Wahhabi (epithet)

The term "Wahhabi" has been deployed by external observers as a pejorative epithet to label a wide range of religious, social and political movements across the Muslim World, ever since the 18th century. Initially, the term "Wahhabiyya" was employed by the political opponents of the religious reform movement initiated by Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792 C.E/ 1206 A.H) in the Arabian Peninsula and continued by his successors. The term was derived from his father's name, 'Abd al-Wahhab and widely employed by rivals to denounce his movement. Meanwhile, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and his disciples rejected the terminology and identified themselves as "Muwahhidun".

The term would later be popularised by the British empire to label numerous Islamic religious movements, of varying backgrounds, which they opposed. As early as the 19th century, the British empire had popularised the notion of an imaginary Wahhabi conspiracy which was portrayed as an imminent danger to Imperial security. Throughout these years, the term "Wahhabi" have been used as an Islamophobic as well as a sectarian epithet. Various scholars have described the epithet as part of a "Rhetoric of Fear" to suppress alternate social, political and religious voices by ruling authorities.

Several authoritarian states, particularly in the post-Soviet sphere, have incorporated the "Wahhabi" epithet into their anti-Islam, nativist propaganda discourses; depicting dissidents of Muslim background as subversives and "traitors" to the nation. During the post-9/11 era, the strategy was amplified by various dictators, who launch crackdowns upon public expressions of religiosity by portraying such campaigns as a defense of modern "Enlightenment" ideas. Victims of these campaigns include practising Muslims who pray in mosques, have beards or assist Islamic educational institutions; who are portrayed by the authoritarian regimes as opponents of modernity and dehumanised in state propaganda through anti-Muslim stereotypes. 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".

British India
During the colonial era, various European travellers began using the term "Wahhabi" to denote a wide swathe of Islamic reform and political movements they witnessed across the Muslim World. Hanafi scholar Fazl-e Haq Khairabadi, the fiercest opponent of Shah Ismail Dehlvi (d. 1831 C.E/ 1246 A.H) was the first major figure in South Asia to charge the socio-political Jihad movement of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid (d. 1831 C.E/ 1246 A.H) and Shah Ismail with "Wahhabism". Noting the shared Hejazi teachers of Islamic reformer Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (d. 1762 C.E/ 1176 A.H) - the grandfather of Shah Ismail - with Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab; the colonial administration readily charged Shah Waliullah's followers with "Wahhabism". After Sayyid Ahmad's death, his followers were labelled as "Wahhabis", accusing them of pan-Islamic rebellions and were persecuted in "The Great Wahhabi Trials" by the British. Meanwhile, the disciples of Sayyid Ahmad rejected this term and identified themselves as Ahl-i Hadith (Followers of Hadith), Tariqa-i Muhammadiyya (Path of Muhammad), etc. Prominent figures of the Ahl-i Hadith and Deobandi schools persecuted by the British include Siddiq Hasan Khan (d. 1890 C.E/ 1307 A.H), Muhammad Qasim Nanautvi (d. 1880 C.E/ 1297 A.H) etc.  Decrying the chaotic state of affairs, prominent 19th century Indian modernist scholar Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) stated:"'he who follows the sunnat [the teachings and practices of Muhammad] is called a Wahhabi and he who practices bidat [heretical innovations] is called wali [holy man]'"

Islamic scholar Siddiq Hassan Khan would publicly challenge the rationale behind the British usage of the term "Wahhabi" and would compile several treatises rebuking its usage. Another influential Ahl-i Hadith scholar Muhammad Husayn Batalwi (d. 1920 C.E/ 1338 A.H) launched a popular protest campaign against the British administration during the 1880s to ban the official usage of the word "Wahhabi". In 1887, the Punjab provincial administration acceded to the campaign demands and by 1889, the movement was successful in procuring its demands throughout all the British Indian Provinces. Although the term "Wahhabi" would be censured in official documents, its usage continues in intra-religious discourse to the present day. Very often the Ahl-i Hadith, Deobandi and modernist movements were subjected to Takfir (excommunication) by rival sects; under the charge of "Wahhabism".

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 "Wahhabi" 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 ruler 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 "Wahhabi" 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:

"a government policy of intolerance toward what it perceives as the primary threat to state stability - Muslims whom the government generally refers to as 'Wahhabis' - makes a travesty of the government's assertion that the stability born of repression is necessary.. The human rights abuses committed during a crackdown in the Farghona Valley, an Islamic stronghold, that began intensively in early December 1997 are a natural outgrowth of the government's unchecked repression of what can loosely be referred to as 'independent' Muslims.. Most victims appear to have been practicing Muslims whom the government and local authorities commonly refer to as 'Wahhabis.' Police were able to identify these men because.. they were known in their neighborhood to attend mosques.., or to support an Islamic school, or to wear a beard, often considered a sign of piety.. several local businessmen with no apparent affiliation with Islam were detained under threat of serious criminal charges in order to extort ransom money from their relatives.. the government made it plain that it was looking for 'Wahhabis,' explicitly defining the link between government repression and intolerance toward individuals of a certain religious faith... Human Rights Watch has received numerous reports.. of police and security agents forcing individuals to shave off their beard"

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 Sahaba (companions of the Prophet) and other revered figures in Sunni history like Abu Hanifa, Abd al-Qadir 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 its war in Afghanistan, despite Taliban belonging to the Deobandi tradition, a scholarly movement that emerged in Indian subcontinent during the 19th century and opposed British colonial rule.

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. 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.