I the Wahhabis Seen Through European Eyes (1772–1830)

The Wahhabis Seen through European Eyes (1772–1830)

Editors

Alastair Hamilton (University of London) Jan Loop (University of Kent) Thomas Burman (University of Tennessee)

Advisory Board

Charles Burnett (London) – Bernard Heyberger (Paris) Noel Malcolm (Oxford) – Jan Schmidt (Leiden) Francis Richard (Paris) – Arnoud Vrolijk (Leiden) Joanna Weinberg (Oxford)

VOLUME 1

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hos iii The Wahhabis Seen through European Eyes (1772–1830)

Deists and Puritans of Islam

Giovanni Bonacina

LEIDEN | BOSTON iv

Cover illustration: Ibrahim Pasha fighting the Wahhabis, Arabia, 1816–1818. Artist: Jean Adolphe Beaucé (from: E. Gouin, L’Égypte au XIXe siècle, Boizard, Paris, 1847, p. 296).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bonacina, Giovanni, 1961- [Eretici e riformatori d’Arabia. English] The Wahhabis seen through European eyes (1772-1830) : deists and Puritans of Islam / by Giovanni Bonacina. pages cm. -- (The history of Oriental studies, ISSN 2405-4488 ; volume 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-29301-4 (hardback : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-29328-1 (e-book) 1. Wahhabiyah-- Public opinion--History. 2. Public opinion--Europe--History--18th century. 3. Public opinion--Europe-- History--19th century. 4. Europe--Intellectual life--18th century. 5. Europe--Intellectual life--19th century. I. Title.

BP195.W2B6613 2015 297.8’14--dc23 2015003500

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. v

In memory of Anita Fusari, my mother

⸪ vi Chapter 1 12

Contents Contents vii Preface ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1 12 A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 12 1 Niebuhr: A New Religion in Najd 12 2 Grounds for Niebuhr’s Impressions and their Early Circulation 20 3 Volney: A Great Political and Religious Revolution in Asia 28 4 Olivier: Wandering Wahhabis and Persian Pilgrims 35 5 Browne: A Najd Rebel 40 Chapter 2 47 Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 47 1 Silvestre de Sacy: A Hypothesis of Continuity of the Qarmatians 47 2 Rousseau: A Reforming Sheikh of Mohammedanism 53 3 Corancez: The Cult of the Koran in its Original Simplicity 64 4 Rousseau, Corancez and their Sources 73 5 Waring: The Fractured Foundation Stone 86 6 Valentia and Other English Voices: The Din of Hostile Arms at Mecca 94 Chapter 3 108 Muslim “Puritans” 108 1 Seetzen before the Emir of Wuhabisten 108 2 Badía y Leblich: A Swarm of Bees Round the Kaaba 121 3 European Testimonies of the Redemption of Mecca 136 4 Wahhabi Hostages in Cairo: Mengin’s “Précis” 148 5 Burckhardt: Materials for a History of the Wahhabis 159 6 Burckhardt: Arabia from Puritanism to Infidel Indifference 168 Conclusion 184 Bibliography 199 Index 226 Contents Contents vii Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 1

1 A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 12 1 Niebuhr: A New Religion in Najd 12 2 Grounds for Niebuhr’s Impressions and their Early Circulation 20 3 Volney: A Great Political and Religious Revolution in Asia 28 4 Olivier: Wandering Wahhabis and Persian Pilgrims 35 5 Browne: A Najd Rebel 40

2 Literary Disputes and Colonial Sights 47 1 Silvestre de Sacy: A Hypothesis of Continuity of the Qarmatians 47 2 Rousseau: A Reforming Sheik of Mohammedanism 53 3 Corancez: The Cult of the Koran in its Original Simplicity 64 4 Rousseau, Corancez and their Sources 73 5 Waring: The Fractured Foundation Stone 86 6 Valentia and other English Voices: The Din of Hostile Arms at Mecca 94

3 Muslim “Puritans” 108 1 Seetzen before the Emir of Wuhabisten 108 2 Badia y Leblich: A Swarm of Bees Round the Kaaba 121 3 European Testimonies of the Redemption of Mecca 136 4 Wahhabi Hostages in Cairo: Mengin’s “Précis” 148 5 Burckhardt: Materials for a History of the Wahhabis 159 6 Burckhardt: Arabia from Puritanism to Infidel Indifference 168

Conclusion 184

Bibliography 199 Index 226 viii Contents Preface Preface ix Preface

This book has its origins in my long familiarity with the works of the nineteenth-century German geographer Carl Ritter and his influence on Hegel’s concept of world history. I read the two great volumes dating from 1846–47 which Ritter devoted to the geography and ethnography of the Arabian peninsula, while his Erdkunde provided a wealth of references to the earlier Euro- pean literature, characteristically also on the Wahhabi movement. My eagerness to study the subject in greater depth was thus aroused by a desire to complete and correct Ritter’s material. Although extremely well-informed for the time, it is now no more than a comprehensive repository of what was known on the subject at that moment. The present study is intended to enrich and transform that repository, thereby creating an intelligible and cohesive account of the gradual acquisition of information and the first formulation and rectification of concepts and prejudices surrounding the Wahhabis. Very different events have now brought the movement to public notice, to that not only of specialists but also of those who were unaware of the two hundred years of Wahhabi history and its impact on European views of Islam. With the aid of recent scholarly publications – the works of Michael A. Cook, Esther Peskes, George S. Rentz and Alexei Vassiliev have proved invaluable – and within the limits of my linguistic competence, I have tried to establish and communicate to the reader the critical distance necessary when examining those past texts juxtaposed to our more advanced knowledge. This now also includes nineteenth-century Arabic chronicles (by Ibn Ghannam and Ibn Bishr) which were unavailable to early eye-witnesses and writers. Acquain- tance with the later history of the Wahhabi movement, and its key contribution to the creation of the present unified kingdom of Saʿudi Arabia, naturally constitute a backdrop against which to study the small group of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European observers and critics. They actually saw the original nucleus, the rudimentary political structure usually defined by present-day historiography as the First Saʿudi State, which lasted from about 1745 to 1818. Every effort has been made to avoid imputing our own notions to men from a different period with very different preoccupations. I have tried not to apportion blame in the name of our own critical preconceptions to any real or supposed ideology of theirs, while making no attempt to conceal their in evitably partial, albeit instructive, points of view and the unsuitability of some of their interpretative categories. There remained two gaps to be bridged: one between those European observers of the past and the object of their x Preface observation, their acquaintance with which matured slowly and only approxi- mately; and the other between the observers and ourselves, since we can no longer presume to identify with them at first hand. Readers will decide for themselves how far this book succeeds in meeting such demands. Now that this book is completed I wish to thank in particular Professors Alastair Hamilton of the Warburg Institute in London and Giuseppe Ricupera- ti of the University of Turin, the two main advocates of this undertaking; Mau- rits van den Boogert at Brill; Jan Loop (University of Kent) and Thomas E. Burman (University of Tennessee), the two co-editors of this series; Massimo Campanini (University of Trent), Rolando Minuti (University of Florence), and Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti (University of Rome, “La Sapienza”) for their appreciation of my earlier work (Eretici e riformatori d’Arabia. I wahhâbiti in pro spettiva europea 1772–1830, E.S.I., Neaples, 2011); Natana DeLong-Bas (Boston College), Sabine Mangold (Bergische Universität Wüppertal), Tilman Nagel (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), Esther Peskes (Friedrich-Wilhelms- Universität Bonn), and Uwe Pfullmann (Gornsdorf/E.) for their encourage- ment; Stefano Poggi (University of Florence) for persuading me to read Ritter’s Geography in greater detail; and, finally, Angela Gibbon (University of Urbino) for her invaluable help with the translation. My gratitude is also due to the staff and facilities of the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göt- tingen, my favourite place of study for many summers. My bibliography is limited to the texts actually consulted and cited, without any claim to completeness or to the inclusion of the more far-reaching theme of the manifold modern analogies of Islam with Deism or with Protestant movements which have no direct bearing on the Wahhabis. IntroductionIntroduction 1 Introduction

The prevalent impression among writers and travellers who have made us acquainted with the progress of the Wahaby power, has been to consider it as openly hostile to, and threatening the downfall of, the Mussul- man faith. (…) Mr. Burckhardt, on the contrary, seems to have ascertained, that the sole principle of Abdul Wahab, the founder, was to restore that religion exactly to the state in which it existed under the Prophet and his immediate descendants. The Edinburgh Review, October 1830 ⸪ Early in 1799 French troops under General Desaix, engaged in pursuing Murat Bey’s Mamluks in Upper Egypt, sustained ferocious encounters with Arab volunteers who had arrived from Mecca to help prevent the “infidel” from acced- ing to a region considered the gateway to the Muslim Holy Places. Dominique Vivant Denon, the future general director of the Napoleonic museums, supplied an eye-witness account of a battle at the fort of Benhut. His countrymen, outnumbered by adversaries armed with cannon and rifles seized from crews who had been massacred on French vessels on the Nile, won the day thanks to their assault on the enemy positions. Forced to extinguish the conflagration of a munitions depot “with their feet, hands and bodies”, the Arabs appeared “black and naked, running towards the flames”. “It was an image of devils in Hell and I could not look at them without a feeling of horror and admiration”. During the following weeks the men from Mecca, in chaos and abandoned by the Mamluks, devoted themselves to raiding and kidnapping the local “Chris- tian and Coptic” peasants. This induced the Copts to assist the French in cap- turing survivors who were regarded as “animals harmful to society”. At this point, however, the narrator lamented the daily killing of innocent victims due to the inability of the troops to distinguish the enemies “by shape or colour” from “poor merchants in caravans” or common farmers. More generally, he deplored the unfortunate obligation of the invaders “to punish severely whomso- ever refused to believe that we acted solely for their benefit”. The news that the sharif of Mecca, the supreme authority over the Holy Places, had taken the trouble to communicate to Desaix his disapproval of the volunteers from

Mecca and his personal wish to cultivate friendly relations with Napoleon was a meagre consolation for Denon.1 As we know, similar complaints accompanied many future colonial wars, especially if they were ostensibly fought in the name of noble ideals such as those of the French Revolution. Despite, but perhaps also partly as a result of, the higher principles of civilisation and humanity to which the French invaders appealed, they ran the risk of endowing the French campaign in Egypt with the savage character of a divine judgement. An ideal counterbalance to the Dantesque image of the Arab combatants in the Voyage was the resounding proclamation of the sultan protesting against the “Devil’s banner”, the “dia bolical principles” and the “infernal spirit” of an “army of atheists” who had recently appeared in the Nile Delta – like locusts, as the first astonished wit nesses of the invasion described them. To these European self-styled liberators from Mamluk despotism the Ottomans imputed the determination to unleash carnal concupiscence, legalise robbery and, in short, prepare the destruction of Islam in its entirety.2

1 D. Vivant Denon, Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Égypte, pendant les campagnes du Géné- ral Bonaparte, Paris, an X (1802), I, p. 314; II, pp. 122–36, 142, 151–55, 180, 190–91. “Volontaires de la Mecque” in Upper Egypt, active in a “guerre de partisans” (a term in common use after Napoleon’s experiences in Spain, Russia and Germany), are also described later by Louis Reybaud in the classic work on that memorable expedition, cf. Histoire scientifique et militaire de l’expédition française en Égypte, Paris, 1830–36, III, pp. 515–20; IV, p. 377; VI, pp. 34, 46–49. On Denon’s experiences in Upper Egypt until his early return to France in the summer of 1799 in the train of Napoleon, cf. Lelièvre (1993), pp. 85–98. 2 For the text of the firman against the invaders, a veritable exhortation to Holy War, cf. Histoire scientifique et militaire de l’expédition française en Égypte, cit., IV, pp. 142–52. The opening is eloquent partly because there are traces of the European translator’s concep- tual reformulation, ibid, pp. 142–43: “Le peuple français (Dieu veuille détruire leur pays de fond en comble, et couvrir d’ignominie leurs drapeaux) est une nation d’infidèles obsti- nés et de scélérats sans frein. Ils nient l’unité de l’Être Suprême, qui a créé le ciel et la terre; ils ne croient point à la mission du Prophète, destiné à être l’intercesseur des fidèles au jugement dernier, ou, pour mieux dire, ils se moquent de toutes les religions; ils rejettent la croyance d’une autre vie, de ses récompenses et de ses supplices; ils ne croient ni à la résurrection des corps ni au jugement dernier, et ils pensent qu’un aveugle hasard préside à leur vie et à leur mort; qu’ils doivent leur existence à la pure matière, et qu’après que la terre a reçu leurs corps, il n’y a plus ni résurrection ni compte à rendre, ni demande ni réponse. (…) Les livres divins, inspirés aux prophètes, ne sont, à leur dire, que mensonge et imposture, et ils regardent le Koran, le Pentateuque, et l’Évangile comme des fables. Les prophètes, tels quels Moïse, Jésus et Mahomet, ne sont, selon eux, que des hommes comme les autres, qui n’ont jamais eu de mission, et qui n’ont pu en imposer qu’à des ignorans. Ils pensent que les hommes, étant nés égaux, doivent être également libres; que toute distintion entre eux est injuste, et que chacun doit être le maître de son opinion et Introduction 3

The Benhut episode was remarkable in itself since one of the future First Consul’s reasons for justifying the need to raise the siege of Acre before his return to France was the threat posed by people from Hijaz in supplying reinforcements for the Mamluks. The Egyptian chronicler al-Jabarti included the episode in his contemporary account. He describes al-Jaylani, a sheikh from the Maghreb, appearing at the sanctuary of Mecca and exhorting those present to wage a holy war against the aggressors. He was said to have recited from a book on the subject, collected money offers and mustered about six hundred men. These were immediately joined by further recruits both on their way to Yanbuʿ and later, when they reached al-Qusayr in Egypt. Once the sheikh was dead and his followers routed the survivors sought refuge in the villages where they were generally handed over to the French. Few remained to take part in the first provisional repossession of Cairo by the Turks in 1800. We also learn that a letter given not to Desaix but to Poussielgue, the general administrator of Egyptian finances, confirmed the altogether different attitude of the sharif of Mecca, Ghalib ibn Musaʿid, who, preoccupied by other domestic concerns, maintained an apparently equidistant position between the two sides.3 What neither the French sources nor al-Jabarti say is that the volunteers from Mecca must have included a number of Arab Wahhabis soon to gain notoriety in Europe as founders of a veritable kingdom in the heart of the Arabi- an Peninsula. About a year earlier the Wahhabis had forced Sharif Ghalib to sign an onerous truce and to accept their presence as pilgrims in the Holy City. It was thus quite likely that some of them had heard al-Jaylani’s address and welcomed his invitation to war.4 If this was so the encounter described by De-

de sa manière de vivre”. For the metaphor of the locusts, the scourge of Egypt in the Bible, cf. T. Philipp, M. Perlman (ed.), Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti’s History of Egypt. ʿAjāʾib al-Âthār fī ’l-Tarājim wa’l-Akhbār, Stuttgart, 1994, III, p. 2. In this case too the French are said to be hostile to any divine mission or prophecy and to deny both the divine attributes and the resurrection. Unlike Jews, Christians and Muslims, they consequently bow to reason alone, ibid, pp. 6, 8, 181. On the image of the French invaders of Egypt as rationalist heretics, no longer Christians, but simply upholders of the human wisdom of Moses, Jesus Christ and Muhammad, as they appeared to educated Muslims, cf. Delanoue (1982), I, pp. 85–86. 3 Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, History of Egypt, cit., pp. 70, 88, 90, 92–94, 107, 145. The friendly letter from Ghalib to Poussielgue, and another addressed by the same sharif to Napoleon, the French authorities solemnly affixed in Cairo, to impress the inhabitants, cf. L. Rey- baud, Histoire scientifique et militaire de l’expédition française en Égypte, cit., V, pp. 157–60; Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, History of Egypt, cit., III, pp. 93–94. 4 The inclusion of the account of the French campaign in Egypt in the chronicle of ʿUthman ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Bishr (1795/96–1871/72), the author of a text entitled ʿUnwān al-majd fī tārīkh Najd (The Symbol of Glory in the History of Najd), one of the main Wahhabi sources 4 Introduction non would have been the very first contact between regular European troops and the militia of those Muslims now generally regarded as having been totally hostile to foreigners and rejecting any customs or values other than their own. Not until 1829, however, did this news begin to circulate almost by chance thanks to a posthumous work by a later informant, the Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784–1817). He would continue to be the main authority on the Wahhabis in Europe for some time to come. Looking back, Burckhardt believed that he recognised in the Arabs faced by the French in Upper Egypt the same spirit and tribal origin as the men he had observed during his stay in Mecca in 1814, when they were opposing the successful attempt to subjugate the Hijaz by the new pasha of Egypt Muhammad ʿAli.5 This view brings to its completion a long intellectual process extending from Denon’s Egyptian experience to Burckhardt’s peregrinations in Arabia. Ignorance about the Wahhabis was not easy to dispel, especially because of widespread uncertainty as to their effective adherence to Islam. Four years had elapsed since Desaix’s campaign in Upper Egypt, when Count Italinskij, the Russian ambassador in Istanbul, observed that, besides the Sublime Porte’s fears of a possible renewal of French interest in the Nile, there was an equal

on the earliest history of the religious movement, documents the deep impression that the events on the Nile must have made on the other shore of the Red Sea, at least among the better informed inhabitants of Najd, cf. Philby (1955), p. 91. 5 J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, London, 1829, p. 209: “When the French invaded Egypt, a Moggrebyn saint at Mekka, called Sheikh el Djeylany, a distant relation of a wealthy merchant at Mekka, and who had for some time been in the habit of delivering lectures in the great mosque, mounted the pulpit, and preached a crusade against the infidels, who had seized upon the gate of the Kaaba – as Egypt is styled. Being a very eloquent speaker, and held in much veneration, many Arabs flocked to his standard (…) The fate of these Arabs (many of whom were of the same Wahaby tribes who afterwards offered so much resistence to Muhammad Ali), and the fury with which they encountered the French in Upper Egypt, are already known to the reader, by Denon’s animated description. Sheikh Djeylany was killed, and very few of his followers returned.” The participation of volunteers from Mecca against the French is mentioned in Abir (1971), p. 192; Vassiliev (1998), p. 99, who do not, however, take into account Burckhardt’s information concerning the Wahhabis who fought with al-Jaylani’s troops, mostly a mixture of North African pilgrims and inhabitants of Mecca and Yanbuʿ. According to Abir (1971), it is nevertheless very probable that the threat posed by the Wahhabis to the government of Sharif Ghalib prevented his giving full attention to the edict promulgated by the court of Istanbul in August 1798, containing the invitation to all Muslims to take part in the Holy War against the European invaders. The pressure exerted by the Wahhabis would, at least indirectly, have provoked al-Jaylani’s intervention, caused by dissatisfaction with the inertia of the sharif administering the Holy Places in the name of the sultan. Introduction 5 concern with “a rebellious movement of some Arab tribes called Wahhabis”. According to rumours from Damascus and Baghdad its members seemed intent on “founding a Monotheistic religion in defiance of Mohammedanism”.6 From the Ottoman point of view it was as if the religious preaching and political and military expansion of those obscure worshippers in central Arabia posed as great a threat as the French invasion of Egypt. The expressions circulating in the Turkish capital about the danger of this horde of Arab assailants who threatened the very survival of Islam were similar to those in the firman against Napoleon. Who could have identified the Wahhabis described by Ital- inskij with the furious fanatics from Mecca previously observed by Denon? Both the French and their adversaries at Benhut – did they really fight on the banks of the Nile? – seemed, paradoxically enough, to represent in equal measure the worst risks to stability in the area. To most Muslims the spectre of each one was equally terrifying. The rumour described by the Russian ambassador was not the only one. The capture of the Holy Places in the Hijaz, the challenge to Ottoman authority, echoes of Muslim theological controversies and the abolition of traditional cultural practices, particularly the pilgrimage to Mecca organised in the great Egyptian and Syrian caravans, kept the same belief alive in Europe in the early nineteenth century. At times it was tinged with fear, at others it was attended by the hope that a possibly fatal blow was about to be dealt not only to the declining Turkish Empire but to the very structure of Islam. Even the Egyptian campaign led by Pasha Muhammad ʿAli in 1811 to restore normality to the Ara- bian Peninsula and which culminated seven years later in the total destruction of the first Saʿudi kingdom (named after the dynasty which had espoused the new creed) failed to bring about a radical revision of this belief. It was in the interests of the victor to sustain the common belief in the fearful impiety of the Wahhabis, while in Europe the new spiritual climate of the Restoration produced a strong desire to believe that in the East, as in the West, the violent impetus of eighteenth-century revolutionary innovations was nearing its end. Repentant mankind would at last be free of its yoke. It was felt that such a providential design had also been responsible for the dissolution of both Na- poleon’s Empire and the recent religion-based monarchy established by the Wahhabis in Arabia.

