Terrorism & the Wahhabi Sect

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

Below is a far from complete list, highlighting only the more significant terrorist attacks.  We are only looking at events since 2000 to make a point, and we are only considering attacks that target civilians and are blatantly against shari’ah. 

Date	Event	Perpetrator	Casualties
24th December 2000	Christmas Eve bombings	Al-Qaeda & Jemaah Islamiyah	18 dead, hundreds injured
11th September 2001	9/11 attack	Al-Qaeda	2,996 dead, 6,000+ injured
13th December 2001	Indian Parliament attack	Jaish-e-Mohammad & Lashkar-e-Taiba	7 dead, 12 injured
12th October 2002	Bali bombing	Jemaah Islamiyah	202 dead, 240 injured
05th August 2003	JW Marriott Hotel bombing, Jakarta	Jemaah Islamiyah	12 dead, 150 injured
11th March 2004	Madrid train bombings	Al-Qaeda	191 dead, 1,800 injured
01st September 2004	Beslan hostage crisis	Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade	385+ dead (186 children), 783 injured
09th September 2004	Australian Embassy bombing, Jakarta	Jemaah Islamiyah	9 dead, 150+ injured
05th July 2005	Ram Temple attack, Ayodhya	Lashkar-e-Taiba	6 dead, dozens injured
07th July 2005	London bombings	Al-Qaeda affiliates	52 dead, 700 injured
23rd July 2005	Attack on Sharm el-Sheikh	Abdullah Azzam Brigade	88 dead, 150+ injured
01st October 2005	Bali bombing II	Jemaah Islamiyah	20 dead, 100+ injured
29th October 2005	New Delhi bombing	Lashkar-e-Taiba	62 dead, 210 injured
09th November 2005	Amman bombings	Al-Qaeda affiliates	60 dead, 115 injured
11th July 2006	Mumbai train bombings	Lashkar-e-Qahhar	209 dead, 714+ injured
14th August 2007	Qahtaniya bombing	Al-Qaeda in Iraq	796 dead, 1,562 injured
26th July 2008	Ahmedabad bombings	Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami	56 dead, 200+ injured
13th September 2008	Series of bombings in New Delhi	Indian Mujahideen	30 dead, 130 injured
26th November 2008	Mumbai attacks	Lashkar-e-Taiba	166+ dead, 600+ injured
17th July 2009	JW Marriott & Ritz-Carlton Hotels bombing	Jemaah Islamiyah	2 dead, 53+ injured
18th July 2009	Beledweyne bombing, Somalia	Al-Shabaab	38 dead, dozens injured
29th March 2010	Moscow Metro bombings	Caucasus Emirate	40 dead, 102+ injured
28th May 2010	Attacks on Ahmadi Mosques, Lahore	Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan	86 dead, 12+ injured
07th December 2010	Varanasi bombing	Indian Mujahideen	2 dead, 37 injured
21st January 2011	Domodedovo International Airport bombing	Caucasus Emirate & Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade	37 dead, 173 injured
25th December 2011	Nigerian church bombings	Boko Haram	41+ dead, 57+ injured
05th January 2012	Baghdad & Nasiriyah bombings	Islamic State of Iraq	73 dead, 149 injured
23rd February 2012	Anti-Shi’ah campaign	Islamic State of Iraq	83 dead, 250+ injured
21st February 2013	Hyderabad blasts	Indian Mujahideen	17 dead, 119 injured
15th April 2013	Boston Marathon bombings	Al-Qaeda affiliates	3 dead, 264 injured
21st September 2013	Westgate shopping mall attack, Nairobi	Al-Shabaab	67 dead, 175 injured
22nd September 2013	Peshawar church attack	Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan	80-83 killed, 250 injured
29th September 2013	Gujba college massacre, Nigeria	Boko Haram	44 dead
14th February 2013	Borno Massacre, Nigeria	Boko Haram	121 dead
20th May 2014	Jos bombings, Nigeria	Boko Haram	118+ dead, 56+ injured
August 2014	Shu’aytat tribe, Deir ez-Zor Governorate massacre	Islamic State of Iraq	700+ dead
28th November 2014	Kano bombing	Boko Haram	120+ dead, 260 injured
15th December 2014	Sydney hostage crisis	Islamic State affiliate	2 dead, 4 injured
16th December 2014	Peshawar school attack	Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan	145 dead (132 children), 114 injured
18th December 2014	Gumsuri kidnappings	Boko Haram	32 killed (185 women & children kidnapped)
18th December 2014	Mass Grave discovered in Easter Syria	Islamic State of Iraq	230 killed
22nd December 2014	Gombe bus station bombing, Nigeria	Boko Haram	20+ killed, dozens injured
22nd December 2014	Al-Anbar massacre of women	Islamic State of Iraq	150 killed, some pregnant

