The Life, Teachings and Influence of Muhammad ... - IslamHouse.com

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The Life, Teachings and Influence of Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhaab
In addition to the above false statements concerning ibn
Abdul-Wahhaab, there are numerous statements in this work that have
no basis in fact (many of them being outside the scope of this work).
Perhaps Schwartz is hoping to prey upon the possible ignorance of the
American reading public. This is the only way to explain his
extremely outlandish claims in which every non-Sufi, non-Shiite is
part of some worldwide Wahhabi conspiracy (even the Hizb al-
Tahreer and Tablighi Jamaat 1). For Americans who are not very
familiar with Islamic issues, it should be enough for them to read
Schwartz’ comments on Marin County. This passage 2, in which he
says, among many other things, that San Francisco “produces little of
lasting importance,” should be enough to show exactly how smug and
opinionated Schwartz is. Even the Supreme Court did not escape this
man’s vengeful tongue. On page 238, he actually states, “Years of
wrongheaded decisions were handed down by the U.S. Supreme
Court.”
In fact, his book reads much more like a novel or a soap opera,
wherein Schwartz is more than happy to provide the reader with
exactly what was going on the minds and hearts of people and where
the “heroes” are perfect saints and the “villains” are completely evil
people. For example, Schwartz 3 praises the military jihad of the Sufi
Shamil against Russian imperialism as an embodiment of the
“beautiful, good” jihad while the jihad (supposedly the Wahhabi
jihad) in the Bengal against British imperialism is described as an evil
jihad showing the other face of Islam. 4
love”—are spreading in their media. These kinds of things are only going to
produce hatred: hatred by the Christians for the “backward and evil Muslims”
and hatred by the Muslims for the lying and hypocritical Christians. In fact,
Schwartz was highlighted on Pat Robertson’s station in a program about
Wahhabism on August 18, 2002.
1 Cf., Schwartz, pp. 211-213 and 253 respectively
2 Schwartz, pp. 250-252.
3 Schwartz, pp. 83-87.
4 One final point, on p. 134 Schwartz states that Nasser’s regime’s “brutal
repression of the Muslim brotherhood…was both necessary and justified.” Of
course, he never notes that it was this brutality and torture in Nasser’s prisons
that truly led to the re-emergence of extremism in the Muslim world. Many of
those extremists, it should be noted, found their way later to Afghanistan. For
more on the development of this extremism under Nasser, see Abdul Rahmaan
al-Luwaihiq, Religious Extremism in the Lives of Contemporary Muslims
(Denver, CO: Al-Basheer Company for Publications and Translations, 2001),
pp. 95-123.