6 “In the present situation the Porte fears only France’s intentions and the rebel movement of some Arab tribes, called Wahhabis, who amount to nearly 60,000 effectives. They plan to seize the wealth of the Mecca and Medina shrines and undertake to found a mono theist religion, defying Mohammedanism”, cf. Vassiliev (1998), p. 99. 6 Introduction

This, then, is why the appearance of Burckhardt’s Travels in Arabia (1829) and particularly his Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys (1830) received unanimous acclaim as contributing to a greater understanding of the phenomenon and thereby dissipating a grave misconception. The materials collected by Burckhardt in Cairo during the last years of his life, and his still more important observations made during the months spent in the principal cities of the Hijaz once again under formal Ottoman authority in January 1813, provided answers to questions concerning the Islamic orthodoxy of the Wahhabis and proposed an evocative interpretation suggested by Christian history. Far from corresponding to previous descriptions and, indeed, undeserving of the name of “heretics”, as both popular superstition and the clergy depicted them, the Wahhabis were to be considered strict Muslims. Their “reformation” of the Is- lam could rightly be called the “Protestantism”, or even the “Puritanism of the Mohammedans”.7 Burckhardt was an expatriate from an illustrious Calvinist family in Basel – the great historian Jakob was born to a secondary branch in 1818. He was in sympathy with this comparison of the Puritans, if not with the Wahhabis as such, certainly with those natives of Arabia who seemed to him to oppose corrupt Turkish domination and the “Napoleonic” aims of Muhammad ʿAli, while favouring stricter norms of behaviour. Ever since his youth, and after the French occupation of his homeland – his father Rudolf had led the local resistance against the troops of the Directory – this future explorer had grown up to admire all patriotic and religious opposition to that perpetual aspiration to universal monarchy nurtured by the great civilised but despotic states. While he was waiting to join a suitable merchant caravan bound for Central Africa, Burckhardt, in the service of the African Association of London, cultivated these ideals on his travels through Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Nubia and Arabia. He did not hesitate to interpret the events in Arabia as a war of national libera-

7 J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, London, 1830, p. 58: “I think myself authorised to state, from the results of my inquiries among the Arabs, and the Wahabys themselves, that the religion of the Wahabys may be called the Protestantism or even Puritanism of the Mohammedans.” And ibid, p. 273: “The religion and government of the Wahábys may be very briefly defined, as a Muselmán puritanism, and a Bedouin government.” The convincing comparison was immediately taken up in a review by the Austrian Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an authority on Arab matters in the German-speaking world: “Abdulwehhab (…) ist der Calvin des Islams.” And, “die Wahhabi wollen nur Mosli- men strenger Lehre, Reformatoren der Mißbräuche und die Kalvinisten des Islams seyn”, cf. J. v. Hammer-Purgstall, review of: J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, in Jahrbücher der Literatur, LV, 1831, pp. 34, 54. Introduction 7 tion against the Ottoman Empire and its pashas.8 The theological and political aspects of the conflict between the Wahhabis and Muhammad ʿAli in the Mus- lim Holy Places reminded him of the profound desire of European nations for independence from Napoleon or, in past centuries, the uprisings in small Prot- estant territories – Swiss cantons, German principalities, the Dutch United Provinces – against crusading Catholic potentates.9 This was probably one of the reasons why he was so delighted by the idea that the Wahhabis had fought their French conquerors in Upper Egypt and had introduced it into his notes. This clarification of the supposedly anti-Muslim nature of the new religious movement assured the increasing success of the interpretation. Burckhardt’s ideas, moreover, converged with the interests of Great Britain, which continued to project its image as a power counterbalancing any universal monarchy in Europe. National and religious endeavours to destabilise the Ottoman Em- pire and the pashadoms of Cairo and Baghdad could be useful in London at a time of active military and commercial competition with France over the routes to India. To establish the moral legitimacy of the Wahhabis could justify the possibility of a future alliance, however problematic it might be. Almost a century later, with Germany as the new European enemy on the continent, Burckhardt’s sympathies for those “puritan Muslims” would still bear fruit among the English, gaining supporters for the cause of Arabian independence from Turkish domination. Thanks to Harry St. John Bridger Philby (1885–1960) the latent memory of Burckhardt’s Notes contributed to an enthusiastic revision of the entire history of the Wahhabis up to the rise of the current, renewed Saʿudi monarchy in the Arabian Peninsula (1932).10

8 After completing his studies in Germany (Leipzig and Göttingen) Burckhardt arrived in London in 1806, left for the East in 1809, and reached Egypt in 1812 with the intention of proceeding from there on an exploration of the African interior to follow up previous attempts to chart the course of the Niger. He died in Cairo of malaria contracted during his pilgrimage to Mecca. His notes, written in English, were published posthumously, as from 1819. The notes on Nubia and Syria were edited by William Leake, those on Arabia by William Ouseley (an orientalist and brother of Gore Ouseley, English envoy in Persia during the final years of the war against Napoleon). The African Association, in the person of its principal animator, Joseph Banks, was responsible for printing the notes. 9 Last comparison struck Burckhardt at the time when Muhammad ʿAli was in Cairo preparing his military campaign to repossess, or rather “redeem”, Mecca: “All the nations in the Turkish empire united in execrating the Wahabys, and demanded an expedition, resembling our old crusades, against those heretics”, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 341. 10 His numerous monographs on the subject, cf. H. St. John Bridger Philby, The Heart of Ara- bia, London, 1922, including the posthumous Id., Arabian Oil Ventures, Washington 1964, thus helped to familiarise English and American authorities and public opinion with the 8 Introduction

Nevertheless Burckhardt’s conclusions were also, in their own way, the result of a process. Had a premature death not prevented him from revising his notes, he might have wished to follow this process through, using the first oral and written Wahhabi testimonies made available through the deportation of numerous Wahhabi dignitaries to Cairo at the time of the ephemeral conquest of Najd by Egypt in 1818. The idea of Islamic “Puritanism” as such was not new. Indeed, in the case of the Wahhabis the definition had already been used by the English resident in Baghdad Harford Jones Brydges and by the English traveller Henry Light a few years earlier. Besides, for the sake of absolute clarity the vaguely evocative memory of the Reformation and the complexity of the Puri- tan model might have required further historical research.11 The comparison, though bold, was in fact the development and partial correction of a previous, more audacious hypothesis. The earlier view that Burckhardt had felt called upon to correct even claimed that the new movement appearing in Arabia around the middle of the eighteenth century had had a function in the Muslim world analogous, in a Europe labouring under disputes about philosophy and religion, to that of Deist groups professing, in the name of human reason, the existence of one God as supreme architect of the universe who only required obedience to the moral law naturally engraved in our hearts, without any historical revelation or positive statutes. The idea originated with the testimony of the German traveller Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815), the sole survivor of a memorable Danish expedition to Arabia which, ever since its inception in 1761, had been hailed as a turning point in the exploration of the peninsula. In 1772, the year of Niebuhr’s first publication, the news of a mysterious sect, heresy, or perhaps even a “new religion”, which had assumed the shape of a political society, gained credibility. The events in France in 1789 were destined to corroborate the hypothesis, with the added attraction of a greater correspondence between the developments in Europe and in Asia, until Burckhardt rectified the analogy by asserting that the “revolution” was none other than a “restoration” and that the model for the new religious movement in Arabia should be sought not in the dry, rational theology of free thinkers, but rather in the

claims of the Al-Saʿud principality, the expansionistic and “fanatic” past of which might have placed it in an unfavourable light. Preference might otherwise have gone to the rival dynasty of the Mecca sharifs, much befriended by T.E. Lawrence. 11 “A sect of puritan Mahometans” – this is how Light defines the Wahhabis whom he had heard about in Egypt at more or less the same time as Burckhardt, cf. H. Light, Travels in Egypt, Nubia, Holy Land, Mount Libanon, and Cyprus, London, 1818, p. 29. For a previous occurrence of the term “puritans” in a diplomatic report by Brydges, cf. Khan (1968), p. 44. Introduction 9

current inspired enthusiasm of radical Protestants for a complete regeneration of the faith.12 The information on the Wahhabis from Niebuhr to Burckhardt is not just the history of the dissolution of a misunderstanding, or the substitution of a first false analogy by another one which was equally questionable. It is also, and above all, the story of a very natural need to understand the unknown through the known (Deism, Puritanism, etc.), and of the instinctive tendency of these travellers to look for significant correspondences in distant lands with the fears and hopes deriving from their own place of origin. Such a need and such a tendency, in the face of a phenomenon which was difficult even for Muslim observers to understand, cannot blithely be subsumed under the much abused category of “orientalism”, all too often a sterile derivation from the brilliant and instructive work of Edward Said which appeared in 1978. The testimony of these first European travellers is indeed sometimes partly invali- dated by lack of personal contact with authentic Wahhabis and the fact that it is thus prevalently based on second-hand accounts. Yet it is still a valuable source of information on Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (1703/1704–1792) and the early stages of the movement bearing his name, especially when taken together with chronicles written by his supporters, the polemical writings of his adversaries, and the works he himself composed during his long life. Al- though, with hindsight, such European literature must be analysed with caution, attention should be paid not only to the truth of the information contained (and usually verifiable elsewhere), but also to its value in the reconstruction of

12 The whole question is well summarised in a timely Scottish review of Notes: “The prevalent impression among writers and travellers who have made us acquainted with the progress of the Wahaby power, has been to consider it as openly hostile to, and threatening the downfall of, the Mussulman faith. Niebuhr speaks of it as a new religion, which admitted, indeed, Mahommed to have been a great teacher, but denied the inspiration of the Koran; and Lord Valentia, in relating the entry of the Wahabys into Mecca, considers that event shaking to its foundations the fabric of Islamism. Mr. Burckhardt, on the contrary, seems to have ascertained, that the sole principle of Abdul Wahab, the founder, was to restore that religion exactly to the state in which it existed under the Prophet and his immediate descendants.” cf. [H. Murray], Burckhardt on the Bedouins and Wahabys, in The Edinburgh Review, LII, 1831, p. 82 (a review in all likelihood attributable to Hugh Murray, cf. W.E. Houghton (ed.), The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, Toronto, 1966–89, I, p. 473, n. 1314). DeLong-Bas (2004), p.16, emphasises the fact that the earliest European sources on the movement inspired by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab lacked any direct knowledge of him and his writings, though she mistakenly maintains that nothing had been published in Europe during the Wahhabi leader’s lifetime, in spite Niebuhr’s evidence (cited by her in an English translation of his writings published some twenty years after the German original). 10 Introduction the cultural background to the process of accumulation and transmission of such a variegated body of wisdom. This investigation, naturally of interest in the perspective of intellectual history, is not the only reason for investigating the initial information on the Wahhabis supplied by Europeans. If we compare the various testimonies certain aspects emerge with which we are still familiar. Perhaps even more now than in the past, they contribute to the fabrication of schemes which are both reductive and opportunistic, whether they be derogatory or laudatory. The recurrent accusation that Islamic religious fundamentalism is a threat to peaceful co-existence among peoples is an example, as is the frequent benevolent assumption of a need to return to the basics of any particular religion as a defence against external aggression. The distance in time from the events and voices recalled here does not allow any superficial references to present events, but it may indeed be a corrective to constantly recurring distortions.13 We should remember that the cultural context of the time was completely free of the generalised concern in “Western” society today with the dangers accompanying a foreign religion recently transplanted in its midst. In the pages of these past writers there are, if anything, still signs of an ingenuous trust in the be- neficent function, easily misrepresented today, which European civilisation

13 The somewhat controversial, but currently not unusual, identification of the Wahhabi movement with the variegated line of so-called Muslim “fundamentalism”, terrorist implications included, tends to outdate the twentieth-century sympathies of Philby (1930, 1955) and later of Vassiliev (1998) with the triumph of the present Saʿudi monarchy in Arabia. Rather, it produces the effect of posing questions partly analogous to those provoked by the phenomenon at its outset, and asked by the first European observers, albeit now with a different emotional charge, on a much wider scale and in a very different guise. Complete identification of the Wahhabi message with “fundamentalism”, or even Islamic terrorism, is proposed by Bascio (2007), pp. 81, 111; Schwartz (2002), pp. 65, 184–85, 205, 242, 273–74, (the latter even declaring that “Bin Laden was the Wahhabi hero par excellence of the twenty-first century”). They interpret the whole spiritual inheritance of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and his successors as a corrupting factor in traditional Islamic religiosity which would have been undermined by world proselytism and pro- longed Saʿudi control of the Holy Places, rendered possible by the immense resources deriving from trade in crude oil. Seen from this angle, European writers favourable to the Wahhabis were guided by an unacknowledged sympathy for egalitarian and tyrannous regimes, cf. Schwartz (2002), pp. 99–100, 107, 119 (but he does not mention Burckhardt’s Notes or anything else written before the twentieth century). For a discussion of the equa- tion of Wahhabi preaching with Islamic “fundamentalism”, for the assertion that Wahhabi Islam is not a kind of monolith with no history, for the misrepresentation of the writings of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab by some of today’s Muslim commentators, cf. DeLong- Bas (2004), pp. 227, 240, 279, 289. Introduction 11 was thought to fulfil in those Muslim countries considered a prey to irrevocable internal self-destruction. These were not only the Ottoman Empire, but also the independent political entities in North Africa, the kingdom of Persia, the Mogul Empire in India. These testimonies from the past, however, also show signs of an astonished interest in the Wahhabis, a movement revealing unexpected vitality amid such apparent decadence. This impression is apparently contradictory enough to require explanation. The difficult and controversial task of deciphering these signs in Europe, the role played by the manifold clues in modern history, and the various nationali- ties, religious confessions and political factions of the individual observers, are the true material of this reconstruction. The examination begins with Niebuhr, the father of the better known historian of Ancient Rome, Barthold Georg. The title of a famous novel by Conrad, Under Western Eyes (1911), through which the author wished to convey his own troubled perception of pre-revolutionary events in Russia, could serve as a motto for this overview. Nonetheless, the current use, or perhaps abuse, of the term “Western” to define a cultural identity, and an increasingly uncertain and troubled historical mission, prevent the use of the term, charged as it is with as yet unresolved historical, philosophical and ideological implications. Preference has therefore been given to the term “Eu- ropean”: “European” eyes, “European” witnesses, even if this adjective is in turn conditioned by ancient spiritual and material processes which cannot be investigated here. In other words, it seemed that the conventional geographic separation of Europe and Asia, and the distinction retained with respect to the American continent – still at the time at a great distance from the “eastern” world, although about to become the epitome of “the West” – would ensure a greater descriptive neutrality and adherence to the nationality of the individual authors considered. Deists or Puritans, the mysterious Wahhabis were destined to emerge little by little from a thick mist of fascinating misunderstandings before the twentieth century judged them to be the precursors of the present Muslim “fundamentalist” movement. Whatever recent convictions concerning the latter may be, nothing could be more foolhardy than their literal application to the facts and opinions of the past. There is nothing more misleading than the claim of continuity and identity for historical phenomena which have lasted for centuries. It is always instructive to verify how pertinent or unfounded analogies suggested by experience may be. This is why I hope that some benefits can be obtained from the experiment of a new immersion in the primitive impressions of that same mist. 12 Chapter 1

Chapter 1 A Deistic Revolution in Arabia

Ein gewisser Schech (…) wollte besser unterrichtet seyn. Dieser gab vor, Abd ul wáheb lehre seine Schüler Gott als den Schöpfer und Regierer aller Dinge zu verehren und anzubeten; er verbiete ihnen aber in ihrem Gebete weder des Mohámmeds, noch irgend eines andern Propheten oder Heiligen, und selbst nicht seines eigenen Namens zu gedenken, weil dieses zur Abgötterey Anlaß geben könnte. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 1772 ⸪

1 Niebuhr: A New Religion in Najd

Niebuhr’s journeys in the East and his observations in Egypt, Arabia, India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria, Turkey and, finally, in Warsaw on his way back to Denmark in November 1767, were the subject of his travel writings – the Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien published in two volumes in 1774–78, followed posthumously by a third volume in 1837. There was, however, no detailed account of the Wahhabis. With the exception of the coastal area of the Arabian Peninsula, he and his less fortunate companions were only able to visit part of south-western Yemen. The author’s previous Beschreibung von Arabien (1772) was conceived and written in a more scholarly manner. It was based not only on his own observations, but, to a greater degree, on information garnered at second hand from members of the local community.1 The latter supplied

1 Already in the subtitle: Aus eigenen Beobachtungen und im Lande selbst gesammleten Nachrichten abgefasset, cf. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, Copenhagen, 1772. Since Niebuhr was unable to read Arabic, his information consists principally of oral communications from merchants, humble scholars, renegade Christians, and chance companions along his long, solitary return home, about whom he offers little information. On the difficulty of questioning them and the need to compare versions, see ibid, p. xviii. While awaiting a complete examination of the papers concerning Niebuhr in the State Archives in Copenhagen and Schleswig, so far used only in connection with his journey to the East, the best biography is still the one by his son Barthold Georg (1816). For further information, cf. Carstens (1886), and in particular Lohmeier (2002); Walther (2002). On the

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004293281_003 A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 13 important new oral accounts of the birth of “a new sect, or even religion” (actually mentioned in the index), which might, in time, “cause a great change in the Arabs’ religion and in their present form of government”.2 The life and ideas of an otherwise unknown ʿAbd al-Wahhab, the “founder of this new religion” and its “apostle”, were sketched out in a few pages according to a formula which became the norm: educational visits to Basra, but also to Baghdad and Persia, the return and the fruitful proselytism in the homeland, the conversion and pacification of formerly rival sheikhs in the province of al-ʿArid, their co- alition against recalcitrant sheikhs, the mutual exchange of accusations, a war of religion and the achievement of political hegemony in the region. “Heretics” was the principal epithet applied to the followers of the mysterious innovator, who in turn dubbed their antagonists “obstinate infidels”. Protected by a “fortress of mountains”, possibly in the vicinity of the city of al-ʿUyaina in the district of al-Dirʿiyya or Wadi Hanifa, Niebuhr reports, the “new enthusiasts” had just repelled the advance of the powerful sheikh of the province of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ and witnessed the disorderly retreat of their besiegers in the direction from which they had come.3

preparation and progress of the expedition to Arabia, with Niebuhr’s famous stops on his solitary return journey to the ruins of Persepolis, Ecbatana and Babylon, on the publication of the diaries and accounts, cf. Bidwell (1995), pp. 32–49; Freeth/Winstone (1978), pp. 61–89; Hansen (1962); Hartwig (2002); Hogarth (1904), pp. 39–63; Klaver (2009), pp. 45–104; Pfullmann (2001), pp. 308–15. The few details given by the traveller concerning his local informers and the rarity of his contacts with the upper echelons of Arab society are treated in Hartwig (2002), pp. 166, 169, 171–72. 2 C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., p. 345. The information anticipated in the chapter on the Arabs’ religion, ibid, p. 19: “Ein Schech Mékkrami zu Nedsjerân, und ein anderer Schech Abdulwáhheb in Nedsjed haben auch vor wenigen Jahren besondere Sek- ten gestiftet, deren Namen mir noch unbekannt sind”, is inserted in his treatment of Najd (Die Landschaft Nedsjed), a vast and almost unknown central area of the Arabian Penin- sula. In the Contents, the chapter has a different, longer title: Die Provinz Nedsjed. Neue Sekte eines Abd ul wáhheb. 3 Ibid, pp. 345–46: “Der Stifter dieser neuen Religion war einer mit Namen Abd ul wáheb. Er war in Nedsjed geboren, und legte sich in seinen jüngern Jahren auf die arabischen Wis- senschaften in seinem Vaterlande. Er lebte nachher verschiedene Jahre zu Basra, und rei sete auch nach Bagdad und Persien. Nach seiner Zurückunft in Nedsjed breitete er seine neue Meinungen in der Religion unter seinen Landesleuten aus, und war so glücklich die Gunst verschiedener Schechs in der Provinz El áred zu gewinnen. Die Unterthanen seiner Freunde, der unabhängigen Schechs, folgten dem Beyspiel ihrer Regenten, und wurden gleichfalls Anhänger dieses neuen Lehrers. Einige von den Neubekehrten unhabhängige Schechs, welche vorher beständig Krieg mit einander geführt hatten, wurden durch die Vermittelung des Abd ul wáheb, Freunde, und vereinigten sich nichts wichtiges zu 14 Chapter 1

unternehmen, ohne ihren Apostel um Rath zu fragen. Hierdurch nun ward das Gleichge- wicht unter den kleinen Prinzen in El áred gänzlich aufgehoben. Verschiedene Schechs, die vorher ihren Nachbaren allein kaum gewachsen gewesen waren, konnten nun der vereinigten Macht so vieler gar nicht widerstehen, und die Kriege wurden immer heftiger, weil der Pöbel von beyden Seiten glaubte, daß er seiner Religion wegen verfolgt würde, und daß er verpflichtet wäre selbige gegen die Ketzer, oder gegen die hartnäckigen Ungläubigen, welche in den alten vermeinten Irrthümern verharren wollten, zu verthei- digen.” There follows the account of the conflict with the sheik of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ, who had inter- vened on behalf of the local leaders “mit einem Heer von 40000 Mann, mit 4 alten portugisischen oder türkischen Kanonen und einem Mörser.” On al-Dirʿiyya, “ein Distrikt welcher in den ältern Zeiten Wad Hanife genannt ward”, on al-ʿUyaina, “eine Stadt die in den letztern Jahren durch ein Abd ul wáhheb berühmt worden ist”, ibid, p. 343. On the early formative travels of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, difficult to arrange in a plausible chronology and still the subject of controversy among critics, on their description by the Wahhabi chronicler Husain ibn Ghannam (d. 1811) and his follower Ibn Bishr, who merely note that Muhammad studied in Medina, Basra and the province of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ, while also mentioning that he gave up the idea of a further journey to Damascus, cf. Caskel (1929), p. 3; Laoust (1939), p. 508; Laoust (1965), p. 321; Peskes (1993), pp. 68, 221 nt., 228; Philby (1930), p. 8; Philby (1955), pp. 35–36. The main scholars contemporary with Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab who had some influence on him over and above his family education, or whom he at least frequented during his travels, were in all probability ʿAbd Allah ibn Ibrahim ibn Saif al-Najdi al-Madani and Muhammad Hayat al-Sindi al- Madani, whom he met at Medina, followed by Muhammad al-Majmuʿi, visited in Basra, and lastly ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Latif, active in the province of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ – although it is difficult to ascertain how far he was indebted to these masters, cited in Wahhabi sources, cf. Laoust (1939), pp. 507–508; Peskes (1993), pp. 226–30, 253–56; Rentz (2004), pp. 30–36; Voll (1975). Nor should the influence of the indigenous tradition of studies in Najd be underrated. It developed as a reaction to the decline of the Hanbali law school in the principal centres of the Ottoman Empire and was connected with a more general eighteenth-century reform movement of Islamic theology, but which was mainly concerned with questions of interpretation and application of the laws and judicial sentences (fiqh), cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 8–9, 20–22; Juhany (2002), pp. 128–39. Sources only external or even hostile to the Wahhabi movement, anxious to cast suspicions of heresy, suggested that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab would have received some instruction in Aristotelian philosophy and Sufism in Persia. Above all ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿIsa al-Muways (d. 1763/64), a judge at Harma, liked to present his rival’s doctrine as a dangerous innovation from Khorasan, and the same could be said of an anonymous biography of 1817, entitled Lamʿ al-shihāb fī sīrat Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (Glow of a Meteor in the Life of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab), with no theological hostility, but in evident disagreement with Wahhabi doctrine and drawn on Persian sources. It was perhaps intended for an English client – the manuscript was found among the papers of the widow of Capt. Robert Taylor, who had for long been active in the Persian Gulf. It says that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab travelled from Basra to Baghdad and Kurdistan, then to A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 15