This is not a comprehensive list.  These are some of the same organisations and their affiliates linked or involved in these sorts of attacks over the years: the Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan; Al-Qaeda as the Americans spell it and their regional groups; ISIS in their various incarnations; Laskar e-Taiba, Laskar Jihad, and their various splinter groups; Jemaah Islamiyah as they spell it, Ansar al-Sharia and all their many splinter groups.  The majority of these attacks target women, children, and civilians.  And this does not take into account the human cost and the scale of this tragedy. 

They all have one thing in common.  If we go through the list and look at the ideology of these groups and people behind them, they all belong to the Wahhabi sect.  It is about time that somebody said it.  Every single one of these people subscribe, in some form or manner, to the ideology of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab an-Najdi.  Many of these groups are funded from or through Saudi affiliates.  It is about time that Muslims got together and actually addressed this heresy for what it is - something that is a cancer to the ummah.  These people are radicalised by the same sort of hate, denigration and exceptionalism that eventually leads to the more radical elements amongst them justifying violence. 

Where does it begin?  It begins when we have casual reference from “moderate” Wahhabi preachers such as Nu’man Ali Khan and Isma’il ibn Musa Mink that Muslims who adhere to certain practices are polytheists.  That means, we are not “real” Muslims anymore.  This is takfir on a massive scale.  And then it moves on to more firebrand preachers amongst them who make a career out of denouncing these practices as kufr, and its adherents as non-Muslims.  These include people like Abu Aminah Bilal Philips and Abu Mus’ab Wajdi al-Akkari.  They also make a career out of “correcting” the Christians and the Jews, people like Zakir ‘Abd al-Karim Nayk and Yusuf Estes, even though their knowledge of the subject is greatly lacking. 

And then they take it further, preaching that they must correct the ummah by censoring “incorrect” teachings, closing down mosques that have tombs, removing graves from certain areas, banning women from the mosque, and forcing their narrow interpretation of the religion upon us.  The majority keep silent when they slander our scholars past and present, when they mischaracterise our practices as kufr, when they attack our non-Muslim neighbours, when they insist on following “only Qur’an and ahadits” despite their ignorance of it and abandon the ways of the pious predecessors. 

And when they are given authority because the majority are silent or afraid, they have closed down our institutions or subverted them, abandoned our practices in the name of a “purer” Islam, cut at the root of the religion while we were silent.  And when they are given opportunities to wage armed struggle, they have systematically killed our scholars and leaders, murdered families and tribes, destroyed mosques and tombs, burned our books.  And what do the Muslims say?  The naive, the foolish, the ignorant and the cowardly say: “They are still our Muslim brothers and they have said the shahadah.” 

There are many ahadits about them, but this is the one that resonates the most.  The Prophet (s.a.w.) stated, “My ummah is destined to differ and be divided.  So a group will rise whose talks will sound very good but their character will be misleading.  They will read the Qur’an but it will not descend below their throats.  They will leave Diyn just as an arrow pierces and goes right through the prey.  They will not return to Islam.  They are the worst of Creation because of their nature and constitution.  They will call the people towards the Qur’an and Diyn whilst in reality, they will have nothing to do with Islam.  Whoever will confront them, he will be the most Beloved servant of Allah.” 

Look at these kafirun and know their fruits of injustice, blood and fire.  It is our jihad to confront these heretics, to censure their teachings, to refute their ideology, to condemn their enablers and to fight them spiritually, theologically and politically, first and foremost.  We must fight them until they say, “Laa ilaha illa Allah” or until they are defeated.  This is our jihad in these times. 

In John Boynton Priestley’s “An Inspector Calls”, we find this pertinent quote about social justice and the connectedness of humanity.  The main protagonist, Inspector Goole said this in closing: “One Eva Smith has gone - but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do.  We don’t live alone.  We are members of one body.  We are responsible for each other.  And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.  Good night.”