title: Wahhabism

text: According to an expert on law in Saudi Arabia (Frank Vogel), Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab himself "produced no unprecedented opinions". The "Wahhabis' bitter differences with other Muslims were not over "Fiqh" rules at all, but over "'Aqida", or theological positions". Professor of history at Dickinson College, David Commins also states that early disputes with other Muslims did not center on "fiqh", and that the belief that the distinctive character of Wahhabism stems from Hanbali legal thought is a "myth". Some scholars are ambivalent as to whether Wahhabis belong to the Hanbali legal school. The "Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World" maintains Wahhabis "rejected all jurisprudence that in their opinion did not adhere strictly to the letter of the Qur'an and the hadith". Cyril Glasse's "The New Encyclopedia of Islam" states that "strictly speaking", Wahhabis "do not see themselves as belonging to any school", and that in doing so they correspond to the ideal aimed at by Ibn Hanbal, and thus they can be said to be of his 'school'. According to DeLong-Bas, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab never directly claimed to be a Hanbali jurist, warned his followers about the dangers of adhering unquestionably to "Fiqh", and did not consider "the opinion of any law school to be binding". In the absence of a " hadith", he encouraged following the examples of Prophet's companions rather than following a law school. He did, however, follow the Hanbali methodology of judging everything not explicitly forbidden to be permissible, avoiding the use of "Qiyas" (analogical reasoning), and taking "Maslaha" (public interest) and "'Adl" (justice) into consideration.


title: Wahhabism

text: While Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab himself was not inclined to adhere to a particular "madhab", many of his followers would perpetuate the Hanbali legal theory. Hanbali jurist Hamad ibn Nasir ibn Mu'ammar (1160–1125 A.H/ 1747–1810 C.E) laid out a comprehensive legal theory in his treatises like "Risala al-Ijtihad wal Taqlid" ("Treatise on Ijtihad and Taqlid") which became influential in the scholarly circles of the "Muwahhidun". Ibn Mu'ammar believed that maintaining the practice of "Ijtihad" in every era was a religious obligation and tasked the Islamic scholars for carrying out this responsibility. This was to be done through proof evaluation from the Scriptures and by employing "Usul al-Fiqh" (Principles of Jurisprudence). Based on one's expertise and knowledge, Ibn Mu'ammar ranked a hierarchy of "Fuqaha" (Islamic jurists) for carrying out the duty of issuing "fatwas". At the top was the absolute "Mujtahid" who issues verdicts solely based on the principles ("Usul") of his madhab by independently determining the preponderant view from all the possible scenarios tracked down by himself as well as supplement the former rulings. After this came the 3 levels of partial "Ijtihad" which limited the scope of research: initially just to the past opinions, then to the rulings found in the 4 "madhabs" and finally to the views within one's own "madhab". The lowest of Ibn Mu'ammar's hierarchy constituted the non-Mujtahid laity who are required to directly engage with the Scriptural sources in consultation with scholars, as well as by analysing past scholarly works. Thus, Ibn Mu'ammar's legal theory strived for the reconciliation between the reformist programme of the "Muwahhidin" and the classical jurisprudential structures. What made Ibn Mu'ammar's proposed system unique was its "microcosmic" and flexible nature; which permitted the scholars to simultaneously represent different ranks within the hierarchy to carry out their responsibilities of "Ijtihad".


title: Wahhabism

text: The Wahhabi legal theory stipulated proof-evaluation based on Hanbali principles as one of its major hallmarks. By claiming themselves as Hanbali, "Muwahhidun" scholars implied directly adhering to the five "Usul al-Fiqh" (Principles of jurisprudence) of the Hanbali school. Condemning the "madhab" fanaticism and prevalent "Taqlid" culture which had restricted Fiqh to the opinions of some latecomers and ignored those of the "Salaf", Ibn Mu'ammar writes:"Adopting the [revealed] proof [for a position] without considering the statements of [other] "ulama" is the function of the absolute mujtahid... [Laity are] obligated to practice taqlid and to consult those with knowledge.. [But the idea that one must always follow a single school] is a false view which Satan has cast upon many claimants to knowledge. . . . [T]hey imagine that study of the proofs is a difficult matter, of which only an absolute mujtahid is capable. . . [They have even arrived at a claim] that one associated with the school of an imam is obliged to accept that school... even if it differs with the "Qur'an" and the "sunna". Thus, the imam of the school is to the members of his school as the Prophet is to his Community.. You will [also] find the fanatic adherents of the schools in many matters differing with the explicit positions of their imams, and following the views of the latecomers in their school.. the books of the predecessors are hardly found among them."


title: Wahhabism

text: Despite the main methodology of "Wahhabi movement" being derived from Hanbalite Ahl al-Hadith, scholars also take the rulings from other "Madhhabs", as long they regard them as being verified through Hadith and traditions or Sunnah authenticated by Sahabah. ("Qaul Sahabiyyah" according to modern contemporary Muslim scholars). Prominent Wahhabi scholar Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen derived rulings from the Shafiite jurisprudence in his commentary of The Meadows of the Righteous book authored by al-Nawawi, wherein the Ijtihad (reasoning) of Abu Hurairah was taken by al-Nawawi for rulings of Wudu (ablution ritual).


title: Wahhabism

text: – Ibn `Abd al Wahhab preached and his successors preach that theirs is the one true form of Islam. According to the doctrine known as "al-wala` wa al-bara`" (literally, "loyalty and disassociation"), Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab argued that it was "imperative for Muslims not to befriend, ally themselves with, or imitate non-Muslims or heretical Muslims", and that this "enmity and hostility of Muslims toward non-Muslims and heretical had to be visible and unequivocal".


title: Wahhabism

text: Even as late as 2003, entire pages in Saudi textbooks were devoted to explaining to undergraduates that all forms of Islam except Wahhabism were deviation, although, according to one source (Hamid Algar) Wahhabis have "discreetly concealed" this view from other Muslims outside Saudi Arabia "over the years".


title: Wahhabism

text: In a reply dated 2003, the Saudi Arabian government "has strenuously denied the above allegations", including claims that "their government exports religious or cultural extremism or supports extremist religious education."


title: Wahhabism

text: Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab concerned himself with the social reformation of his people. He stressed the importance of education, especially for females and encouraged women to be active in educational endeavours and lead various communal and social activities. Diriyah had become a major centre of learning and foreign travellers often noted the higher literacy rates of townsfolk of Central Arabia. In line with his methodology, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab also denounced the practice of instant "triple talaq", counting it as only a single "talaq" (regardless of the number of pronouncements). The outlawing of "triple talaq" has been considered to be one of the most significant reforms in the Islamic World in the 20th and 21st centuries. As an 18th-century reformer, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab advocated for "Ijtihad" of qualified scholars in accordance with the teachings of "Qur'an" and "Hadeeth". His thoughts reflected the major trends apparent in the 18th-century Islamic reform movements. Numerous significant socio-economic reforms would be advocated by the Imam during his lifetime. After his death, his followers continued his legacy. Notable jurists like Ibn Mu'ammar (1160–1225 A.H/ 1747–1810 C.E) would issue ground-breaking "fatwas" (legal verdicts) on contemporary issues such as authorization of small-pox vaccinations; at a time when opposition to small-pox vaccinations was widespread among the scientific and political elites of Europe. Many women were influential in various reformist endeavours of the "Muwahhidun"; such as mass-education, communal activities, campaigns against superstitions, etc. These included Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's own daughter Fatimah, a revered Islamic scholar who travelled far and wide; and taught numerous men and women. However, future events such as the destruction of the Emirate of Diriyah in the Wahhabi Wars of 1818, subsequent persecution of Salafis and other Islamic reformers, etc. would result in a halt to the social reforms implemented by the Wahhabi jurists and their suspicions towards the outside world would linger throughout the 19th century.


title: Wahhabism

text: With the resurgence of rising reform currents of "Salafiyya" across the Muslim world from the late 19th century, the Wahhabis of Najd too underwent a rejuvenation. After the establishment of the Third Saudi State and Unification of Saudi Arabia, a "Salafiyya" Global movement would crystallise with the backing of a state. Ibn Saud's reforms would get criticism from zealots amongst some of his Wahhabi clergy-men; reminiscent of the 19th-century harshness. However, other "ulema" would allow them, eventually paving way for gradual reforms in KSA. Thus, new education policies would be approved that taught foreign languages, sciences, geography, etc. Overruling the objections of "Ikhwan", the Wahhabi "ulema" would permit the introduction of telegraph and other wireless communication systems. Soon after, oil industries would be developed with the discovery of petroleum. Influential clerics such as Mufti Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Aal ash-Shaykh would endorse female education.


title: Wahhabism

text: According to ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab; there are three objectives for Islamic government and society: "to believe in Allah, enjoin good behavior, and forbid wrongdoing". This doctrine has been sustained in missionary literature, sermons, "fatwa" rulings, and explications of religious doctrine by Wahhabis since the death of ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab saw a role for the "Imam", "responsible for religious matters", and the "Amir", "in charge of political and military issues". Despite this, in Saudi history; the "Imam" had not been a religious preacher or scholar, but Muhammad ibn Saud and the subsequent Saudi dynastic rulers.


title: Wahhabism

text: He also believed that the Muslim ruler is owed unquestioned allegiance as a religious obligation from his subjects; so long as he leads the community according to the laws of God ("Shari'ah"). A Muslim must present a "bay'ah" (oath of allegiance) to a Muslim ruler during his lifetime to ensure his redemption after death. Any counsel given to a ruler from community leaders or "ulama" should be private, not through public acts such as petitions, demonstrations, etc. This principle arosed confusion during the dynastic disputes of the Second Saudi State during the late 19th-century; when rebels succeeded in overthrowing the monarch, to become the ruler. While it gave the king a wide range of power, respecting "shari'a" does impose limits, such as giving "qadi" (Islamic judges) independence. This meant non-interference in their deliberations, as well as not codifying laws, following precedents or establishing a uniform system of law courtsboth of which violate the "qadi's" independence.