The chronicle, inevitably brief because of the extensive ignorance of places and dates, introduced the theme which would be of the greatest interest in Europe – the nature of the “new religion”. Niebuhr admitted that he had never met any of its adepts but that he had noticed an evident antagonism towards this faith among Sunni Muslim informers as well as an ambivalent hope among them either to render the new message unacceptable or to diminish its originality. “A scholar of Basra” also reported with certainty that the followers of the new preacher did indeed recognize Muhammad’s divine mission and prayed and fasted like other Muslims, merely condemning the invocation of saints and the Prophet. Their doctrine therefore simply corresponded to “pure Sunni doctrine” (it is not clear whether this conclusion was Niebuhr’s or his interlocutor’s), since, without actually punishing the popular cult of the saints, higher Sunni clerics were believed at all times to advocate prayer to God alone.4 It was uncertain what conclusion the “scholar” drew from this opinion. Nor did the implications seem quite clear to Niebuhr himself. Although the words could be read as an apology for the return of the new sect to orthodoxy, or at any rate to normality, they might equally well denote a sense of displeasure that the founder, ʿAbd al-Wahhab, should expect popular manifestations of the cult directed towards saints and the Prophet to be prohibited in contrast to the more tolerant custom. As if to correct this first response, however, Niebuhr immediately added the opinion of a certain anonymous “sheikh”, a camel merchant who, in his youth, had travelled in Najd and over the whole of Arabia and was apparently not averse to the new message, although much less concerned with the rectitude

Hamadhan, Isfahan, Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem and Cairo under different names for twenty-four years, cf. Abu Hakima (1965), p. 128 nt.; Cook (1986); Cook (1988), p. 674; Cook (1992), pp. 191–97; Margoliouth (1934), p. 1176; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 65–66. But rumours of study in Persia may have been encouraged by the fact that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wah- hab’s writings show considerable knowledge of Shia theology and law, one of which, Risāla fī al-radd ʿalā al-rāfida (A Treaty Confuting the Rafidah), was intended to correct the errors of an extremist Shiʿi faction (the Rafidah or “Dissenters”) who refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Abu Bakr and the ʿUmar caliphates, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 85, 87, 90, 94. 4 C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., p. 348: “Ein Gelehrte zu Basra behauptete, daß die Anhänger des Abd ul wáhheb, noch beständig Mohámmed ihren Propheten nennen, daß sie beten und fasten wie die übrigen Mohammedaner, und daß der Unterschied zwischen ihnen und den Súnniten nur darinn bestehe, daß sie von den Heiligen derselben nichts wissen wollen. Hiernach sollte man glauben, daß Abd ul wáhheb nichts gelehrt habe, als die reine Lehre der Súnniten. Denn die großen Geistlichen von dieser Sekte bestrafen zwar den Pöbel nicht, wenn dieser etwa einen Heiligen anruft; aber sie billigen so wenig die Anrufung Mohámmeds, als anderer vermeinten Heiligen.” 16 Chapter 1 of its doctrine. According to him, ʿAbd al-Wahhab and his followers considered the invocation of saints and inspired harbingers, “Muhammad, Christ, Moses and thousands of others included by the Sunni among the prophets”, to be pure “idolatry”. They naturally showed the greatest respect to all ambassadors of a single God as “great and worthy men”, but they did not allow them to be honoured in any religious sense – a practice from which the new leader was said to have recommended their complete exclusion, and indeed his own. Yet, more surprisingly, ʿAbd al-Wahhab was said to have taught that no holy book had been written on divine dictation or by the Angel Gabriel. The true religion should be observed by simply “venerating and praying to God, maker and ruler of all things”.5

5 Ibid: “Ein gewisser Schech, der von Jugend auf in der Wüste herumgereiset war, und bey Gelegenheit, da er seine Kameele an Kaufleute vermiethete, nicht nur die vornehmsten Städte in Nedsjed, sondern fast in ganz Arabien gesehen hatte, wollte besser unterrichtet seyn. Dieser gab vor, Abd ul wáheb lehre seine Schüler Gott als den Schöpfer und Regierer aller Dinge zu verehren und anzubeten; er verbiete ihnen aber in ihrem Gebete weder des Mohámmeds, noch irgend eines andern Propheten oder Heiligen, und selbst nicht seines eigenen Namens zu gedenken, weil dieses zur Abgötterey Anlaß geben könne. Mohám- med, Christum, Mosen und viele tausend andere, die die Súnniten unter die Zahl der Propheten setzen, soll er bloß als große und würdige Leute ansehen, deren Geschichte man ohne eine Sünde zu begehen, lesen und hören könne. Er soll es aber läugnen, daß jemals durch die göttliche Eingebung, oder von dem Engel Gabriel Bücher geschrieben worden sind. Ich weiß nicht, wie viel man sich auf die Nachricht dieses Arabers verlassen kann; denn die Beduinen nennen sich zwar Mohammedaner, sie bekümmern sich aber gemeiniglich weder um Mohámmed noch um den Korân, und ich glaube deswegen fast, daß mein Schech die erwähnte Lehrsätze selbst billigte.” The controversy over the cult of the saints, their tombs and prayers for miracles, immunity, sacrifices and oaths connected with such places of popular veneration (sometimes extended to caves, rocks and plants deemed sacred), was, from Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s perspective, based on the assumption that such practices led away from monotheism, in many cases lapsing back into Paganism, jāhilīya, “era of ignorance”. Hence the precautionary order to destroy mau- soleums, domes, rich tombs, starting with the tomb destroyed by the Wahhabi leader at al-Jubaila, that of Zaid ibn al-Khattab, a brother of the caliph ʿUmar, which followed an explicit disposition said to have descended from Muhammad. Hence also the disagreement with less intransigent Sunni scholars, in the first place Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd al-Wah- hab, brother and adversary of Muhammad and both leader and inspirer of the tenacious resistance of the city of al-Riyad to the penetration of the new doctrine, who advocated a traditional acceptance of these rites which was later also supported by nineteenth-century anti-Wahhabi writers such as Da⁠ʿud ibn Sulaiman ibn Jirjis al-Baghdadi and the historian of Mecca Ahmad ibn Zaini Dahlan (1817–86), cf. Haj (2002), pp. 256–58; Laoust (1939), pp. 529–30; Nallino (1937); Peskes (1993), pp. 25–26, 45, 126, 195–96, 229; Peters (1989), p. 94; Philby (1930), pp. 4–6, 24, 71; Puin (1973), pp. 53–59; Rentz (2004), pp. 19–22, A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 17

This may have been a distorted echo of earlier controversies about the un- created origin of the Koran. Niebuhr consequently warned that the camel selling sheikh’s ideas were modelled on the vague religiosity of the Bedouin, “Muhammedan” only in name, and that his interlocutor may have attributed his own ideas to the sect. The seed had in any case been sown and on the basis of such composite information it was easy for readers of the Beschreibung to conclude that, in the far reaches of Arabia, there existed an on-going discussion within the Muslim camp concerning the authentic character of Islamic monotheism. As a result of the assertions of Niebuhr’s “sheikh”, the conviction must have developed among Europeans that someone had appeared in the middle of the Arabian peninsula to preach a religion independent of written revelation and not dissimilar to the philosophical religion north of the Medi- terranean known as “Deism”. This hypothesis was corroborated by an analogy merely suggested by Niebuhr between the teaching of ʿAbd al-Wahhab and that of another religious innovator, a sheikh named Makrami from Najran, the region between Najd and Yemen. Makrami was also said to have recognized the prophetic gift of Mu- hammad. He seemed, however, to have distanced himself from the beliefs of his Sunni and Zaydi fellow-countrymen (the latter a majority in Yemen) since he refused to attribute particular honour to the first four caliphs, and success- fully practised the occult – the invocation of rain and the sale of amulets, even including a place in Paradise – thus collecting numerous followers whom he led in brilliant military campaigns. It was further reported that this second religious leader was in alliance with ʿAbd al-Wahhab against their common enemies, the refractory sheikhs of al-ʿArid and their protector, the sheikh of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ. But this was denied in Basra where it was asserted that Makrami had been fortunate enough to impose taxes on the Wahhabi population. Confirma- tion of this was supplied by Niebuhr’s companion on his travels through Persia, an Arab Shiʿi from al-Ahsa⁠ʾ, the German explorer’s third main source.6

216; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 68, 71. For a different, more benevolent reconstruction, underlin- ing that juridical opinions, fatāwa, promulgated by common eighteenth-century “ulāma” in Najd actually sentenced to death anyone guilty of the illicit cult of the sepulchres, while Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab considered such a sentence excessive and promoted instead a re-educative missionary activity, da”wa, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 66–69. 6 C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., pp. 273–74: “Dieser Schech Mékkrami ist in Arabien nicht allein als ein großer Officier, sondern auch als ein großer Geistlicher berühmt. Er hat in der Religion von den Súnniten und Zéiditen ganz verschiedene Mei- nungen. Die Araber sagten, daß er ein Mittel erfunden hätte schon in dieser Welt einen guten Nutzen von dem Himmel zu ziehen; denn er verkauft das Paradies, nach ihrem Ausdruck, Ellenweis, d. i. er weiset einem jeden, nach dem er ihm bezahlt, einen großen 18 Chapter 1

oder kleinen Platz im Himmel an, und die einfältigen und abergläubigen unter den Ara- bern kaufen dergleichen Zettel, so wie andere Amuleten von ihm und von seinen Bevoll- mächtigten, in der Meinung, daß es wenigstens nicht schade einen solchen Paß zu haben, wenn er auch nichts nutzen sollte. (…) Ein Araber aus Lachsa, welchen ich in Persien antraf, meinte, daß der Schech Mékkrami, Mohámmed für einen Propheten erkenne, daß er aber die vier ersten Chalîfen nicht höher schätze als die übrigen, und andere weltliche Fürsten.” Also, ibid, p. 347: “Einer aus Láchsa, mit welchem ich in Persien reisete, wollte behaupten, daß beyde, Abd ul wáheb und Mékkrami einerley Grundsätze in der Religion haben, und dieses ist nicht unwahrscheinlich. (…) Ich glaube deswegen, daß Mékkrami sich zu dieser Zeit mit der Armee des Abd ul wáheb oder vielmehr seines Sohnes Mohám- med, vereinigt habe, wie der erwähnte Araber aus Láchsa mich versicherte. Indessen wollte man zu Basra behaupten: daß Mékkrami und die Anhänger des Abd ul wáheb keine Freunde wären, ja daß ersterer nach seiner Zurückunft aus Láchsa, mit 700 Mann eine Armee von 3000 Mann in El áred geschlagen, und die Schechs dieser Landschaft genöthigt habe, nicht nur eine große Summe Geldes baar zu bezahlen, sondern auch zu versprechen nachher jährlich einen Tribut zu geben. Vielleicht hatte Abd ul wáheb ein Bündniß mit Mékkrami, so wie die Súnniten in Nedsjed mit dem Schech von Láchsa, gemacht, und so wäre es nicht unwahrscheinlich, daß beyde, Abd ul wáheb und Mék- krami verschiedene Schechs in den Provinzen El áred und El cherdsje sich unterwürfig gemacht hätten. Diejenigen Schechs in El áred, welche sich noch zur alten Religion bekennen, sind von der Parthey des Abd ul wáheb dergestalt in die Enge getrieben, daß sie zu der Zeit, da ich zu Basra war, an alle benachbarte Araber um Hülfe geschrieben hatten.” That this Arab witness of Niebuhr’s was a Shiʿi who specialised in making pilgrimages for third parties to Mecca and Mashhad in Khorasan is mentioned later, ibid p. 366 nt. The Makramids, an Ismaili dynasty in Najran which originated in the seventeenth century, were at the height of their power during the reign of Diya⁠ʾ al-Din Ismaʿil (d. 1770), who extended his possessions as far as the Hadramaut where he imposed divine law, sharīʿa, instead of the still widespread tribal customs. His fame consequently also grew as a religious reformer. He was probably the Makrami mentioned by Niebuhr, although Wahhabi sources name his successor and brother as Hasan ibn Hibat Allah (d. 1775), who in turn led a less fortunate military campaign against the Saʿudi kingdom shortly before his death, cf. Madelung (1991), p. 191. On the first military campaign from Najran (1764), which Niebuhr must have meant; the obscure circumstances of the truce stipulated between the two contenders, with Saʿudi payment of tribute money and exchange of prisoners; the disastrous consequences of this peace because of the almost contemporary anti-Wahhabi foray by ʿUraiʿir ibn Dujain, emir of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ, who besieged al-Dirʿiyya with cannon and mortar, but failed to recover the powerful Makrami to his cause with the promise of a hundred thousand gold pieces, cf. Abu Hakima (1965), pp. 131–32; Hartmann (1924), p. 193; Philby (1930), pp. 20–21; Philby (1955), pp. 57–58; Rentz (2004), pp. 108–11; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 84–85, 489. Although they do not name Makrami, the Wahhabi chroniclers censure veneration of the local Ismaili leader in Najran and do not hesitate to label him the “accomplice of Satan” (qarīn iblīs), cf. Puin (1973), p. 60; Rentz (2004), p. 108. The frequent attacks of the Banu Yam in Najran on Yemenis and even on the imām of A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 19

It was not at all clear on what doctrinal basis the association of the two Arab prophets might rest. A holy man and a sorcerer also returned from Persia, and indeed from India, Makrami seemed to have brought back from those lands fruits quite different from the simple, humane teachings attributed to his colleague. In European eyes it came as no surprise that the lax dogma and a certain license in matters of faith linked to the name of ʿAbd al-Wahhab could lead to totally irrational beliefs, as the brilliant career of Count Cagliostro was soon to illustrate. So it hardly seemed unlikely that a bizarre synergy had developed between Makrami the sorcerer and ʿAbd al-Wahhab the religious preacher, both intent on combating Muslim orthodoxy in Arabia. The encounter between ʿAbd al-Wahhab and Makrami which, according to Niebuhr, occurred in 1763–64, was the only precise chronological reference in the account. Since the author’s stay in Yemen came to an end in June 1763, when he set sail for India, and since he had prepared his personal notes on Arab customs only after the death of his more scholarly companions, the Dan- ish philologist Christian von Haven and the Swedish naturalist Peter Forsskål, both of whom had died of malaria in Yemen, we are entitled to believe that he had gathered his information on the “new religion” while passing through Per- sia and Mesopotamia on his long homeward journey. His stay in Basra, from August to September 1765, seemed particularly important. It was there that he met at least the first of the three informers he mentions – a man described in the Beschreibung as a scholar (ein Gelehrter). And the founder of the sect was said to have spent a period of his youth in Basra, where he may still have been remembered. Travellers, merchants, messengers and refugees from Najd must have come by with stories and requests for help while Niebuhr was still in the town. They appeared to know that, on the death of his father, a son of ʿAbd al- Wahhab called Muhammad had become leader of the movement, had introduced a tax “under the name of sikka”, had forced the Sunnis still following the religion of their forefathers to emigrate, and had imposed an almost papal authority over the province of al-ʿArid.7

Sanʿa, confirmed by Arabic sources, do not appear to have been included in Niebuhr’s information on Makrami, cf. Hartwig (2002), pp. 179, 182. 7 C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., p. 349: “Nach dem Tode des Abd ul wáheb ist sein Sohn Mohámmed in des Vaters Fußstapfen getreten, und jezt gleichsam Pabst in El áred. Er wird zwar als Geistlicher angesehen, und die verschiedenen kleinen Herrschaften werden dem Namen nach, noch immer von ihren Schechs regieret. Mohámmed ibn Abd ul wáheb aber ist ihr Anführer. Er verlangt schon von alle seinen Unterthanen gewisse Schatzungen unter dem Namen einer Sikka oder Beysteur zur Unterhaltung der Armen und zur Vertheidigung seiner Religion gegen alle diejenigen, welche er für Ungläubige hält. Die Súnniten, welche so halsstarrig sind, daß sie die Religion ihrer Vorfahren nicht 20 Chapter 1

Amazement in Europe could only grow on the arrival of such news. Despite the more generous universal principles attributed to the founder, intolerance and despotism appeared to characterize “the new religion” no less than the traditional Muslim faith. It was also suggested that there was a vague resemblance to the hierarchy in the Roman Catholic church, hardly accom- modating or liberal, at least according to the disenchanted views of the Lu- theran Niebuhr.8 The uncertainty was vastly increased by the lack of a name for the movement and its devotees. It seemed impossible to hazard a proper opinion about such a contradictory phenomenon.

2 Grounds for Niebuhr’s Impressions and their Early Circulation

Niebuhr’s information was largely based on reports from outside the Wahhabi movement and was inevitably affected by his heterogeneous sources. He himself admitted that strange accounts “will [always] be produced by the followers of one Mohammedan sect, when they are asked about the principles of the others”.9 Hence the question of how far this was also true for the “new religion” in Najd. Niebuhr’s faith in the reliability of his own account was, by and large, well placed. At the time of the author’s presence in Arabia two dangers had appeared to threaten the nascent Wahhabi kingdom (perhaps better defined as Saʿudi). The capital al-Dirʿiyya had been unsuccessfully besieged by ʿUraiʿir ibn Dujain (Ärar in Niebuhr’s transliteration), the emir of the Banu Khalid in the al-Ahsa⁠ʾ region, while an invasion from Najran had been checked only by negotiation and the payment of tribute money. The name Makrami, used to indicate the great leader who originated from the area, proved to be correct, although it in fact corresponded to a dynasty rather than an individual ruler.

verlassen wollen, werden von ihm und seinen Anhängern dergestalt gedrückt, daß schon viele ihr Vaterland verlassen, und in fremden Ländern ihre Freiheit und Sicherheit gesucht.” It should be noted that in the Reisebeschreibung, written slightly later and containing a considerable section on the author’s stay in Basra, Niebuhr makes no mention of these meetings and events, cf. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern, Copenhagen, 1774–78, II, pp. 209–40: Anmerkungen zu Basra. 8 This reference to the papacy sounded so strange that the translator Robert Heron chose to replace the German “gleichsam Pabst” with the circumlocution: “supreme ecclesiastical character”, cf. Travels through Arabia, and other countries in the East, performed by M. Niebuhr, Edinburgh, 1792, II, p. 133. 9 C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., p. 22. The few details given by Niebuhr concerning his local informers and the rarity of his contacts with the upper echelons of Arab society are treated by Hartwig (2002), pp. 166, 169, 171–72. A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 21

Later information to reach Europe about the Wahhabis provided no immediate confirmation of the entire episode.10 A political and military pact between the parties may have formed the basis for dubious rumours that a religious agreement also existed. Two further elements were of equal importance, confirming the impression the Wahhabis liked to give of themselves as the moralizers of Arabia. In the first place the scanty religious observance Niebuhr attributed to the Bedouin, a constant theme among European authors, was supposed to have had some connection with the rapid spread of the new faith. In the second place there was the acknowledgement that ʿAbd al-Wahhab had been able to settle the savage feuds which, since time immemorial, were believed to have weakened the tribal groups of Najd, condemned by discord to political insignificance.11 There was, if anything, a greater confusion about the identity of the mysterious preacher ʿAbd al-Wahhab who, in Niebuhr’s works, appeared as distinct from a son and successor named Muhammad, but who was in fact the same person and the true founder of the movement and still at the height of his power at the time of the Danish expedition to Arabia.12 Even more surprising was the

10 Not until 1823 did more information reach Europe, via a Frenchman, Mengin (infra, Chap- ter III, note 66). After that, in 1843, a French naval officer, Passama, brought news of a dynasty still extant in Najran, founded in 1762 by a “premier Makkrami” at the expense of the Yemeni imam of Sanʿa, the former owner of the territory. “Grande réputation de sainteté” and rumours of an improbable Indian origin of the founder still seemed to accompany his memory among the Bedouin Banu Yam, cf. Passama, “Notice géographique sur quelques parties de l’Yémen”, in Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, deuxième série, XIX, 1843, pp. 224, 229–30. 11 In connection with the Abu Arish, Niebuhr writes about the vague religious practices of the Bedouin: “Sie nennen sich zwar Mohammedaner, wenn sie von Mohammedanern nach ihrer Religion gefragt werden. In Jemen aber redet man selten von ihnen ohne sie Ungläubige, Kafrs und Räuber zu nennen, weil sie die Reisende gern plündern, und auch eine von den Sunniten und Zéiditen ganz verschiedene Religion haben”, cf. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., p. 269. The inhabitants of the province of al-Sahan are also said to know the Koran almost solely by name, ibid, p. 271. 12 Uncertainty over the name and identity of the founder, whether ʿAbd al-Wahhab or Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, was destined to continue. The first option is still to be found in Burckhardt (infra, Chapter III, note 77) in spite of the more accurate information acquired in the meantime, as also in the entry for Abd-al-Wahab in Michaud’s universal dictionary, cf. Biographie Universelle, Ancienne et Moderne, Paris, 1811–57, Supplément, LVI, 1834, p. 16 (entry signed: A-t. The author Pierre Hyacinthe Audiffret includes a specific reference to Niebuhr). This uncertainty was caused both by the name “Wahhabi”, which seemed to refer back to the actual founder of the sect, and by some confusion about Arab traditions. In particular there was a legend confirmed by European writers after Niebuhr’s 22 Chapter 1 complete lack in the Beschreibung of any mention of the local dynasty – that of Saʿud – which had adopted the apparently novel cult with the utmost enthusiasm. However, this omission, and the division of one figure into two, probably had the same explanation. Muhammad ibn Saʿud, lord of al-Dirʿiyya and the first man to lead his tribe to espouse the Wahhabi cause, died in 1765. His throne was then occupied by a son called ʿAbd al-ʿAziz. It may thus have appeared to an outsider that the dynastic succession meant that the founder of the sect himself, wrongly identified with the dead prince, transmitted a hypothetical papal office. The result was that the name Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al- Wahhab was believed to indicate the present heir, rather than the original founder of the religious movement.13 This and other imprecisions – Niebuhr seemed not to realize that the tax introduced by the Wahhabis which he called sikka, meaning “coin”, was compulsory charity, the Arabic zakāt, a regular tax on all property ordained by the Koran – were naturally related to the real nature of the new religious teaching.14 The difficulty lay not only in the scarcity of information, in the fact that Niebuhr did not meet any informers who were professed Wahhabis, but also in the contemporary debate among Muslim scholars concerning the true

time which told of a fire foreseen in a dream by a certain Sulaiman, grandfather to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, which had been set alight by a son rather than a grandson representing symbolically the furious advance of the new message, infra, Chapter II, notes 16, 29. 13 Niebuhr’s duplication of the real founder of the Wahhabi movement with his son and successor named Muhammad was not such a bad mistake as to impair the exceptional value of this first report of the new preaching in Najd. It can be explained as a possible misunderstanding about the death of Muhammad ibn Saʿud (d. 1765), who reigned in al-Dirʿiyya and of whom there is no further mention in the Beschreibung. Niebuhr’s informers might perhaps have mistaken this for news of the death of the Wahhabi leader, in fact still living, cf. Freeth/Winstone (1978), pp. 87–89. The fact remains that the name Muhammad, belonging to the religious reformer and to the dead monarch, was taken to be the name of a son and successor of the presumed first innovator ʿAbd al-Wahhab. On the problem of Niebuhr’s silence concerning the Saʿudi dynasty, but also the intrinsic value of his information on the Wahhabis (“containing no positive errors”), cf. Hogarth (1904), p. 72. On the different roles of imām and “emir” in the Holy War (jihād) according to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, probably influencing Niebuhr’s information on the separation of religious and political power, cf. De-Long-Bas (2004), pp. 219–20. 14 The Wahhabis established alms imposed by law, the zakāt, one of the five pillars of Islam, as the basis of their system of taxation, also imposing it on the Bedouin, who regularly ignored it, cf. Fahad (2004), pp. 43–44; Laoust (1939), p. 528; Vassiliev (1998), p. 76. Muham- mad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab imputed rejection of this obligation even to the caliph Abu Bakr, although allowing late payment in certain cases, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 49, 55–56. A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 23 character of the new doctrine held by many to be heterodox. Under discussion was the more or less strict definition of the concept of divine unity (tawḥīd) and its foundation in scripture, and a re-examination of the relationship between free interpretation (ijtihād: “independent judgement”) of the sacred texts and faithful adherence (taqlīd) to ancient commentators. This was accompanied by a veritable conflict over both theological authority and customs. Niebuhr must have heard enough to be aware of a widespread aversion to the sectarians and to register accusations of “heresy” and “infidelity” among the opposing parties. Nevertheless, in spite of his attempt to remain impartial, he was ultimately guided by his own sympathies which lay with the more radical hypothesis. This was proposed with apparent benevolence by the camel-selling sheikh, but it must equally have reflected some of the main accusations of heterodoxy advanced in Arabia by the critics and victims of that most controversial man, ʿAbd al-Wahhab.15 Only in this perspective could such frequent recourse to the expression “new religion” in the Beschreibung be accounted for.

