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The Life, Teachings and Influence of Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhaab
Islam back to what Islam was and is supposed to be—the way of the
Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). This is what
Iqbal wrote,
But the spirit of ibn Taimiyya’s teaching found a fuller expression
in a movement of immense potentialities which arose in the
eighteenth century from the sands of Najd, described by
MacDonald as the “cleanest spot in the decadent world of Islam.” It
is really the first throb of life in modern Islam. To the inspiration of
this movement are traceable, directly or indirectly, nearly all the
great modern movements of Muslim Asia and Africa, e.g. the
Sennusi movement, the Pan-Islamic movement and the Babi
movement, which is only a Persian reflex of Arabian Protestantism.
The great puritan reformer, Mohammad ibn Abdul Wahab, who
was born in 1700… We are, however, not concerned with the
political career of this movement which was terminated by the
armies of Mohammad Ali Pasha. The essential thing to note is the
spirit of freedom manifested in it: though inwardly this movement,
too, is conservative in its own fashion. While it rises in revolt
against the finality of schools, and vigorously asserts the right of
private judgement, its vision of the past is wholly uncritical, and in
matters of law it mainly falls back on the traditions of the Prophet. 1
This passage probably does not need much comment to show that, at
the very least, Iqbal did not understand ibn Abdul-Wahhaab’s
message: the only true Islam is that of the Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allah be upon him). Thus, admiration may be one thing—
even disbelievers admire ibn Abdul-Wahhaab—but it seems very
difficult to argue that ibn Abdul-Wahhaab influenced Iqbal when this
is the only passage in which Iqbal directly touches upon ibn Abdul-
Wahhaab. Allah knows best.
Indonesia
In Sumatra, after three individuals returned from the Hajj in
1218 A.H. (1802 C.E.), they started a Salafi (“Wahhabi”) movement.
Their leader was al-Haaj Miskeen. They struggled to reform the ways
of the Muslims in Indonesia. They also fought against the Dutch. The
Dutch recognized that this movement was a real threat to their
1 Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore:
Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1977), pp. 152-153.
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