title: Wahhabism

text: Wahhabis have traditionally given their allegiance to the House of Saud, but a movement of "Salafi jihadis" has emerged in the contemporary among those who believe that Al-Saud has abandoned the laws of God. According to Zubair Qamar, while the "standard view" is that "Wahhabis are apolitical and do not oppose the State", there is another "strain" of Wahhabism that "found prominence among a group of Wahhabis after the fall of the second Saudi State in the 1800s", and post 9/11 is associated with Jordanian/Palestinian scholar Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and "Wahhabi scholars of the 'Shu'aybi' school".


title: Wahhabism

text: Wahhabis share the belief of Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Islamic dominion over politics and government and the importance of "da'wah" (proselytizing or preaching of Islam) not just towards non-Muslims but towards erroring Muslims. However Wahhabi preachers are conservative and do not deal with concepts such as social justice, anticolonialism, or economic equality, expounded upon by Islamist Muslims. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's original pact promised whoever championed his message, 'will, by means of it, rule and lands and men'." While socio-political issues constituted a major aspect of his reformist programme, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab nonetheless didn't advocate for revolutionary overthrowal of the ruling order to establish a Caliphate across the Muslim world. Following the classical Sunni understanding, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab advocated accommodation with the status quo, stating: "For a very long time, since before the time of Imam Ahmad, till nowadays, the people have not united under one single ruler. Nor is it known from any of the scholars that there is any ruling which is invalid except with the greater imam ("al-imam al-a'zam")."18th and 19th century European travellers, ambassadors and writers considered the "Muwahhidun" as championing an “Islamic revolution” that campaigned for a pristine Islam stripped of all complex rituals, cultural accretions, superstitions, etc. and a simpler creedal ethos based on universal brotherhood and fraternity; analogous to various European frondeurs during the Age of Revolutions. Contemporary European diplomats and observers who witnessed its emergence drew parallels with the American and French revolutions in Wahhabi opposition to Ottoman clerical hierarchy and foreign imperialism; with some even labelling them as “Wahhabi Jacobins” and its reformist efforts as a sort of “Protestantism”.


title: Wahhabism

text: Cambridge historian Christopher Allen Bayly notes that the religious movement of the Arabian "Muwahhidun" also had a revolutionary political programme comparable to the European revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries. The difference lied in their political language; wherein themes of anti-imperialism, opposition to foreign aggression, promotion of civic values, duties & rights, etc. were conveyed to the local populace in terms of Islamic values. Tracing the movement's popularity to the wider phenomenon of Ottoman decline, the far-reaching impacts of the French revolution on the Arab world; and deciphering the sudden collapse of its revolutionary Emirate to invasion by military despots of the old order; Bayly writes: "the Wahhabi revolt against intrusive Ottoman rule and the decline of proper religious observance in the cities of Saudi Arabia should be regarded as a variety of world revolution... Ibn Saud’s revolt began in the 1740s, before the American and European revolutions, but arose as an analogous response to the pressures of taxation and state interference in formerly independent communities... the influence of Wahhabism persisted indirectly across the Muslim world, inspiring imitations and reactions among the Muslim Sufi brotherhoods of North and East Africa over the next hundred years... if we examine the social roots of revolution, the word may be appropriate for these events within Islam.. these were often revolts of underprivileged suburbanites, the semi-settled bedouin on the fringe of the Muslim urban economies. These revolts exemplified that perennial conflict between the nomad and the city noted by Ibn Khaldun in the Middle Ages."


title: Wahhabism

text: There has traditionally been a recognized head of the Wahhabi "religious estate", often a member of Al ash-Sheikh (a descendant of Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab) or related to another religious head. For example, Abd al-Latif was the son of Abd al-Rahman ibn Hasan.


title: Wahhabism

text: Khaled Abou El Fadl listed four major factors that contributed to expansion of Wahhabi ideas across the Islamic World:


title: Wahhabism

text: According to French scholar and critic of Islamism Gilles Kepel, the tripling in the price of oil in the mid-1970s and the progressive takeover of Saudi Aramco in the 1974–1980 period, provided the source of much influence of Wahhabism in the Islamic World.


title: Wahhabism

text: ... the financial clout of Saudi Arabia had been amply demonstrated during the oil embargo against the United States, following the Arab-Israeli war of 1973. This show of international power, along with the nation's astronomical increase in wealth, allowed Saudi Arabia's puritanical, conservative Wahhabite faction to attain a preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam. Saudi Arabia's impact on Muslims throughout the world was less visible than that of Khomeini's Iran, but the effect was deeper and more enduring...


title: Wahhabism

text: it reorganized the religious landscape by promoting those associations and ulamas who followed its lead, and then, by injecting substantial amounts of money into Islamic interests of all sorts, it won over many more converts. Above all, the Saudis raised a new standardthe virtuous Islamic civilizationas foil for the corrupting influence of the West.


title: Wahhabism

text: Estimates of Saudi spending on religious causes abroad include "upward of $100billion"; $2–3billion per year since 1975 (compared to the annual Soviet propaganda budget of $1billion/year); and "at least $87billion" from 1987 to 2007.


title: Wahhabism

text: Its largesse funded an estimated "90% of the expenses of the entire faith", throughout the Muslim world, according to journalist Dawood al-Shirian. It extended to young and old, from children's madrasas to high-level scholarship. "Books, scholarships, fellowships, mosques" (for example, "more than 1,500 mosques were built from Saudi public funds over the last 50 years") were paid for. It rewarded journalists and academics, who followed it and built satellite campuses around Egypt for Al Azhar, the oldest and most influential Islamic university. Yahya Birt counts spending on "1,500 mosques, 210 Islamic centres and dozens of Muslim academies and schools".


title: Wahhabism

text: This financial aid has done much to overwhelm less strict local interpretations of Islam, according to observers like Dawood al-Shirian and Lee Kuan Yew, arguing that it caused the Saudi interpretation (sometimes called "petro-Islam") to be perceived as the correct interpretationor the "gold standard" of Islamin many Muslims' minds.


title: Wahhabism

text: Peter Mandaville asserts that the commonly reported data estimates regarding Saudi religious funding are unreliable due to the sources being "internally inconsistent" and based on "non-specific hearsay". According to Mandaville, the wide-ranging and controversial usage of the term "Wahhabism" has rendered researching Saudi religious transnationalism and assessing its actual magnitude even more confusing. Moreover, the post-Cold War era governments had commonly used the label "Wahhabism" to designate a wide swathe of religious sects, including those which were doctrinally at odds with Wahhabism.


title: Wahhabism

text: According to counter-terrorism scholar Thomas F. Lynch III, Sunni extremists perpetrated about 700 terror attacks killing roughly 7,000 people from 1981 to 2006. What connection there is between Wahhabism proper and the ideology of Salafi jihadists such as al-Qaeda who carry out these attacks, is disputed. According to many Islamists, Bin Laden and his followers did not identify themselves as Wahhabists. The Yemeni background of Bin Laden points to a non-Wahhabi background. Moreover, the Wahhabi "ulema" of Saudi Arabia had ruled the illegality of all forms of suicide bombings, including in Israel. The doctrine of suicide bombings which was justified by Zawahiri in his legal treatises were rejected as heretical by the Wahhabi scholars. Jonathan Sozek reports that while Bin Laden self-identified as a Salafist, he was not affiliated with the Wahhabi movement.


title: Wahhabism

text: As early as 1988, the Board of Senior Ulema (BSU) of the "Dar al-Ifta" in Saudi Arabia, composed of influential scholars like Ibn 'Uthaymin (d. 2001) and Ibn Baz (d. 1999), had issued strong condemnation of various acts of terrorism. In a comprehensive "fatwa" issued at its 32nd session in Ta'if on 25 August 1988, the board members issued the maximum punishment for acts of terrorism, declaring: "terrorist acts .. [are] caused by persons having 'diseased hearts' and 'hate-filled souls', lacking faith. Such violent acts are: demolishing houses; setting fires ... blowing up bridges and tunnels, and finally hijacking or bombing airplanes... [terrorism] aims at destabilizing and undermining the security of the nation and uprooting the faith . . . The Board unanimously decided the following:


title: Wahhabism

text: First: If a person is found guilty of committing terrorism . . ., such as demolishing houses, mosques, schools, hospitals, factories, bridges, arm's arsenals, water resources, oil pipelines, or of blowing up or hijacking and so on, he/she must be executed. This is evidenced in the abovementioned verses . . .


title: Wahhabism

text: Second: The Board considers it essential that the relevant judicial agencies.. provide proof of the aforementioned criminal guilt prior to any implementation of punishment..


title: Wahhabism

text: Despite this, some US journalists like Lulu Schwartz (then known by the name Stephen Schwartz) presented an alternative view that argued for Wahhabi connections to Al-Qaeda. In June 2003, when the FBI had listed al-Qaeda as "the number one terrorist threat to the United States", American journalist Lulu Schwartz and former U.S. Republican Senator and lobbyist Senator Jon Kyl accused before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security of the U.S. Senate that "Wahhabism is the source of the overwhelming majority of terrorist atrocities in today's world". Presenting their case, they argued:


title: Wahhabism

text: American scholar Natana J. DeLong-Bas, senior research assistant at the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, argues:


title: Wahhabism

text: American academic and author Noah Feldman distinguishes between what he calls the "deeply conservative" Wahhabis and what he calls the "followers of political Islam in the 1980s and 1990s", such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad and later al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. While Saudi Wahhabis were "the largest funders of local Muslim Brotherhood chapters and other hard-line Islamists" during this time, they opposed jihadi resistance to Muslim governments and assassination of Muslim leaders because of their belief that "the decision to wage jihad lay with the ruler, not the individual believer". In 2005, British author and religion academic Karen Armstrong declared that "Bin Laden was not inspired by Wahhabism but by the writings of the Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb, who was executed by President Nasser in 1966. Almost every fundamentalist movement in Sunni Islam has been strongly influenced by Qutb, so there is a good case for calling the violence that some of his followers commit "Qutbian terrorism"." However, in 2014, regarding the ideology of Islamic State (IS), Armstrong remarked that "IS is certainly an Islamic movement [...] because its roots are in Wahhabism, a form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia that developed only in the 18th century".