15 It is interesting to note how, from his preface onwards, Niebuhr attempts to reclaim merchants and camel-renters from their bad reputation as unreliable informers, cf. C. Nie- buhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., p. xxiv. Rumours of heresy and even repudiation of Koranic revelation by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, contradicting the evidence in his writings and preaching, appear to go back to his first critics from his own region, in particular Sulaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Suhaim, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn ʿAfaliq and the aforesaid Sulaiman ibn ʿAbdal-Wahhab. Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab was said to have attributed to himself prophetic powers, nubuwwa, even greater than those of Muhammad, and personal revelation of a diabolic nature, going so far as to establish his own authority as the sixth pillar of Islam. Seen thus, the sense of Niebuhr’s recourse to the formula “new religion”, originally used by these authors in a purely polemical sense, may well be considered to reflect the learned opposition in Najd against the Wahhabi movement, cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 66–67, 90, 107–109, 112, 120; Schwartz (2002), pp. 71, 74, who assumes the truth of the accusation that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab claimed infallibility; Vassiliev (1998), p. 78. Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab in fact deliberately tended to ignore customary recourse to the juridical principle of consensus, ijmāʿ, among the learned, and to make unconventional use of the first person singular in the formulation of some of his opinions. He thus incurred accusations of innovation, bidʿa, cf. Cook (1992), pp. 200–202; De-Long-Bas (2004), pp. 53, 97–100, 229, 333. In Ibn Ghannam’s chronicle, but not in that of Ibn Bishr, there even seems to be a trace of personal obedience, bayʿa, “profession of loyalty”, lasting beyond death, which the Wahhabi leader is thought to have imposed on his followers, cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 234, 260. Consequently, for the public, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s teaching could have objectively endowed with prophetic power notwithstanding his own quite different intentions, cf. Philby (1930), pp. 54–55. 24 Chapter 1

In Europe such audacious ideas cannot have seemed very distant from the Muslim tradition. Interpreters of a freethinking, illuminist orientation – the most eloquent champion was Boulainvilliers, but they also included George Sale, the English translator of the Koran – had for some time been convinced that “Mohammedanism” was at heart a more reasonable religion than Chris tianity, free of mystery and incomprehensible dogma. There had even been echoes of theological rationalism in the interpretation of Islam of some important German exponents of Lutheranism.16 Consequently the attractive pos sibility of a spontaneous evolution of the popular Muslim faith in the desirable direction of a so-called natural religion in the native land of Islam may have seemed a perfectly likely development. Niebuhr’s Arabia appeared to have been created for the very purpose of bearing out this hypothesis. It was described from the philosophical stand- point typical of the eighteenth century, guarding against confessional prejudice and propending towards the comparison of Christian and Islamic societies. A surprising variety of religions existed within the confines of the Arabian Peninsula. Independent Jewish communities in the mountainous areas of Khaibar and Hijaz (unconfirmed information which led to fruitless enquiries by later comers), indigenous Christians in the province of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ (the so-called Christians of St. John), immigrant Hindus and Buddhists (“Banyans”) in Yemen, Oman and Basra, and more or less pagan Bedouin, all still co-existed with the followers of Muhammad. All sorts of Muslim sects were less tolerant of each other than of other faiths. Turks and Persians seemed to be divided by a perennial war of religion. Sunnis and Shias respected Jewish and Christian places of worship more than their own. In Yemen the contempt shown for Sun- nis by Zaydis was similar to that shown in Europe by Christians for Jews who were not well liked in Asia either, but were allowed to practise professions forbidden to them elsewhere. Proselytisation hardly existed. The stake for heretics was unknown, even if the death sentence was meted out to common blasphemers and to non-Muslims who had sexual intercourse with Muslim

16 On the eve of Niebuhr’s departure for Arabia the theologian Johann Salomo Semler had released for publication a preface to the corresponding German volume of the Universal History on Muhammad, in which he concentrated on refuting English authors’ accusations of Sale, their fellow Englishman, suspected of sympathetic Deistic leanings towards Islam. The providential justification of the Prophet as the destroyer of paganism in Ara- bia, praise for his early followers, often “gewissenhafter und redlicher” than corrupt Byz- antine Christians (though the latter comparison could well be considered to extend to the condition of the principal eighteenth-century confessions), were Semler’s arguments, cf. Übersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie. Neunzehnter Theil. Mit einer Vorrede begleitet von Johann Salomon Semler, Halle, 1759, p. 21. A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 25 women.17 In view of such a variegated, not to say contradictory, panorama there was nothing to prevent the supposition that, at a time when revealed religion was under attack in Europe, where its enlightened critics sought public consensus, so also in the unexplored regions of Arabia’s interior a sect of Deists had initiated armed hostilities against the dominant cult. Niebuhr, however, was too sober to develop the comparison to the full. His readers were left in considerable doubt as to the effectively non-Muslim, or even merely heretical, character of the new sect.18 It was another scholar who availed himself of Niebuhr’s prestige in order to advance further along the same trail. In 1779 the learned orientalist Joseph de Guignes edited a Paris edition of the Beschreibung, in the preface to which he noted the important discovery of a “new sect, or rather a new religion, in the province of Elred”.19 A purely Deistic interpretation of the original information was effectively propagated in a French compendium of Niebuhr’s writings which appeared in Switzerland during the same period, based on a German abridgement of them (perhaps by the Swiss naturalist Jacob Samuel Wyttenbach) and rivalling more complete and faithful translations.20 In a chapter intended to illustrate the

17 C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., pp. 18–25, 40–47. The author was also impressed by the fact that anti-Christian hatred common among Turks seemed less vehement among Persians and Arabs (at least in Yemen and Oman) who were more courteous to foreigners than to their Ottoman co-religionists. Their hospitality to Europeans was usually no less than that which a civilised European would offer in his own country to an Arab visitor, ibid, pp. 40–41. As to the proliferation of Islamic sects, Niebuhr refers back to one of Muhammad’s sentences, which his interlocutors seemed to identify as a prophecy already fulfilled even if they were unable to enumerate the over seventy schisms announced by the Prophet, ibid, p. 19. 18 Niebuhr makes no further mention of the subject, even in his article: Von den verschie denen Nazionen und Religionspartheien in dem türkischen Reiche, where we merely find: “Von den Beiasi [i.e. Ibadi] oder Chawaredsji [i.e. Kharijites], von den Zeiditen, von den Messalîch, Mekkrami, Dsjedsjâl und Schähareâri habe ich in dem otmannischen Reiche nichts gehört [but only in Arabia and Persia]”, cf. Id., “Von den verschiedenen Nazionen und Religionspartheien in dem türkischen Reiche”, in Deutsches Museum, IX, 2, 1784, pp. 4–5. 19 Description de l’Arabie. Par M. Niebuhr. Nouvelle Édition, Paris, 1779, I, p. 54 (a revision of a first, mediocre French translation, which appeared in Copenhagen in 1773, edited by Frédéric Moïse Mourier). 20 Voyage de M. Niebuhr en Arabie et en d’autres pays de l’Orient, en Suisse, 1780 (in the subtitle: Avec l’extrait de sa description de l’Arabie et des observations de Mr. Forskal). In the preface the translator says that he intends to “séparer dans un abrégé” (not only the Be schreibung von Arabien but also his subsequent Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien) that which “ils contiennent de connoissances généralement utiles & agréables”; but his work 26 Chapter 1 new religion more amply Niebuhr’s somewhat cautious account of the scholar from Basra was cut in favour of the far bolder description given by the camel merchant. The “great change”, a mere hypothesis in Niebuhr, was thus transformed into a “revolution” already underway. The “new prophet” ʿAbd al-Wah- hab, the promoter of a “reform of Mohammedanism” intended to revive its “original simplicity”, was seen as preaching such a total repudiation of external manifestations of the Muslim faith as to threaten the very credibility of revelation in the Koran not only in the eyes of the uneducated, but also in those of learned Sunnis. The latter were here accused of being the actual artificers of popular ignorance rather than of just being its all too moderate critics (as in Niebuhr’s original text). The alliance with Makrami, who also repudiated the traditional cult, was presented as the symptom of a profound crisis. Appar- ently lacking any connection with the noble “spirit of reform” in Najd, Makra- mi’s “quackery” was clarified in the light of the entire period, during which as much attention was paid to the magic of prayer, even among Christians, as to the intelligibility of dogma.21 So in Arabia, as in Europe, rationalism was sup-

seems to depend on a contemporary rewritten German version of Niebuhr’s volumes, which appeared in Bern without the author’s name and ambiguously entitled Reise und Beobachtungen durch Egypten und Arabien aus den grossen Werken verschiedener gelehrten Reisenden, Bern-Winterthur, 1779–81 (with a preface to the second volume, absent in the corresponding French, clearing the editor of the accusation of “sorgenlos und unüber- legt” altering or mutilating what Niebuhr had originally dictated). Although it was issued a year later with a more suitable title (Neue Sekte eines Theils von Nedsjed, ibid, II, pp. 143– 48), the report on Abd Ul Uahheb (sic) forms in fact the basic working script for the corresponding French translation (De la nouvelle religion d’une partie du Nedsjed, cf. Voyage de M. Niebuhr en Arabie, cit., II, pp. 140–46), excepting some occasional important modifications by the translator himself, who must have consulted the original Beschreibung in person and intended to make a more dramatic impression by using the terms “nouvelle religion”, “prophète”, “apôtre”, “novateur”, which, in his text, give the idea of an even more radical break with the established religious system. In the Reise und Beobachtungen we only find “neue Sekte”, “neue Lehre”, while the term “Pabst” hazarded by Niebuhr himself is replaced by Wyttenbach with the Arabic term mufti. Translations and re-elaborations of Niebuhr’s writings are not as yet a subject of specific study. Voyage de M. Niebuhr en Ara- bie is attributed without further justification to Mourier by Ehrencron-Müller (1927), p. 448; Ehrencron-Müller (1929), p. 79, probably because in 1773 he was responsible for the first translation of Niebuhr’s Beschreibung. The corresponding German version (Wytten- bach is cited in some library catalogues, including that of the Universitätsbibliothek Bern) is not registered in Ehrencron-Müller (1929). 21 Voyage de M. Niebuhr en Arabie, cit., II, pp. 144–46: “Ce récit du schech ne s’accorde pas entiérement avec ceux que m’ont fait quelques sunnites, des dogmes d’Abd ul Wahheb. Mais on ne peut pas croire, sur cet article, les disciples d’une secte superstitieuse, dont toutes les fausses opinions sont combattues par la nouvelle religion. La religion A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 27 ported by new forms of credulity when it came to the eradication of old superstitions. While Niebuhr had preferred to adhere strictly to the accounts given by his Arab informers, the controversy about the cult of the saints and the authorised interpretations of the Koran were more evident in the Swiss compendium. The existence of a deep split between the new religious reformer and the Muslim Sunnis as such, partly confirmed in Niebuhr’s original text, was now taken to be an established fact. Thanks to the contempt of the Sunnis, an “obstinate and superstitious sect”, however, it also acquired the appearance of an Illuminist contest between reason and prejudice, the outcome of which was only uncertain because of the obtuseness of the masses and the vested interests of the theologians. The appearance of such a brilliant compendium of the Be schreibung in French was bound to have an influence on the reception of the full version of the original, in some cases even making it dispensable. Heron’s aforesaid English translation was not based on Niebuhr’s works as published in Copenhagen, but on this Swiss abridged version.22 It confirmed the suspicion

musulmane, telle que la professent les sunnites, a été surement bien altérée depuis le tems de Mahomet. Cette secte adopte l’autorité de quelques commentateurs, qui expli- quent l’alcoran suivant leur caprice, & qui érigent en dogmes leurs opinions particulieres. Elle reconnoit une foule des saints, qu’elle invoque dans ses nécessités, & auxquels elle attribue une infinité de miracles absurdes, opérés en faveur de ceux qui se sont adressés à ces saints, préférablement à Dieu. Elle croit aux amulettes & à l’efficacité de tous les vœux insensés. Enfin elle s’est livrée successivement à un grand nombre de superstitions condamnés par l’alcoran, mais légitimées par les explications des docteurs. (…) On peut donc envisager la nouvelle religion d’Abd ul Wahheb comme une véritable réforme du mahométisme, qu’il veut ramener à sa premiere simplicité. Il est allé plus loin peut-être que d’autres réformateurs: mais un Arabe n’est pas obligé de connoître les ménagemens. Il faut voir par l’expérience, si une religion si détachée de tout ce qui frappe les sens, pourra se soutenir chez un peuple ignorant, comme sont les Arabes. La charlatanerie du schech Mecrami ne contredit pas cet esprit de réforme. Ce schech profite de la grossiéreté de ses compatriotes, par l’opinion fanatique de l’efficacité de ses prieres, par lesquelles il prétend obtenir de Dieu meme tout ce qu’il lui demande. Ce fanatisme d’attribuer trop de pouvoir aux prieres, se combine avec la simplicité du dogme: nous avons sous nos yeux des exemples, qu’il embrâse de têtes trop combustibles, dans un siecle des lumieres, & au milieu de la religion la plus épurée.” 22 In the preface the translator is deliberately vague about the all but complete correspondence with the Swiss epitome (with the curious discordance of the aforesaid modified translation of the French pape: supra note 8); there is no more than a passing reference to the abbreviation of the full account of Niebuhr’s travels and observations, cf. Travels through Arabia performed by M. Niebuhr, cit., I, p. xii. It is to this English compendium that Barthold Georg Niebuhr refers in his biography of his father, where he recalls having seen the volumes in the libraries of numerous great country houses during his stay in 28 Chapter 1 that something serious was afoot, hidden from indiscreet eyes, affecting the religion and politics of the Arabian Peninsula. The Muslim faith, or rather what went by the name of “Muhammedanism” in Europe, seemed to be challenged by an ambiguous new religious upheaval.

3 Volney: A Great Political and Religious Revolution in Asia

In spite of widespread interest in the Danish expedition to Arabia, the early reception of Niebuhr’s works was neither smooth nor extensive. This was due partly to the altered circumstances since his departure – the deaths of Frederic V of Denmark and of Count Bernstorff, the former Danish prime minister – and partly to the dry style which had little appeal for the current taste in narrative. The theologian Johann David Michaelis at Göttingen, who originally inspired the undertaking, reviewed Niebuhr’s works amply and meticulously, but without a word about the “new religion”.23 In 1775 François Turpin, an un- original biographer of Muhammad, was still able to dispense with all the more recent information on the Prophet’s country, limiting his account to the conventional praise of the “scholars who had penetrated the regions of Arabia”, bearers of new fuel for the “torch of criticism”.24 Even the Vicomte de Pages, who travelled round the world and was informed in Basra of the “irreconcilable hatred felt for Muhammedans” by an Arab leader in the interior, the worship- per of a pure divinity “without cult or mystery”, took the liberty of informing his readers of this as if nothing were already known from Niebuhr, the author of a far richer account already of ten years’ standing.25

Great Britain, cf. “Carsten Niebuhrs Leben”, in B.G. Niebuhr, Kleine historische und philologische Schriften, Bonn, 1828, p. 66. 23 Reviews appeared at several intervals between 1773 and 1775 and in 1778 in the Orien- talische und Exegetische Bibliothek edited by Michaelis. There is a similar omission in the reviews which appeared in the homonymous journal edited by Johann Friedrich Hirt in 1773 and 1775. On the relations between Niebuhr and Michaelis, strained towards the end, when Michaelis refused Niebuhr’s request to revise his own manuscript, cf. Hartwig (2002), pp. 159–61; Hübner (2002); Klaver (2009), pp. 64, 69–70; Marchand (2009), p. 40. 24 F. Turpin, Histoire de l’Alcoran, Londres, 1775, I, p. xxxv. Basing his opinion on Sale, whom he fails to mention, Turpin asserts that the Hanbali Muslim school of law, “autrefois nombreuse & aujourd’hui presqu’éteinte”, perhaps is barely surviving “dans quelques contrées obscures de l’Arabie” referred to in his work, ibid, II, pp. 338, 340. He could have learnt from Niebuhr that this tradition was prevalent and flourishing among the Najd Sunnis, cf. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., p. 345. 25 P.-M.F. de Pages, Voyages autour du monde, et vers les deux poles, Paris, 1782, I, p. 294: “L’on m’a dit qu’il y a dans les déserts voisins de cette Ville [i.e. Basra], un Cheikr ou Chef Arabe qui a une haine irréconciliable pour les Mahométans, et qui n’adore qu’un seul Dieu, sans A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 29

A person who did take advantage of the Beschreibung, who drew on the complete French translation, and who cast a particularly penetrating eye over recent events in Najd, was Edward Gibbon. He had been interested in the Is- lamic East ever since his youth and was anxious for information about local religious life to include in the philosophically orientated chapters on the Arab world and its relations with Christianity in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88). According to Gibbon the Koranic faith enjoyed an admirable stability due to a healthily strict opposition to any indulgence of the senses and the imagination, and was in clear contrast with the numerous variations undergone by the religion of Christ (“If the Christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could return to the Vatican, they might possibly enquire the name of the Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that magnificent temple”). But Islam seemed to be in the throes of an unusual experience. The very territory of al-Yamama, which had once been the scene of the prophetic, military and amorous exploits of Muhammad’s most insidious rival, the impostor Musailima, now appeared, according to Niebuhr, to be “occupied by the visions and arms of a modern prophet” who was practically unknown.26 Gibbon merely touched on the subject in a note. Nevertheless, two curious differences emerged with respect to Niebuhr. First, there was nothing in

aucun culte ni mystere; tous les autres Habitans de ces contrées, sur-tout des bords du désert, sont bons Mahométans et très-religieux; mais l’on dit que dans le centre du désert il y a des Tribus fort ignorantes, semi-Juives et semi-Chrétiennes, ou plutôt sans un culte bien décidé.” Pages, who died in 1793, massacred in Santo Domingo during a revolt of the slaves, had stayed in Basra for a few days in 1770 (almost five years after Niebuhr), and then left for Aleppo by caravan. 26 Gibbon, who paid especial attention to the worldly reputation of the “favourites of Heaven”, describes Musailima as involved in long “mystic and amorous converse” with a passionate priestess – their obscene dialogue is veiled in Johann Jacob Reiske’s Latin ren- dering of Abu l-Fida – and notes that in the province of al-Yamama, the scene of these events, “in the present century, the same ground is occupied by the visions and arms of a modern prophet whose tenets are imperfectly known.” cf. E. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London, 1776–88, V, p. 277 nt. For a comparison of Christianity with Islam, see ibid, pp. 272–73. Niebuhr, clearly mentioned by Gibbon, knew that the descendants of the tribe to which the prophetess belonged (a branch of the Banu Tamim) still lived in Najd, cf. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., p. 399. Gibbon’s attribution of immutability to the religion of Muhammad, lacking dogma, clergy and schisms, is noted by Giarrizzo (1954), pp. 502–503; Lewis (1993), p. 96. On the potentially deformed perspective caused by such an interpretation of Islam, as it is found in many authors (Stubbe, Toland, Boulainvilliers, Voltaire etc.), and on Gibbon’s comparatively more complex opinion on Muhammad, cf. Lewis (1993); Womersley (2002), p. 169. Gib- bon’s interest in Niebuhr’s information on a “new religion” in Arabia is noted by Hogarth (1904), p. 47; Rentz (2004), pp. 4–5. 30 Chapter 1

Niebuhr about ʿAbd al-Wahhab having prophetic visions. This, if anything, was a standard theme in Christian polemics against Muhammad. But, based on their common geographic origin, there was a more original and perceptive suggestion in an analogy with Musailima, the Muslim prototype of the religious liar. The intuition was remarkable because Gibbon involuntarily introduced a subject typical of the theological polemic in the Muslim camp against the Wahhabis, criticized for believing in a self-styled divine envoy. There was an attempt by Sunni scholars to discredit Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab by a dishonourable comparison with Musailima, resting on a statement attributed to Muhammad denouncing Najd (in particular the province of al-ʿArid) as the land elect of the Devil, religious ignorance and false prophecy. In spite of the uncertainty as to what the new faith actually involved, Gibbon’s words showed that the events described by Niebuhr had at least one sensational precedent in the history of Islam, and he unhesitatingly included ʿAbd al-Wahhab, a very recent armed prophet, among the interminable throng of messengers from the heavens generated by otherwise sterile deserts.27 It was, however, Constantin François de Volney (1757–1820), an illustrious reader of Niebuhr, who, at the same time as Gibbon and to a far greater degree, established a new approach by redirecting traditional deistic sympathies for Islam to Wahhabi teachings. While the author of The Decline and Fall of the Ro- man Empire was working on the final volumes of his masterpiece in the tranquillity of Lausanne, the French philosopher was returning from Egypt and Syria, where vivid personal experiences had warned him against any benevolent approach to the religion of Muhammad. Volney tended to paint an idealised picture of the serene spiritual and material independence of the Bedouin he had met – a not particularly original variation on the theme of man in the state of nature. Nonetheless, this judicious author of the Voyage en

