Iran

[Basiji]

Rileggendo i post passati mi sono accorto di non aver risposto ad una richiesta di chiarimento (se non una tentata smentita) dei rapporti tra il wahabismo e l'imperialismo britannico prima e quello americano poi. Per questo incollo di seguito un documento (purtroppo in inglese) sull'origine di questa setta eretica:

How British imperialist the enemy of Islam made Saudi Arabia of Wahhabi Muslims - Salafis against the House of Prophet Muhammed s.a.w. who are the roots of Islam and his followers Shia of Ali ibn Abi Talib
Nineteenth-Century Arabia
Saudi Arabia Table of Contents
The modern history of Arabia is often broken into three periods that follow the fortunes of the Al Saud. The first begins with the alliance between Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab and ends with the capture of Abd Allah. The second period extends from this point to the rise of the second Abd al Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of the modern state; the third consists of the establishment and present history of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In the Egyptians' attempt to establish control over the peninsula, Muhammad Ali removed members of the Al Saud from the area. Following orders from the Ottoman sultan, he sent Abd Allah to Istanbul--where he was publicly beheaded--and forced other members of the family to leave the country. A few prominent members of the Al Saud found their way to Egypt.

The Egyptians turned next to the material monument of the Al Saud rule, the city of Ad Diriyah. They razed its walls and buildings and destroyed its palm groves so that the area could not support any agricultural settlement for some time. The Egyptians then sent troops to strategic parts of the peninsula to tighten their grip on it. They garrisoned Al Qatif, a port on the Persian Gulf that supplied some of the important centers in eastern Arabia and maintained various forces along the Red Sea coast in the west.

In the Hijaz, Muhammad Ali restored the authority of the Sharifs, who had ruled the area from Mecca since the tenth century. However, Turki ibn Abd Allah, the uncle of the next-to- last ruler (Saud), upset Egyptian efforts to exercise authority in the area. Turki had fought at Ad Diriyah, but managed to escape the Egyptians when the town fell in 1818. He hid for two years among loyal forces to the south, and after a few unsuccessful attempts, recaptured Ad Diriyah in 1821. From the ruins of Ad Diriyah, Turki proceeded to Riyadh, another Najdi city. This eventually became the new Al Saud base. Forces under Turki's control reclaimed the rest of Najd in 1824.

Turki's relatively swift retaking of Najd showed the extent to which the Al Saud-Wahhabi authority had been established in the area over the previous fifty years. The successes of the Wahhabi forces had done much to promote tribal loyalty to the Al Saud. But the Wahhabi principles of the Al Saud rule were equally compelling. After Muhammad ibn al Wahhab's death in 1792, the leader of Al Saud assumed the title of imam. Thus, Al Saud leaders were recognized not just as shaykhs or leaders, but as Wahhabi imams, political and religious figures whose rule had an element of religious authority.

Turki and his successors ruled from Riyadh over a wide area. They controlled the region to the north and south of Najd and exerted considerable influence along the western coast of the Persian Gulf. This was no state but a large sphere of influence that the Al Saud held together with a combination of treaties and delegated authority. In the Shammar Mountains to the north, for instance, the Al Saud supported the rule of Abd Allah ibn Rashid with whom Turki maintained a close alliance. Later, Turki's son Faisal cemented this alliance by marrying his son, Talal, to Abd Allah's daughter, Nurah. Although this family-to-family connection worked well, the Al Saud preferred to rely in the east on appointed leaders to rule on their behalf. In other areas, they were content to establish treaties under the terms of which tribes agreed to defend the family's interests or to refrain from attacking the Al Saud when the opportunity arose.

Within their sphere of influence, the Al Saud could levy troops for military campaigns from the towns and tribes under their control. Although these campaigns were mostly police actions against recalcitrant tribes, the rulers described them as holy wars (jihad), which they conducted according to religious principles. The tribute that the Al Saud demanded from those under their control was also based on Islamic principles. Towns, for instance, paid taxes at a rate established by Muslim law, and the troops that accompanied the Al Saud on raiding expeditions returned one-fifth of their booty to the Al Saud treasury according to sharia (Muslim Law) requirements.

The collection of tribute was another indication of the extensive influence the Al Saud derived because of their Wahhabi connections. Wahhabi religious ideas had spread through the central part of the Arabian Peninsula; as a result, the Al Saud influenced decisions even in areas not under their control, such as succession battles and questions of tribute. Their influence in the Hijaz, however, remained restricted. Not only were the Egyptians and Ottomans careful that the region not slip away again, but Wahhabi ideas had not found a receptive audience in western Arabia. Accordingly, the family was unable to gain a foothold in the Hijaz during the nineteenth century.

The Al Saud maintained authority in Arabia by controlling several factors. First, they could resist, or at least accommodate, Egyptian interference. After 1824 when the Egyptians could no longer maintain outright military control over Arabia, they turned to political intrigues. Turki, for instance, was assassinated in 1834 by a member of the Al Saud who had recently returned from Cairo. When Turki's son, Faisal, succeeded his father, the Egyptians supported a rival member of the family, Khalid ibn Saud, and with Egyptian assistance Khalid controlled Najd for the next four years.