title: Wahhabism

text: More recently, the self-declared "Islamic State" in Iraq and Syria headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been described as both more violent than al-Qaeda and more closely aligned with Wahhabism, alongside Salafism and Salafi jihadism. According to "The New York Times" correspondent David D. Kirkpatrick:


title: Wahhabism

text: For their guiding principles, the leaders of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, are open and clear about their almost exclusive commitment to the Wahhabi movement of Sunni Islam. The group circulates images of Wahhabi religious textbooks from Saudi Arabia in the schools it controls. Videos from the group's territory have shown Wahhabi texts plastered on the sides of an official missionary van.


title: Wahhabism

text: According to the American historian of Islam Bernard Haykel, "for Al Qaeda, violence is a means to an ends; for ISIS, it is an end in itself." Wahhabism is the Islamic State's "closest religious cognate". IS represented the ideological amalgamation of various elements of Qutbism and 20th-century Egyptian Islamism and the doctrines of Wahhabi movement. While the "Muwahhidun" movement had shunned violent rebellion against governments, IS embraces political call to revolutions. While historically Wahhabis were not champions of the idea of caliphate, the Islamic State vigorously fights for the restoration of a pan-Islamist global caliphate. Unlike the Islamic State ideologues who used the Qur'anic "Āyah" (verses) pertaining to Jihad as justification to fight all non Muslims aggressively; Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab interpreted those "Āyah" as calling for a defensive endeavour, with an additional emphasis on safeguarding the lives of non-combatants in scenarios of warfare. Furthermore, he had advocated cordial relations with non-Muslims in order to soften their hearts towards Islam, adopting a persuasive approach to conversions.


title: Wahhabism

text: According to the American scholar Cole Bunzel, Arabist and historian specialized in Near Eastern studies, "The religious character of the Islamic State is, without doubt, overwhelmingly Wahhabi, but the group does depart from Wahhabi tradition in four critical respects: dynastic alliance, the caliphate, violence, and apocalyptic fervor". Islamic State's apocalyptic interpretation of "hadiths" related to End Times represents a significant break from the political discourse of the historical Saudi-Wahhabi states. IS eschatological narrative also departs from the religious doctrines of the "Muwahhidun" scholars; who categorised the knowledge of the End Times strictly within the realm of Al-Ghayb, affairs known only to God. IS does not follow the pattern of the first three Saudi-Wahhabi states in integrating its religious mission with the Saudi monarchy, rather they consider them apostates. The pan-Islamist call for a global caliphate is another departure from Wahhabism. Theoretical elaboration of Khilafah (Caliphate) system is noticeably absent in pre-20th century Wahhabi treatises. Ironically, Saudi States had conflicts with the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th century, the sole Muslim dynasty that had claimed to represent the institution of Caliphate. Despite their hostilities, the Wahhabis never declared a counter-caliphate. Other scholars have postulated that Salafi-Jihadist ideologues employ a strategy of exploiting the works of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab in order to cement legitimacy for their campaigns in the Muslim World. By applying Ibn Taymiyya's "fatwas", militant Jihadists seek to inter-link modern era with the medieval age when the Islamic World was under constant attack by Crusaders.


title: Wahhabism

text: Although religious violence was not absent in the Emirate of Diriyah, Islamic State's gut-wrenching displays of beheading, immolation, and other brutal acts of extreme violence aimed at instilling psychological terror in the general population shares no parallel in Saudi history. They were introduced by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, founding leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who took inspiration from the writings of Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir, an Egyptian Jihadist theoretician and ideologue identified as the key theorist and ideologue behind modern jihadist violence. It was the Al-Muhajir's legal manual on violence, popularly known as "Fiqh al-Dima" ("The Jurisprudence of Jihad" or "The Jurisprudence of Blood"), that is ISIL's standard reference for justifying its extraordinary acts of violence. The book has been described by counter-terrorism scholar Orwa Ajjoub as rationalizing and justifying "suicide operations, the mutilation of corpses, beheading, and the killing of children and non-combatants". His theological and legal justifications influenced ISIL, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram, as well as several other jihadi terrorist groups. The burning alive of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh in 2015, one of the most infamous acts of IS, was condemned by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia as a "horrendous crime" that violated all Islamic principles. The IS doctrinal views on theological concepts like "Hakimiyya" and "Takfir" are also alien to the historical and contemporary Wahhabi understandings.


title: Wahhabism

text: In contrast to the Jihadist ideologues of the 20th and 21st centuries, Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab had defined jihad as an activity that must have a valid religious justification and which can only be declared by an "Imam" whose purpose must be strictly defensive in nature. Various contemporary militant Jihadist groups theorize their warfare as a global endeavour for expanding the territories of Islam ("Dar al-islam") and Muslim control and believe it to be an ongoing, permanent duty of the Muslim community for the purpose of extinguishing "unbelief". Another objective is overthrowing the ruling governments in the Muslim world, which they regard as apotates, and replacing them with "Islamic states". However, Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb had maintained that the military campaigns of the Emirate of Dirʿiyya were strictly defensive and rebuked his opponents as being the first to initiate "Takfir". Justifying the Wahhabi military campaigns as defensive operations against their enemies, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab asserts: "As for warfare, until today, we did not fight anyone, except in defense of our lives and honor. They came to us in our area and did not spare any effort in fighting us. We only initiated fighting against some of them in retaliation for their continued aggression, ["The recompense for an evil is an evil like thereof"] (42:40)... they are the ones who started declaring us to be unbelievers and fighting us"


title: Wahhabism

text: Moreover, the excesses committed by the newly recruited soldiers of Emirate of Diriyah had been rebuked by the scholarly leadership of the Wahhabi movement who took care to condemn and religiously delegitimise such war crimes. Condemning the military excesses committed during the Wahhabi conquest of Mecca in 1218–1803, Abdullah ibn Muhammad Aal Ash-Shaykh (1751–1829 C.E/ 1164–1244 A.H) stated: "As for the fact that some Bedouins destroyed books belonging to the people of Ta'if it was committed by the ignorant, who were admonished, along with others, from repeating this and similar actions. The stance that we take is that we do not take Arabs as captives and will not practice that in the future. We did not initiate hostilities against non-Arabs either, and we do not agree to killing of women and children."


title: Wahhabism

text: It has been reported that Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's father was critical of his son. The dispute arose when Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab began his public "da'wa" activities in Huraymila. However, none of the sources state the exact nature of this disagreement. Salafi scholar Ibn Uthaymin notes that it probably was not concerning an issue of "'Aqidah" (beliefs) as Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, "did not lend any support to the saint-cults and other false practices". It is speculated that they disputed over payment of judges in solving disputes and in the manner of giving "da'wa", spreading Islamic teachings. Until his father's death in 1153 A.H; Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was not overly active and public in his "da'wah" efforts.


title: Wahhabism

text: Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's brother wrote a book in refutation of his brother's new teachings, called: "The Final Word from the Qur'an, the Hadith, and the Sayings of the Scholars Concerning the School of Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab", also known as:


title: Wahhabism

text: "Al-Sawa`iq al-Ilahiyya fi Madhhab al-Wahhabiyya" ("The Divine Thunderbolts Concerning the Wahhabi School"). It has been reported that his brother repented and eventually returned to his call.


title: Wahhabism

text: In "The Refutation of Wahhabism in Arabic Sources, 1745–1932", Hamadi Redissi provides original references to the description of Wahhabis as a divisive sect ("firqa") and outliers ("Kharijites") in communications between Ottomans and Egyptian Khedive Muhammad Ali. Redissi details refutations of Wahhabis by scholars (muftis); among them Ahmed Barakat Tandatawin, who in 1743 describes Wahhabism as ignorance ("Jahala").


title: Wahhabism

text: Wahhabism has been vehemently criticized by many Sunni Muslims and continues to be condemned by various Sunni scholars in the strongest terms as a "new faction,a vile sect".


title: Wahhabism

text: In the 18th century, prominent Ottoman Hanafi scholar Ibn 'Abidin Al-Shami declared the Wahhabi movement of Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab to be a modern-day manifestation of the "Kharijites". He said:


title: Wahhabism

text: The followers of Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab considered the ideas of the Hanbali theologian Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya (d.1328) highly attractive and made him their central classical scholarly reference. However, for centuries Ibn Taymiyya's thoughts were mostly ignored by those who constituted the scholarly mainstream; who would accuse the Wahhabis for overemphasizing the scholarly works of Ibn Taymiyya. It was only during the 19th century that Ibn Taymiyya came to exercise prominent scholarly influence over Muslim youth and by the 20th century he would be a major reference for Islamic revolutionaries. On the other hand, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab would deny that he had bias towards Ibn Taymiyya; and states in "Hadiyya al-Thaniyya":"Ibn Qayyim and his illustrious teacher Ibn Taymiyyah were both righteous leaders according to the Sunni school of thought and their writings are dear to my heart, but I do not follow them rigidly in all matters."Another early rebuttal of Wahhabism came from the Sunni Sufi jurist Ibn Jirjis, who argued that supplicating the saints is permitted to whomever "declares that there is no god but God and prays toward Mecca" for, according to him, supplicating the saints is not a form of worship but merely calling out to them, and that worship at graves is not idolatry unless the supplicant believes that buried saints have the power to determine the course of events. These arguments were specifically rejected as heretical by the Wahhabi leader at the time.


title: Wahhabism

text: The leader of the Gulen movement, Fethullah Gülen accuses Arabs of conspiring against the Ottoman Empire as well as reducing Islam strictly to Wahhabism and Arab norms.


title: Wahhabism

text: Dr Abdul Shukor Husin, chairman of the National Fatwa Council, said Wahhabis "view every practice that was not performed by Prophet Muhammad as "bid'ah", a departure from Islam, not in accordance with the sunnah." However, other major members of the council have publicly come out against these statements; calling to tone down sectarian tensions.


