Russia Late Soviet Era During the
Soviet era, religious freedoms of Muslims were suppressed by the Soviet state through various
anti-religious campaigns, which were part of its
Marxist-Leninist social programme.
State atheist propaganda stirred up
Islamophobic hysteria to
persecute Muslims by regularly alleging the existence of
pan-Islamist plots to overthrow the
communist order through underground activities. The terms "
Sufism" and "fanatic" were deployed as the boogeyman in
Soviet propaganda while implementing the Soviet
anti-Islam campaigns, particularly during the
era of stagnation. Anti-"Wahhabi" discourse of
KGB had appeared as early as 1970s, in co-ordination with the Soviet approved clerics of
SADUM, repressing many indigenous Sufi reformers and political dissidents.
Saudi-Soviet relations were poor, and the
Kremlin had regarded Saudi government as "
reactionary". However, during the
perestroika period, a significant shift emerged in the propaganda depictions. Replacing "Sufi" & "fanatic",
KGB began directly borrowing the
British colonial-era discourse on "Wahhabism" and Western terminology on "
fundamentalism" respectively; to stereotype an alleged phenomenon labelled in state propaganda as "Islamic menace".
Anti-Islam stereotypes of the cultures of
Muslim countries were regularly featured in
Soviet media throughout the 1980s, which discouraged Muslims living within Soviet Union from having religious contacts with the Muslim World.
Post Soviet Era By 1990s, in
post-Soviet Russian media, the label had become the most common term to refer to the erstwhile Soviet notions of so-called "Islamic Menace"; while "Sufism" was portrayed by the new government as a "moderate" force that countered the alleged "radicalism" of Muslim dissidents. Despite the improvement of
Russia–Saudi Arabia relations, conspiratorial rhetoric linking
pan-Islamists in Central Asia and Caucasus with Saudi Arabia continued to persist. Former
CPSU elites as well as
Russian ultra-nationalists regularly used the label to stir up anti-Muslim hysteria against the revival of Islamic religiosity in
Central Asia,
Caucasus and various regions of Russian Federation. Russian government also deployed the epithet to attack political opponents and independence movements in Muslim-majority regions of
Chechnya,
Dagestan,
Tatarstan, etc. The
BBC News reported in 2001: "The term "Wahhabi" is often used very freely. The
Russian media, for example, use it as a term of abuse for Muslim activists in
Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as in Russia itself.." In contemporary
Russia, the term "Wahhabism" is often used to denote any manifestation of what the government depicts as "non-traditional" forms of Islam. Some Russian policymakers characterise "Wahhabism" as a "sectarian heresy" that is alien to
Islam in Russia. Other Russian intellectuals adopted an approach of differentiating between the
Wahhabi movement of
Saudi Arabia, which was characterised as "traditional", while its manifestation in foreign countries began to be termed "non-traditional". The latter approach came to be prescribed in the official Russian religious policy. In various provinces, "Wahhabism" would be banned by law. Revealing the government policy, Russian president
Vladimir Putin stated in 2008: "Wahhabism in its original form is a normal tendency within Islam and there is nothing terrible in it. But there are extremist tendencies within Wahhabism itself". Scholars have compared government fabrications of conspiracies to the
anti-semitic tropes propagated during the era of
Imperial Russia. Various Russian academics have challenged the usage of the term as a "catch-all phrase" to characterize trends that depart from "normative Islam" and warn of the disfiguring inferences of such an approach. These include Professor
Vitaly Naumkin, Director of Islamic Studies Centre at the
Russian Academy of Sciences, and author Aleksei Malashenko, who assert that: • Wahhabi movement of
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was only one of the various
Salafi movements and has different strands within itself • Using the term "Wahhabism" suggests a monopolistic mentality that distinguishes between "true Islam" and a wrong version, eroding the ability to envision "religious pluralism". This may also result in radicalisation of
neo-traditionalist establishment which becomes hostile to
Salafis,
reformists and various Muslim groups they deem heterodox • The term is often used in an abusive manner and has become increasingly used as a politically correct label to censure any political rivals. Oftentimes, many
apolitical Muslims are the first victims of anti-Wahhabi campaigns
Central Asia Across
Central Asia, authoritarian governments conceptualise "Wahhabism" to label various
Islamic revivalist, social and political opposition movements and group them alongside
militant Islamists. The political classes widely deploy the usage of the term "Wahhabism" to suppress any unauthorised religious activity. As a result,
Sufi reformers, modernist intellectuals and various political activists have been targeted under the charge of "Wahhabism". Oftentimes, Iran-inspired
shi'ite activists are also labelled "Wahhabi". The official political discourse borrows tags like "
fundamentalist", "Wahhabi", etc. to denote what the government considers to be the "wrong type of Islam". Numerous arbitrary arrests, detentions,
torture and other repressive measures are meted out to those charged with these labels. In 1998,
loudspeakers in Uzbek Mosques were banned, alleging that it was a "Wahhabi" practice. Russian media assertions have portrayed a spectre of "Wahhabi revolutions" in Central Asia backed by pan-Islamic organizations, supposedly assisted financially by anonymous religious charities from the Gulf, as an existential threat to the stability of
post-Soviet order. Central Asian autocrats have eagerly embraced such narratives, and deploy them to launch crackdowns on revival of Islamic religiosity and arrest various dissidents.