27 Gibbon’s perspicacity was recognised almost thirty years later by a fellow Englishman, James Morier, secretary to the envoy in Persia: “Gibbon first noticed the singular co-inci- dence, that they [scil.: the Wahhabis] sprung from the same province, Nedsjed, in which Moseilama the great contemporary of Mohamed, had propagated his faith”, cf. J. Morier, A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, London, 1812, p. 372 nt. On the polemical comparison of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and Musailima by early anti-Wahhabi controversialists, a far from uncommon subject in Muslim theological debate; on the related picture of Najd as the land of the origin of the Devil; and on the later deliberate rehabilitation of these places by the pro-Wahhabi historian, Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi (1857–1924), cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 113–14, 154; Schwartz (2002), p. 73. On the same subject, but also the common membership of the Banu Tamim tribe of both the Wahhabi leader and the ancient prophetess Sajah (Musailima’s companion), cf. Rentz (2004), p. 25. A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 31

Syrie et en Égypte (1787) passed as severe a sentence on Islam as he had on Christian revelation, discredited in his eyes ever since his youth when he had frequented the circle of the Baron d’Holbach.28 Still more important was the evidence that Islam, no less than Christianity, showed traces of the decadence of centuries, the ever more frequent symptoms of an imminent demise. First there was the very recent sacrilegious massacre of the Syrian caravan, attacked by marauders on its return journey from the Holy Places (1757, “twenty thousand pilgrims dead of thirst and hunger, or killed by Arabs, numerous women taken into slavery, the baggage lost”). Then came the ghastly sack of Mecca in 1769 by the soldiers of the ephemeral Egyptian despot ʿAli Bey described in a chapter dedicated to his reign. This appalling profanation seemed almost to replicate the early religious rebellion of the Fatimid caliph of Egypt al-Hakim still venerated by the Druzes whom Volney respected after meeting them in Lebanon.29 Such manifest disaffection with the established religion corroborated repeatedly voiced popular fears of Russian expansion detrimental to the Otto- mans: “The power and religion of the Muslims will soon be destroyed, the Yellow King will come to establish a new empire”. This seemed to justify the

28 Intrusive in daily affairs, with little positive moral influence, fatalistic, superstitious, sub- servient to despotism – thus did the Muslim religion appear to Volney, cf. Voyage en Syrie et en Égypte. Par M. C-F. Volney, Paris, 1787, II, pp. 371, 420–21, 450. His judgement of the Koran (known in the Savary version of 1780) was particularly severe: a volume reverberat- ing with invective against the “impies”, “incrédules”, “ennemis de Dieu et du Prophète”, “rebelles à Dieu et au Prophète”, dedicating oneself to the study thereof would mean to “passer la vie entière à beaucoup apprendre et à ne rien savoir”, ibid, I, pp. 90–91; II, pp. 361–65, 408–409. For Volney’s biography and, in greater detail, the difficult circumstances of his journey – the Foreign Minister Vergennes probably desired an unfavourable eye-witness account in an attempt to discourage ambitious schemes for a French conquest in Egypt circulating at the court of Louis XVI – but also for the scarce information on the Bedouin in his work, limited to a single camp near Gaza, cf. Gaulmier (1951), pp. 56–62, 75–76, 94. His departure from any interpretation of Islam as Deism, his con- demnation of Koranic fanaticism, imposture and theocracy (evils traditionally denounced in the Muslim faith), and his rejection of the religion of Muhammad and all other sacred revelations as obscurantist must be connected with a growing awareness among exponents of the Enlightenment of the strength and combative spirit of their own movement, cf. Laurens (1987), pp. 72–73, 83–94. 29 C.F. Volney, Voyage en Syrie et en Égypte, cit., I, pp. 48, 111, 128; II, pp. 34–35, 95, 237–38, 315. The two episodes already exist in Niebuhr, even though the attack on the pilgrims is here put a year later and explained as a reprisal for the killing by the pasha of Damascus of two sheikhs from the Banu Harb, cf. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., pp. 368–69, 382–83. 32 Chapter 1 hope that more natural alternatives and purer religious ideas might also have spread across the Near East, free of both an omnipotent, bigoted, self-interested clergy and of the ancient authority of written revelation. Volney was pleased to hear of the Kurds, Muslim only in name, who were concerned with neither dogma nor ritual, of the Druzes, uninterested in sacred scriptures or the after- life, and even of the Nusayris (“Ansarié” in the Voyage) suspected of a scandalous form of paganism.30 He was all the readier to see in Bedouin simplicity the signs of a rebirth of natural religion. The Koran referred to these nomads as rebels and infidels, but the way they conducted their lives did not seem to have changed greatly since the time of Muhammad. Witnesses of the recent arrival of a group of Bedouin horsemen at Acre had seen in these desert nomads, who had absolutely no religious instruction, a close resemblance to the indigenous populations of North America.31 Hence Volney’s desire for closer acquaintance with those “savages” and the satisfaction of discovering that they conformed to philosophical canons. They were humane and tolerant, their life and customs simple, like those of French mountain dwellers. They were chaste and capable of real love for their women. Unlike the Turks and the Arabs, the Bedouin believed that the scarcity of resources conditioning their lives made it impossible for them to respect Muslim precepts which were meant for others. One of their sheikhs in the Gaza area was sufficiently unfamiliar with religious differences as to invite the miscreant Volney to join his tribe for ever. He declared that he entrusted his own actions to his conscience alone, left religious matters to God, and trusted in the mercy of the universal divinity.32 In

30 For the Kurds, cf. C.F. Volney, Voyage en Syrie et en Égypte, cit., I, p. 342; for the Druzes, ibid, II, pp. 54–57, 76; for the Nusayri, ibid, pp. 5–6. Of the latter it was said that they worshipped the female genitals. In contrast with Niebuhr, however, who was reluctant to believe such an aberration, Volney preferred not to shock (“l’esprit humain est capable des écarts les plus extravagans”), although he claimed that only one branch of the sect observed “un culte particulier à l’organe qui, dans les femmes, correspond à Priape”. Cf. C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien, cit., II, p. 444. For something analogous in Burckhardt, cf. Travels in Syria and the Holy Land; by the late John Lewis Burckhardt, Lon- don, 1822, p. 152. 31 C.F. Volney, Voyage en Syrie et en Égypte, cit., I, pp. 357–58: “On leur parla des mosquées, de prières, d’ablutions; et ils demandèrent ce que cela signifiait, ce que c’était que Moyse, Jésus-Christ et Mahomet.” 32 When Volney, surprised by the proposal, asked: “Comment les Arabes verront-ils un infi- dèle, ou que penseront-ils d’un apostat?” the sheikh is said to have answered: “Et toi- même ne vois tu pas que les Arabes vivent sans soucis du Prophète & du Livre? Chacun parmi nous suit la route de sa conscience. Les actions sont devant les hommes; mais la religion est devant Dieu.” And another interlocutor: “Dieu est juste; il pesera dans ses balances”, ibid, pp. 380–81. A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 33 the light of such teachings it was hardly surprising that “analogous principles” should have recently been included in a widely shared “new religion”. This information taken from Niebuhr was included in a note in support of such a promising hypothesis and to document the beginning of an “insurrection” in Najd, inspired by this rule of “general tolerance” and supported by the “reasoning” of two Arabs who had been struck during their travels by the variety of cults in Persia and Malabar. To Volney it therefore seemed right to suggest the facility, not to say the imminence, with which an outbreak of a “great political and religious revolution could come about in Asia”.33 Historic irony, often inclined to play tricks on philosophers’ forecasts, decreed that the revolution evoked in the Voyage in connection with the Muslim East should soon break out in France with Volney, back from Gaza, taking an active part in it. As we know, the designs on Egypt and Syria of Napoleon, who had read the work and met the author for the first time in Corsica in 1793, were probably directly influenced by Volney. Yet Volney’s reinterpretation of Niebuhr conditioned by the philosophy of the moment was also destined to bear fruit. Thanks to their travels in distant lands Volney transformed ʿAbd al-Wahhab and Makrami into merchants and then freethinkers rather than presenting them as prophets who lacked any merit in the detached view of an atheist. In

33 Ibid, pp. 381–82 nt.: “M. Niebuhr rapporte dans sa Description de l’Arabie, tome II, page 208, édition de Paris [the aforesaid complete French version revised by Guignes], que depuis trente ans il s’est élevé dans le Najd une nouvelle Religion, dont les principes sont analogues aux dispositions d’esprit dont je parle. “Ces principes sont, dit ce Voyageur, que Dieu seul doit être invoqué & adoré comme auteur de tout; qu’on ne doit faire mention d’aucune Prophète en priant, parce que cela touche à l’idolatrie; que Moyse, Jésus-Christ, Mahomet, &tc. sont à la vérité de grands-hommes, dont les actions sont édifiantes; mais que nul livre n’a été inspiré par l’Ange Gabriel, ou par tout autre esprit céleste. Enfin, que les vœux faits en un péril menaçant ne sont d’aucune mérite ni d’aucune obligation. Je ne sais – ajoute M. Niebuhr – , jusqu’où l’on peut compter sur le rapport du Bedouin qui m’a raconté ces choses. Peut-être était-ce sa façon même de penser, car les Bedouins se disent bien Mahométans, mais il se n’embarassent ordinairement ni de Mohammed ni du Coran”. Cette insurrection a eu pour auteurs deux Arabes, qui après avoir voyagé pour affaire de commerce, dans la Perse & le Malabar, ont formé des raisonnemens sur la diver- sité des Religions qu’ils ont vues, & en ont déduit cette tolérance générale. L’un d’eux, nommé Abd-el-Ouaheb, s’était formé dans le Najd un état indépendant dès 1760: le second, appelé Mekrâmi, Chaik de Nadjerân, avoit adopté les mêmes opinions; & par sa valeur il s’était élevé à une assez grande puissance dans ces contrées. Ces deux exemples me rendent encore plus probable une conjecture que j’avais déjà formée, que rien n’est plus facile que d’opérer une grande révolution politique & religieuse dans l’Asie.” These semi-legendary mercantile journeys to Persia and India in Volney recur to this day in Bas- cio (2007), p. 78; Schwartz (2002), pp. 66–67. 34 Chapter 1 much the same spirit Gibbon remarked ironically that the Deist Boulainvil- liers, in his biography, had already made Muhammad travel farther than the adventurous Telemachus in Fénelon’s homonymous work. The religion of the two wandering Arabs appeared in the Voyage not to be Islamic, but rather an elementary, rational faith, with neither “priests, nor temples, nor any regular cult”, grafted onto a Bedouin existence. This Deistic bias, a mere hypothesis in Niebuhr even if it was one of his favourite conjectures, had become an almost total certainty for Volney. The “great change” forecast by the author of the Be schreibung took on the still more fascinating, almost terrifying, semblance of a “great revolution”, judged probable on the basis of unequivocal symptoms and in store for Asia possibly even in the near future. The religious authority presumed absolute and irreversible not only of the Koran, but of any revelation in written form had been dealt a considerable blow. Morality and religion, if not at irrevocable variance, were by now at least separate entities. The information derived from Niebuhr did not appear in other works by Volney, although these contained condemnations of the Koran and Christian and Muslim claims to universality (in the Ruines and Leçons sur l’histoire), but it was repeated word for word in a new edition of the Voyage (1799). The author never truly retracted, but merely had implicit second thoughts in 1814 when the knowledge and scale of the phenomenon had increased considerably. The Wahhabis, now commonly denominated as such, no longer seemed to fit the forecast of an imminent liberation of the Muslim East from the yoke of religious revelation. For Volney they lent themselves to comparison with the pugnacious Israelites during the period of the Judges, who were equally “ferocious and superstitious”.34 Meanwhile an interpretative canon had been established based on the cor- related notions of “Deism” (only the word is missing in the Voyage) and “revolution”. It was easy to reread Niebuhr from the perspective of Voltaire’s Essai sur les moeurs, with the “new religion” in Najd shown in its subversive potential as equivalent to the original inspiration of Muhammad. However, the fabrica- tions and lies to which the Prophet constantly resorted in order to convince himself and others of his mission and to reinforce his own power had become

34 [C.F. Volney], Recherches Nouvelles sur l’Histoire Ancienne. Première partie, Examen de l’histoire des Juifs jusqu’a la captivité de Babylone, Paris, 1814, p. 34: “Tout l’espace de tems appelé période des Juges, se passe dans une anarchie orageuse, violente, pendant laquelle les Hébreux féroces et superstitieux comme des Ouahabis, ne cessèrent d’être agités de guerres civiles ou étrangères; il faut considérer que ce petit peuple divisé en tribus indé- pendantes et jalouses, subdivisées en familles aussi indépendantes, était une démocratie turbulente de paysans armés, mus plutôt que gouvernés par des Bramines avides et par des inspirés fanatiques.” A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 35 unnecessary. The simple, natural religion could now be propagated by rational persuasion. In France more than anywhere else this idea was to survive for some time to come, albeit with an increasing number of modifications rendered necessary by the growth of experience.

4 Olivier: Wandering Wahhabis and Persian Pilgrims

The success of the Voyage was enormous. Numerous translations followed and indeed, from 1798 on, success was assured by the French troops back from the Nile who were greatly impressed by the close correspondence between narrative and reality. Even twenty years later the chapter on the Bedouin, though not the most original, was influential in the representation of the nomads in the famous Description de l’Egypte, a colossal epitome of the discoveries made during the Egyptian Campaign.35 Though doubts were fairly soon expressed concerning the actual presence of the traveller in some of the places described, such as the much praised ruins of Baalbek and Palmyra, this cast no discredit on the author. The Muslim East as represented by Volney was free of the facile distortions of a Christian perspective, nor was it embellished or transfigured to suit a taste for the exotic. This time an early reviewer, Michaelis, showed an interest in the “simple, natural religion” of Najd, albeit not without noting the weak points in Volney’s description. Niebuhr, he pointed out, had expressed himself with greater caution and in no way could Muslim ritual duties (ablution, fasting, alms-giving) be seen as being in contrast with Bedouin life.36

35 Here the proverbial hospitality, generosity and religious moderation of the inhabitants of the desert are praised: “Ils n’ont ni haine ni mépris pour les autres religions; (…) ils ne sont guère Mahométans que de nom, et les autres peuples attachés à ce culte les regardent presque comme des infidèles”, cf. Du Bois-Aymé, “Mémoire sur les tribus arabes des déserts de l’Égypte”, in Description de l’Égypte, Paris, 1809–28, État moderne, I, 1809, pp. 586–87, 589–90. A partial exception is made for the Egyptian Bedouin who had been spoiled by contact with the sedentary populations and with the Mamluks and had lost their notoriously good qualities some time earlier, becoming avid and disloyal, cf. E. Jomard, “Observations sur les Arabes de l’Égypte moyenne”, ibid, pp. 569–70, 574–75. 36 J.D. Michaelis, “Voyage de Volney, P. I”, in Neue Orientalische und Exegetische Bibliothek, IV, 1787, p. 167: “Wäre ich Muhammedanischer Theologe, so wüßte ich wol darauf zu ant- worten: sie sollen sich mit Sand, Staub, oder Erde waschen, u.s.f. aber das ist meine Pflicht nicht, sondern die, zu erzählen.” On the success of Volney’s Voyage, confirmed by both military and civilian members of Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign and more in general by European travellers from every nation (“Tous ceux qui en firent partie ont reconnu que l’auteur avait constamment dit la vérité” – Stanislas Girardin noted in his diary), cf. Gaul- mier (1951), pp. 117–18, 478. 36 Chapter 1

The Voyage, however, contained no concrete new information, while the fate of the sect remained an open question. Only when complete control over Najd had been achieved and the sect’s ambitions had spread in every direction, leading to conflicts with the sharif of Mecca, the sultans of Muscat and Sanʿa, the pashas of Baghdad and Damascus and, on an even wider scale, with the Ottoman Empire, Persia and the East India Company, would curiosity about the followers of the “new religion” extend beyond the readers of Niebuhr. The imminent revolution in Asia forecast by Volney must indeed have appeared to be on the point of breaking out. The dramatic events of 1789 in France and renewed Anglo-French world competition provided the premises for the development of a more intense interest. And yet the information available in the principal Near Eastern centres frequented by Europeans, namely Istanbul, Cai- ro, Aleppo, Damascus and Baghdad, mirrored local political and religious concerns not easy for foreign observers to fathom. For them the Arabian Peninsula proper was destined to remain almost impenetrable until the time of Muham- mad ʿAli’s invasion. By an unfortunate chance, the observations of the only two European visitors to the Hijaz during the Wahhabi occupation, the Catalan Do- mingo Badía y Leblich (1766–1819) and the German Ulrich Jasper Seetzen (1769–1811), were not published until after the Restoration and were in part lost. It was consequently only many years later that European opinion could be modified in the light of first-hand knowledge of the people and the events. In the meantime confused information about the growth of the sect at times corroborated, and at others weakened, Niebuhr’s conjecture amplified by Volney. One of the first men to receive new information was a chance witness, the naturalist Guillaume Antoine Olivier (1756–1814). In 1796, during an excursion from Baghdad to the ruins of Babylon, Olivier heard of a formidable “Arab tribe”, one-hundred-thousand horsemen strong, whose dominion extended at the time more than a hundred leagues over the territories south-west of Basra. He referred to these men as “Wahhabis” (Ouhabis), an unusual term just then, but did not say whether he had heard it from his Arabic informants, chance companions on his journey to al-Hilla, or had derived it later from another source. This hospitable, frugal, nomadic people considered pilgrimages, fasting, alms-giving, ablutions, in a word the “precepts of the Koran”, with the exceptions of circumcision and polygamy, to be worthless exercises. Though respectful of Muhammad for his saintly customs, but not his prophetic mission, the Wahhabis prayed only to the one supreme Being. To Olivier it thus seemed right to consider such devotees “true Deists” or, in other words, simple believers in one “God, always just, always good, always ready to forgive trans- gressions of imperfection and weakness committed in this world”. A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 37

This flattering portrait adhered faithfully to Volney’s model (generally adopted by Olivier). It was, however, apparently contradicted by further evidence incompatible with the mildness expected of the followers of such a benign God. “An ardent and exalted spirit”, the founder of the movement, Abd al-Wah- hab, was depicted as a religious imposter, greedy for power, “inspired”, very different from Volney’s portrait of an unprejudiced merchant and traveller. His followers, in their turn, seemed inclined to be ferociously intolerant. “Always at war with the Sharif”, they harassed pilgrims bound for Mecca, particularly Per- sians, so that those who fell into their clutches preferred to keep silent about their own religion or pretend to subscribe to the new doctrine. Whoever made a “solemn profession of the Muhammedan faith” or attempted to establish any other religious cult had to fear the worst from the “fanaticism” of such sectarians.37

37 G.A. Olivier, Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman, l’Égypte et la Perse, Paris, 1801–1807, II, pp. 440–41: “Pendant notre course à Hellé, on nous parla beaucoup des Ouhabis (Waha- bis), tribu arabe qui occupe une étendue de plus de cent lieues à l’occident de Bassora et du golfe Persique, et qui se fait redouter du pacha de Bagdad, de l’iman de Mascate et du schérif de la Mecque, car elle peut facilement réunir cent mille cavaliers. Les Ouhabis ont, outre leur ville principale, nommée Neldsg ou Négeds, résidence ordinaire du scheik, quelques bourgades situées dans les lieux les plus fertiles; mais la plupart sont errans, et n’ont d’autre habitation que leur tente. (…) Les Ouhabis ne croient point à la mission de Mahomet, qu’ils révèrent seulement comme un saint personnage: ils ne suivent point les préceptes du koran, et n’ont conservé du culte mahométan de leurs ancêtres, que la poly- gamie et la circumcision; ils n’adressent des prières qu’à l’être suprême, de sorte qu’on les regarde aujourd’hui comme de vrais déistes. Ils ne font point le pélerinage de la Mecque, et sont même toujours en guerre avec le schérif. Quoiqu’ils soient humaines, hospitaliers, et tout aussi probes que les autres Arabes, ils poussent le fanatisme jusqu’à massacrer chez eux quiconque ferait à haute voix la profession de foi mahométane, ou tenterait d’établir chez eux quelque autre culte religieux. Les pélerins persans qui traversent leur territoire en allant à la Mecque, sont très-circonspects; ils évitent de parler de leur religion, ou feignent de croire à l’excellence de celle des Ouhabis. On n’était pas d’accord à Bagdad sur l’origine et l’époque de cette religion: le plus grand nombre pourtant s’accor- dait à dire qu’elle a pris naissance vers le milieu du siècle dernier, en la personne de Abd- ul-Ouhab, arabe, né à Neldsg, qui joignit, à toutes les connoissances qu’il avait pu acquérir à Bassora, à Bagdad et en Perse, un esprit ardent et exalté, et de plus l’ambition de commander aux hommes en les trompant. Abd-ul-Ouhab, absent depuis quelques années, parut dans sa patrie comme un inspiré: il était instruit, il étonna; il parlait au nom de Dieu, il se fit écouter; il était éloquent, il persuada. La religion qu’il présentait, dégagée des aumônes, des ablutions et de toutes les puériles cérémonies du mahométisme, dispen- sant du jeûne long et pénible du ramazan, devait plaire à des hommes pauvres, presque toujours errans sur des déserts arides; à des hommes dont la nourriture est peu 38 Chapter 1