title: Wahhabism

text: Opposition to Wahabism emerged in South Asia during the early 19th century; which was led by prominent Islamic scholar and theologian Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi (1796–1861). By the late 19th century, the anti-Wahhabi campaign in South Asia was led by Ahmed Raza Khan (1856–1921) and his disciples, who engaged in extensive written refutations and polemics against Wahabism. His movement became known as the Barelvi movement and was defined by rejection of Wahhabi beliefs. According to Barelvi scholars, Wahhabis preach violence as opposed to Barelvis who promote peace. In 2016 Barelvis banned Wahhabis from their mosques nationwide. The founder of the movement Ahmed Raza Khan said Wahhabis are not Muslims, and any Muslim who has difficulty understanding this, has also left Islam.


title: Wahhabism

text: The Somalia based paramilitary group Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a actively battles Salafi-Jihadi militants to prevent imposition of Wahhabi ideology.


title: Wahhabism

text: The transnational Lebanon-based Al-Ahbash movement uses takfir against Wahhabi and Salafi leaders. The head of Al-Ahbash, Abdullah al-Harari accuses Wahhabis of falling into anthropomorphic descriptions of God and imitating polytheists.


title: Wahhabism

text: The Sufi Islamic Supreme Council of America founded by the Naqshbandi Sufi Shaykh Hisham Kabbani condemn Wahhabism as "extremist" and "heretical"; accusing it of being a terrorist ideology that labels other Muslims, especially Sufis as polytheists, a practice known as takfir.


title: Wahhabism

text: In late 2016, at a conference of over a hundred Sunni scholars in Chechnya, Al-Azhar's current dean, Ahmed el-Tayeb was said to have taken an uncompromising stand against Wahhabism by defining orthodox Sunnism as "the Ash'arites and Muturidis (adherents of the theological systems of Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi and Imam Abul Hasan al-Ash'ari)... followers of any of the four schools of thought (Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki or Hanbali) and... also the followers of the Sufism of Imam Junaid al-Baghdadi in doctrines, manners and [spiritual] purification." Having said that, Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayeb allegedly excluded the "Salafists" from the term of "Ahl al-Sunna" (Sunnis) stating that Salafistsalso known as Wahhabisare not from among the Sunnis.


title: Wahhabism

text: However, Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Ahmad al Tayeb would later release separate press conference in Al-Azhar University after the congress to clarify their formal views. Qaradawi condemned the Chechnya congress, alleging that the congress resolutions were "stirred by Rafidhi Shiite". According to Al-Tayeb and Al-Qaradawi, the Salafi and Wahhabi movements are part of the ""Ahl al-Hadith"" school, and within "Ahl al-Sunnah Wal Jama'ah"; along with Ash'arite and Maturidite schools, despite their differences. Al-Qaradawi and Ahmad blamed the congress of Chechnya were manipulated and the truth of the conference was distorted by the media.


title: Wahhabism

text: Qaradawi likened the Chechnya conference with Diraar Mosque, which was built by the hypocrites "to sow discord among Muslims and split the Ummah".


title: Wahhabism

text: According to French Political Scientist Gilles Kepel, the alliance between Ibn 'Abd-al Wahhab and the tribal chief Muhammad ibn Saud to wage "jihad" on neighboring allegedly ignorant Muslims, was a "consecration" by Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab since he renamed the Saudi tribe's long-standing raids as Jihad. Part of the Najd's "Hobbesian state of perpetual war pitted Bedouin tribes against one another for control of the scarce resources that could stave off starvation." And a case of substituting "fath", "the 'opening' or conquest of a vast territory through religious zeal", for the "instinctive fight for survival and appetite for lucre".


title: Wahhabism

text: Pakistani poet Muhammad Iqbal praised the movement as an influential endeavour of Islamic Golden Age that campaigned to put an end to the general stagnation of Muslims, while observing that


title: Wahhabism

text: 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 the 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.Islamic scholar Bilal Philips asserted that the charge of "Wahhabi" was deployed by the proponents of "Madh'hab" fanaticism during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to "Takfir" (excommunicate) the legal non-conformists. According to Philips:


title: Wahhabism

text: "It is interesting to note that separate places of prayer for each of the Madh-habs remained around the Ka'bah until the first quarter of the twentieth century when 'Abdul-'Azeez ibn Sa'oud and his army conquered Makkah (October 1924) and united all worshippers behind a single Imaam regardless of his or their Madh-habs"Syrian-Egyptian Islamic revivalist scholar Muhammad Rashid Rida was one of the most influential supporters of the Wahhabi movement during the 20th century. Rida had developed favourable views towards the Wahhabis as early as his arrival in Egypt during the 1890s; after reading about the movement in the histories of Al-Jabartī and Al-Nāṣiri. Rida asserted that the social and military expansion of the Wahhabi movement could successfully launch an authentic Islamic revival throughout the Islamic World. Rida believed that the decline of Muslims was a result of the stagnation caused by the excesses of Sufism; which had distorted the pristine message of Islam. As a leading figure of the Salafiyya movement, Rida launched his project of re-habilitating Wahhabism and would popularise Najdi scholarly treatises across the Muslim World through his "Al-Manar" printing press.


title: Wahhabism

text: Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia, had openly expressed his view in his book ""dibawah bendera revolusi"", that the progressive ""Tajdid"" movement by Wahhabis was essential and had positive influence towards Muslims world in global scale, particularly to rising nations which struggled to gain their independence, such as Indonesia. Sukarno also appreciated the "wisdom of Ibn Saud to support Wahhabi scholars in their effort to reject various one thousand one kind of Bidʻah". It is argued by some that Sukarno was also influenced by Islamist figures such as Ahmad Khatib al-Minangkabawi, Agus Salim, and particularly Hamka, his elementary teacher.


title: Wahhabism

text: According to notable Arab Linguist Taha Hussein (1889–1973 C.E), the Wahhabi movement was new, yet simultaneously old. Although it was novel for its contemporary generations, it was also ancient in its powerful calls for return to a pure Islam untainted by the impurities of "Shirk" (polytheism). Acclaiming its role in the Arab Awakening and intellectual renewal, Taha Hussein states: "Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab admonished the people of Najd for reverting to the ways of ignorance in creed and practice... it was hoped, this "madhhab" would have united the Arabs in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (AH), just as the appearance of Islam united them in the first century (AH). What we need to emphasize regarding this "madhhab" is its impact on the intellectual and literary life among Arabs, which was great and profound in various ways. It awakened the Arab soul and placed in front of it, a higher example which it loved, and as a consequence, strived in its cause with the sword, the pen and other weapons. It again directed the attention of all Muslims, especially people of Iraq, Ash-Sham and Egypt, towards the Arabian Peninsula."


title: Wahhabism

text: The Wahhabi movement sprang up amongst a number of Islamic revivalist movements of the 18th and 19th centuries; such as the Mahdist movement in 19th century Sudan, Senussi movement in Libya, Fulani movement of Uthman Dan Fodio in Nigeria, Faraizi movement of Haji Shariatullah (1784–1840) in Bengal, the Indian "Mujahidin" movement of Sayyid Ahmed Barelvi (1786–1831) and the Padri movement (1803–1837) in Indonesia, all of which are considered precursors to the Arab "Salafiyya" movement of late nineteenth century. These movements sought an Islamic Reform, renewal and socio-moral re-generation of the society through a direct return to the fundamental Islamic sources ("Qur'an" and "Hadith") and responded to the military, economic, social, moral, cultural stagnation stagnations of the Islamic World. The cause of decline was identified as the departure of Muslims from true Islamic values brought about by the infiltration and assimilation of local, indigenous, un-Islamic beliefs and practices. The prescribed cure was the purification of Muslim societies through a return to "true Islam". The key programmes of these revival movements included:


title: Wahhabism

text: Although the Wahhabi movement shared the core doctrinal themes of other Salafi and proto-Salafi movements, it would later diverge with them in certain points of theology. These included a zealous tendency toward "takfir" , i.e., excommunication of Muslims who opposed them and held beliefs which they regarded as "shirk" (polytheism). This hardening of dogmatism dates as early as 1773, when Muhammad Ibn `Abd al-Wahhab withdrew from public life due to his dispute with 'Abd al-aziz, son and successor of Emir Muhammad Ibn Saud (1727–1765), over his ambitions to expand territorial conquests and his need to religiously justify these state activities as "Jihad". For Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, state formation and aggressive expansionism were not the central themes of his revivalist and reformist efforts. The Saudi-Wahhabi power had reached its peak between 1792 and 1814, after Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's death in 1792. During this period, the Wahhabi clerics, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's descendants, had become a tool of Saudi state expansionist policies and had heavily begun to incorporate the political doctrines of Hanbali theologian Ibn Taymiyya. This shift in outlook would lead to brutal events like the Wahhabi sack of Karbala in 1802–1803 and bitter conquests of the early nineteenth century. After the destruction of Emirate of Diriyah in 1818, the Saudis would lead a decades-long insurgency in Najd against the Ottomans, and the Wahhabi "ulema" adopted certain legal views on migration ("hijra"), excommunication ("takfir"), and religious warfare ("jihad") as core theological doctrines, to justify it. This was in stark contrast to Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's writings, to whom "Jihad" played a limited role in-line with the classical Islamic military jurisprudence, which stipulated the limitations of military engagement. The classical Wahhabi emphasize on "Takfir", "Jihad", "Hijra", etc. would lead to homogenisation of religious thought and practices in the Saudi territories throughout the nineteenth century.


title: Wahhabism

text: Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and his later followers were subject to criticism, not only by Sufis, but also by fellow 18th century Islamic reformers like the Palestinian Hanbali scholar al-Saffārīnī (d. 1188–1774), and also through unverified reports by Yemeni Islamic scholar Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Amīr al Ṣanʿānī (d. 1182–1768), etc. for the actions of the Saudi state and their extremism in "Takfir". Although the influential Yemeni reformer Al-Shawkani praised Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and his works, after his death, Shawkani would criticise Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's later followers for their harshness in "takfir". After the destruction of First Saudi State in 1223 C.E /1818 A.H, Wahhabi movement was characterised by manifesting hostility to non-Wahhābī Muslims. This phase of the movement between the 1820s to 1930, is generally known as "Classical Wahhabism". Classical Wahhabis themselves were divided between moderate scholars of Northern Najd like Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Ajlan, Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥamad ibn Jāsir (d. 1338–1919), ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAmr (d. 1326–1908) etc. who were more open to outsiders and doctrinarian Wahhabis of Southern regions like 'Abd al-Latif ibn Abd Al-Rahman Hassan, Hamad ibn 'Atiq, Sulayman ibn Sihman, etc. who were more harsh in "Takfir". To the moderate factions, conservative Wahhabis were extremists in "takfir" and therefore a dangerous threat to the Muslim "Ummah". The two factions engaged in fierce debates, and due to political power-struggles, the hardline factions were able to gain dominance. In Syria, until the late nineteenth century emergence of "Salafiyya", Wahhabi calls were met with hostility from the "ulema" due to doctrinal and political reasons. Although the "Ahl-i Hadith" "ulema" of the Indian subcontinent had associated with Arab Wahhabi scholars and taught them, in their reports to the British, they officially denied any Wahhabi influence.


