Arabia and the Wahhabis

Question
             
The Arabian Peninsula is the religious center of the Muslim world and one of the world’s most strategically and economically important areas, due to its large reserves of oil. During its modern history, several powers have clashed over control of this area, most importantly the Ottoman Empire, Britain and also the United States and France. Given these conditions, a question arises: how did an obscure fundamentalist religious movement such as the Wahhabis, come to control and dominate most of the Arabian Peninsula and the modern state of Saudi Arabia?

                    
     

           
There are four main reasons why the Wahhabi-dominated state of Nejd came to conquer and control most of Arabia. The first reason lies in the related factors of the geography of the Arabian Peninsula, the lifestyle of the inhabitants of Nejd as compared to other Arabs and the inherent difficulty in controlling Central Arabia. The second has to do with the Wahhabi ideology itself, which provided a powerful driving force behind its expansion. The third has to do with the opposition to Nejd itself, in that the major foreign powers were always at odds with each other, vying for control of the area and a balance of power was maintained for a long time, supporting the Wahhabis indirectly in moments when they were vulnerable. Finally, the kingdom of Nejd has had the benefit of several very able rulers, particularly as critical times in its history, which made the most out of the opportunities presented to them. 
           
Given the complexities of the politics involved and the changes in the Arabian theatre over a period of more than a century, a chronological approach is preferable, so as to avoid confusion. This will enable a reader who is not familiar with Arabian history to understand the context of the arguments presented. However, great insistence will be placed upon relating the historical events to the four factors mentioned above. Two of the four factors, namely the Wahhabi ideology and the geography, will be discussed separately, as they are common to the entire period of history discussed. The other two factors (the political interplay and the able Wahhabite rulers) are closely linked and change dramatically from the beginning to the end of the period in question. Therefore they lend themselves well to a chronological approach.
                             
As far as the geography is concerned, the Arabian Peninsula is a very harsh environment. Practically the majority of its territory is covered by desert, or by inhospitable mountains. To the west of the peninsula, lie the Hijaz and Asir regions. Although still quite dry and inhospitable by most people’s standards, these regions benefit from the proximity of the Red Sea, and there is large amount of commerce being done there, which enables several large communities to exist. The most important of them is of course Mecca, the spiritual centre of the Islamic world, which derives most of its revenues from pilgrims coming for the hajj. Also very important are the holy city of Medina and the port city of Jeddah. Most of the population residing in these regions is urban, deriving their wealth from trade or from accommodating pilgrims, and is therefore quite peaceful by nature. To the south lies Yemen, a region where there is some agriculture, and a lot of commerce as well. In the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula, lie Oman and the United Arab Emirates, which are primarily seafaring and trading nations. By contrast, the center of Arabia is dominated by the large deserts of Rub Al Khali and Nefud, with some large oasis in between [Philby, 35}. It is in these oases that some Arab kingdoms arose, most notably Nejd, but also Jabal Shammar and Mutair. The harshness of the desert and the lack of food and water, were conducive to a nomadic lifestyle, which in general produces very hardy and harsh people. What’s more, the resources of the interior of the Arabian Peninsula were insufficient to feed the local nomad population, so the Bedouin tribes which composed it took to raiding settlements and caravans as a means of existence. Therefore, we have great a contrast between the coastal Arabs, who were mostly sedentary and peaceful, and the nomadic tribes of the interior, who were very hardy and warlike. The difficult environment of the desert, and its sheer vastness also made invasion by powers possessing more troops than the Bedouin very difficult. Even if, on occasion, powers such as Egypt or the Ottoman Empire have conquered the interior of the Arab Peninsula, they had a lot of trouble holding on to their newly conquered territories and invariable lost it to the nomadic tribes in a few years [Gold 136]. We can envision therefore the kingdom of Nejd as a group of tough, experienced warriors, very difficult to defeat on their own territory, and always ready to strike out at the richer, more peaceful communities lying on its borders. The major obstacle for them, historically have been other desert tribes; supremacy over them would mean eventual supremacy over most of the region.

           
The second factor in the success of the Najd kingdom is the ardor of the Wahhabi ideology, which became closely associated with it. The Wahhabi ideology is a fundamentalist form of Islam. By the time that Ibn Wahhab formulated his ideas, in the mid 18th century, the Arab nomads who lived in the desert had reverted to quite a few of the practices that they had followed before the advent of Islam a thousand years before, only in a form adapted to Islam. These practices, referred to by the Wahhabis as idolatry, included praying to Mohammed or other holy men instead of God, worshipping or making pilgrimages to holy buildings or places other than Mecca, using religious items such as rosaries and group worshipping. In addition, the inhabitants of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina had by this time resorted to some very un-Muslim practices, such as drunkenness, prostitution and usury. The Wahhabi ideology arose as a response to these practices and its purpose was to eradicate them. In time, the Wahhabis also ascertained any weakness of surrounding Muslim states to these practices and believed themselves all the much stronger for fighting them [Vassiliev, 78]. The Wahhabi from of Islam was by its very nature very militant, since it regarded all Muslims who did not follow them as practically pagans who needed to be converted to true Islam. This made their followers very united, and imbued them with a great sense of purpose and passion. Not unlike the original expansion of Islam in the 7th century, the Wahhabi movement greatly benefited from this militant nature and from religious fervor [Gold, 89]. Had this movement occurred a few hundred years earlier, their impact could have been enormous. Due to the Wahhabis limited numbers, and the advent of firearms in the Middle East, their conquests were however limited. The original founder of the movement, Ibn Wahhab, made an alliance with the ruler of Najd, Ibn Saud, and Wahhabism has been associated with Saudi dynasty to this day. Even though after the defeat of the first Nadj kingdom by the Egyptians in 1818, the Wahhabi movement became somewhat less extreme, it has continued to inspire and propel the followers of the Saudis throughout their history. Therefore, the Wahhabi kingdom Nadj with its ideals of conquest and conversion, had some great advantages over its neighbors who were mostly motivated by tribal ideals (for the nomads), or by money and the need for security (in the case of sedentary communities).