Wahhabi Islam

An excerpt from my next book.—First, one of Prophet Muhammad’s saying from his Last Sermon on the Mount of Mercy.—‘Know that we are equal in the sight of Allah and journey together in this world as a family of sisterhood and brotherhood.’—A snippet about Wahhabism.—Saudi Arabia is the only country even in this millennium which has created such an aura of power with its wealth that no power on earth dare challenge its oppression of women.—Muslims and non-Muslims turn a blind eye to the Wahhabi edicts where women have to don death shrouds of black while still living.— Paradoxically the color of mourning in Saudi Arabia is white.— Islam is no more in the land of the Prophet where his injunctions of justice and equality for women are tortured inside the graves of man-made laws. Women can’t walk on the streets without a male chaperon.—The face of freedom in Islam is mutilated by Wahhabi ideology.—Even the powerful nations who claim to fight for human rights and rights of women fail to acknowledge the blatant oppression of Saudi women who are literally stripped naked of all Islamic rights which Prophet Muhammad granted them while living— in equality, education, freedom to voice their ideas and grievances.—Money the God of Power in Saudi Arabia has purchased silence from the entire world.— No one dares question their distorted version of Islam, while the holy cities of Mecca and Medina have become prisons and Prophet Muhammad’s message of reason, justice and equality amongst male and female is forgotten.—Wahhabi Patrimony.— — Fourteenth century Islam saw the emergence of a Sunni leader out of the Hanabali tradition by the name of Ibn Taymiyyah.— During the Mongol invasion he fled from Persia to Damascus and began redefining the law of Islam, declaring that he was qualified to interpret the teachings of Quran and Hadith.— His most orthodox innovation of Islamic precepts was the misuse of the word jihad, which he succeeded in transforming from inner moral struggle to that of outward war until the whole world must fall under the sway of the Islamic authority.— Jihad in his thought interpretation of violence and hate-mongering was the finest act any Muslim could perform.— He challenged the authority of the caliphate, proclaiming that a true caliphate had ceased to exist after the death of four rightly guided caliphs.—Boldly and histrionically he argued that imam—the religious leader should guide the emir—the temporal leader in all matters of jurisprudence with the support of the mullahs and ulemas.— For his unIslamic, incendiary preaching of jihad he was persecuted by the rulers of Syria and Egypt.— —Four hundred years later, around eighteenth century another leader gained popularity out of Hanabali legal tradition by the name of Abd al-Wahhab born in Nejd in Central Arabia.— He was from the impoverished tribe of Beni Temin and had very shallow knowledge of Islam.— For Arabs Nejd had negative connotation based on a popular saying that nothing ever good came out of Nejd.— Hadith also favored their opinion of Nejd where it is related that Prophet Muhammad asked God to bless Nejd three times, but was refused, followed by an injunction:— Dissentions and earthquakes are there, and there shall arise the horns of Satan.— Abd al-Wahhab gained the support of local power-brokers such as Saudi and Rashidi emirs of Central Arabia.— Politically and religiously ambitious his orthodox teachings were crushed by the military power of the new Egyptian kingdom of Muhammad Ali whose son Ibrahim Pasha conquered Mecca and Medina in year eighteen hundred and thirteen.— —One hundred years later Wahhabi voice was heard again when a Saudi emir conquered Mecca and Medina.— Simultaneously a Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt by a school teacher by the name of Hasan al-Banna in year nineteen hundred and twenty-eight.— He was an active critic of all Arabs, proclaiming that he was striving toward leading Muslims on a straight path as commanded by God in a revelation at the beginning of the Quran.— ‘Show us the straight path— The path of those whom Thou hast favored— Not the path of those who earn Thine anger— Nor of those who go astray.’ (Quran 1:1)— Contrary to this revelation and neglecting the message of peace and reconciliation in Islam, he promoted rifts and violence.— A passionate critic of the west, Hasan al-Banna, didn’t shy away from adopting the successful techniques of the Fascist and Communist parties to establish his own Brotherhood in year nineteen hundred and thirty in self-contained cells called Usar—families.— He developed his own form of Islamic Boy Scouts Hitler youth-style to inculcate hatred in their young minds for anything unIslamic in his estimation.— Hasan al-Banna was assassinated in year nineteen forty, allegedly by King Farouq’s secret police.— His devoted disciple Sayyid Qutub began preaching the distorted version of Jihad by saying that those who deny Jihad’s active and aggressive character diminish the greatness of Islam.— His great lies and distortion of the Islamic precepts landed him in jail and in year nineteen hundred sixty-six he was hanged by the orders of Abdul Nasser of Egypt.— —Starting with the reign of pro-Soviet President Abdul Nasser, Saudi government had begun giving refuge to the Muslim Brotherhood—the underground soldiers of Allah.— It was a matter of policy, part of King Faisal’s strategy of combating so-called godlessness at home and abroad.— The exiled members of the Muslim Brotherhood entered the kingdom to train teachers, who in turn would inculcate strict doctrines of their own making into the heads of the young Muslim students.— Many female members of the Muslim Brotherhood recruited from Syria were successful in training teenage girls to wear full veil and niqab.— Saudi universities were geared toward imbibing the canon of received knowledge without question.— The students were not to learn how to think, critically or otherwise, or how to change the world.— The most radical of ideas were promoted amongst staff and students.— Many sects of Brotherhood with their man-made, rigid orthodoxy were crushed time and time again in Syria, Egypt and Algeria, but they stayed resilient and to this day in century twenty-one remain active, violently and belligerently.— 'Women shall have the same rights over men as men have over them.' (Quran 2:228)— 'And the women have rights similar to those of men in equity. I God will allow not the work of any worker from among you, male or female, to be lost.' (Quran 3:196)— 'And whoso doeth good works, whether male or female, and he or she is a believer, such will enter Paradise and they will not be wronged the dint in a date-stone.' (Quran 4:124)— ‘Whoso doeth right, whether male or female, and is a believer, all such will enter the Garden, where they will be nourished without stint.’ (Quran 40:40)— ‘God enjoins you to treat women well, for they are your aunts, wives, mothers and daughters— The rights of the women are sacred, see that women are maintained in the rights assigned to them.’ Prophet Muhammad— Prophet Muhammad on Women’s Behalf— Only a man of noble character can honor women and only a man of base intention will dishonor women.— The most perfect man of religion who excels in character is the one who gives best treatment to his womenfolk.— Women are the other half of men.— Fear God in respect of women.— Paradise lies under the feet of mother.— One who brings up three daughters, provides them with good education and arranges their marriages and treats them with fairness, deserves to be ushered into Paradise.— Men and women are members of one another and must live on a footing of equity and kindness and practice equality.— Women Scholars and Healers.— Many Muslim women during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad learned to read and write and to study and practice medicine.— One of them was a woman by the name of Rufaidah.— She was proficient in reading and writing and had studied the science of healing.— She became the tutor of Prophet Muhammad’s wife Hafsa to teach her reading and writing.— One day Prophet Muhammad requested her to teach Hafsah the science of healing, especially, the cure for skin rash which was becoming common in Medina.— Rufaidah also served as a nurse to the Medinese community and when Prophet Muhammad pitched a tent for her in the courtyard of the mosque, it became her private hospital to treat all sorts of ailments.— Besides being healers and scholars, Muslim women accompanied men on the battlefield, some serving in defense and others nursing the wounded.— There were fourteen women in the battle of Uhud, bringing food, water and medicine to the soldiers.— Amongst them was Prophet Muhammad’s own daughter, Fatima.— Prophet Muhammad made women integral to his plan for Muslim education and learning when he proclaimed: Acquisition of knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim, male and female.