title: Wahhabism

text: The major precursor to the "Takfiri" discourse of Classical Wahhabism was Sulayman ibn 'Abdullah Aal al-Shaykh (1785–1818), a grandson of Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, who responded harshly to the Ottoman invasion. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab had been focused on reformist efforts in the Arabian Peninsula, primarily through preaching and mass-education. However, later Wahhabis would also come into political conflict with Ottomans, sparking a new array of polemics. Sulayman formulated the basis for a new concept of "Takfir", based on the re-conceptualisation of the works of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and applied it in his context on the Ottoman Empire. While Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab had focused on criticising specific beliefs and practices which he regarded heretical, Sulayman began to denounce groups and sects en masse. Sulayman revived Ibn Taymiyya's ideas of "Al-Wala wal-Bara" (loyalty and disavowal) and integrated it as a major part of his expanded "Takfir" doctrine. Most significantly, Sulayman also excommunicated whoever supported the Ottomans, ignores their disbelief or approves of them. He also forbade travel to Ottoman lands since those lands, in his view, were polytheist lands ("Dar al-Harb"). Through his various treatises, Sulayman employed the Islamic concept of "Hijra" and applied it on the Ottomans, asserting that it was obligatory for Muslims to abandon Ottoman lands and travel to Saudi lands.


title: Wahhabism

text: Sulayman would be executed by the Ottomans following the collapse of Emirate of Dir'iyyah in 1818. Second Saudi State was established in 1824 and its early scholars like Abd al-Rahman ibn Hassan (d. 1868) had followed a milder approach to "Takfir". However, during the civil wars of the 1860s and 1870s, Sulayman's "Takfiri" doctrines would be revived by scholars like Abd al-Latif ibn Abd al-Rahman Hassan (1810–1876), his student Hammad ibn 'Atiq (d. 1884) and his son 'Abdullah ibn 'Abd al-Latif (d. 1920). Breaking with mainstream discourse that maintained a moderate approach until 1869, 'Abd al-Latif re-explored the "fatwas" of past scholars like Ibn Taymiyya on the doctrines of "Takfir", "Hijra", "Al wala wal Bara", etc. in the wake of Ottoman expedition to Hasa. Sensing danger to the Emirate of Nejd, Abd al-Latif deployed his "Takfiri" doctrines to ensure loyalty and enable mass-mobilization against external enemies like the Ottomans, British, etc. as well as against internal enemies like "Rafida" (extreme Shi'ites). Another prominent figure was Hammad ibn 'Atiq, the most rigorous and implacable of anti-Ottoman clerics. As a pupil of 'Abd al-Latif, Ibn 'Atiq weaponised the doctrines of "Al-Wala wal Bara" and excommunicated the people inhabiting majority of the lands outside of Najd including Hejaz. After the death of his father in 1876, 'Abdullah Aal al-Shaykh became the senior-most scholar and continued the "Takfiri" polemics of Sulayman and 'Abd al-Latif until his demise in 1920. Most of the Wahhabi pronouncements of "Takfir" during this era was motivated by political opportunism and many clerics like 'Abd al-Latif shifted sides multiple times; despite previously accusing the other parties of disbelief and inciting "Fitna" (corruption).


title: Wahhabism

text: Scholars like 'Abd al-Latif Aal al-Shaykh displayed ambivalent approaches to excommunication. While in some situations they were harsh in their anathemization of political opponents, in other instances they expressed moderate views. In response to the allegations of Sufi scholar Ibn Jirjis, Abd al-Latif would reiterate that Wahhabis were cautious in limiting the pronouncements of "Takfir" as much as possible, stating:"Shaykh Muḥammad was from the greatest of people in withholding and desisting from applying (the judgement of) kufr, until he would not be resolute upon the takfīr of the ignorant person who called upon other than Allāh from the inhabitants of the graves or other than them when one who could advise him and make such proof be conveyed to him – the abandoner of which would fall into disbelief -was not readily available to him... And he had been asked about the likes of these ignorant people and he affirmed that the one upon whom the proof had been established and was capable of knowing the proof, he is the one who disbelieves by worshipping the graves"


title: Wahhabism

text: The precursor of the South Asian 19th century "Ahl-i Hadith" movement, "Ṭarīqa-i Muḥammadiyya" was already denounced by its Sufi opponents as "Wahhabi"; a designation readily adopted by the British. Throughout their treatises, the "Ahl-i Hadith" scholars of South Asia denied the accusations of them being "Wahhabi". Siddīq Hăsán Khān (1832–1890), a prominent leader of "Ahl-i Hadith" wrote the treatise "Tarjumān al-wahhābiyya" (Interpreter of the Wahhabiyya), distinguishing themselves from the Wahhabis, since they "followed the school of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, whereas the "Ahl-i Ḥadīth" did not practice "taqlīd"". While hailing Ibn Taymiyya as a "Mujaddid" and "Mujtahid", these early Ahl-i Hadith scholars nonetheless criticised Wahhabis as "Muqallīdîn" (blind-followers) of Ibn Taymiyya. While the leading "ulema" of the early "Ahl-i Ḥadīth" like Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Batʾālwī (1840–1920), Thanāʾ Allāh Amritsarī (1867–1948), etc., officially denied any relations with followers of Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab until the 1920s, other "Ahl-i Hadith" figures like ʿAbd al-Wāḥid, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Ghaznawī , Bashīr Aḥmad Sahaswānī (d. 1908), etc., would stress their affinities with the Wahhabis.


title: Wahhabism

text: The second half of the 19th century was a period when repercussions following the defeat of the "Mujahidin" movement of Sayyid Ahmad in Balakot were widespread in South Asia. Followers of "Ahl-i Hadith" were being persecuted and punished for various practices, such as saying "Ameen" loudly in "Salah" (prayer rituals). As an Islamic scholar who was able to attain a position of high political authority, "Ahl-i Hadith" leader Siddīq Hasan Khān had faced several rivals as well as threats from British officials who charged him with spreading Wahhabi doctrines, which had been criminalised in the British Raj. Since Khan was unable to defend Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and doctrines of the Najdi Wahhabis, his main concern was to protect the "Muwahhidin" (Ahl-i Hadith) in India, who were accused of being Wahhabis. He argued that the beliefs of "Ahl-i Hadith" of India were based on "Qur'an" and "Sunnah", and was not derived from Najdi scholars; attempting to distinguish them from the "Ahl-i Hadith". Yet Khan had also rebutted various claims made against Wahhabism, by bringing up Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's responses as well as defenses made by various supporters of the movement.


title: Wahhabism

text: In his treatise "Tarjuman-i-Wahabiyah" ("Interpreter of the Wahhabiyya"), Khan defended himself from being labelled as "Wahhabi" and would criticise the usage of the term, due to its narrow, localised connotations. He began the treatise by fiercely criticising the Najdi Wahhabis for stamping out Islamic Universalism with territorial localism. According to Khan, Najdis pulled Muslims back to constraints of geographic identitarianism and rigid norms and resented their territorial marker. He cited the discomfort of the Prophet to any type of regionalisation of Islam. He also cited the famous Hadith of Najd as a rebuttal of Najdis. According to Siddīq Hăsán Khān, Prophet Muhammad refused to bless Najd because:"This [would] only create strife and raise unnecessary issue[s] and [would] offer an ideal playing field for the Satan [to create strife in the Muslim world]."


title: Wahhabism

text: Giving a resume of the career and activities of Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, Khan pointed out that there was no link between his activities and those of Sayyid Ahmad. Tracing the rise and subsequent defeat of the "Muwahhidun" movement in the Arabian Peninsula in 1818, Khan asserts that followers of Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and Sayyid Ahmad were labelled "Wahhabis" due to ulterior motives of imperial powers. Since the works of the Arabian reformer were not published by the followers of Sayyid Ahmad, labelling them as "Wahhabis" was a policy of religio-political abuse. Khan asserts that the apt term for Sayyid Ahmad's followers was "Ahl al-Hadith" (followers of the Hadith), since the term was as old as the early eras of Islam.


title: Wahhabism

text: In another one of his works titled ""Hidayat al Saa'il Ila Adillatil Masaa'il""; Khan elaborated that Sunni Muslims of Hindustan were different from the Najdis since they both belonged to different "madhahib" (legal schools). The Najdis where the followers of the madh'hab of Imam Ahmad, whereas in Hindustan; Hanafi school was dominant. Past scholars like Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, Shah Ismail, etc. had reformed Hanafi doctrines from "bid'ah" (innovations) and held it tightly around "Qur'an" and "Hadith". Articulating his pan-Islamic vision, Siddīq Hăsán Khān states that the broader scope of Hindustani "ulema" cannot be contained by adherence to a single leader like Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab who was territorially rooted and therefore was outside of the cultural and intellectual space of an organic vision of Muslim unity. By asserting that the "Ahl-i Hadith" reform movement could not be labelled "Wahabis" as the latter were ideologically and territorially rooted in the Najd; Khan delinked his followers from the Najdī associates. Despite this, British officials charged that Khan's literature lead to the spread of "Wahhabi intrusion" into the Indian military. Ironically, both "Tarjuman-i-Wahabiyah" and "Hidayat al Saa'il Ila Adillatil Masaa'il", which were critical of Najdi Wahhabis, would be labelled as "seditious" books and censured by the British administration.