Muhammad Ali and the Egyptians were severely weakened after the British and French defeated their fleet off the coast of Greece in 1827. This prevented the Egyptians from exerting much influence in Arabia, but it left the Al Saud with the problem of the Ottomans, whose ultimate authority Turki eventually acknowledged. The challenge to the sultan had helped end the first Al Saud empire in 1818, so later rulers chose to accommodate the Ottomans as much as they could. The Al Saud eventually became of considerable financial importance to the Ottomans because they collected tribute from the rich trading state of Oman and forwarded much of this to the Sharifs in Mecca, who relayed it to the sultan. In return the Ottomans recognized the Al Saud authority and left them alone for the most part.

The Ottomans, however, sometimes tried to expand their influence by supporting renegade members of the Al Saud. When Faisal's two sons, Abd Allah and Saud, vied to take over the empire from their father, Abd Allah enlisted the aid of the Ottoman governor in Iraq, who used the opportunity to take Al Qatif and Al Hufuf in eastern Arabia. The Ottomans were eventually driven out, but until the time of Abd al Aziz they continued to look for a relationship with the Al Saud that they could exploit.

One of the reasons the Ottomans were unsuccessful was the growing British interest in Arabia. The British government in India considered the Persian Gulf to be its western flank and so became increasingly involved with the piracy of the Arab tribes on the eastern coast. The British were also anxious about potentially hostile Ottoman influence in an area so close to India and the Suez Canal. As a result, the British came into increasing contact with the Al Saud. As Wahhabi leaders, the Al Saud could exert some control over the tribes on the gulf coast, and they were simultaneously involved with the Ottomans. During this period, the Al Saud leaders began to play off the Ottomans and British against each other.

Whereas the Al Saud were largely successful in handling the two great powers in the Persian Gulf, they did not do so well in managing their family affairs. The killing of Turki in 1834 touched off a long period of fighting. Turki's son, Faisal, held power until he was expelled from Riyadh by Khalid and his Egyptian supporters. Then, Abd Allah ibn Thunayan (from yet another branch of the Al Saud) seized Riyadh. He could maintain power only briefly, however, because Faisal, who had been taken to Cairo and then escaped, retook the city in 1845.

Faisal ruled until 1865, lending some stability to Arabia. Upon his death, however, fighting started again, and his three sons, Abd Allah, Abd ar Rahman, and Saud--as well as some of Saud's sons--each held Riyadh on separate occasions. The political structure of Arabia was such that each leader had to win the support of various tribes and towns to conduct a campaign. In this way, alliances were constantly formed and reformed, and the more often this occurred, the more unstable the situation became.

This instability accelerated the decline of the Al Saud after the death of Faisal. While the Al Saud was bickering, however, the family of Muhammad ibn Rashid, who controlled the area around the Shammar Mountains, had been gaining strength and expanding its influence in northern Najd. In 1890 Muhammad ibn Rashid, the grandson of the leader with whom Turki had first made an alliance, was in a position to enhance his own power. He removed the sons of Saud ibn Faisal from Riyadh and returned it to the nominal control of their uncle, Abd ar Rahman. Muhammad put effective control of the city, however, into the hands of his own garrison commander, Salim ibn Subhan. When Abd ar Rahman attempted to exert real authority, he was driven out of Riyadh. Thus, the Al Saud, along with the young Abd al Aziz, were obliged to take refuge with the amir of Kuwait.

Saudi Arabia Table of Contents

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

[Basiji]

THE BIRTH OF WAHHABISM:
Wahhabism was born in the middle of the 18
th century in the sleepy desert-village of Dir’iyyah located in the
Arabian Peninsula’s central region of Najd. The Wahhabi sect derives its name from the name of its founder
Mohammad Ibn Abdul-Wahhab (1703-92). Born in the Najdi small desert-village of Uyayna, Ibn Abdul-
Wahhab was a zealot preacher who married a total of 20 wives (no more than 4 at a time) and had 18 children.

Before becoming a preacher, however, Ibn Abdul-Wahhab traveled extensively for years for business, pleasure,
and education to Hejaz, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and India.
Although Ibn Abdul-Wahhab is considered to be the father of Wahhabism, it was actually the British who
initially impregnated him with the ideas of Wahhabism and made him its leader for their own sinister purposes
to destroy Islam and the Muslim Ottoman Empire. The intricate details of this intriguing British conspiracy,
which are beyond the scope of this article, are to be found in the memoirs of its master spy, titled “Confessions
of a British Spy” from which the following two paragraphs are drawn.