Olivier could find no explanation for such behaviour, but his account emphasised the existence of an already patent conflict over the pilgrimage and the Holy Places and a rift between the nomadic and the sedentary followers of the new preacher (with villages in fertile places) who were explicitly defined as “Deists” – an ambivalence that made the situation all the more interesting. Un- like Niebuhr, who was careful to keep his sources separate, Olivier mixed information collected on the spot with that gathered from his predecessors, thus preventing his readers from making any more specific attribution. This was true of the travels of the young ʿAbd al-Wahhab, already included in the Be schreibung, as also of Niebuhr’s assertion that a son called Muhammad had succeeded his father to the rank of “supreme head of the new religion”. The indigenous informers may have been Muslim Shiʿis, judging at least from their insistence on the danger posed by the sect to Persian pilgrims and their justifi- able dissimulations. The result was that information culled locally was deliberately unfavourable. This was in total contrast with Niebuhr and Volney, the two earlier more benevolent travellers whose sympathies lay with the followers of the new cult, even if their effect was attenuated by the impersonal formula- tions of their judgement.38 Despite such differences of opinion there was at least a general agreement that the Wahhabis did not belong to the so-called Muhammedan tradition. For Olivier this was a definite merit, since he adhered to the modern school of criticism of religious revelation which scorned “puer- ile Muhammedan ceremonies”. The crux of the matter was consequently the outrage shown by the sectarians at the profession of the Muslim faith (shahāda). The exasperation of these supposed Deists may well have been caused not by the entirely reasonable formula of divine unity (“There is no other god than God”), but rather by the ritualistic mention of Muhammad as the supreme envoy of the Almighty.39

abondante, peu variée: elle ramenait d’ailleurs à la croyance pure et simple d’un Dieu toujours juste, toujours bon, toujours prêt à pardonner les fautes qui se commettent dans ce monde d’imperfection et de faiblesse.” 38 In Olivier’s French: “On les regarde aujourd’hui comme de vrais déistes’ clearly refers to Niebuhr, ibid, p. 441. Indeed, with this explicit reference to the Beschreibung, it is hard to understand how Olivier could mistake Najd (“Nejd” or “Neged”) for a city and the Wah- habi capital, in contrast not only to Niebuhr but also to the medieval Arab geographers. 39 Olivier’s assertion that the Wahhabis avoided mentioning Muhammad in their profession of faith is a typical distortion by their detractors. This rumour was probably fuelled by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s insistence on the greater antiquity of the monotheist commandment (predating Muhammad), and by the specification that merely reciting a formula, though indispensable, was inadequate as an observance of, or testimony to, the true faith, which also included the practice of monotheism in the cult, tawḥīd al-uluhīya). A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 39

It was not easy to establish how exact the information in the great volumes of the Voyages dans l’Empire Othoman really was. This was partly owing to the time lapse between the author’s return to France in 1798 and the actual printing of the book. Olivier had set out on the mission assigned to him by the Gi- rondist Minister Roland in 1792. The journey, later extended to Persia, lasted six years, and was followed on his return to Europe by the unfortunate death of his travelling companion Bruguières. Editorial work on the text only began in 1801 and work on the publication of the second volume, which included the account of the Wahhabis, continued until 1804.40 In just a few years the world political scene had changed considerably, not only as a result of Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, which Olivier boasted of having helped to prepare, but also because of ever more recent events in the East, by then widely known, which made it all the harder to establish with any certainty just how far Olivier had remodelled his original information on them. There was only a brief remark in the Voyage on further threatening advances by the Wahhabis in the direction of Medina, Mecca, and even Egypt, and on the savage incursion into Kerbela in 1802, whence the sectarians were said to have carried off “immense booty”.41

This correction was acknowledged with the usual enthusiasm typical of the Wahhabi chronicler Ibn Ghannam as an interpretation hitherto more or less unknown to all other theologians of whom he knew. When faced with such expectations of greater consistency between words and acts, however, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s adversaries usually objected by claiming that men were in any case unable to distinguish the sincerity or hypocrisy of the faith professed by their coreligionists, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 59–60, 223; Margoliouth (1934), p. 1176; Peskes (1993), pp. 21–22, 24, 80–81, 225; Peskes (2002), p. 40; Philby (1930), pp. 71–72. 40 On the circumstances of the mission of Olivier, the entomologist turned traveller for fear of Robespierre’s growing authority (which he had already opposed), see G. Cuvier, “Éloge historique de Guill.e-Ant.e Olivier”, in Recueil des éloges historiques lus dans les séances publiques de l’Institut, Strasbourg, 1819–27, II, pp. 242–43. Olivier sent memoranda from the banks of the Nile to the French ambassador in Istanbul, but failed to do much in Per- sia to foment local hostility to Russia, ibid, p. 252. Nonetheless, his movements around the region gradually extended to originally unforeseen countries. With the additional objective of an alliance with Tippu Sahib against the English in India, and the concession of bases to France at Bandar Abbas, Shiraz, Isfahan and on the island of Kharaq, they aroused enough suspicion among the English to justify the order sent, without effect, by the Brit- ish authorities in India to the agent of the East India Company in Bushir to proceed, if possible, to his arrest and deportation to Bombay together with all his papers, cf. Kelly (1968), p. 64 nt.; Lorimer (1915), I, pp. 151–54, 1879. 41 G.A. Olivier, Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman, l’Égypte et la Perse, cit., II, p. 442 nt. For the attack on Kerbela Olivier refers to Le Moniteur (3 prairial, year XII), in which the episode 40 Chapter 1

It was left to later commentators to establish how far these developments had modified public opinion, or even exploded the inconsistencies in Olivier’s account. Further emissaries sent at the behest of Napoleon to the court at Te- heran were also of assistance. In the meantime, however, Volney’s hypothesis was at least half confirmed. The traditional Muslim religion was apparently in the throes of a crisis which seemed to point towards a radical simplification of both the dogma and the precepts of the Koran.

5 Browne: A Najd Rebel

Before the Wahhabis had gained further notoriety for their attacks on famous Muslim sanctuaries, another curious traveller, the Englishman William George Browne (1768–1813), emulating Volney and the Nile navigator, James Bruce, but with a greater appreciation of the East, was able to send information to Europe no less important than Olivier’s and published with greater alacrity. He had spent five adventurous years in Egypt and as a prisoner in Darfur, and, while crossing Syria in June 1797 on his way back to Europe, he gathered information at Aleppo concerning rebels in Arabia locked in an insoluble conflict with the Ottoman authorities. Local merchants and caravaneers from Basra told of a current military expedition sent by the pasha of Baghdad against a “rebel” in Najd. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Saʿud al-Wahhab (the name given to the Arab leader) was an implacable adversary on a supposedly “divine mission” and appeared determined to “withstand the Porte”. This information corresponded to an earlier serious though unsuccessful attempt by the Ottomans to block Wahhabi expansion. It evaporated with the killing of an Arab leader of the Muntafiq tribe who was an ally of the pasha of Mesopotamia.42 Starting from here,

is dated 2 April 1802. However, the date remained controversial for some time afterwards; others suggested 20 April as the day and 1801 as the year (infra, Chapter II, notes 23, 33, 37, 48; Chapter III, note 67). 42 A military expedition launched by the pasha of Baghdad in 1797 against the Wahhabis, in which regular Ottoman troops from Basra took part, was led by Thuwaini, the head of the Arab tribe of the Muntafiq which had been active on the same front ten years earlier. After an initial success it ended in failure caused by the assassination of the commander at the hands of a slave of African origin named Tuʿayyis, who appeared to have embraced the religious cause of the enemy. The results were the defection of the Banu Khalid allies and the consequent hasty retreat of the invaders, abandoning as they fled a quantity of weaponry, pack-animals and food supplies. The Wahhabi chroniclers, in particular Ibn Ghannam, celebrated the event as a marvel of divine providence, cf. Abu Hakima (1965), A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 41

Browne in part adopted and in part rectified the assertions of Niebuhr and Volney, thus creating his own specific version of the new religious doctrine. Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria (1799), over the writing of which Olivier could exert no influence, offered a more realistic representation of both the conflict between Wahhabis and common Muslims and the limits of the supposed tolerance of the Arab innovators towards Christians and Jews, who were subjected to taxation, in all probability the customary poll-tax or jizya. Follow- ing Muhammad’s guidelines, and differing in part from what had till then been written, the “dogmas” proclaimed by the rebel leader included traditional Is- lamic precepts such as alms, prayers, ablutions and the prohibition of all drink except water, but not the pilgrimage to Mecca or belief in the divine origin of the Koran. As a consequence of the profession of faith in a single God, a ban was imposed on the invocation of any deceased human prophet. The only true prayers were those pronounced beneath the open sky, while mosques were condemned to systematic destruction.43

p. 142 nt.; Brandes (1999), p. 84; Margoliouth (1934), p. 1177; Philby (1930), pp. 68–69; Philby (1955), pp. 87–88; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 93–94. 43 W.G. Browne, Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, London, 1799, pp. 388–90: “About this time, the beginning of June 1797, intelligence arrived, that the Pasha of Bagdad had sent a strong detachment of troops, to be joined by the Arabs friendly to the Porte, to suppress the incursions of Abd-el-aziz ibn Messoûd el Wahhâbé, a rebel against the government, who by the rapid success of his arms, and his increasing number of followers, had lately become formidable. This man, a native of Nedjed, respected among the Arabs for his age and wisdom, had two years before first made public his determination to resist the authority of the Porte. He has since collected a considerable body of men, but it is said that they are only furnished with spears and swords. He pretends to a divine mission, and gives no quarter to those who oppose him. To admit Christians and Jews to his party, he only requires an annual capitation of three piasters and a half. Of the people under his jurisdiction, every house-owner is obliged to serve in person or find a substitute; and, to encourage them, he divides the spoils in five parts. It was supposed he had set his sights on Mecca, which he had threatened to attack. His confession of faith is purely – “There is no God but God”, from which one infers that a prophet, when dead, deserves no homage, and that of course to mention him in a creed, or in prayers, is absurd. He enjoins the absolute necessity of prayer, under the open canopy of heaven, and destroys all the mosques he can seize. Of Mohammed’s five dogmas, he admits alms, fasting, prayer, and ablution, but rejects pilgrimage. He denies the divine origin of the Koran, but prohibits the use of all drink except water. Being advanced in age, he had taken care to secure the attachment of his followers to his son, who was generally his substitute in the field”. The point Browne makes in his Travels, that the Wahhabis had declared prayers of intercession to dead saints inadmissible, seems to suggest the existence of a certain doctrinal preoccupation, in their teaching, with the unassailable tradition of religious authorities beseeching the intercession of saints still living – for example the caliph ʿUmar and his prayer that the 42 Chapter 1

Browne’s dependence on Niebuhr was explicit. Indeed, Niebuhr was cited openly as the first and most credible authority on the subject. Nevertheless, Browne made it clear that he had had to register some “little variation as to the tenets of the founder” of the sect. Rejection of divine inspiration in the Koran, the prohibition of praying to mere men, whether or not they were the recipi- ents of special revelation, were subjects already treated in the Beschreibung. Browne also seemed to confirm Niebuhr’s hypothesis that there was a certain cool indifference to Muhammad. This was based on the formula “There is no god but God”, chosen by ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, thereby excluding the Prophet. More clearly expressed in the Travels is the fact that the popular cult of the saints and the prophets was to be understood as being prohibited once they were dead. There was even an echo of Volney in recalling the abolition of places of worship and the imposition of religious practices in the open. Yet Browne’s view of the fidelity of the new divine messenger to Muslim norms was rather different since, apart from the pilgrimage, he considered them still at least partly valid. Politically speaking, the Wahhabi commander was termed a “rebel”, thus mirroring the Ottoman view. The threat to Mecca represented by ʿAbd al-ʿAziz led to the supposition that he had at least a worldly interest in the capital of the Muslim religion, while the news of a hostile expedition moving out of Baghdad against the rebels indicated thirty years later a more intense belli-

pious ʿAbbas propitiate rain, cf. Pröbster (1935), p. 93 nt. Unverified rumours of special Wahhabi tolerance of Jews and Christians, mentioned by Niebuhr and mitigated by Browne, certainly contributed to European expectations of the development of Deism in Arabia. There is, however, nothing in Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s writings that differs from the Koranic definition of the so-called “people of the Book”, the ahl al-kitāb, or from the formal relations of submission and protection granted by Muhammad to the followers of the earlier monotheistic revelation. The conventional acknowledgement of Jews’ and Christians’ right to prayer, provided it was conducted privately in their own homes, thus exempting them from the obligation to convert, may have contributed to a different interpretation, as did the harsh judgement pronounced by the Wahhabis on the errors of common Muslims, guilty of leaning towards superstition, and in some cases even worse, and open to the supplementary crime of apostasy. It was for deviant Muslims, equated because of their sins with the faithful of other religions, that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab really intended his most famous work, Kitāb al-tawḥīd (Book of Monothe- ism, or of Divine Unity), cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 56, 60, 64, 71, 98, 239; Laoust (1939), p. 525; Peskes (1993), p. 201; Puin (1973), p. 61; Rentz (2004), p. 75; Vassiliev (1998), p. 78. It therefore comes as no surprise that theological Sunni antagonists should have reproached the Wahhabi leader with the error of applying the same severe judgement to sincere believers in the Koran which had been extended by Muhammad to Jewish and Christian modifications of monotheism, cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 87, 106. A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 43 gerence than the purely internal aggression within the Arabian peninsula registered by Niebuhr. The military organization was mentioned: a poorly armed though numerous force, all landowners having to serve under arms or send a substitute. Directions concerning the distribution of generous booty according to which four fifths of the spoils went to the warriors (though without any suggestion that this might be based on a religious norm) was also discussed, as was, finally, the transmission of a consecrated dynastic ambition in the form of the early designation of a family heir to the throne. All this enriched the previously available information.44 Certainly, a degree of uncertainty and imprecision remained despite the ac- cumulated information. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, not otherwise identified, was none other than the firstborn son of Muhammad ibn Saʿud. The same ʿAbd al-ʿAziz was, in turn, the father of the future ruler Saʿud, designated as his successor before the notables in 1788. But Browne elevated the Saʿudi monarch, first and foremost a political leader, to the level of the creator and spiritual guide of the entire new religious movement, without asking what the connection between the “rebel” ʿAbd al-ʿAziz and Niebuhr’s ʿAbd al-Wahhab might be, as if the two were one and the same person and the term al-Wahhab some kind of dynastic surname. Acts of vandalism aiming to wipe out such controversial forms of worship as those already mentioned by Niebuhr, and disliked by the Wahhabis as the expression of a cult deemed idolatrous, increased in the wake of popular indignation, and attacks were even said to have been made on buildings reserved for the worship of God Himself. The frequent destruction by the dreaded sectarians of domes, chapels and tombs built to honour Muslim saints was seen as equivalent to the destruction of “mosques” proper, which were sometimes either an integral part of, or adjacent to, the illicit buildings. All in all, the Deist hypothesis still seemed valid. The strict profession of monotheism, prayer conducted outside buildings made for that specific purpose and without a proper guide (there was nothing in Browne about an established class of clerics and Volney had declared that none existed), the supposed devaluation of the

44 The norms for the distribution of booty, following Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s indi- cations, destined a fifth to expenses for the public good or maṣlaḥa, while the Bedouin tribal custom allotted a quarter to the leader and three quarters to the soldiers, cf. DeLong- Bas (2004), pp. 102, 202, 213–14. For the importance of the 1788 proclamation of Saʿud as the designated successor of his father ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, sanctioned by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab – Browne assumes wrongly that the latter had intended ʿAbd al-ʿAziz to be his heir – in establishing a law of hereditary dynastic succession in Arabia, cf. Fahad (2004), p. 46; Philby (1930), p. 47; Philby (1955), p. 77; Rentz (2004), p. 209; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 88, 125, who note that this custom was unknown to both settled and nomadic inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula. 44 Chapter 1

Koran and the relative tolerance of unrelated religious communities, seemed to give credence to the idea that a movement, albeit of Muslim origin, had formed in Najd which was hostile to all historic revelation. Only in the second edition of the Travels (1806), in a note of “later testi mony” for which no source was given – possibly a report by Brydges from Bagh- dad (see infra, Chapter II, note 68) – was this vague and scant information expanded. Nevertheless, the note threw considerably more light on the true nature of the phenomenon. We read here that after journeying to Baghdad, Damascus and Mosul for study, a “heresiarch” in Najd by the name of Muham- mad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab had moved away from the original ancient Muslim faith and had died in 1792 at a great age. His successor as “chief judge” seemed to be a son called Husain. The “rebel” ʿAbd al-ʿAziz was now introduced as the son of one Ibn Saʿud, of uncertain identity, the first political protector of Mu- hammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, and one-time lord of al-ʿUyaina. In this locality the Wahhabi leader had in fact been under the temporary tutelage of a different sheikh and, slightly later, Browne himself mentions al-Dirʿiyya as the capital of the new domain. The “new converts”, euphoric in “their fanaticism”, were feared more for their rapacity than for their “religious innovations”, since their “numerous dogmas” differed little from Muslim Sunni beliefs of Hanbali observance. There was also a generous system for sharing out booty and a fiscal policy of “public spending” – the reference may be to the creation of a deposit for communal needs, the bait al-māl, modelled on the system applied by the first successors of Muhammad – which perhaps compensated in part for the spirit of plunder. Yet the originality of the movement was evident in two ways: on one hand the increased insistence of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab on reprehensible idolatry inherent in the invocation of dead prophets and in the con- struction of “splendid tombs”; on the other, the sacred “positive duty” imposed on his followers to wage “perpetual war” on anyone refuting their doctrines, no matter whether Muslim or dhimmī (the protected Jewish and Christian minorities). The boast of the new sect was in fact said to be their ability to “triumph over the opinions of others”.45

45 W.G. Browne, Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria. Second edition, enlarged, London, 1806, pp. 447–48 nt.: “Later testimony, on which it is believed reliance may be placed, describes Mohammed ibn Abd-ul-wahib, a native of Nejd, as the founder; and assures us that it made its appearance as early as the year 1731 – H. 1143. Mohammed had studied in Bagdad, Damascus and Mosul; and was successively compelled to flee from each of those places on account of the heterodox opinions which he persisted in delivering. Nejd, being divided into small independent sovereignties, each governed by its own Schech, he found refuge at length in the city of Ayéné, in the district of El Ared, called Darayé, or wadi hanifé, the Schech of which became his protector. And although Mohammed’s behavior A Deistic Revolution in Arabia 45

In the meantime, Browne had been back to Cairo and Istanbul (1801–802) where he may have obtained further clarifications, though what he writes seems at times to show the influence of more recent European publications. Up until 1806 many new events had indeed occurred to modify the perception of the sect, giving rise to new writings, without there being any means for the public to verify how far the new material in the second edition of the Travels was the author’s contribution, or whether the information he had acquired personally may not merely have been the original material of 1797.46 During the thirty intervening years since Niebuhr’s initial report, slightly more information had come to light concerning the political and social background of

there was imperious and violent, many neighbouring Schechs, with their tribes, received his doctrines. After some years, the Schech of Ayéné, named ibn Soud, dying, was succeeded by his son Abd-ul-Aziz; and Muhammed, the heresiarch, who expired about 1792, at the advanced age of more than 100 years, was also replaced as chief judge, by his son Hussein. The success of the new converts, towards the close of the last century, became more rapid; and though several of the Arab tribes have opposed them with the sword, it appears to have been rather from fear of their ambition and rapacity, than from any horror of their religious innovations. Their dogmas, as well regarding government as faith, are numerous. Their mode of distributing the spoil, and the rules for levying imposts for public expenditure, are calculated to conciliate proselytes. And if their religious peculiarities were limited to the maxim, “That the prophet when dead, is not to be invoked, having no longer any concern in the affairs of men” – “that relics and splendid tombs savour of idolatry, and that therefore it is meritorious to destroy them”, &c. &c: they would not incur any very heavy censure. (In fundamentals they are Mohammedans, of the persuasion of Imam Hanbali.) But their fanaticism, as may be expected, plumes itself on triumphing over the opinions of others. Perpetual war therefore against all, whether Sûnnites or Dhûmmis, who dissent from his doctrines, is the positive duty of a Wahhibi”. After 1799 the most common variation of the name is “Wahhabi”, not yet present in that first edition. There follow considerations on the safety of the capital al-Dirʿiyya, equidistant from Basra and Mecca, remarks on the relatively harmless initiatives of the sharif of Mecca and the pasha of Baghdad, and, finally, an assessment of the probability that the Wahhabis, rather than “strengthening the union between the various Arab nations” and “erecting a potent and durable sovereignty”, are only able to establish an ephemeral dominion destined to die out for lack of booty. 46 The more detailed information on Browne, assassinated in Persia during his last journey there in 1813, is derived from the “Biographical Memoir of Mr. Browne”, published by Rob- ert Walpole, included in a notable collection of memoirs of travellers in the East, cf. Trav- els in various countries of the East. Edited by The Rev. Robert Walpole, London, 1820. Its components include the “Journey from Constantinople, through Asia Minor”, composed by Browne since 1802 and published by Walpole, based on the manuscript left by the author. None of these mention the Wahhabis. A biographical sketch of Browne is also in Garnet/Baigent (2004). 46 Chapter 1 the continuing Wahhabi expansion in Arabia. It was by now accepted that there was a close connection between the fortunes of the new religious message and the firmly established reigning house in Najd, as distinct from the family of the movement’s spiritual leader. Theologically speaking, the idea that the “new religion” was a heresy within Islam, an offshoot of the Sunni stem, was used as an intermediate explanation between the two poles of the dilemma raised by Niebuhr: was the Wahhabi movement a misunderstood orthodox school or did it preach a rationalist teaching incompatible with Koranic revelation? Two main doubts still remained. One concerned the controversy over Muhammad, the other the sectarians’ astonishing spirit of persecution where common Muslims were concerned. In the first place there was the matter of deciding the extent to which the ban on forms of veneration of the Prophet or any of his relatives should also be extended to the divine mission of that supreme harbinger of Islam and his historical legacy. In the second place an explanation was needed for how such violent theological loathing of other Muslims could be reconciled with sharing the same religious truths as those announced by Muhammad and with the supposed approval by the Wahhabis of the theoretical principles of Deism which implied tolerance – even if these too no longer seemed immaculate in the light of the revolutionary experience in France. These issues were addressed by two French consuls in the East. One had returned from Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign, while the other had grown up in Baghdad and been sent on General Gardane’s Persian mission. These two writers, who were still under the influence of what remained of the benevolent views of Niebuhr and Volney and the more recent revolutionary ideas from France, published material destined to influence the European debate on the subject for many years to come. What emerged clearly was that conquest and fanaticism were spreading a simple religion for the poor across Asia just as Is- lam had originally done. It was not clear, however, whether the new religion was a continuation of the old one, or some sort of subsequent virulent deviation. Indeed, it spread so fast and its military success was so frequent that the phenomenon seemed not to differ greatly from contemporary political revolutions in Europe. A dispute between the two consuls over the paternity of the best information, the involvement of a third witness, the arbitration of a learned Parisian Arabist and international Anglo-French complications all rendered the question ever more exciting. Current political affairs and literary controversy now added spice to the Wahhabi debate. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 47