title: Wahhabism

text: In spite of his officially critical stance on the Najdi movement, several Najdi Wahhabi religious students would travel to the Islamic Principality of Bhopal and study "Hadith" under its Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan's tutelage. Several Najdi Wahhabi treatises such as "Fath al-Majid" by Abdurrahman ibn Hasan Aal al-Shaykh, various Hanbali works, "Tathirul A'tekad" by Ibn Ismāʿīl al-Amīr al-San'ani, etc. had been brought to Sīddïq Hasān Khán as early as 1881. The studies of Najdi religious students under Khan would make a profound impact on the Wahhabi approach to "Fiqh" (Islamic jurisprudence). After their studies under the "Ahl-i Hadith" "ulema" of India, Wahhabi scholars from Najd adopted the legal methodology of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim; and began extensively referring to their theological works, "fatwas" and legal treatises, which had not been available to them before.


title: Wahhabism

text: According to David Commins, the 19th century classical Wahhabi ideology was at the radical pole of Islamic discourse; whose doctrinal extremism in "takfir" provoked hostile condemnations among the "ʿulamaʾ" and Sufi shaykhs in the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile Crescent. While rejecting the doctrinal excesses of Wahhabis in "takfir"; Salafis of Syria, Iraq and Egypt emphasized their common struggles against innovations like scholastic "taqlid" practices, rituals of saint worship, etc. With the support of the late 19th century Salafi "ʿulamaʾ" in the Fertile Crescent and Egypt, led by Sayyid Rashid Rida, major elements of puritanical Wahhabi philosophy, such as "ijtihad" and "jihad", became an integral part of Islamic revivalism. They presented Wahhabism as an authentic revivalist movement, rather than a "Kharijite" heresy outside the Sunni consensus, by softening the harsh Wahhabi stances and making it more palatable to Arab Muslims. This also paved the way for co-operation between Salafi movements like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahhabis during the Interwar period, against the European threat and Western culture. Through this intellectual-political redefinition; Wahhabism was able to attain a global reach; and end its geographical and intellectual isolation by molding a receptive Salafi audience.


title: Wahhabism

text: The Rehabilitation of the Wahhabi movement was championed by the early "Salafiyya" under the leadership of Syrian-Egyptian Islamic scholar Muhammad Rashid Rida (d.1935) who campaigned vigorously to defend Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and his ideas. Aligning themselves with Rida's campaign, Wahhabis also began using Salafi epithets and themes with increasing recurrence, viewing it more empowering than previous self-labels like "good Sunnis" or "Unitarians" ("muwaḥḥidūn"). Some of Rida's disciples like Muhammad Al-Amin Al-Shanqiti felt that the rehabilitation campaign had gone too far in its uncritical promotion of "Wahhabiyya". However, Rida rebutted Al-Shanqiti, accusing him of unfair criticism; and focused on facing the rising British threat. By 1929, Abd Al 'Azeez Ibn Saud had openly come out against the term "Wahhabi" , instead emphasizing that they were part of the wider "Salafiyya" movement, to align themselves within the umbrella of mainstream Sunnism. With the death of Sulayman ibn Sihman in 1930, the old guard of Classical Wahhabis had died out. The new scholarship of "Wahhabiyyah" would be dominated by Rida's disciples and comrades, who while remaining conservative, never developed the hardline approach of Classical Wahhabism, instead representing the "true Wahhabism" Rida had been championing across the Islamic World. Overall, Rida's rehabilitation campaign was successful enough to give mainstream legitimacy for the Saudi leadership and its Wahhabi doctrines to the Islamic World, under the wider umbrella of the ""Salafiyya"" movement.


title: Wahhabism

text: Rather than classical Wahhabi doctrines, the new brand of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia was characterised by pan-Islamic Salafism, propagated through transnational religious organizations headquartered in the kingdom, with many of its leadership being foreign Salafis. The most influential amongst these organizations was the Muslim World League, established in 1962. Although Saudi Arabia financially supports Salafi centers, publications, etc.; Wahhabism and Salafism differ markedly. Wahhabism remains closely aligned with the Saudi state and its religious establishment of Aal ash-Shaykh and generally follow the Hanbali jurisprudence in legal issues. On the other hand, Salafists tend to reject allegiances to states as well as legal schools ("Madhabs"). While both Wahhabis and Salafis share common pre-modern scholarship, the former continue to primarily follow the creedal teachings of Ibn 'Abd Al-Wahhab (d. 1792) and emphasize an idealised Saudi history, that romanticises the Wahhabi conquests. In contrast, the "Salafiyya" movement follow the multiple scholarly traditions of "Islah" (socio-legal-creedal reforms) dating from the 18th century, with a broader geographic scope ranging from Africa to South Asia, and is not tied to any particular state.


title: Wahhabism

text: European Muslim intellectual Muhammad Asad (d. 1992) would praise the Wahhabi movement for its calls to the pristine message of the Prophet as well as its influence on future Islamic Renaissance movements. However, he noted the paradox of the movement; stating:"Тhe spiritual meaning of Wahhabism – the striving after аn inner renewal of Muslim society – was corrupted almost at the same moment when its outer goal- the attainment of social and political power – was realized with the establishment of the Saudi Kingdom at the end of the eighteenth century and its ехpansion over the larger part of Arabia early in the nineteenth. As soon as the followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab achieved power, his idea became a mummy: for the spirit cannot be a servant of power – and power does not want to be servant of the spirit. Тhe history of Wahhab Najd is the history of a religious idea which first rose on the wings of enthusiasm and longing and then sank down into the lowlands of pharisaic self-righteousness. For all virtue destroys itself as soon as it ceases to be longing and humility"


title: Wahhabism

text: Original "Salafiyya" and its intellectual heritage were not hostile to competing Islamic legal traditions. However, critics argue that as Salafis aligned with Saudi promoted neo-Wahhabism, religious concessions for Saudi political patronage distorted the early thrust of the renaissance movement. The early "Salafiyya" leaders like Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Shawkani (d. 1250–1835), Ibn al-Amir Al-San'ani (d.1225–1810), Muhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1354–1935), etc. advocated for "Ijtihad" (independent legal research) of Scriptures to solve the new contemporary demands and problems faced by Muslims living in a modern age through a pragmatic, juristic path faithful to the rich Islamic tradition. However, as other Salafi movements got increasingly sidelined by the Saudi-backed neo-Wahhabi Purists; the legal writings that were made easily accessible to the general public became often rigidly literalist and intolerant of the wider Sunni legal tradition, limited to a selective understanding of the Hanbalite works of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim.


title: Wahhabism

text: The Syrian-Albanian Salafi "Muhaddith" Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani (d.1999) publicly challenged the foundational methodologies of the neo-Wahhabite establishment. According to Albani, although Wahhabis doctrinally professed exclusive adherence to the "Qur'an", the "Hadith", and the "Ijma" of Salaf al-salih; in practice they almost solely relied on Hanbali jurisprudence for their "fatwas"—acting therefore as undeclared partisans of a particular "madhab". As the most prominent scholar who championed anti-madhab doctrines in the 20th century, Albani held that adherence to a madhab was a "bid'ah" (religious inmovation). Albani went as far as to castigate Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab as a "Salafi in creed, but not in "Fiqh"". He strongly attacked Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab on several points; claiming that the latter was not a mujtahid in fiqh and accused him of imitating the Hanbali school. Albani's outspoken criticism embarrassed the Saudi clergy, who finally expelled him from the Kingdom in 1963 when he issued a "fatwa" permitting women to uncover their face, which ran counter to Hanbali jurisprudence and Saudi standards.


title: Wahhabism

text: In addition, Albani would also criticise Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab for his weakness in "hadith" sciences. He distinguished between Salafism and Wahhabism, criticizing the latter while supporting the former. He had a complex relationship to each movement. Although he praised Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab in general terms for his reformist efforts and contributions to the Muslim "Ummah", Albani nonetheless censured his later followers for their harshness in "Takfir". Distinguishing between ""Wahhabiyya"" and "Salafiyya", Albani stated:"As for al-Wahabiyah – what have I got to do with it?! I criticise it – sometimes even more than others! Those who are present know this."


title: Wahhabism

text: In spite of this, Albani's efforts at "hadith" revivalism and his claims of being more faithful to the spirit of Wahhabism than Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab himself; made the former's ideas highly popular amongst Salafi religious students across the World, including Saudi Arabia.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Charles Ernest Grassley (born September 17, 1933) is an American politician serving as the president pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate, and the senior United States senator from Iowa, having held the seat since 1981. In 2022, he was reelected to his eighth Senate term, having first been elected in 1980.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: A member of the Republican Party, Grassley served eight terms in the Iowa House of Representatives (1959–1975) and three terms in the United States House of Representatives (1975–1981). He has served three stints as Senate Finance Committee chairman during periods of Republican Senate majority. When Orrin Hatch's Senate term ended on January 3, 2019 following his retirement, Grassley became the most senior Republican in the Senate and its president pro tempore.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: During his four decades in the Senate, Grassley has chaired the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Narcotics Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Senate Aging Committee.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley was born in New Hartford, Iowa, the son of Ruth (née Corwin) and Louis Arthur Grassley, and raised on a farm. He graduated from the town high school. At Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa), he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1955 and a Master of Arts in political science in 1956. During his time as a student, Grassley joined the social-professional Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity. He pursued a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Iowa, but ultimately did not complete the degree.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: During the 1950s, Grassley farmed and worked in factories in Iowa, first as a sheet metal shearer and then as an assembly line worker. From 1967 to 1968, he taught at Charles City College.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley represented parts of Butler County in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1959 to 1975. He then served in the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 1981.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley was reelected in 1986, defeating the Democratic nominee, attorney John P. Roehrick, in a landslide.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley was reelected in 1998, defeating former State Representative David Osterberg, who won the Democratic nomination unopposed.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley sought a sixth term in the 2010 election. He was challenged by Democrat Roxanne Conlin, a former United States attorney, and Libertarian John Heiderscheit, an attorney.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley was unopposed in the Republican primary, although some conservatives said he had drifted "too far to the left".


