The origin of terrorism in Muslim history

“Najd "is the archrival of “Hijaz”, and Arabs of Najd are archrivals of Quraish, the most famous Arab tribe in history. The conflict between Najd and Hijaz, (or between the Arabs of Najd and its tribes that belong to “Rabi’a” with Quraish that belong to the “Muddar” is the historical basis of Arabia after the advent of Islam, through it you can even  read the history of the Muslims. Quraish and Hijaz won  in most stages of this conflict, since Quraish is the one  who established the Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid States, all guided and misguided Caliphs belonged to Quraish, and the “Ashraf” (The blood line of the Prophet Mohammad Pbuh and his clan , The Hashemites) and Quraish are the ones who ruled the Hijaz most of the Middle Ages, while the rebels against the successors of Quraish are Najd tribes, either in the form of bandits looting convoys of pilgrims (Out of hatred to the Hijaz, the Kaaba and the holy places, which firmly laid the status of Quraish and Hijaz) or in the form of mobile domains based on murder and bloodshed within a religious framework, as happened in the ancient movements of  “Zinj” and “Qaramita”, and then in Wahhabi movement and its Saudi state in the modern era.

Saudi Arabia is the country that has achieved the final victory over Hijaz, and the Ashraf belonging to the Prophet Mohammad blood line, and they are highest remaining group of the Quraish Tribe till now.

Now we give some details, to see the root of the violence which Saudi Wahhabism inherited from its homeland of Najd found during its long history with terrorism, and how did Wahhabism legitimized and practiced this violence, and spread it in the world.

The "Najd" area has an extreme climate, scarce in its resources, isolated, its deserts and its inhabitants see nobody but themselves, and they see the strangers as merely victims of robbery and looting while passing through the Najd desert from Iraq to the Hijaz. In the vast arid Najd desert, we find Bedouin Arabs living off highway robbery , it becomes a great opportunity when a religious calling arise among themselves permitting and justifying killing and pillaging others as Jihad. Therefore, we find that the Arabs of Najd justify the blood of peaceful Muslims, along with their money, and relate to religious upheaval in Najd, those revolutions specialized in destruction and bloodshed. Other than revolutions and bloody upheaval projects, the history of normal Najd was nothing but internal raids among themselves or regular annual raids against convoys of pilgrims, mere "secular" raids without religious slogans. But those raids usualyl necessitated moving convoys of pilgrims under the protection of a complete army, to protect the pilgrims from the raids of the Najd Arabs.

Ibn Khaldun was affected by their gory history so he stated in his famous(The introduction) that the Arabs are the fastest people to ruin anything, and they need a religious calling through which they can help themselves to the blood, money and honor of others, and to confer legitimacy on rebellions and assaults. (The Introduction-- Ibn Khaldun: 125: 127).

Here we will give quick reading intervals where we briefly read the Islamic History from a geographic or a Najd perspective:

1. In "Najd" extremism began early, when it was the main center of the apostasy movement, In those plains of Hanifa, Musaylimah the liar appeared and allied with Sajah of Tamimah, but let us remember that in the same Hanifa Plains, Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, later the father of Wahhabism was born and lived. The Glorious Quran has described most of the Arabs that they are the most disbelieving and hypocrite (Al-Tawbah 9: 97).The Arabs have submitted to Muslims force and made peace with them, although Islam did not enter their hearts yet (Al-Hujurat 49: 14.) When  Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him died and Abu-Bakr took over, they rebelled against the state in a huge military movement with Najd as its center and they attacked Al- Medina, it is not true that Abu-Bakr fought against the apostates, the truth is that it was the apostates who started the fight against Abu-Bakr and Muslims. After the suppression of apostasy movement with great difficulty Abu-Bakr saw that it was best to get rid of Najd Bedouins by exporting their military power abroad towards northern Najd, so the movement of the Arab conquests started to the north first in Iraq, then Syria and Iran. And the armies of the conquests were formed of the majority of Arabs (previously apostates) under the leadership of the Quraish Umayyad (Previously opponents) because the Umayyad saw that their own political and social benefit makes it imperative for them to enter into the new religion, and hastened to be in the front rows in the conquests with their war experience, roads knowledge and their close links to other Arab tribes in the Levant and on the trade routes. The conquests ended by finding the Umayyad ruling Syria, Iraq, Egypt and North Africa in the name of Islam. During the succession of Osman, they took control of him and through him they took revenge against their former enemies in Islam, such as Ammar and Ibn-Mas’ood, and it was easy to bypass all this ordinarily except that the Umayyad in the succession of Osman clashed with the Najd Bedouins and the great strife came to existence, the strife which we are still walking through its dark tunnel till now.