While in Basra, Iraq young Ibn Abdul-Wahhab fell under the influence and control of a British undercover spy
nicknamed “Hempher” who was one of many spies sent by London to Muslim lands in order to destabilize the
Ottoman Empire and create conflicts among Muslims. Hempher, who pretended to be Muslim, went by the
name of “Mohammad” and cunningly established a long-term intimate friendship with Ibn Abdul-Wahhab.
Hempher, who showered Ibn Abdul-Wahhab with money and gifts, completely brainwashed him by convincing
him that most Muslims should be killed because they had “dangerously violated” the basic tenets of Islam by
becoming “heretics” and “polytheists”. Hempher also fabricated for him a wild dream in which he supposedly
“saw” Prophet Mohammad “kissing” Ibn Abdul-Wahhab between the eyes, telling him you are the “greatest”,
and asking him to be his “deputy” to save Islam from “heresies” and “superstitions”. Upon hearing Hempher’s
dream, Ibn Abdul-Wahhab was wild with joy and became more determined than ever to assume the
responsibility of establishing a new Islamic sect to “purify” and “reform” Islam.

In his memoirs Hempher described Ibn Abdul-Wahhab as “extremely unstable”, “extremely rude”, “morally
depraved”, “nervous”, “arrogant”, and “ignorant”. The British, who viewed Ibn Abdul-Wahhab as a “typical
fool”, also arranged for him to have Nikah Mut’a (“short term marriage”) with two British female undercover
spies. The first was a Christian woman, nicknamed “Safiyya”, who lived with him in Basra as well as in
Isfahan, Iran. The other was Jewish, nicknamed “Asiya” and married him in Shiraz, Iran.

III. THE FIRST SAUDI-WAHHABI STATE: 1744-1818
After returning to Najd from his trips, Ibn Abdul-Wahhab began to preach his wild ideas in Uyayna. However,
because of his rigid preaching, he was thrown out of his birthplace. He then went to preach in nearby Dir’iyyah
where his dear friend Hempher and other undercover British spies joined him. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab ordered
women to shave off their heads in order not to “seduce” men with their hair.
He also mercilessly killed a local
adulteress in a crowded public square by brutally smashing her head with a large heavy boulder.
While Islamic
punishment for adultery is stoning, but only with small stones, Muslim scholars disagree as to whether the
punishment was actually intended to kill.
Although many people opposed Ibn Abdul-Wahhab’s rigid teachings and actions including his own father and
brother Sulaiman, who were both religious scholars, British undercover spies and money succeeded in cajoling
an insignificant Dir’iyyah sheik, Mohammad al-Saud, to support him.

In 1744, al-Saud joined forces with Ibn
Abdul-Wahhab by forging a political, religious, and marital alliance. With this union between them and their
families, which is still in existence today, Wahhabism as a religious and political movement was born. By this
joint venture each head of the al-Saud family (House of Saud) assumed the position of a Wahhabi Imam
(“religious leader”), while each head of the Wahhabi family was guaranteed control over religious
interpretation.
Ignorant people, not by means of knowledge or persuasion, but by pure violence, bloodshed, and terror, spread
Wahhabism in the Arabian Peninsula. As a result of the 1744 Saudi-Wahhabi alliance, a small Bedouin army
was established with the help of British undercover spies who provided it with money and weapons.

In time
this army grew into a major menace that eventually terrorized the entire Arabian Peninsula up to Damascus, and
caused one of the worst Fitnah (“violent civil strife”) in the history of Islam. In the process, this army was able
to viciously conquer most of the Arabian Peninsula to create the first Saudi-Wahhabi State.
For example, to fight what they considered Muslim “polytheists” and “heretics”, the Saudis-Wahhabis shocked
the entire Muslim world in 1801 by brutally destroying and defacing the sacred tomb of the martyr Hussein Bin
Ali (Prophet Mohammad's grandson) in Karbala, Iraq, a particularly holy shrine to Shiite Muslims. They also
mercilessly slaughtered over 4,000 people in Karbala and stole anything that was not nailed down. It took over
4,000 camels to carry the huge loot.

Again in 1810 they ruthlessly killed many innocent people across the
Arabian Peninsula. They raided and pillaged many pilgrimage caravans and several major cities in Hejaz
including the two holiest cities of Makkah and Madinah. In Makkah they turned away pilgrims, and in Madinah
they attacked and desecrated Prophet Mohammad’s Mosque, opened his grave, and sold and distributed its
valuable relics and expensive jewels.
These Saudi-Wahhabi terrorist acts and blasphemous crimes aroused the deep anger of Muslims around the
world including the Ottoman Caliph in Istanbul. As the official ruler of the Arabian Peninsula and the guardian
of Islam's holiest mosques, Caliph Mahmud II ordered an Egyptian force to be sent to the Arabian Peninsula to
punish the Saudi-Wahhabi clan. In 1818, an Egyptian army led by Ibraheem Pasha (son of Egypt’s ruler) destroyed the Saudis-Wahhabis and razed their desert capital of Dir’iyyah to the ground. The Wahhabi Imam
Abdullah al-Saud and two of his followers were sent to Istanbul in chains where they were publicly beheaded.
The rest of the Saudi-Wahhabi clan was held in captivity in Cairo.

[lynn2]

Ci sono, però, diverse versioni di legge islamica: questa è una. Aggiungo poi, tornando sull'aborto, che nel mondo islamico prevalgono le idee più restrittive su questa questione: di solito è permesso limitatamente quando ci siano problemi gravi di salute per la donna. Per averne un'idea, si possono anche consultare le legislazioni di quei Paesi.