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley was reelected with 64.5% of the vote to Conlin's 33.2%. He carried every county in the state except Johnson County, which contains the University of Iowa. He is only the second Iowan to serve six terms in the Senate, the other being Iowa's longest-serving senator, William B. Allison.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley sought a seventh term in the 2016 election. He was expected to face a strong challenge from former Democratic lieutenant governor Patty Judge, but won his seventh term with over 60% of the vote as Republican presidential nomineee Donald Trump won Iowa with over 51% of the vote.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In May 2021, Grassley said that he would not decide whether to run for reelection in 2022 until between eight and 12 months before the election. Given Iowa's swing nature and Grassley's strong results in past elections, many believed that an open seat in Iowa would benefit the Democrats as they could convince many Grassley supporters to vote for their nominee. In July 2021, former U.S. Representative Abby Finkenauer announced that she would run for the seat regardless of Grassley's decision and criticized him and Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell for being "obsessed with power" and not taking a strong stance against those who breached the Capitol in the January 6 United States Capitol attack.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In September 2021, Grassley announced his intention to run for an eighth term. His announcement was viewed as advantageous to Republicans seeking to hold Grassley's seat and to retake the Senate majority in 2022. He won the general election, defeating Democratic nominee Michael Franken on November 8, 2022.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In November 1981, Grassley was one of 32 senators to sign a letter to President Reagan supporting Director of the Office of Management and Budget David Stockman. In August 1982, while the Reagan administration tried persuading senators to approve legislation authorizing the creation of a radio station for broadcasting to Cuba, Grassley joined fellow Iowa senator Roger Jepsen and Edward Zorinsky in seeking an amendment to the bill barring the Reagan administration from operating Radio Marti on that frequency or other commercial AM frequencies.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In October 1983, Grassley voted against establishing a legal holiday to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. In 2015, an aide to Grassley said that he voted against the holiday due to an "economic decision both in the cost to the broader economy in lost productivity, and the cost to the taxpayers with the federal government closed." In 2004, Grassley co-sponsored legislation giving King a posthumous award, which became law on October 25 that year.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: On November 1, 1984, Grassley signed a one-page citation of contempt of Congress against Attorney General William French Smith due to Smith's not turning over files on an investigation into Navy shipbuilding. Assistant Attorney General Stephen S. Trott called the citation "out of place" since Grassley was not acting at a session of the Judiciary panel he led.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In May 1987, the Senate Appropriations Committee defeated an attempt by Grassley to hasten payments of corn and other feed grain subsidies ahead of the scheduled payment taking place after October 1. The Grassley measure was also designed to unravel an accounting device lawmakers used previously to make it appear that they were reducing spending for the incoming fiscal year. In October, during a press briefing, Grassley accused Reagan of being "asleep at the switch" and botching the handling of Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination, adding that Bork's nomination had convinced him that the Reagan administration "has been terribly lucky for the last seven years" in other matters, including the economy and foreign policy. Later that month, Grassley likened the groups lobbying against Bork's nomination to the McCarthyism of the 1950s: "The big lie is standard operating procedure for some of these groups. All you have to do is repeat the same outrageous charges, and repeat them so often that people believe they are true." In November, as party leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee met on the Supreme Court nomination of Douglas H. Ginsburg, Grassley released the text of a letter he intended to send to the American Bar Association suggesting the association was dragging its feet in reviewing Ginsburg's record. After Ginsburg admitted having smoked marijuana, Grassley said, "You like to think people who are appointed to the Supreme Court respect the law." Grassley joined Jesse Helms in resisting the nomination of Anthony Kennedy, Reagan's next choice for the Supreme Court, saying that he would have preferred another nominee such as appeals court justices Pasco Bowman II or John Clifford Wallace. Grassley stated his distaste for "the people who are committed to changing the judiciary" and taking "the path of least resistance."


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In January 1989, as the Senate voted to schedule a vote within the following month on the pay increase, Grassley questioned how senators would decline federal program increases "come March and April if the first thing out of the box is a pay raise?" In February, he was one of six senators to testify against the 50% pay increase scheduled to take effect the following week. In October, Grassley was one of nine senators to vote against legislation intended to outlaw flag burning and other forms of flag defacement and joined Bob Dole and Orrin Hatch, the other two Republicans to vote against the bill, in voicing a preference for a constitutional amendment.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In January 1991, Grassley was one of only two Republican senators to vote against joining the international coalition to force Iraq out of Kuwait, the other being Mark Hatfield of Oregon. In August 1991, he became one of six Republicans on the Select Senate Committee on POW-MIA Affairs that would investigate the number of Americans still missing in the aftermath of the Vietnam War following renewed interest. In July 1998, President Bill Clinton listed Grassley among the members of Congress who had made it possible "for me to sign into law today the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act." On February 12, 1999, Grassley was one of 50 senators to vote to convict and remove Bill Clinton from office.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In May 2001, Grassley met with Democratic senator Max Baucus over the allocation of finances in tax cuts and both reported they were making progress in reaching a bipartisan deal, Grassley adding that the bill would contain all four of the main elements proposed by the Bush administration and the Senate Finance Committee would modify the components of the Bush proposal.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In August 2002, Grassley sent a letter to president and chief executive of the United Way of America Brian Gallagher requesting a detailed explanation on the overseeing of both finances and management of the organization's affiliates. Grassley also wrote to chief executive of the United Way of the National Capital Area Norman O. Taylor in regards to allegations of affiliates misappropriating money as well as withholding information the board needed to allow its conducting of oversight.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: As a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley has spearheaded many probes into alleged misuse and lack of accountability of federal money. In July 2007, a Grassley-commissioned report was released claiming that more than US$1 billion in farm subsidies were sent to deceased individuals. Grassley was called a "Taxpayer Super Hero" in 2014 by the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste. He received a 100 percent rating from the group that year and has a lifetime rating of 78 percent. Grassley was ranked the 5th most bipartisan Senator of the 114th United States Congress and the 7th most bipartisan Senator in the first session of the 115th Congress by the Bipartisan Index, a metric created by the Lugar Center for the Lugar Center and Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy to rank members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In February 2004, Grassley released an internal report composed by the FBI in 2000 that examined 107 instances of either serious or criminal misconduct by its agents over a 16-year period. In a letter to the FBI, Grassley called the report "a laundry list of horrors with examples of agents who committed rape, sexual crimes against children, other sexual deviance and misconduct, attempted murder of a spouse, and narcotics violations, among many others" and added that the report's findings raised questions about whether the FBI handled agents "soon enough and rigorously enough".


title: Chuck Grassley

text: On June 28, 2006, Grassley proposed legislation intended to curb sex trafficking and sexual slavery in the United States by means of strict enforcement of tax laws, for example by requiring a W-2 form be filed for each prostitute managed by a pimp or other employer.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Since 1976, Grassley has repeatedly introduced measures that increase the level of taxation on American citizens living abroad, including retroactive tax hikes. Grassley was eventually able to attach an amendment to a piece of legislation that went into effect in 2006, which increased taxes on Americans abroad by targeting housing and living incentives paid by foreign employers and held them accountable for federal taxes, even though they did not currently reside in the United States. Critics of the amendment felt that the move hurt Americans competing for jobs abroad by putting an unnecessary tax burden on foreign employers. Others felt that the move was only to offset the revenue deficit caused by domestic tax cuts of the Bush Administration.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In March 2009, amid a scandal that involved AIG executives receiving large salary bonuses from the taxpayer-funded bailout of AIG, Grassley suggested that those AIG employees receiving large bonuses should follow the so-called 'Japanese example', resign immediately or commit suicide. After some criticism, he dismissed the comments as rhetoric.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In May 2009, Grassley cosponsored a resolution to amend the US Constitution to prohibit flag burning.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: When President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party proposed a health reform bill featuring mandated health insurance, Grassley opposed the health insurance mandate, saying that it was a deal breaker. In response to an audience question at an August 12, 2009, meeting in Iowa, about the end-of-life counseling provisions in the House health care bill, , Grassley said people were right to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma." Grassley had previously supported covering end-of-life counseling, having voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, which stated: "The covered services are: evaluating the beneficiary's need for pain and symptom management, including the individual's need for hospice care; counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning." In December 2009, he voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly called Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act). It was later reported that Grassley had notified Obama that he would vote against the Affordable Care Act even had the bill been modified to include all of the proposed modifications Grassley had proposed.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In January 2010, Grassley was one of seven Senate Republicans to sign a letter warning the White House about their serious reservations with Director of the Transportation Security Administration nominee Erroll Southers due to conflicting accounts Southers gave the Senate about his previous tapping of databases for information about his ex-wife's boyfriend in the late 1980s.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In December 2010, Grassley was one of 26 senators who voted against the ratification of New START, a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russian Federation obliging both countries to have no more than 1,550 strategic warheads as well as 700 launchers deployed during the next seven years along with providing a continuation of on-site inspections that halted when START I expired the previous year. It was the first arms treaty with Russia in eight years.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In April 2013, Grassley opposed a gun control amendment authored by Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, and instead proposed alternative legislation to increase prosecutions of gun violence and increase reporting of mental health data in background checks.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: On March 9, 2015, Grassley was one of 47 senators to sign a letter to Iran led by Tom Cotton to rebuke the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In June 2015, Grassley introduced legislation to help protect taxpayers from alleged abuses by the Internal Revenue Service. The legislation was proposed in response to recent events involving alleged inappropriate conduct by employees at the IRS but was opposed by Democrats.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Since first taking office in 1981, Grassley has held public meetings in all of Iowa's 99 counties each year, even after losing honorarium payments for them in 1994. This has led to the coinage of the term "full Grassley," to describe when a United States presidential candidate visits all 99 counties of Iowa before the Iowa caucuses.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In 2018, Grassley suggested that no women were serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee because of the heavy workload. The following week, Grassley added that he would "welcome more women" to serve on the Committee "because women as a whole are smarter than most male senators. And they work real hard, too."


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In July 2018, after President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Grassley lauded Kavanaugh as "one of the most qualified Supreme Court nominees to come before the Senate", and said that critics of Kavanaugh should lessen their confidence in how he would vote given past surprises in voting by members of the Court.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In 2016, Senate Republicans refused to consider Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. At the time, Grassley said that the "American people shouldn't be denied a voice" in the nomination, which was "too important to get bogged down in politics". In 2020, after a Supreme Court vacancy arose due to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, Grassley supported a prompt vote on Trump's nominee, backing the decision of "the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate Majority Leader".


