Mike,
You should do a bit of looking before you assume you know the
story and I am "talking out [my] ear".
from Encylopedia.com
Wahhabi
Wahhabi
Pronounced As: wähäb , reform movement in Islam,
originating in Arabia. It was founded by Muhammad ibn Abd
al-Wahab (c.1703-1791), who taught that all accretions to
Islam after the 3d cent. of the Muslim era-i.e., after
c.950-were spurious and must be expunged. This view,
involving essentially a purification of the Sunni sect,
regarded the veneration of saints, ostentation in worship,
and luxurious living as the chief evils. Accordingly,
Wahhabi
mosques are simple and without minarets, and the
adherents dress plainly and do not smoke tobacco or
hashish. Driven from Medina for his preaching, the founder
of the Wahhabi sect went into the NE Nejd and converted
the Saud tribe. The Saudi sheik, convinced that it was his
religious mission to wage holy war (jihad) against all
other
forms of Islam, began the conquest of his neighbors in
c.1763. By 1811 the Wahhabis ruled all Arabia, except
Yemen, from their capital at Riyadh. The Ottoman sultan,
nominally suzerain over Arabia, had vainly sent out
expeditions to crush them. Only when the sultan called on
Muhammad Ali of Egypt for aid did he meet success; by 1818
the Wahhabis were driven into the desert. In the Nejd they
collected their power again and from 1821 to 1833 gained
control over the Persian Gulf coast of Arabia. The domain
thereafter steadily weakened; Riyadh was lost in 1884, and
in 1889 the Saud family fled for refuge into the
neighboring
state of Kuwait. The Wahhabi movement was to enjoy its
third triumph when Ibn Saud advanced from his capture of
Riyadh in 1902 to the reconstitution in 1932 of nearly all
his
ancestral domain under the name Saudi Arabia, where
Wahhabism remains dominant. Wahhabism served as an
inspiration to other Islamic reform movements from India
and Sumatra to North Africa and the Sudan.
- samantha
Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
> >
> > > - --
> > > * I believe that the majority of the world's Muslims are good, *
> > > * honorable people. If you are a Muslim and want to reassure me and *
> > > * others that you are part of this good, honorable majority, all *
> > > * you need to say are nine simple words: "I OPPOSE the Wahhabi cult *
> > > * and its Jihad." *
> > >
> >
> > This assumes that all Wahhabi support Jihad. It also assumes that
> > Muslims are required to assure you or that they should be worried about
> > your opinion of them.
>
> One again, Samantha talking out her ear. Wahhabism does support war and
> terrorism as legitimate forms of Jihad. Most other muslims look at Jihad
> as simply the individual's "Struggle" (which is what Jihad means) for
> self improvement. Therefore, someone who doesn't support war and
> terrorism as legitimate expressions of Jihad are not Wahhabis.
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