1. The Elephant In The Mosque:
The Wahhabi Menace
It was said:Many people who self-identify as
Muslims ask why should traditional Sunni
Muslims exert their time and energy to
warning against those who are
called “Wahhabis” (although nowadays the
Wahhabis don't usually refer to themselves
as “Wahhabis" but “Salafis). The answer is
manifold. Although there are many groups
and ideologies that pose threats to the
Muslims, such as, the cult of corporate
consumerism, Christian missionaries, the
military-industrial complex, the atheists,
materialists and hedonists, adnauseum,
these ideologies as grave of a concern as
they may be in various parts of the world,
none of these groups consider themselves
Muslims. Ignorant and vulnerable Muslims do
not think that the beliefs these people
mentioned advocate are actually from the
religion of the Prophet Muhammad.
Wahhabism, on the other hand, masquerades
itself in the garb of piety and claims to be
the true protector of the Sunnah of the
Prophet. This can even be seen in the
name “Salafi” that the Wahhabis have
adopted for themselves. Because of the
long history of Wahhabi villainy, and their
being exposed by Sunni scholars and
historians, the Wahhabis call
themselves “Salafis” to gain—in the minds of

2. the unsuspecting—legitimacy by claiming to
affiliate themselves with the earliest and
most righteous generations of Muslims in
the Muhammadiyyah nation, that is, the
genuine Salaf, who lived in the first 300
years of the Hijrah.
If one wishes to expose Wahhabism and
demonstrate that Wahhabism is NOT simply
a “sect” of Islam, but that the Wahhabism is
contrary to Islam, then all one needs to do
is examine the ludicrous (dis)beliefs the
Wahhabis have regarding the Creator of the
Universe. First, every Muslim must know and
believe that the Prophet Muhammad only
taught one belief in God. There is only one
true belief in God, and the person who holds
a bad belief about Allah would not be a
Muslim in reality, for he'd be worshiping
something other than God, and that would
be shirk (polytheism). The correct belief in
God—the belief universally shared by all
Muslims is that Allah is One: Allah has no
associates; no one or thing creates except
Allah. Allah is Unique; Allah is Incomparable
and has no similarity—at all—to the
originated beings. Allah is Indivisible, that is,
Allah is not something that could
potentially be subject to division or
composition. Allah is not a body, object, or
spatial entity. Allah has no size and does not
require dimensions to exist. Allah exists
without place, distance, or direction.
Muslims universally believe that Allah is
Eternal. Allah is not subject to time. Allah
has no start, or origin, or age. Allah does
not undergo change, for change entails
development, and development indicates
either perfection or imperfection. Allah,

3. the Holy and Almighty does not “improve”
or degenerate in status. Given that Allah is
Eternal and everything else is a creation, it is
known that Allah is not dependent upon the
creations. Allah was before the creations
were. Allah was before the existence of
space and place. Allah does not change or
transform. After creating space and place,
Allah did not transform and materialize in a
location. In summary, the Muslims universally
believe in One Perfect Eternal Creator, Who
is the Creator of everything and absolutely
does not need or resemble anything.
Whoever does not believe as such, does
not hold the belief in God that the Prophet
Muhammad taught, and consequently would
not be a Muslim.
The Wahhabis, in a nutshell, pray to a giant
unidentified extraterrestrial object with
fingers, two feet, one shin, a pair of out
stretched right hands and a smiling face. This
is not the belief of the Muslims. Now some
may think that what was described is a
caricature of the Wahhabi doctrine, but it is
not. The Wahhabis believe that Allah is
large—and not small. The Wahhabis believe
that Allah is not on the earth, but dwells in
a location above our heads; hence, they
believe that Allah is extraterrestrial (and an
object). The Wahhabis believe that people
will not be able to identify Allah on the
Judgment Day, until Allah allegedly shows
off His supposed shin. The Wahhabis believe
that Allah has fingers, and will place some
of the creations of His alleged fingers come
the Judgment Day. The Wahhabis believe that
Allah has two feet which are allegedly on
the `Arsh now, and one of which will be put
into Hell on the Judgment Day. The Wahhabis

4. claim that Allah has a pair of right hands,
and that His alleged hands are
outstretched. And, indeed, the Wahhabis
claim Allah “smiles” and has a “face.” Of
course, many Wahhabis will not openly
profess such an outlandish and repulsive
belief in the way described above, for it
would cause many of even its more
fanatical members to call into question
such an absurd and contradictory doctrine.
Also, the Wahhabis, in order to take the edge
off of their anthropomorphism, will claim
things like, “Allah has a literal face, but it's
not like ours.” A “face” is the front part of the
head. A literal head is a body part. Whosoever
believes Allah is a body is not a Believer in
Islam. Also, even if the Wahhabi does not
believe that Allah has a real-actual-
literal “front part of the head,” the Wahhabis
do indeed believe that Allah is some sort of
object that exists in a direction and requires
space in order to exist. This alone is
tantamount to kufr (disbelief), for it entails
ascribing to Allah originated attributes and
the dependency upon space. Allah is
Sublimely clear from all that which the
object worshipers ascribe to Him!
The above is enough to make it clear to
every reasonable Muslim that the belief of
the Wahhabis contradicts the belief of Islam
and the Prophet Muhammad. Nonetheless,
because many Muslims are not well learned
in the matters of Tawheed (the science
pertaining to the Oneness and Perfection of
God), they may fall victim to the religious
rhetoric of the Wahhabis. The Wahhabis do
this by emphasizing Sunnah matters of dress
and practice, and even claim that they are
against all forms of shirk (polytheism)---