1. The case of "Sawad" was the beginning of great strife. Sawad is the agricultural land located between Najd and Iraq, the Najd Arabs were looking forward to owning Sawad because it is closest to their home, where they used to attack it before Islam and dream of owning it, but the Umayyad did not allow them to do so and considered the "Sawad" to be the " Quraish orchard" revolution was inflamed, and the Najd rebels killed Osman after surrounding him, and appointed "Ali" as the Caliph. The civil war erupted and  the Najd Arabs were the backbone of Ali’s army, but it was not long before they turned on Ali and killed him, they were known as Al-Khawarej, which means the outlaws.

With this the Najd Arabs were transformed from Muslims in the time of the Prophet (In spite of Quraish) to apostates  (after Quraish embraced it), and then Muslims for the second time (after  Quraish conqured them), then to be conquerors in the eras of Abu-Bakr and Omar (under the command of Quraish), and then to be the rebels against Osman (Because he took the side of the Umayyad of Quraish and favored them with wealth and power over the rest of the Muslims), then to become the outlaws against Ali Ibn Abi-Talib. All this volatility occurred between the death of the Prophet (11 H, 632 G) until the death of Ali at their hands (40 H, 661 G) which is less than thirty years. And their movement was stained with violence related interpretations of religion, this is obvious,for their enthusiastic acceptance of Islam in the era of the Prophet, then exit from Islam in the movement of apostasy under the leadership of prophecy claimants, then their indulgence in conquests as a jihad from which they gained victory and martyrdom and the spoils in this life and the afterlife, and then when they revolted against Osman they unfurled the banner of justice, and when the Umayyad deceptively raised Quran on spearheads in the battle of Siffeen, they forced Ali to accept  arbitration of the Book of Allah, and then when arbitration appeared to be a trick they turned on Ali because he agreed to arbitration, accusing him of blasphemy and then killed him.

After that the Najd Arabs were divided under the name of Al-Khawarej and took hoist the banner of governance "No rule except God’s" and killed peaceful Muslims in Iraq and Iran, since Al-Khawarej allowed the killing of Muslims, says Al-Melti (377 H) about their first group : “ they would go out with their swords in the marketplace where unsuspecting people meet then they would shout "There is no rule except God’s," and start kilingl people indiscriminately (Al-Melti: Alert and Response: 47 Zahid Al Kauthery verification).

This is similar to what the extremists are doing to destroy cafés and streets, to kill people haphazardly with the argument of "governance" meaning "No rule except God’s". The same saying of governance used by the first Khawarej.

They exhausted the Umayyad State with their attacks and that helped the rapid Umayyad fall  at the hands of the Abbasids, and Al-Khawarej’s voice became faint after them but only after they practically laid down the principle of governance. It is true that their limited culture did not allow them to establish and theorize I,t but they practically and bloodily applied it to non-combatants Muslim in markets and residential areas after issuing a Najdi decision to make lawful the blood of all those who oppose them in doctrine and dogma. Allowing and making lawful, is the original Najdi principle in dealing with others, they allow themselves the blood, wealth and honor while charging, in their regular - secular - raids without the need for a fatwa or religious justification, but when a religious calling rises within them, they justify the same Allowance with its different aspects with Fatwas and Hadiths such as "My provision was made under the shadow of my spear ".

1. The Arabs of Najd returned once again to revolution during the Abbasid period after they were tired of routinely raiding the pilgrims, and found the religious cover in the invitation of adventurer Ali bin Mohammed and followed him, with the majority of the Negro slaves in what is known as Zinj (negro) revolution, which devastated southern Iraq over fifteen years (255-270 H) until it was extinguished with great difficulty. During the Zinj movement, the rebels killed thirty thousand people when they seized the city of Al-Ablah in Iraq in 256 AH. In the following year the leader of Zinj entered Basra after he gave the promise of safety to its people, but he reneged on his promise, killed its people and enslaved its women and children, and burned the mosque down. Among those enslaved were woman of Al-Ashraf whom he distributed among his Zinj foot soldiers. They were sold in is his camp for two and three Dirham’s per woman. When one of them asked the Zinj leader for refuge from her Zinj owner’s harshness he said to her: "He is your Lord and the first for you over others." (Hisory of Al-Tabari: 9, 472, 481, and Al-Msooudy: Gold Promoter 4: 146).

