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Friday 29th of March 2024
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The outcome of extending the concept of the Extremism

The outcome of extending the concept of the Extremism

The outcome of extending the concept of the Extremism is most noticeable in the Wahhābīs’ dealing with the opposing parties on certain points of difference. It is necessary, therefore, to refer to some imaginary, quarrelsome problems that have been created under the pretext of fighting the Extremism.

1) Making a fuss on the issue of God’s attributes, the Wahhābīs accuse as an extremist anyone who opposes their idea on God’s attributes. Scores of books that denounce the Shī‘ism and Sunnīsm have been written, and the world of Islam is now filled with a great commotion. Instead of being a factor unifying Muslims, the issue of God’s attributes has, in the hands of the Wahhābīs, been turned into a weapon to create turbulence and tension.

Muhammad ‘Ādil ‘Azīzah, the contemporary Sunnī scholar, has done a lot to make the Wahhābīs understand that the Ash‘arīs and the Māturīdīs are not extremists. If anyone considers them as extremists, then Ibn Kathīr of Damascus, much respected by the Wahhābīs, should also be called an extremist because he has not followed the Wahhābīs (view) on God’s attributes.

All the Sunnīs and Shī‘ahs make an interpretation [ta’wīl] of the Qur’anic verses pertaining to the divine attributes without considering it a cause for the Extremism. The Shī‘ah and Sunnī religious scholars, the ulamā’, have found no relationship between interpreting the divine attributes and Extremism; the scholars of both denominations have strongly criticized the Wahhābīs’ method of evaluation.

Muhammad ‘Ādil ‘Azīzah, who has written a book on Ibn Kathīr of Damascus’ view on the divine attributes, says, “I have written this book with the aim of narrowing the scope of the differences and eliminating the present animosity among Muslims because, these days, many Sunnī men of learning are being subjected to accusations, calumny and excommunication by the Wahhābīs, merely because they have pronounced their own judgment differently from that of the Wahhābīs on God’s attributes.”[1]

Anyone reading this book will understand that Ibn Kathīr’s method of explaining the God’s attributes differs from that of the Wahhābīs. He says, “This little treatise, containing Ibn Kathīr, the Salafi’s words on the divine attributes will prevent a liberal Muslim from hastily accusing others—who hold the same ideas as Ibn Kathīr does—of being misguided and outside the pale of Islam, because Ibn Kathīr is known to all as being knowledgeable, meticulous and sound (in mind). Ibn Kathīr is said to have asked Ibn ‘Abbās for the interpretation of the Qur’anic verse: Upon the day when the legs shall be bared, and they shall be (summoned) to bow themselves, but they cannot.” (64:42); Ibn ‘Abbās said, “A great matter is disclosed.”[2]

Now, the objection we make is this: why, then, do the Wahhābīs call the Sunnī and Shī‘ah populace who interpret the Qur’anic verses of the divine attributes “extremists”? This has resulted in heavy blows and blind attacks to befall the Shī‘ism and Sunnīsm from the 18th century onwards. We can fathom the profundity of this catastrophe in many utterances of the Shī‘ahs and Sunnīs.

Dr. Muhsin ‘Abd al-Hamīd, the contemporary Sunnī scientist, unveils the catastrophe. He says, “In recent years, my colleagues and I have witnessed a current that imagines itself to be in charge of implementing ideological improvements and confronting manifestations of polytheism in Islamic society; it has filled the cultural centers with futile arguments concerning divine attributes. This painful situation was the first impetus for me to review these verses.”[3]

This black sedition of the Wahhābīs has, from its inception, drowned many scholars in its abyss. Dr. Muhammad ‘Ayyāsh Kabīsī, the contemporary Sunnī thinker says, “This sedition of the Wahhābīs urged me to focus my doctorate thesis on this particular matter, conduct a complete deductive study of all the divine attributes mentioned in the Qur’an and in the traditions, and explicate the comments of the past and present ulamas. These investigations expand our breast to receive tolerantly the disagreements there are in the interpretation of the Qur’anic verses and not to take them as the borderlines between faith and disbelief, between unity and polytheism.”[4]

When I was a Wahhābī myself, I thought that anyone whose belief was different from that of the Wahhābīs was misguided, deviant, and an extremist, while I took my own ideas as foolproof.

I remember the time I was studying at Ibn Sa‘ūd University in 1988, where I fiercely criticized all the Sunnīs who did not subscribe to the Wahhābism: I was averse to people like ‘Abd al-Fattāh Abū Ghudah, Muhammad al-Ghazzālī of Egypt, Muhammad ‘Alī Sābūnī, Hasan al-Bannā, and scores of others whose belief on the divine attributes was different from that of the Wahhābīs. When I finally got away from the trap the Wahhābism had me in, I realized the bewildering fate that was awaiting them.

The approach I have been following in my discussions with the Wahhābīs has been to quote the people who the Wahhābīs believe in, because it is impossible to mention Shaykh Tūsī, the eminent Shī‘ah scholar, or cite his belief directly. The Wahhābīs cannot tolerate even hearing his name, let alone listening to his judgment. Therefore, you should, from the beginning, route your point through such people as Ibn Kathīr so the Wahhābīs do not turn away. This, of course, works only if the Wahhābīs have no ill intention, but are the simpletons that are caught up in the trap. They are more in need of medication than disputation. We should view them as a physician does, that is, we should do our best to cure them.

These wrongly educated naïve Wahhābīs are of the opinion that any opposing opinion denotes disbelief and Extremism, but they are unaware that this is pure illusion, an invention of their sick mind. Being involved in such illusion, I once thought that all others were in an open boat of Extremism, but only we would be saved. I thought I was a physician wishing to cure someone who was ill with Extremism. This is why I wrote the book Al-Silatu bayn il-Ithnā ‘Ashariyyah wa Firaq al-Ghulāt, the link between Ithnā ‘Ashariyyah and the Ghulāt sect, the instructions to cure. Before it was published, however, something unexpected happened, and I realized that it was I who was diseased and in need of someone to cure me. I found the top physician, one who could fight this dangerous virus; it was the Imāmiyyah, whom I had mistaken as extremists. The situation changed: just a couple of days before the event I thought I was the physician, but realised in fact I was the diseased.



[1] Aqīdah al-Imām al-Hāfiz ibn Kathīr fī Āyāt al-Sifāt.

[2] Ibid., p. 8.

[3] Prologue to the book “Tafsīr Āyāt al-Sifāt.

[4] Al-‘Aqīdah al-Islāmiyyah fī al-Qur’an wa Manāhij al-Mutikallimīn.

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