Chapter 2 Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims

On pourrait les regarder comme des deïstes, aveuglés d’ailleurs par un fanatisme atroce. (…) Ils se donnent réciproquement le nom de frères. Les titres de la vanité leur sont absolument inconnus (…); l’on dirait, à cet régard, qu’ils sont les Quakers de l’Arabie. Notice sur la horde des Wahabis, Le Moniteur Universel, 3 prairial, an 12 ⸪

1 Silvestre de Sacy: A Hypothesis of Continuity of the Qarmatians

The capture of Mecca by the Wahhabis which occurred twice, once in April 1803 for just three months, and again in November 1805, for seven years, and of which neither Olivier nor Browne knew anything, was a watershed in both the development of the movement and European knowledge of it. The first successful assault on the Holy City was apparently totally sacrilegious. The violence it caused, especially in the nearby al-Ta⁠ʾif, followed the model of the previous savage sack of Kerbela. It confirmed the gravity and the political importance of the war of religion which was now spreading across Arabia. The spiritual implications of the conflict were not the least of the Ottoman government’s worries and were of evident interest to European observers who had been predisposed by Niebuhr and Volney to expect unrest in the area. An anonymous article published in Le Moniteur in the spring of 1804 informed the public of these events.1 It not only explained the situation in the Arabian peninsula, even reporting the death of the conqueror ʿAbd al-ʿAziz assassinated in his capital al-Dirʿiyya after a plot had been hatched against him

1 Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, 243, 3 prairial, an 12 (23 mai 1804), pp. 1101–102: “Notice sur la horde des Wahabis”, in the section “Extérieur. Turquie”, including fuller correspondence from Istanbul dated 1 March 1804 (with information on Persia, Afghanistan and the pashadom of Baghdad). This is the article already mentioned by Olivier, supra, Chapter I, note 41. Occasional correspondences with the description of the Wahhabis in the Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman seem to confirm the hypothesis that the information therein could have been partly supplemented in the light of the contribution in Le Moni- teur.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004293281_004 48 Chapter 2 by the vindictive inhabitants of Kerbela – the news reached Baghdad in Janu- ary of that year – but it also provided the most recent information about the doctrine of the leader, still called by the name of ʿAbd al-Wahhab. In contrast to the opinion hitherto derived from Niebuhr, the preacher’s followers, duly circumcised as Olivier also observes, were convinced upholders of the divine origin of the Koran and considered Muhammad, although not a “prophet”, a just man chosen by God to instruct mankind. The bearer of the Koran was to be regarded as an ordinary mortal, no different from Moses, Jesus and the Vir- gin Mary, and as such was not to be worshipped by the people. Like certain North American Quaker communities free of all selfishness and worldly vanity, but with their sense of fraternity strengthened by the stern religious commandment to shed the blood of “foreign nations” – a reward in heaven was promised to those who had fallen in battle – and with the firm belief in a “supreme eternal being, omnipotent, just and merciful” invoked to recompense good and punish evil, the Wahhabis had every right to be called “Deists”. It is, however, important to add that they were Deists “blinded by atrocious fanaticism”.2 Going back half a century to the earliest history of the “new cult”, to which a Yemeni origin was attributed, the author of the article had learnt that a “famous” Saʿud, father of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, had helped the founder and “pontiff” ʿAbd al-Wahhab (an echo of Niebuhr here) to propagate his religious system among

2 Ibid, p. 1102, col. 1: “A l’exemple de toutes les nations de la terre, la base de leur croyance est l’admission d’un Être suprême éternel, tout-puissant, juste et miséricordieux, remunéra- teur des bons et punisseur des méchans: ils ne reconnaissent aucun prophète et accusent d’idolatrie ceux qui en ont. Ils sont circoncis d’ailleurs et ont pour livre l’Alcoran, qu’ils croient être descendu du ciel. Ils confessent aussi que c’est Mahomet qui l’a procuré aux hommes, mais ils ne lui accordent aucune espece de vénération, se contentant de dire qu’il fut un homme de bien, un juste dont Dieu se servit par préférence pour faire connaître ses volontés aux hommes; que n’étant enfin qu’un mortel, qu’une pure créature, l’on ne saurait lui rendre hommage sans offenser la Divinité. Moïse, Jésus-Christ, la Vierge etc., ne méritent pas non plus, par la même raison, selon eux, aucun égard; de sorte qu’on pourrait les regarder comme des déïstes, aveuglés d’ailleurs par un fanatisme atroce qui leur suggere des cruautés révoltantes envers les autres peuples. (…) Rarement on recontre parmi eux de ces disputes et de ces procès que l’intérêt ou l’amour propre enfantent partout ailleurs. Ils vivent étroitement unis entr’eux, et se donnent réciproquement le nom de fréres. Les titres de la vanité leur sont absolument inconnus. Ils tutoyent même leur chef, avec lequel ils s’assoient et prennent familiérement leur repas; l’on dirait, à cet égard, qu’ils sont les Quakers de l’Arabie.” News follows of their courage in war, the recompense in Heaven for those killed in action, and of their “précepte de religion de répandre le sang des nations étrangeres.” For the murder of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, ibid, col. 3. The Deistic implications inherent in the reference to the Quakers are evident. We need only recall Voltaire’s four epistles devoted to this sect at the beginning of his Lettres anglaises (1734). Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 49 the Bedouin of Central Arabia, described as men of extraordinary physical health and frugality (“when necessary, they slake their thirst with the fetid urine of their mounts”), proud of their independence, though burdened with an ancestral poverty and voluntary ignorance. The expansion of the Wahhabi kingdom, with al-Dirʿiyya as its capital and protected by a natural barrier of inaccessible mountains and desert, was recounted in greater detail. The advance towards the Persian Gulf had led to the conversion of the coastal ʿUtub Arabs and had threatened the sultan of Muscat. The ferocious attack on Ker- bela had reawakened the memory of more ancient devastations, starting with the caliphate of al-Mutawakkil in the mid-ninth century. The temporary occupation of Mecca, finally, had also emphasised the value attributed to this religious capital by the new sectarians because of the presence of the Kaʿbah, “the oldest and most sacred temple of the universe”. In Baghdad a preparatory expedition against the desecrators, demanded by the Turkish sultan and the shah of Persia, seemed destined to infinite procrastination, while the regular performance of the Muslim pilgrimage to the Holy Places that year was most uncertain. It would have been under the constant threat of an “immense” horde dominating a large part of Arabia and ready to flow into Mesopotamia and Syria.3 Here the article ended, leaving the reader in perhaps even greater doubt as to the true significance of the events. Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (1758– 1838), the greatest exponent of oriental studies in France who was soon to produce his celebrated Chréstomathie arabe (1806), had corresponded with Niebuhr about questions of Yemeni history and was engaged in the preparation of a monumental work on the religion and history of the Druzes.4 He felt

3 Ibid: “Il est indubitable que si les Wahabis continuent de même qu’ils ont commencé, ils parviendront insensiblement à s’assujettir toute l’Arabie, et même de-là étendre leurs possessions jusq’à la Mésopotamie et une partie de la Syrie.” Only indiscipline, lack of cannon and the plague had, it was believed, prevented them from taking such well-fortified towns as Jiddah and Medina. A letter from the defenders of Medina, dated 14 July 1803, appearing in that same issue of Le Moniteur, reported on how the town had survived repeated incursions by the lieutenants of Saʿud, son and heir of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz. 4 In the various discussions about “Orientalism”, of which he is considered to be one of the fathers, Silvestre de Sacy, professor of Arabic at the new École speciale des langues orientales vivantes, co-founder and first president of the Société Asiatique (1822), is acknowledged as a typical representative of European erudition based on a purely literary knowledge of Arabic. On his role as the master of an entire generation of not only French orientalists – his pupils included Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer, the greatest nineteenth- century Arabist, and Franz Bopp, known as the first comparative linguist – and his predi- lection for the study of the Muslim heresies examined in the light of a personal religious 50 Chapter 2 the need to supply an explanation for the recent developments in the Arabian Peninsula. On the basis of the available information and further communications received from Istanbul thanks to “a person rendered familiar by his travels and assiduous studies with the history and literature of the East and who will one day enrich this branch of our knowledge with his works”, he hazarded a fascinating conjecture. Far from being a brand new phenomenon, he suggested, the religious movement in Najd might rather be the recrudescence of some ancient Ismaʿili heresy. The basis for this hypothesis, proposed in a brief essay modestly entitled “Observations sur les Wahhabites”, was the assumption that the Wahhabis were totally hostile to “Mohammedanism”, understood as the official religion of the Ottoman Empire. Silvestre de Sacy and his unknown informer went on to suggest that the followers of ʿAbd al-Wahhab and his son Muhammad should be considered no more than an “offshoot” of the corrupt trunk of the Qarmatians, who seemed to have founded the most aberrant and insidious sects ever to have appeared in Muslim territories in the distant past: Fatimids, Batinites, Assassins, Druzes, Nusairis, and Mutawallis.5 Surprising analogies seemed to support this conjecture. In the first place the Wahhabis came from the extreme east of Najd, known as Bahrain, where the Qarmatians had once established their domain. Then there was the repudiation of the Muslim precepts concerning ablution and food which the modern sectarians, according to numerous witnesses, also rejected. There was also the implacable war on pilgrimages to Mecca, which the Wahhabis’ distant predecessors would have liked to replace with a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Finally, the sack of the Holy City, culminating in the removal of the famous Black Stone by the Qarmatians, was repeated in an equallly scandalous manner by the Wahhabis in recent times. Apparently indifferent to the various opinions expressed in the article published in Le Moniteur only a year earlier, Sacy reached

Jansenist sensibility, cf. Irwin (2006), pp. 141–50; Mangold (2006), pp. 72–74; Said (1978), pp. 123–30; Schwab (1950), pp. 316–18. 5 S. de S. [Silvestre de Sacy’s initials], “Observations sur les Wahhabites”, in Magasin Ency- clopédique, 1805, t. 4, pp. 35–36: “Les traits de ressemblance qui rapprochent les Wahha- bites des Carmates m’avoient frappé il y longtemps, et je ne doute point que ces nouveaux sectaires ne soient un rejeton des carmates. Les Fatémites (…) étoient aussi une branche des Carmates; et c’est de la même source que sont sortis les Baténiens, les Assassins, les Druzes, les Nosaïriens, les Motawélis, et diverses autres sectes, dont le fanatisme politique et religieux joue un rôle plus ou moins important dans l’histoire.” At this point the article continues under the heading: “Les Carmates ancêtres et prédécesseurs des Wahhabites”, ibid, pp. 36–41; without further mention of the author. It is worth noting that “Observa- tions sur les Wahhabites” is not included in the general bibliography appended to Harwig Derenbourg’s still valuable biography of Silvestre de Sacy, cf. Salmon (1905), pp. iii-cxvi. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 51 a conclusion still absolutely in line with Niebuhr and Volney. A “simplified religion”, no longer professing faith in the divinity of the Koran and the mission of Muhammad, the Wahhabi cult, with its fanatical bellicosity and spirit of rebellion, seemed to match the turbulent traditions of the populations relegated to the eastern borders of Arabia. Hence the renewed impulse to bring about a “revolution”, whether political or religious (another echo of Volney), the more noteworthy for having reappeared nine centuries later. The ancient impiety, not to say atheism, of the tenth-century Qarmatian movement was in fact not unknown in Europe. Information about the fanatical desecrators had appeared in Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale in 1697.6 Nev-

6 About the Qarmatians, “regardez par les Musulmans non comme des sectaires, mais comme des impies & des Athées”, Herbelot writes that their doctrine “renversoit tous les fondemens du Musulmanisme” and that “ils allégorisoient tous les préceptes de la loy Mahometane”, cf. B. d’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, Paris, 1697, pp. 256–57 (s.v. Car- math). A similar picture (“une secte, dont les principes combattoient ceux de l’Islamisme”) is proffered by the Swedish ambassador, the Armenian Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson, after a life spent in Istanbul, only a few years before the diffusion of the first news of the Wahhabis, cf. Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman, Par M. De M*** D’Ohsson, Paris, 1787– 1820, I, p. 277. More precisely, the Qarmatians, so named after their spiritual leader Ham- dan Qarmat, were a group within the ninth/eleventh century Ismaʿili movement, although they refused to acknowledge the Fatimid caliphs’ claim to the supreme title of imam and were imbued with cosmological elements of neo-Platonic origin, cf. Laoust (1965), pp. 140–43; Madelung (1978). The unforgotten creation of a Qarmatian kingdom in Bah- rain (until 1078), the threat they represented for pilgrims going to the Hijaz and the occupation of Mecca (930) lead by Abu Tahir al-Jannabi, with the removal of the famous Black Stone, and perhaps to an even greater extent, the forecast of an imminent final post- Islamic religious era, induced Arab and Ottoman detractors of the Wahhabi movement to postulate an infamous correspondence with such abhorrent predecessors. This may have influenced Silvestre de Sacy and his European informer in the East. The most common comparison among anti-Wahhabi Muslim polemicists during the nineteenth century, however, was, as in the case of the already cited historian of Mecca Ibn Zaini Dahlan (Schwartz [2002], pp. 72, 105), with the earlier seventh-century Kharijite heresy characterised by the abolition of any distinction between authentic infidels and those Muslims who did indeed profess the Koran though guilty of grave sin and were stigmatised as “apostates”, murtaddun, cf. Bari (1971); Delanoue (1982), I, pp. 50, 210; DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 68, 83, 243; Ende (1981), p. 385; Hartmann (1924), p. 177; Kelly (1968), p. 48; Laoust (1939), pp. 521 nt., 534; Laoust (1965), p. 331; Peskes (1993), pp. 44, 85, 95, 150; Pröbster (1935), p. 67; Puin (1973), p. 47 nt. Such accusations, mainly of interest as an expression of the prevailing mood in anti-Wahhabi circles, received an early reply in the writings of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, who at several points clearly distanced himself from the Kharijites and other heretics guilty of “deducing false conclusions from obscure passages of the Koran”, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 117, 196. 52 Chapter 2 ertheless, a profound change in historical conditions with respect to the Middle Ages now pointed to a possibly more fortunate outcome of the Wahhabis’ recent insurrection. While in those distant times Muslim orthodoxy could still count on the support of the glorious ʿAbbasid caliphate, at present only the weak Ottoman and Persian rulers were called on to resist the newly blossom- ing heresies. They were indeed ready to decry the impiety of the sect, but the court in Istanbul was so rapacious and corrupt as to allow the suspicion that, should the Black Stone be stolen again, a ransom would be paid just as it was by the caliph al-Muti to the Qarmatians. Everything therefore pointed to the possibility that, should “a resolute man of genius”, an Arab equivalent of Napo- leon, become head of the sect, he could triumph over the two crumbling empires and ensure for the Wahhabis a lasting success of the sort the ancient Qarmatians had been unable to sustain. An attack on the Koranic religion a millennium later – the first had been too premature – could at last anticipate victory over an already exhausted adversary. As history repeated itself, a different outcome might be expected.7

7 “Observations sur les Wahhabites”, op. cit., pp. 36–37: “Les révolutions, soit politiques, soit religieuses, dont l’histoire nous offre le tableau varié dans toutes les pays et dans tous les siècles, méritent une attention particulière, quand elles se répètent chez le même peuple, dans le même pays, à de grandes distances de temps. La province de Bahreïn, qui avoisine quelle de Bassora, celle de Yémama, et le golfe Persique, et dont Al-Ahsa (ou Lahsa) est la capitale, est le séjour et le siége des principales tribus Wahhabites. C’est de là que sont sortis ces novateurs ennemis de l’islamisme, qui, reniant la divinité de l’alcoran et la mission divine de Mahomet, et préchant, la fer à la main, les dogmes d’une religion simpli- fiée, ont juré la ruin du mahométisme, et ont commencé à satisfaire leur fanatisme religieux par le pillage des lieux sacrés et de saintes cités de la Mecque et de Médine. Or, et ceci est un fait fort singulier, mais peu connu, c’est cette même province de Bahreïn qui fut, il ya presque mille ans, le siége de la puissance des Carmates, novateurs religieux, qui en tout semblables aux Wahhabites leurs successeurs, professant la même doctrine, ani- més du même esprit de brigandage, se sont, comme eux, révoltés contre l’autorité légi- time du khalife, et ont, comme eux, livré le temple sacré de la Mecque au pillage, et répandu la terreur et l’épouvante dans les provinces voisines; ou, pour mieux dire, ce sont les mêmes tribus, c’est le même peuple, qui conservant toujours le même caractère et les mêmes mœurs, développant sous diffèrens chefs les mêmes principes de religion et d’in- dépendance, a donné deux fois à dix siècles d’intervalle le même spectacle au monde.” A compendium of the doctrines and the exploits of the Qarmatians, ibid, pp. 37–39, suggests, finally, that a possible “homme de génie” might help the Wahhabis, and refers to the extreme corruption of the Turkish and Persian Empires, ibid, pp. 39–40. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 53

2 Rousseau: A Reforming Sheikh of Mohammedanism

Silvestre de Sacy, protected by his private religious views against any revolutionary or atheistic sympathies – Mass was regularly celebrated at his residence during 1793 – was intrigued by the possibility of a hidden continuity running from the Qarmatians to the Wahhabis, particularly since it might clarify remote events in Arab history and doctrines generally known solely through subsequent misrepresentations. Positive confirmation seemed to come from the growing doctrinal polemic against the new sectarians in the Muslim camp fuelled by the Ottoman authorities. Jean-Baptiste Louis Rousseau (1780–1831) was a promising orientalist and diplomat who had grown up in Asia, had recently been nominated consul in Basra, and aspired to intellectual recognition. He was the son of the French Consul Jean-François Rousseau appointed by Louis XVI to Baghdad and Aleppo, of Genevan origin and related to the philosopher Jean-Jacques. Silvestre de Sacy therefore entrusted him with the task of further research.8 The young Rousseau gathered first-hand information on a journey from Aleppo to Baghdad in May 1807 and to Teheran in October 1807 when he prepared for the arrival of the Gardane mission. From May to Decem- ber 1808 he was in Syria where he succeeded his late father as consul in Aleppo. The result was an essay, “Notice historique sur les Wahabis”, published in 1809 and included in a collection printed anonymously in Paris and entitled Description du Pachalik de Bagdad. From that year on, however, further articles published by Rousseau under his own name, in the Viennese Fundgruben des Orients (Mines de l’Orient) edited by Baron Hammer-Purgstall and in the An- nales des Voyages edited by the geographer Malte-Brun, left no doubt as to the paternity of the major work. A treatise on the Yaziydis (suspected of wor shipping fire and the devil) by Maurizio Garzoni, a missionary in Kurdistan, was added by Silvestre de Sacy to the “Notice historique”, as if to envelop the

8 In a letter of 27 August 1806 Silvestre de Sacy asked Rousseau to collect on his behalf devotional texts in Arabic written for Christians in Aleppo as well as information on the so-called Christians of St. John, whose existence in Arabia was confirmed by Niebuhr, and on the Wahhabis. He was indeed sent a communication in February 1807, cf. Dehérain (1938), pp. 66–67. On Rousseau as an “orientalist consul”, cf. Dehérain (1938), pp. 65–92; Poinssot (1899), pp. v-xv, who, basing themselves on archival sources, depict him as an eccentric who grew up and lived in Baghdad and Aleppo until the Restoration, a connois- seur of eastern languages (Arabic in particular, but also Turkish) which he spoke better than French, a literary fortune hunter through Silvestre de Sacy, an unscrupulous collector of manuscripts and eternally frustrated in his aspirations to a diplomatic career under Napoleon and the Bourbons. 54 Chapter 2

Wahhabis and the Yaziydis in a common cloak of heresy.9 Silvestre de Sacy was also responsible for its presentation at a meeting of the Institut de France. The contents, though amplified and updated, justified the conclusion that it was indeed Rousseau who had written the article in Le Moniteur in May 1804, and that he must also have either inspired or written the central section of the subsequent “Observations sur les Wahhabites” in Millin’s Magasin Encyclopédique.10 With respect to the two previous texts, however, there were some important variations in the “Notice historique”. The connection with the Qarmatians, till then considered more or less extinct, reappeared without any further supporting evidence.11 On the other hand, the religious principles and vicissitudes of