And soon after we find that the Najd Arabs inflamed a new huge revolution under the name of Qaramita and with an invitation where Shiism was mixed with other ideologies. Their raids stretched into Iraq, Syria and the Egyptian borders, and the Kaaba was not spared from their destruction. They have preceded the Mongols in the scorched earth policy, or the extermination of all neighborhoods in cities that they seized. Al-Tabari the historian witnessed a side of their atrocities and recorded it in the tenth and final part of his history between 286 and 302 H. Their atrocities continued after Al-Tabari for almost two centuries until they were beaten by the Arabs of Muntafiq. The Qaramita were more brutal in their bloodshed and symptoms, and from a stand of an eye witness Al- Tabari included some news of their leader, including that he assigned a boy of his, only to kill Muslim captives, and that he eradicated all of the people of Humah and Ma’arrat Nooman, killing women and children in both cities, then marched to Baalbek and killed its people, and marched to Salmeyah promising them safety and security, and  when they opened its doors, he started by killing people of  Bani-Hashim and then killed the rest of its population including little boys in Quranic schools, and then went out of the city without a blinking eye left in it, and wreaked havoc and bloodshed in the surrounding villages. As for what he did in the Kaaba and the killing of pilgrims and dumping the bodies in the well of Zamzam, and the uprooting of black stone, there are a lot of elaborated news. This brutal killing of innocent people was based on the intellectual approach referred to by Al-Nowiri  when he spoke of Intellectual Education of young Qaramitah, as referred to by Al-Tabari in the realistic story for a young man who was convinced by Qaramitah religion and he abandoned his mother and his family convinced of the new religion believing in lawfully shedding the blood of others. (News of Qaramitah in History of Al-Tabari: 10, 71, 77, 86, 94, 99, 107, 115, 116, 121, 128, 130, 135 & 148. And in “The End of Arb” by Al-Nowiri: 25, 195-227 and after).

4 - After Qaramita, the Najd Arabs returned to their custom of highway banditry  on pilgrims and fighting among themselves, this kept on happening until that Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab appeared from them with his religious calling and his alliance with Ibn Saud. The most important article  in their alliance was their oath of (blood, blood, demolition demolition),  Ibn Abdul-Wahhab gave Ibn Saud the legislation of “lawful Allowance” after accusing all of the other Muslims of being infidels and made that accusation a religious justification for the invasion and expansion, and thus the first Saudi state was established. Looting and bloodshed spread in the Arabian Peninsula and around the Gulf and in Iraq and the Levant, which forced the Ottoman Empire to seek the help of its Vice-Sergeant in Egypt, "Mohammed Ali Pasha " who finished off the Saudi state and destroyed its capital" Dar’eyah " in the year 1818.

In essence, the massacres by Al-Khawarej, Zinj and Qaramita - do not differ from those massacres carried out by Wahhabi and Saudis of Najd to establish their first Saudi state, and the third current Saudi State. Their massacres have reached Iraq, Syria and the Sacred House and other cities of Hijaz, most of their victims were women, children and the elderly.

The school of thought, which was used by Qaramita to brainwash their youth doesn’t differ from the intellectual thought which was prepared by Wahhabi Scholars for young Arabs of Najd in the second decade of the twentieth century, which turns young Bedouin into a stubborn combatant when he sees Jihad in the Allowance of killing anyone who is not Wahhabi, and through this cultural setting the "Brothers" emerged, they were the tough soldiers of Abdul Aziz Al Saud who founded the current Saudi state. Their reputation of murder and destruction terrorized villages of Syria and Iraq. Their intellectual preparation is no different from the cultural setting carried out by the Brothers groups and the rest of the overt and covert organizations in our contemporary history. This transforms the pacifist young Egyptian into a terrorist who easily allows himself to bomb streets and buildings believing that it is jihad in the name of God. It is also not so different from the tremendous brutality by which extremists in Algeria dealt with members of the peaceful people of women and children, and the Taliban movement is not so far off, they were soaked with the Salafi Wahhabi ideology.

