WARRING WAHABIS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 26 May 1928, Page 11

WARRING WAHABIS

quietly sleeping- desert eamp of a migratory Iraq tribe suddenly awakens with shrieks of horror. The Wahabis have eonie and the sand is red with blood

British ’plaiios swooping down over the desert, dropping ‘bombs on the fanatic Wahabis, make the next scene in the drama which for the past year or so has been occupying the stage on the Iraq frontier. The Wahabi movement in Mohammedan Arabia present a remarkable parallel to the Puritan movement 'in Christian England.

Like the Puritans, the Wahabis were —and still are—moved by a spite against the joys of Jife as well as by a desire to restore their religion to primitive purity.

The founder was Mohammed Ibn Abdel-Wahhab, born in Nejd in 1691. He had a hard life for a time, but in 147i2 Abd-el-Walihab converted Mohamhed Ibn Sa ’ud, Emir of Deriyeli, then the chief town of Nejd. That was the real start of Wahabism and the beginning of the rise of the Ibn Sa’ltd family. Mohammed Ibn Sa’ud took it seriously, and with Ab-el-Wah-hab’s fanatics at his back conquered all'the towns of Nejd and made them Wahabis. His ■ sons’ • and grandsons carried el-Wahhab’s banner over all Eastern Arabia, took Kerbela in Mesopotamia, the holy city of the Shiahs, slaughtered every male inhabitant, and razed the tomb of Hussein. They held Damascus to ransom, took Mecca and Medina, and, to show their contempt for saints, plundered thb tomb af 'Mohammed.

- This last was too much for the Sultan. As his title to the Caliphate rested on possession of the. holy cities, he could not endure leaving them in the hands of a sect that denied his Caliphate. Ibrahim Pasha, the best soldier in the Empire, was sent to put the Wahabis down. In ,1818 Nejd was subdued, Deriyeh destroved. the Wa-

FANATIC IRAQ TRIBE

I habi Emir, Abdallah Ibn Sa ’ud, be- | headed in 'Constantinople. I As Nejd prove,! costly to hold, the Turkish power was gradually., withdrawn. The Ibn Sa bids' came- back, and their Wahabi power rose again, though never to such a pitch-as. before Ibrahim Pasha. The Ibn Sa’uds again became masters of Central and part of Eastern Arabia and enforced Wahabism in its towns. In the desert they have never had any luck until. last year, when they converted the iMuteyr tribe. Only in the towns is there Koran reading and fanaticism. And Wahabism is unpopular in the towns of Nejd outside the original Wahabi province of Aared, of which Riyad is the capital. It is enforced most strictly in Aared, where being caught smoking a cigarette means sixty lashes. About 1835 the reigning Ibn Sa ’ud appointed one Abdullah Ibn Rashid Governor of Hayil in Northern Nejd. Abdallah and his successors, a line of remarkable men, increased in power, became independent of the Wahabi government, absorbed much of its territories, and finally, in 1891, defeated Ibn Sa’ud in the greatest Arabian battle of recent centuries and reduced him to a tributary position. Mohammed Ibn Rashid became ruler of all Nejd from his capital at Havil. Wahabism here reached its lowest ebb since the days of Ibrahim Pasha. Wahabism has no come back wonderfully under the present Ibn Sa’ud, one of the ablest of an able family. The World War gave him his chance. The Ibn Rashids backed the Turkish horse. Abdul Aziz Ibn Sa’ud ;topk Hayil in 1921 and now carries the Ibn —Rashids with him as prisoners. Similarly he .now carries around a variety of other Arabian Emirs. He took Mecca and the Hedjaz a couple of years ago, and is now Sultan of virtually all Arabia. The Wahabi Empire has reached a greater pitch thag ever' before, and tobacco and music are at their lowest ebb in Arabia.