5. but they fail to realize that their worship of
a giant imaginary object also entails shirk,
for it certainly doesn't entail worship of the
Creator.
In addition to the erroneous convictions
the Wahhabis have regarding God, the
Wahhabis do not consider the masses of
Muslims to be Muslims. Given the absurd
literalist misunderstanding of Qur'anic
Verses and Hadiths pertaining to matters of
doctrine, it should not be surprising that the
Wahhabis also have an absurd and literalist
methodology pertaining to the matters of
Islamic jurisprudence. Because the Wahhabis
imagined meanings to Qur'anic Verses that
were not there, the Wahhabis consider the
Muslims at large to be polytheists. This
can be seen from their origins in the region
called “Najd” (this was a region the Prophet,
incidentally, warned us about and said it
would be an area where the “horn of the
devi"l would arise). The Wahhabis follow
Muhammad ibn `Abdul-Wahhab. Muhammad
ibn Abdul-Wahhab deemed it to be a virtuous
deed to kill Muslims and confiscate their
property (because in his mind the Muslims
weren't Muslims in reality). Later, in the early
1800's the Wahhabis occupied much of Al-
Hijaz (Western Arabia), including, Ta'if, Madinah,
and Mecca, where the Wahhabis pillaged,
terrorized and massacred the inhabitants
of that blessed land. This is the historical
reality of Wahhabism. This is the history that
the Wahhabis are ominously silent about.
Given that the Wahhabi sect started off
as a terrorist movement, it should not be
surprising that those who self-identify as
Sunni Muslims and commit acts of terrorism

6. are almost always Wahhabis or heavily
influenced by their ideology. The Muslims
in North Africa and the Middle East and into
Central Asia have suffered tremendously
because of the blood spilled in the name of
this Wahhabi ideology. And for the Muslims in
the West, the negative perception of Muslims
and the increasing levels of persecution are
largely due to the influence of Wahhabism.
That is not to say that Wahhabism is the only
problem the Muslims face in the West, but
when it comes to those involved in terrorist
plots, or even those entrapped in such plots
by the security agencies, Wahhabism is a
significant factor in inspiring those who
may have the ambition to commit atrocities.
If Muslims in the West wish to reduce the
level of bigotry we face, then it would serve
us well to expose those who promote the
Wahhabi ideology in the name of Islam.
The way to combat the radicalization caused
by Wahhabism is to equip the general Muslim
population with some of the standard
Islamic proofs for the Existence, Oneness,
Transcendence, and Perfection of Allah.
These are the proofs from the Qur'an and
Hadith (sayings of the Prophet) that the
Sunni scholars elaborated upon in great
detail to refute those who mistook the
attributes of the creations for the Attributes
of the Creator and consequently ascribed
to God bodily properties. These proofs also
include the sound rational proofs, such as:
Allah is not dependent upon the creations.
Space and direction are creations.
Ergo, Allah is not dependent upon space or
direction.

7. By exposing the ludicrous object-worshiping
Wahhabi doctrine and demonstrating that it
is not the Islamic belief in One absolutely
Incomparable Creator, Muslims would be
better able to identify and isolate the
Wahhabis in their mosques and communities.
Another benefit in exposing the Wahhabis
from a doctrinal point of view is that not
only would one be educating Muslims and
fortifying the Muslims with the Qur'anic,
Prophetic, and rational proofs for the
Islamic belief in God, one would also be
educating non-Muslims about Islam. Instead
of starting the conversation from a position
of apologizing for Islam---or for extremists-
--Muslims could now engage non-Muslims
by explaining to them the profundity of
the Muslim belief in the Creator. Many non-
Muslims simply don't know much more about
Islam other than what they have heard in
the mass media. Never therein is the actual
Muslim belief in God discussed in any detail.
This is the job of Muslims. If the genuine
Islamic belief is made known to more of
the public, there is a very good chance a
considerable number of truth seeking non-
Muslims would embrace Islam. Hence, it is
mandatory for more Muslims to acquire the
knowledge of Islamic theology and educate
non-Muslims about the true belief in the
Creator of the Universe.
It must be asked: why don't more Islamic
organizations simply identify the menace of
extremism---i.e., Wahhabism---by name? Surely
it is not a difficult matter to investigate
the theology of Wahhabism, or Wahhabism's
historical origins and its connection to
fanaticism and terrorism. Sadly, many Muslim

8. centers and their leadership are beholden
to varying degrees to the funding from the
Saudi-Wahhabi regime. Other Islamic centers
simply are not well-versed in detailed
matters of traditional Islamic doctrine
and are not familiar with the doctrines of
Wahhabism. Other Islamic centers respond
to the matter of Wahhabism with the
simple-minded misunderstanding that if
controversial theological matters are
ignored and not discussed, then “Muslim
unity” will be realized---while failing to
recognize that Islamic solidarity is predicated
on having the proper belief in God. The
Wahhabis do not have the proper belief in
God---Wahhabis believe in some form of
object worship. Muslims do not worship an
object.
For Muslims to strive against radicalization
and extremism, we have to be sincere. First
of all, we have to be sincere to Allah. Being
sincere to Allah, means seeing to it that one
learns his (or her) Religion well; that one has
the correct belief in God---that one does
not violate God's Perfection and Oneness
by ascribing to God the characteristics of
created beings. Being sincere also means
that one does not betray the Muslims by
failing to warn them about those beliefs
that nullify one's Islam, such as, the object-
worshiping creed of the Wahhabis. And
finally, sincerity also means not betraying
the larger society by pretending that there
isn't a Wahhabi menace masquerading in
Muslim garb in our mosques.
- this note was originally posted by another
brother.