First Wahhabi Saudi state (1745 to 1818)

Here we give some quick historical details:

• The first Saudi state was based on the alliance between Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abdul-Wahhab and Prince Muhammad bin Saud of Dar’eya, a forgotten city in the desert of Najd. This alliance took place in 1158 H (1745), and with it Ibn Abdul-Wahhab gave Bin Saud a legitimate justification to invade other countries and regions and occupy and kill their peoples after accusing them of blasphemy and coercing them into accepting Wahhabism as Islam, claiming that this is the Jihad, who was carried out by Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him.
• With this alliance the first Saudi state came to life from 1745 to 1818, and killed hundreds of thousands of peaceful population of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Syria. Saudis began by occupying all of Najd then they took over Al-Ahsaa and expanded their raids to reach Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, then they took over Hijaz, and fought Yemen. They looked forward to the occupation of Iraq and the Levant, and their expansion linked to massacres and destruction led to the compulsion of the Ottoman Empire to use their strong War- Lord in Egypt, its governor (Muhammad Ali Pasha), who sent two campaigns to Hijaz to restore it from the Saudi Wahhabi in 1811 and the war between him and them continued until the Saudi capital of Dar’eyah was destroyed in 1818.
• The blood of peaceful Muslims shed into rivers by those Saudi Wahhabi raids committed by the First Saudi State, we will suffice with what (Othman Ibn Bishr Al-Nagdy), the historian of the first Saudi state in his book (The Glory Address in the History of Najd) regarding the events of the massacre of Karbala in the year 1216 H: “And therein Saud walked (Meaning Saud bin Abdul-Aziz Bin Mohammed Bin Saud) with his victorious armies and the old famous horses from all the cities and deserts of Najd towards the land of Karbala in the month of Zulqi’dah. He surrounded the city by Muslims who climbed its walls and forced themselves inside it. They killed most of its people in marketplaces and houses and destroyed the dome which was thought to be on the tomb of Hussein. They took what was in the dome and around it and took the tombstone which was paved with emeralds, rubies and gemstones and took all what they found in the country of the types of funds, weapons, clothing, furniture, gold, silver and precious Qurans, and other things which cannot be counted).  The brutality of the Saudi Wahhabi in the massacre of Karbala lead to panic of the people of Iraq and the death of ruler of Iraq Suleiman Pasha due to anguish in the same year (1216 H 1801). The Shah of Iran’s threat to invade Iraq to protect Shiite holy sites in it did not prevent the continuation of the Saudi Wahhabi raids into Iraq which was transformed by their hands to chaos and destruction. And Othman Ibn Bishr Al-Nagdy proudly responded to criticism of Muslims for what the Wahhabi have done to the people of Karbala by saying: (And your saying that we took Karbala and slaughtered and took its people? then praise be to Allah Lord of the two worlds. We do not apologize for that and say: “And to the Unbelievers the same ". He says in another place: “And we stayed in it for ten days and slaughtered and destroyed what have reached you of knowledge ”. Reasoning here is clear; he considered the Wahhabis to be the only Muslims, and so he always described them alone with this description (Muslims) while making others including Shiites as infidels Allowing to kill them all and plunder their wealth in accordance with the decision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul-Wahhab in his letters.

The same historian describes another battle where the victims were the Bedouins of the Sons of Khalid when the same Prince Saud led a surprise attack on them while they were watering their animals from a water spring at Al-Gahra area in the year 1207 H. Ibn Bishr says in the same book: “The Muslims jumped on them while riding or walking and they couldn’t hold on for one hour. So the Sons of Khalid were defeated. The Muslims followed their trail killing and looting and they eradicated those groups ”.

Second Saudi State (1821-1889)

The Islamic world was relieved by military elimination of the Saudi state. But confronting the state ideology is not done by merely eliminating it militarily since it must be addressed intellectually from within the religion itself, and this is what was not done by Mohamed Ali Pasha or the Ottoman Empire. This was not done either   by Abdul-Nasser in his battle with the Muslim Brothehood who are the Egyptian edition of the Bedouin Najd Wahhabi.

This lack of intellectual confrontation of Wahhabism lead to  its increased spread. During the absence of the Saudi state Wahhabism gained more power, especially that the Wahhabi had a strong argument against Sufis and Shiites in their sanctity -given to shrines and divinity given to the dead. The first Saudi state lived for nearly a century (1745-1818), so it was not expected that the Wahhabi calling would end after the fall of its first Saudi state and the destruction of its capital Der’eya, and the killing of its ruler in Asitana.  The momentum of this calling managed to give the people of Najd recognition by others, they considered other Muslims to be infidels who worshiped shrines and idols, so it was easy for the Wahhabi calling to establish the second Saudi state quickly, but the feud among Saudi princes made this second state limited in its impact and at the end it fell.

