08 April 2008

Why we can't trust 'em

Ibn Saud was the hereditary champion of the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, an eighteenth-century religious leader whose alliance with the House of Saud in 1745 had been strengthened by frequent intermarriage between the two families. The Wahhabis [as their opponents called them] were severely puritanical reformers who were seen by their adversaries as fanatics.
At the end of 1912 a movement of religious revival had begun… Tribesmen started selling their horses, camels, and other possessions in the market towns in order to settle in cooperative agricultural communities to live a strict Wahhabi religious life. The movement became known as the Ikhwan: the Brethren. Ibn Saud immediately put himself at the head of it, which gave him an army of true Bedouins— the greatest warriors in Arabia.
…the spread of this uncompromising puritanical faith into the neighboring Hejaz… threatened to undermine his [Hussein’s] authority. Hussein was an orthodox Sunni; to him the Wahhabis were doctrinal and political enemies.
from A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin

That's Saud, as in Saudi Arabia.
Rico says we must remember our history, lest history not remember us...

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