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley was participating in the certification of the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. He was removed from the Senate chamber and taken to a secure location when rioters entered the building. In the wake of the attack, Grassley said that Trump "displayed poor leadership in his words and actions, and he must take responsibility." He said efforts to impeach Trump would risk "further disunity" and that "the country must take steps to tone down political rhetoric and mend divisions." In response, "The Gazette" editorial board wrote that Grassley and other Iowa Republicans "must reckon with why they did the wrong thing for so long." He has said he will run for reelection in the 2022 United States Senate election in Iowa, but polling indicates that a majority of Iowans do not want him to.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: As of November 2015, Grassley had cast 12,000 votes, and as of July 2012, he had missed only 35 votes in his Senate career. In January 2016, he set a record for the most time without a missed roll-call vote, having not missed one since July 1993, when he was touring Iowa with President Bill Clinton to survey flood damage. In November 2020, this streak came to an end after over 27 years and 8,927 votes when he quarantined after being exposed to COVID-19. Grassley broke Senator William Proxmire's record for most time without a missed vote, but Proxmire holds the record for most consecutive roll-call votes, with 10,252.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley has said that he considers himself pro-life and has expressed concern about the potential for abortions to be paid for with federal funds. In December 1981, he voted for a proposed constitutional amendment by Orrin Hatch that would allow both Congress and the states to ban or regulate abortion. In 2019, he co-sponsored reintroducing the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Grassley approved of the 2022 overturning of "Roe v. Wade", saying it empowered people through their elected representatives to make "commonsense policy decisions."


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In April 2019, Grassley was one of seven senators to sign a letter led by Debbie Stabenow and Joni Ernst to United States secretary of agriculture Sonny Perdue urging the Agriculture Department to implement conservation measures in the 2018 Farm Bill "through a department-wide National Water Quality Initiative, which would build off the existing initiative housed at the Natural Resource Conservation Service."


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In October 2021, Grassley and Senator Amy Klobuchar introduced the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S.2992) . The legislation aims to prevent Big Tech companies from engaging in anti-competitive behavior by "self-preferencing" their products. Grassley voted to confirm Jonathan Kanter as Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice Antitrust Division.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley has expressed concern about the impact of regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency on farming. He stated that it has a "public relations problem" with "the ethanol industry, corn farmers and [himself]". He also stated that the EPA has "screwed" farmers with 31 biofuel exemptions. On December 19, 2019, after the EPA withdrew a new Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) rule, Grassley criticized the EPA for "playing games and not helping President Trump with farmers".


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In 2005, Grassley authored the tax title of EPACT 2005 when he was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. On June 28, 2005, he voted for the bill. On June 19, 2007, Grassley helped expand tax incentives that produces energy from alternative sources including ethanol, wind, biomass, and biodiesel. On June 21, 2007, Grassley voted for the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which expanded other energy tax incentives through 2013.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In September 2015, Grassley received the Dr. Harold D. Prior "Friend of Iowa Wind Energy" award from the Iowa Wind Energy Association for his commitment to supporting wind energy development in Iowa.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In 2017, the Environmental Working Group stated that Grassley received $367,763 in grain commodity subsidies over 21 years.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In 2017, regarding the Paris Agreement, Grassley stated that "unequal terms put the U.S. economy at a significant disadvantage while letting large economies like China’s and India’s off the hook." Grassley also stated that he didn't like that the agreement was never voted upon by the Senate.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley is in favor of repealing the estate tax, which is a tax on inherited assets above $5.5 million for individuals and $11 million for couples. He has argued that the estate tax is potentially ruinous for farmers and small business owners. According to the "Des Moines Register", Grassley's argument does not "match the reality found in federal tax data – particularly for Iowa. The estate tax applies to around 5,000 taxpayers across the entire country each year, and very few of them come from Iowa. Of the Iowans subject to the tax, only a fraction are actually farmers, and a vanishingly small number of them face a tax bill requiring them to sell off farmland or other assets... The number of small businesses impacted by the estate tax is similarly small."


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In 2010, Grassley had an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA). According to a source from Splinter News, Grassley received $9,900 from the NRA during his 2016 election.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley is a staunch believer that gun laws will not prevent gun deaths or gun-related violence without improved mental health care. Grassley opposed the Manchin-Toomey gun control amendment, and instead proposed alternative legislation to increase prosecutions of gun violence and increase reporting of mental health data in background checks.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In 2016, one month after the Orlando nightclub shooting, Grassley proposed legislation to expand state-to-state access to background check data and to make it illegal for government officials to sell criminals guns as part of sting operations. Both proposals were rejected by the Senate. Additionally, he voted against the Democrats' Feinstein Amendment, which would make it illegal to sell guns to individuals on the terror watchlist and a Republican-sponsored bill that expanded funding for background checks.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In early 2017, Grassley sponsored legislation that expanded access to mentally disabled individuals, claiming that the previous ban against mentally ill individuals purchasing guns "mistreats disabled Americans." In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Grassley stated that it was unlikely that gun laws would change in the wake of the shooting due to Congress being Republican-dominated. A day after the Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, Grassley said the government had not done enough to prevent individuals with a mental illness from obtaining firearms.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley opposes the Affordable Care Act and has voted to repeal it. Before its passage, he had supported the individual mandate in health care reform. Grassley engaged in lengthy negotiations with the Obama administration, as it sought health care reform with support from Republican members of Congress. These negotiations produced nothing that Grassley would support, leading Democrats to characterize Grassley's efforts as intended to delay or scupper health care reform rather than produce compromise legislation. In Obama's memoir, he describes an exchange between him and Grassley in the Oval Office as he sought to reach a compromise with Grassley. Obama asked, "If Max [Baucus] took every one of your latest suggestions, could you support the bill?... Are there "any" changes—any at all—that would get us your vote?", to which Grassley responded, "I guess not, Mr. President."


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In July 2017, Grassley stated that Senate Republicans should be ashamed of not having repealed the ACA, and said this could result in a loss of their majority in the 2018 elections.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In August 2018, Grassley was one of ten Republican senators to cosponsor legislation intended to protect ACA provisions for people with preexisting conditions. Health experts said the bill did not prevent insurers from excluding coverage for people with preexisting conditions.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In 2015, Grassley voiced his opposition to a bipartisan senate bill, the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States Act, that would move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule II. This bill would allow states with medical cannabis laws to legally prescribe it and allow for more research into its medical efficacy. In 2019, along with Democratic U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Brian Schatz, Grassley introduced the Cannabidiol and Marijuana Research Expansion Act, which would expand research into medical marijuana.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley has voiced objections to the Special Immigrant Visa program, which resettles translators and their family members who face risks to their lives due to their work with the U.S. Military.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In April 2017, Grassley co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (s. 720), which would make it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank if protesting actions by the Israeli government. In 2019, Grassley was one of 14 Republican senators to sign a letter from Marco Rubio that involved condemning the BDS movement.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In 2019, Grassley was one of the lead Senate co-sponsors of the SECURE Act of 2019. This bill, which became law as part of the fiscal year 2020 federal appropriations law signed in late December 2019, was intended to incentivize retirement planning, diversify the options available to savers, and increase access to tax-advantaged savings programs including 529 plans.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In February 2017, Grassley said that while Russian interference in U.S. elections was "bothersome", the United States did not have clean hands and had, for instance, interfered with the 1948 Italian election. In May 2017 after Trump fired FBI director James Comey, Grassley advised people suspicious of the Trump administration to "Suck it up and move on."


title: Chuck Grassley

text: On October 31, 2017, while a group of Republicans were facing questions from reporters concerning recent indictments, Grassley ignored the questions and left the room.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In January 2018, and in the first known congressional criminal referral in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Grassley, along with Lindsey Graham, recommended charges against Christopher Steele, one of the people who sought to expose Russian interference. Grassley and Graham said that they had reason to believe that Steele had lied to federal authorities. According to "The New York Times", "It was not clear why, if a crime is apparent in the F.B.I. reports that were reviewed by the Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department had not moved to charge Mr. Steele already. The circumstances under which Mr. Steele is alleged to have lied were unclear, as much of the referral was classified."


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In January 2018, when Grassley and Judiciary Committee Republicans were refusing to release the full transcript of an August 2017 ten-hour interview that the Judiciary Committee had conducted with Glenn Simpson, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the full transcript unilaterally. Simpson is the co-founder of the political opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which produced the so-called Steele Dossier on alleged connections between Trump and Russia. Grassley condemned Feinstein, saying that her decision was "confounding" and that it deterred future witnesses in the Russia 2016 investigation. Simpson himself had requested that the full transcript of his interview be released, saying that Republicans had selectively leaked portions of the testimony to conservative media outlets in order to portray Simpson in a negative light and discredit the Steele dossier.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In January 2018, Grassley was one of 36 Republican senators to sign a letter to President Trump requesting he preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement by modernizing it for the economy of the 21st century.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: The author of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, Grassley has campaigned to increase protection and provide support for "whistleblowers". He has supported a number of FBI whistleblowers, including Coleen Rowley, Sibel Edmonds, and Jane Turner, although not supporting Department of Defense whistleblower Noel Koch.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley received a lifetime achievement award on May 17, 2007 from the National Whistleblower Center.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: In April 2014, Grassley announced plans to create a caucus in the Senate dedicated to strengthening whistleblower protections.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: Grassley defended the whistleblower in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, breaking with his party line, when he declared on October 1, 2019 that the whistleblower "appears to have followed the whistleblower protection laws and ought to be heard out and protected."


title: Chuck Grassley

text: After whistleblowers Colonel Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified against Donald Trump and were subsequently fired, Grassley defended Trump's firing of both whistleblowers on the grounds that their firing was not retaliatory.


title: Chuck Grassley

text: On May 28, 2021, Grassley voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the January 6 United States Capitol attack. Later that year, Grassley campaigned with Donald Trump.