The establishment of the third current Saudi state (1902, 1925) by efforts of Najdi Brothers:

In a nutshell: The young man Abdul-Aziz bin Abdul-Rahman bin Faisal Al Saud (known historically as Ibn -son of- Saud) managed to establish the third Saudi State which still exists till now spreading its Wahhabi doctrine all over the world as Islam, and with it spreads terrorism in the name of Islam. Abdul-Aziz faced huge difficulties in retrieving the kinghood of his fathers, after he seized Riyadh in 1902, the worked on resettlement of young Bedouins in colonies or nomads, most important of them were Al- Artawiyah and Al-Ghutghut  where Wahhabi  teachers teaching Wahhabism as Islam, and it was easy for them to convince Najd Bedouin of Wahhabism, not only because its roots were concentrated in the Najdi desert and others, but because Wahhabism give those Bedouin warriors an opportunity to continue their normal lives based on looting, murder and highway robbery by making murder, looting, bounty gathering as jihad,  then promising them Heaven if killed .

With the Brothers, Abdul-Aziz was able to annex Al-Ah-saa, and open Haa’el and Shammar and defeat  Al-Rasheed clan, the seizure of Asir, the seizure of Hijaz, with the continuation of the attack on Kuwait, Iraq, and Transjordan.

But the Najdi Brothers opposition to Abdul-Aziz  started early, dispute raged between them about conquering Haa’el in the year 1915, and then on unemployment and employment so the conference of scholars was held in 1919, Al-Artawyah conference in 1924 to liquidate differences, but they broke out again while invading the Hijaz, because of massacres committed by the Brothers in Taif.

After annexation of Hijaz, Abdul-Aziz returned the Brothers to Najd. Hijaz people were terrified of them. Abdul-Aziz entered in final attempts to heal the rift between him and them and several conferences were held: Al-Artawyah Conference: in December 1926, and the Riyadh conference: January 1927, then the General Assembly or the General Conference in Riyadh 05/11/1928.

After the failure of those conferences military confrontation became a must between Abdul-Aziz and his Najdi Brothers in the battle of Siblah, and that was the beginning of the end of the Najdi Brothers  between 1928 and 1929.

The role of the Najdi Brothers in strengthening the State of Ibn Saud ended early without them knowing that their shrewd leader had planned their early retirement early after they opened Hijaz with their swords in the year 1925, as he thought of forming new Brothers in Egypt who are the Muslim Brothers, to spread the Wahhabi ideology and to be more subtle than the Najdi Bedouin Brothers famous for their harshness, crudity and candor.

The roots of terrorism ideology of the Najdi Brothers

Here we’ll have a detailed stop with the roots of terrorism ideology of the Najdi Brothers in accordance with what they have learned at the hands of the Wahhabi sheikhs. These foundations can be summarized in the following elements: hatred of the other, Takfeering him (Considering him an infidel or Kafer), and legitimizing the shedding  of his blood and plundering his wealth.

1. Hatred of the other:

Qur'an speaks about hatred of the infidel aggressors who forced Muslims out of their homes ,plundered their wealth,  hurt and fought them because they chose a religion different from their forefathers’ (Al-Baqarah 2: 217) (Al-Tawbah 9: 8, 15,23-24) (Al-Anfal 8: 30, 38-40) (Al-Mujadalah 58:  20-22) (Al-Momtahinah:  8-9) In other words, the measure of hatred is aggression and injustice, which means that the Associator(The one who associates others with God) who does not transgress or oppress others, there is no reason for hating or abusing him and therefore, fighting is in  response to comparable assault and not to attack the peaceful (Al-Baqarah 2: 190-194) and on this basis that is how the real life of the Prophet was lived in the Holy Quran if we read it objectively and according to its terminology.

But the biography which was scripted in the Abbasid age reflects their perception of the Prophet from the reality of the religious state ideology. This perception was connected by development and frequency to Ibn Abdul-Wahhab via fanatic Sunni Jurisprudence established by Ibn Hanbal in the third Hijri century, then Ibn Taymiyyah in the eighth century H. Ibn Abdul-Wahhab inherited this hard-line jurisprudence and dyed it with the Najdi nature so Wahhabism in its theoretical foundations and its practical applications turned out to be the most horrible ideology produced in the Arabian Peninsula and applied to non-Wahhabi Muslims and non-Muslims.