military, were to take
place until the successful Saudi restoration and eventual consolidation of the
modern state.
Under the
watchful eyes of the Rashidi rulers and their sympathizers, the conservatives
-- their implacable hostility to the Ottomans and not-so-secret yearning for a
Saudi restoration notwithstanding -- had to tread a careful line lest they
offer the Rashidis a pretext to persecute them.
Nevertheless, persuaded that the Ottomans were grave-worshipping
apostates who also were occupying part of the country, they drew a series of
conclusions from this conviction. A
true Muslim had to express his enmity towards, and disavowal of, the Ottomans,
avoid traveling to their lands, and if he happened to live in their midst,
exercise the obligation of migration from the land of unbelief to the land of
Islam. This position was an
insinuation -- at a minimum -- that the Rashidis' friendly relations with the
Ottomans were a violation of the shariah.
For many of the mercantile interests, it was a verdict to ruin their
businesses. Historically, trade
with Ottoman possessions formed an important part of al-Qasim's economy, and
this trade required regular visits to Ottoman territory.
Taken to their logical conclusion, southern Wahhabi ideas would have
made such economic activity difficult if not impossible.
The
Rashidi amirs tried to navigate a
middle path between persecution of the southern scholars and their supporters
and indifference to these debates. The
conservatives always had been suspicious of the Rashidis and were generally on
guard in their interactions with them. Yet,
the conservatives were put under pressure at various points in the history of
the Rashidi dynasty. They were
exiled from Riyadh and sequestered in Ha'il under the watchful eyes of the amirs,
which ironically enabled them to spread their influence by recruiting local
scholars to their cause.
Abdulaziz
H. Al-Fahad received his B.A., 1979, Michigan State University; M.A.,
1980, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; J.D.,
1984, Yale Law School. Mr. Al-Fahad
is a practicing attorney in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Conference on
Transnational Connections: The
Arab Gulf and Beyond, at St. John's College, Oxford University, September
2002, and at the Yale Middle East Legal Studies Seminar in Granada, Spain,
January 10-13, 2003.
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