Modernist intellectuals critical of ruling governments have been routinely targeted by state media, charging them with "Wahhabi" sympathies. During the
Tajik civil war, government propaganda and
Russian mass media deployed the canard fervently against the
United Tajik Opposition, a diverse coalition of democrats, Islamists and nationalists, portraying them as a threat to the post-Soviet order. In 1997, former
Kyrgyz PM Felix Kulov accused
Iran of supporting "Wahhabi emissaries" all across Central Asia, although
Khomeinist ideology considered
Wahhabis of
Arabia to be "heretics". Uzbekistan's
post-communist autocrat Karimov was a major proponent of the boogeyman theory, evoking the existence of what he described as a "Wahhabi menace" through state propaganda and in meetings with other foreign officials. Several anti-religious campaigns has been launched by the Uzbek government in the name of combating "Wahhabism"; through which numerous individuals charged with "treason" and "subversion" get arrested and tortured. Describing the repressive nature of these campaigns, a
Human Rights Watch report stated:
Iran The curriculum of seminaries controlled by
Khomeinists in Iran are known for their
sectarian attacks against
Sunni Islam, and clerics of these seminaries often portray Sunnis as "Wahhabis" in their rhetoric. The (companions of the Prophet) and other revered figures in Sunni history like
Abu Hanifa,
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, etc. are regularly slandered as "Wahhabis" in these seminaries.
Saudi Arabia Western usage of the term of "Wahhabism" to describe religious culture of the Saudi Arabian society has been officially rejected by the Saudi government. During a 2008 conversation with
Saudi Arabian King Salman ibn Abd al-Aziz (then governor of
Riyadh Province),
Egyptian-American scientist
Ahmed Zewail discussed the usage of "Wahhabism" by segments of Western media. King Salman replied:"there is no such thing as Wahhabism. They attack us using this term. We are
Sunni Muslims who respect the four schools of thought. We follow Islam's Prophet (
Muhammad, peace be upon him), and not anyone else.... Imam
Muhammad bin Abdel-Wahab was a prominent jurist and a man of knowledge, but he did not introduce anything new. The first Saudi state did not establish a new school of thought... The Islamic thought, which rules in Saudi Arabia, stands against extremism.... We have grown tired of being described as Wahhabis. This is incorrect and unacceptable." In an interview given to American journalist
Jeffrey Goldberg in 2018, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman denied the existence of "Wahhabism" in his country and asserted that the Western usage of the term itself has been a
misnomer. Stating that the terminology itself is indefinable, Mohammed bin Salman said: "When people speak of Wahhabism, they don’t know exactly what they are talking about."
Western usage In the
Western world, before the 2000s, the term "Wahhabism" was mainly used in academic, scholarly circles in the context of
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's
Muwahhidun movement and its historical evolution in the
Arabian Peninsula. During the
post-9/11 era, the term came to be used for a wide range of
Islamist movements in
Western media depictions.
American propaganda constantly depicted Taliban as a "Wahhabi" organization during the
war in Afghanistan, despite Taliban belonging to the
Deobandi tradition, a movement that emerged in
Indian subcontinent during the 19th century and opposing British colonial rule there. Several Western academics have strongly criticized these media depictions and stereotypes, asserting that such inaccurate portrayals have rendered the usage of term indefinable and meaningless. Blanket depictions made by some
Western feminists who conflate misogynist and conservative socio-moral customs across the
Arab world with "Wahhabism" have also been challenged by various scholars; noting that legal writings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab revealed concern for female welfare and safeguarding their rights. Historian M. Reza Pirbhai has stated that since the 1990s, notions of a
"Wahhabi conspiracy
" have resurfaced in sections of the
Western media, which deployed the term as a catch-all phrase to portray an organized and coordinated global network of ideological revolutionaries challenging the West. Pirbhai asserted that such media narratives are part of a propaganda campaign to facilitate the imperialist policies of the U.S. government. The definition of "Wahhabism" itself has been a contested category in Western usage, with various journalists, authors, media outlets, politicians, religious leaders, etc. attaching contradictory meanings to it. Some scholars have asserted that the term itself has lost its "objective reality" in modern Western
linguistics; due to the phenomenon of it being deployed in a wide variety of ways in different contexts and it being understood alternatively by various sections of the society, very often in stark contradiction with each other. The label has also been used as a "catch-all phrase" to censor Muslim intellectuals, activists and political opponents through various repressive measures, such as
forced disappearances and
arbitrary detentions, by characterizing such liquidations as attempts to enforce "stability" and "national unity". == References ==