9 [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, suivie d’une Notice historique sur les Wahabis, Paris, 1809, with editorial notes initialled S. de S. (scil.: Silvestre de Sacy), ibid, pp. v-vii. The frontispiece title of the information on the Wahhabis is modified within the volume: “Notice sur la secte des Wahabis”, ibid, pp. 125–82. The first of two articles by Rousseau for Hammer-Purgstall, sent “des bords de l’Euphrate, le 24 octobre 1808”, corresponds, except for a few omissions, to the notes of 24 November [sic] 1808 in the author’s diary, published almost a century later, cf. J.L. Rousseau, “Notice sur la secte des Wehabis”, in Fundgruben des Orients, I, 1809, pp. 191–98; Id., Voyage de Bagdad à Alep, Paris, 1899, pp. 93–106. 10 Rousseau later confirmed that he had first written on the Wahhabis in February 1804 (infra, note 44) – a date which exactly matches the dispatch of the article to Le Moniteur. His enduring relations with Silvestre de Sacy, the identical location of both the article and the “Observations” (“de Costantinople”, the usual centre for the collection of correspondence from the East to Europe), the mention of the Qarmatians and the corresponding remark by Herbelot also found at the beginning of the “Notice historique”, all validated the hypothesis (suggested by Driault [1925], p. iii) that the “Observations” (more precisely the part entitled “Les Carmates ancêtres et prédécesseurs des Wahhabites”, supra, note 5) should also be ascribed to Rousseau in spite of his lasting silence on the subject and despite some evident distortions (the aforesaid incredulity concerning Muhammad and the Koran attributed to the Wahhabis in “Observations”, but not in Le Moniteur or the “Notice historique”). It should also be observed that the tone of a letter from Rousseau dated 4 June 1806, offering friendship, news of his studies and readiness to send manuscripts in Arabic (mentioned by Dehérain [1938], p. 66), suggests that no stable collaboration between Rousseau and Silvestre de Sacy existed until this date, before which their go-between may have been Pierre Ruffin, French chargé d’affaires in Istanbul, who had been in correspondence with Rousseau since 1802. 11 [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., p. 125. Also, ibid, pp. 126–27: “Quand on considère l’origine, les dogmes, la vie austère et turbulente, le fanatisme religieux des Wahabis, leur ambition dévorante et leur ardeur pour les conquêtes, on est porté à présumer qu’ils descendent directement des Karmates, peuple intrépide et belli- queux, qui en suivant la même carrière, se rendit sous les khalifes Abbassides le fléau du mahométisme et la terreur de l’Empire des Arabes. (…) C’est dans la province de Yemen, Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 55 the new movement were described in great detail and with specific reserva- tions as to currently accepted interpretations. It was said that only for lack of information had “Niebuhr and other travellers” believed they could portray the Wahhabis “with the hardly unflattering appearance of an obscure and desper- ate sect of Deists, relegated to a corner of Arabia”.12 The sectarians were indeed faithful to divine revelation in the Koran and the religious practices it contained (circumcision, prayer, feast days, fasting, abstinence, ablution, even genuflection), but not to the “Muslim traditions”. By these the “Notice historique” seemed to mean an extremely varied collection of texts auxiliary to the Koran, firstly the body of received texts on the sentences and deeds attributed to Muhammad, the ḥadīth. Their aim was rather to reform the Islamic faith on the basis of original glosses to the Holy Book of Islam composed by their ambitious founder. They considered that they had been called on to convert or ex- terminate those self-styled followers of Islam, in reality “ungodly” and “blasphemous”, who habitually associated God with mere men. Muhammad was to be regarded as “wise”, but not a prophet, and to mention him in the profession of faith was a reprehensible act exalting a human being.13 Mosques, devoid of all decoration, domes and minarets appeared to be used as places of

le foyer commun de tous ces nombreaux essaims d’Arabes qui en sortirent successivement pour couvrir les vastes déserts d’une partie de l’Asie et de l’Afrique, qu’on a vu renaître de ses cendres la secte des Karmates qui n’a fait que changer de nom en prenant celui du père de son restaurateur. (…) Connu sous le nom de Scheikh Mohammed, que ses prosélytes font descendre d’Abd-elwahab, fils de Suleïman”. There is no reference here to the “Observations” of 1805, except in a final editorial note by Silvestre de Sacy, ibid, p. 182. 12 Ibid, p. 125. 13 Rumours of the Wahhabis’ presumed disregard for the prophetic mission of Muhammad and the omission of half the ritual profession of faith are attributable to theological prob- lems relating to popular belief in miracles and the efficacy of the intercession of saints. Of the latter the Prophet held absolute pride of place, so much so that in some cases he was endowed with semi-divinity as in the title “companion to God” used in the Ottoman world, and even exemption from death, in imitation of Christ. There was, in particular, a debate as to whether praying to him for intercession was permissible. Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab only admitted that it was once the absolute freedom of God not to accept any intercessor had been established, and that the efficacy of Muhammad’s intercession in any case depended on the authenticity of the monotheistic faith professed by the wor- shipper, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 69–70, 255; Haj (2002), pp. 259–62; Hartmann (1924), pp. 181–83, 187; Laoust (1939), pp. 518–19; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 74, 78. In contrast with the prevalent opinion, the theory that the teaching of the Wahhabi leader in fact implicated degrading Muhammad from the level of respect normally accorded him by Muslims is repeated by Schwartz (2002), p. 70. 56 Chapter 2 worship – a silent contradiction of the idea, dear to Volney, that the Wahhabis forbade the use of specific buildings for prayer. The words used here were practically identical to those used in Le Moniteur in 1804 to emphasise the Spartan virtues of the Wahhabis, their devotion to the Kaʿbah and their “extreme fanaticism”. Hence the only partial justification of the definition of them as “pure Deists”. There was also mention of their unex- pectedly humane treatment of Jews and Christians who, for unexplained reasons, were said to have been spared the intolerance shown to common Muslims. The comparison with the “Quakers”, even if it was in itself fairly evocative in alluding to a possible analogy with some form of Christian Protestant- ism, was dropped without further ado, since such an epithet was obviously unsuitable for a warlike population.14

14 [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., pp. 129–31: “La doctrine que préchoit Scheikh Mohammed, avoit pour base les préceptes mêmes du Coran, livre qu’il prétendoit avoir été écrit dans le ciel de la main des anges, mais qu’il commentoit selon son ambition et ses vues, et d’une manière toute différente de celle qui est reçue parmi les Musulmans. Il ne regardoit son auteur que comme un simple instrument dont Dieu s’étoit servi pour faire connoître ses volontés aux hommes; de sorte qu’en admettant ce livre dans son entier, il rejetta cette foule de traditions reçues chez les sectateurs de Mahomet, et devint plutôt le réformatuer du mahométisme, que le fondateur d’une nouvelle croyance. De là il semble que l’on peut conclure que le wahabisme n’est autre chose que la religion même enseignée par le Coran, ramenée à sa pureté primitive. Admettre l’existence d’un Dieu unique, éternel, tout-puissant, juste, miséricordieux, qui récompense les bons et punit les méchans; regarder le Coran comme un livre divin, et se conformer aux dogmes et aux pratiques qu’il enseigne, voilà les fondemens du wahabisme. Quant à Mahomet, le réformateur voulut qu’il ne fût qu’un sage, qu’un homme aimé de Dieu, et rien de plus, et proscrivit tous les hommages que lui rendent les Musulmans. (…) Il ajouta que ceux d’entre les Musulmans qui se roidiroient contre ses instructions et persiste- roient dans leur aveuglement, devoient être regardés comme des impies, des blasphéma- teurs qui méritoient la mort, et qu’il falloit les exterminer tous, parce qu’ils outrageoient la Majesté divine, en lui associant des êtres que sa toute-puissance seule a daigné tirer du néant”. And again, ibid, pp. 145–47: “Nous avons déja vu que conformément au dogme fondamental de leur croyance, qui consiste à admettre l’existence d’un seul Dieu digne de respect et d’adoration, et à rejéter tout autre culte qui a pour objet les créatures, ils refu- sent à Mahomet la qualité de prophète, et ne le regardent que comme un homme juste et vertueux qui mérita par sa piété d’être aimé de Dieu, et de devenir l’exécuteur des volon- tés divines; de sorte qu’en adoptant la profession de foi des Musulmans, ils en retranchent les dernières paroles, et la réduisent à celles-ci, il n’y a d’autre Dieu que Dieu; aussi peut-on les regarder comme de purs déistes, aveuglés d’ailleurs par un fanatisme extrême. L’on a remarqué encore que les Wahabis, en admettant le Coran dans son entier, rejettent les traditions musulmanes; cependant comme ce livre sert de base aux pratiques religieuses, ils ont conservé toutes celles qui sont en usage chez les Mahométans. Ils sont circoncis Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 57

The result was remarkable: however ambiguous the notion of “reform”, and despite the remaining slightly heretical reference to the Qarmatians, the Wah- habis were at last reinstated among the various movements spawned by the Koran – the first, though the least credited of Niebuhr’s suggestions. Recogni- tion of the exclusive inspiration of the Holy Book, intolerance of anything beyond the notions it enclosed and of popular Muslim superstitions, even the systematic demolition of tombs and chapels honouring “holy men”, seemed to recall the original message of the Prophet, but without philosophical embel- lishments. If Consul Rousseau invoked Voltaire once again as a witness, this was less for his late Essai sur les moeurs, than for his previous tragedy on Mu- hammad of 1741 aimed against fanaticism.15 Some essential historical annotations followed, partly vitiated by legend. Like an unquenchable fire, following the example of the first Muslims, a call to conquer was apparently announced in the prophetic dream of a “poor shepherd” called Sulaiman, in whom Rousseau thought he could discern ʿAbd al- Wahhab’s father and the grandfather of Sheikh Muhammad on the basis of Arabic stories distorted by malevolence. As a tacit correction of what was still maintained in Le Moniteur, the “Notice historique” specified that only Muham- mad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab should be considered the authentic founder of the movement and that he liked it to be believed that he was descended from the

comme eux, ont les mêmes formules de prières, le même nombre d’ablutions, les mêmes abstinences, le même jeûne qui est celui du Ramadan, les mêmes solemnités, et font aussi des génuflexions semblables; mais leur mosquées sont dépourvues de toute espèce de décorations, on n’y voit point de minarêts, ni de coupoles; un Imam y fait aux heures de la prière la lecture de quelques passages du Coran, et chacun s’y acquitte des devoirs religieux, sans que le nom de Mahomet y entre pour rien. D’après la différence d’opinions qui se trouve entre les Musulmans et eux relativement à ce prétendu prophète, les Wahabis ont ses sectateurs en horreur; l’intolérance à l’égard des Musulmans est un précepte de leur loi, et ils l’exécutent à la rigueur: ils sont plus humains envers les Chrétiens et les Juifs, car il est reconnu que lorsque ceux-ci vont dans les pays soumis aux Wahabis, ils n’y éprouvent aucune persécution de ces sectaires, qui ne se mettent pas en peine de les convertir”. About the pilgrimage to Mecca, an “œuvre méritoire” merely as an act of “vénération pour la Caba”, ibid, pp. 148, 165. 15 The harsh words of sincerity that Muhammad addresses to Zopire, cf. Mahomet, ou du fanatisme, act II, scene V (from: “Je suis ambitieux”, to the exclamation: “Sur ces débris du monde élevons l’Arabie! Il faut un nouveau culte, il faut de nouveaux fers!”), were noted down by Rousseau in his travel diary, cf. J.-B.L. Rousseau, Voyage de Bagdad à Alep, cit., pp. 97–98; omitted from the article based on these notes for the Fundgruben des Orients (supra, note 9), they reappear in his last text on the subject, cf. [Id.], Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sectes du musulmanisme, les Wahabis, les Nosaïris et les Ismaélis, Paris-Mar- seille, 1818, p. 4. 58 Chapter 2

Prophet.16 Certain events marked the apparently irresistible stages of ascent narrated both in this main contribution by Rousseau and in those that followed, sent by him to Malte-Brun and Hammer-Purgstall. These events were the alliance with the local prince Ibn Saʿud, the enormous expansion under his successor ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, the unsuccessful enterprise of the pasha of Baghdad, the victorious Wahhabi foray into Kerbela and Mecca (in the latter case thanks also to an alliance with a brother of Sharif Ghalib), a succession of incursions against Damascus and Baghdad, piracy in the Persian Gulf, a stop to regular pilgrimages to Mecca under Ottoman tutelage – in particular the disaster of a Syrian caravan in 1807, believed to be irreligious, abandoned by its own leader, the Damascene pasha, and left to perish in the desert – and, finally, open defiance of the supreme spiritual authority of the Turkish sultan by suppressing the prayer in his honour at the Great Mosque in Mecca.17

16 [Id.], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., pp. 127–28. Sulaiman was said to have generated a purifying flame and to have asked interpreters about the meaning of this apparition. They were believed to have replied that his son (in fact a nephew) was destined to found a “nouvelle puissance” and to subjugate “tous les Arabes du désert” to his laws. This foreboding may have been suggested by the life of the Prophet Muhammad based on the biography by Ibn Hisham, cf. Puin (1973), p. 75 nt. More generally, the diminuition of the family background of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and the insinuation that he claimed to be related to the Prophet reveal the hostile nature of the rumours reported by Rousseau. Rumours that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab was of humble origin, his father a poor shepherd, show in particular how he had been polemically undervalued as illiterate by his detractors, degrading his genealogy even if his family was far from poor. In fact he came from a line of legal scholars who originated from the province of al-Washm. His grandfather, Sulaiman ibn ʿAli al-Musharraf (d. 1668/69), was a judge and legal con- sultant or mufti, at al-ʿUyaina and the main exponent of the Hanbali law school in Najd. His father, ʿAbd al-Wahhab ibn Sulaiman (d. 1740/41), was a judge at Huraimila, and his son’s first teacher. Relations between them deteriorated later and disagreements with his father delayed Muhammad’s public affirmation, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 17–18, 94, 229; Hartmann (1924), p. 177 nt.; Juhany (2002), pp. 117, 134, 138; Laoust (1939), pp. 506–507; Rentz (2004), pp. 23–24 nt., 26, 37 (who, according to the chroniclers Ibn Ghannam and Ibn Bishr, reports two distinct genealogies for the Wahhabi founder); Vassiliev (1998), p. 64. 17 [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., pp. 40–42, 131–32, 153–70. It is worth noting that the historical account in the “Notice historique” is limited to the condensed information in the previous article in Le Moniteur, ending with the assassination of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz and the succession of Saʿud. The second conquest of Mecca and the entire Hijaz, with the submission of Ghalib in 1806, can only be inferred from the inclusion of a publication in part of four later reports, personally written by the author in Aleppo and Baghdad between 12 June 1806 and 30 July 1807, but with no indication of the addressee (perhaps Silvestre de Sacy). News about the rejected encomium of the Turkish sultan Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 59

To complete the picture, but without a word about his sources, were some notes on customs, in particular rumours that the Wahhabis abstained not only from alcohol, but also from coffee and tobacco, showed unusual respect for the female victims of their raids, and were refractory to commercial relations with foreigners. The latest news of the sectarians included a threatened siege of Da- mascus in 1808, a forewarning in 1810 of further incursions towards the Euphra- tes and in particular the Hauran south-west of the Syrian capital, while on the opposite front there were suggestions of manoeuvres by the English navy and the sultan of Muscat against pirate bases connected with the movement. The eloquent portrait of the reigning prince Saʿud confirmed the special religious basis of his authority.18 The final synthesis was deliberately shocking and adhered to a time-worn pattern. In spite of some recent partial failures near Damascus or Baghdad, hordes which the pashas’ soldiers could not withstand

during the Friday prayer had been in circulation about the Wahhabis even before they had taken Mecca. It is mentioned, for example by the polemicists Ibn Suhaim and Ibn ʿAfaliq, who attributed the prohibition to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s teaching, cf. Caskel (1929), p. 6; Peskes (1993), pp. 73, 119–20; Vassiliev (1998), p. 100. This was attended by a somewhat delicate question destined to resurface for some time to come: if and how far the Wahhabis felt that they owed obedience to self-styled “Muslim” authorities, for instance to the sultan and his pashas, thus making themselves potentially ‘seditious”, bugāh. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, for example, was defined as a “rebel” by Browne, cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 47, 238, 241–42. On this point DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 198, 247–48, 256; Oliver (2002), p. 27, deny that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s writings contain an explicit approval of the overthrow of established authority. This would be unacceptable in prevalent Sunni legal doctrine. 18 [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., pp. 140, 147–52; [Id.], “Nou- veaux reinsegnemens sur les opérations militaires des Wahabis”, in Annales des Voyages, de la Géographie et de l’Histoire, XIV, 40, 1811, pp. 104, 109–12; Id., “Tableau des possessions territoriales de l’émir Sehoude”, in Fundgruben des Orients, II, 1811, p. 159: “Sehoude est un homme de quarante ans, d’une physionomie imposante, courageux et ferme, mais aussi rustique dans ses mœurs que le reste des Wéhabis; il gouverne despotiquement ses sujets, et les punit avec cruauté, quand ils manquent à leurs devoirs religieux ou civils. Aussi scrupuleux dans les pratiques du culte, qu’austère et inflexible par son caractère, il est continuellement entouré de Mollas érudits, qui l’édifient par des lectures spirituelles, et enseignent à ses enfans la théologie et la littérature. D’ailleurs, tous les vendredis il va faire ses prières dans quelque mosquée; plus de vingt mille individus de tous les états le suivent à ces époques. A la fête du Ramadan et à celle des sacrifices, tous les chefs de la nation étant assemblés, il se transporte en grande solennité dans le désert, pour y invoquer le Tout-Puissant, selon l’ancienne coutume des arabes. Sa famille est nombreuse, il a quinze fils cinq filles, trois frères et deux sœurs, et trois femmes”. A brief description of the capital al-Dirʿiyya follows, with twenty-eight mosques and thirty colleges, but without minarets or domes, and no baths or coffee houses. 60 Chapter 2 would even able to engage one day with a European army, ready as they were for “martyrdom in the cause of doctrine”. The Wahhabi troops were preparing to “spread terror to the very gates of Constantinople”. Everything seemed to anticipate the birth of “a new monarchy, able to cause other Asian potentates to tremble in the future, and to focus the attention of European sovereigns exclusively on itself”.19 It was not only the erudite curiosity of Silvestre de Sacy that was stimulated by this picture.20 Rousseau’s evident aim was to satisfy ministerial and Napole- onic instructions which required accounts of any unusual or noteworthy event in the East and included a request, in concomitance with the Persian missions of Romieu, Jaubert and Gardane, to be kept up to date about the new kingdom which had appeared in Arabia.21 The entire memorial on the pashadom of

19 [Id.], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., pp. 178–79; [Id.], “Nouveaux reinsegnemens sur les opérations militaires des Wahabis”, cit., pp. 103–104, 107, 109–10. 20 Silvestre de Sacy must still have found it compatible with his favourite hypothesis, con firmed again that year, cf. Sur la dynastie des Assassins et sur l’origine de leur nom: lu à la séance publique de l’Institut, du 7 juillet 1809 (Extrait du Moniteur, n. 210, an 1809), s.l., 1809, p. 4: “Aux Carmates (…) semblent avoir succédé les Wahabis, qui remplissent aujourd’hui de la terreur de leur nom plusieurs provinces de l’empire Ottoman, et qui sous l’apparence des réformateurs, paraissent destinés à renverser la religion de Mahomet.” 21 In 1803 the Foreign Minister Talleyrand wrote: “Il importe au gouvernement d’être le premier en Europe instruit de tout ce qui peut intéresser le sort de l’Asie et faire présumer les changements plus ou moins prochains et les vicissitudes que les Etats de cette partie du monde peuvent éprouver” (letter to General Brune, French ambassador in Istanbul, 8 Vendémiaire year XII – 1 October 1803 – quoted in Dehérain [1930], II, p. 25). In the same year the interest of Napoleonic France in the Saʿudi Kingdom and the religious movement connected with it must have been aroused by the first Wahhabi conquest of Mecca. The following events only fomented such curiosity. The tasks assigned to General Gardane’s mission in Persia in 1807 included the order to “étudier le développement de la puissance des Wahabites de l’Arabie, tâcher de connaître leur chef et de sonder ses dispositions à l’égard de la France”, cf. Driault (1904), pp. 183–84. A report by Ange Gardane, the general’s brother and secretary to his legation (with young Consul Rousseau), even provides the erroneous news that the sectarians had also taken Damascus, and inflates their numbers to 300,000 armed men, cf. [A. Gardane], Journal d’un voyage dans la Turquie-d’Asie et la Perse, Paris-Marseille, 1809, p. 90: “On ne parle à Bagdad que des Vahabites. Ces vain- queurs sortis des déserts de l’Arabie, peuvent mettre sous les armes, environ trois cents mille hommes (…). Ils s’étendent depuis Mosul jusqu’à la Mer rouge. Il y quatre-vingt-dix ans, que Cheh-Mahmad, d’une origine obscure, chassé de Damas, de Bagdad et de Bas- sora, se refugia à Naged. Cette Tribu arabe et son Prince adoptèrent sa religion. Ils adorent un seul Dieu. Il est défendu de se raser la barbe, de boire vin et de fumer: leur habillement ne doit pas avoir de la soie. La Mecque, Médine. Bahren, Mascat, tout le Naged et Damas sont tombés au pouvoir des vahabites”. Later, as Muhammad ʿAli’s Arabian expedition Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 61

Baghdad, including the “Notice historique” on the Wahhabis, was intended to corroborate France’s renewed colonial aims in India and advise the establishment of settlements on the Persian Gulf as alternatives to the English trading posts in the region. “A cruel people and ruthless, these Wehabis! Greedy for bloodshed and booty, they let no-one escape and ruthlessly cut the throats of all who fall into their hands.” Such ferocious exoticism appealed to European literary taste, investing the narrative with a grim fascination.22 Rousseau’s perspective, however, was principally that of the victims of Wah- habi ferocity. The article in Le Moniteur had already described in minute detail the terrible atrocities committed at Kerbela: more than 4,500 inhabitants massacred, pregnant women disembowelled, victims’ blood imbibed by the most savage of the assailants. Thus, apart from one small correction – the date of that terrible event was moved back to 20 April 1801 (rather than 1802)23 – these stories reappeared in the “Notice historique” and in the complete Description

against the sect was launched, Bernardino Drovetti, French consul general in Egypt, and his friend Colonel Boutin, both considered it advisable to establish some form of contact with the Wahhabis and suggested in 1812 the creation of a vice-consulate at Jidda, “pour connoître en manière positive les Wahabis, leurs projets, leurs liens et leurs influences”. These calculations were never divorced from the fear that the ruler of al-Dirʿiyya might prefer an alliance with the English, cf. Driault (1904), p. 323; Faivre d’Arcier (1990), pp. 121, 160. 22 J.-B.L. Rousseau, “Notice sur la secte des Wahabis”, in Fundgruben des Orients, I (1809), pp. 191–92. Among his many observations on the Pashadom, Rousseau also tells of contacts between Wahhabis and the English resident in Basra, Samuel Manesty, confirmed in a grim anecdote of punishment inflicted by the “scheikh” on one of his own subjects, guilty of having seized commercial East India Company dispatches, cf. [Id.], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., p. 39. In 1808 Manesty is also accused of sending gifts and military supplies to the Wahhabi leader, cf. [Id.], “Nouveaux reinsegnemens sur les opéra- tions militaires des Wahabis”, cit., p. 106. 23 [Id.], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., pp. 72–75, 156. The sack of Kerbela, with its grave religious and political implications, had a central role in creating an aura of terror round the Wahhabis and later in equating the slaughter with all kinds of massacres attributed to Muslim “fundamentalists” in the next two centuries. The chronicler Ibn Bishr, innocent of polemical exaggeration since he belonged to the movement, estimates the victims at about 2,000 killed in markets and homes, confirms the destruction of the cupola over the tomb of Husain, robbery of every removable object of value in his mauso- leum, and the collection of booty so voluminous that it took almost the whole day to heap it together and load it. With regard to the contested date of this event, it is by now an established opinion, also in the light of Arabic sources, that the original date of 1802 (in Le Moniteur and in Waring’s Tour, infra, note 72) is the most probable one, on some day between 5 March and 3 April, rather than 20 April, the day of the pilgrimage to al-Najaf possibly given in Shia accounts in order to make the attack as odious as possible, cf. Philby 62 Chapter 2 of the pashadom of Baghdad. Letters from Rousseau included with the “Notice historique” (supra, note 17) evoked even more vividly the horror felt by the local populations at the idea of the sect’s dreaded expansion into Ottoman territory. Rumours of renewed slaughter at ʿAna (1807), Syrian pilgrims’ distressing impression of Mecca in 1806 as a city disfigured by ever greater destruction, the appalled reaction to the caravan massacre of 1807, and news of the altered attitude of Sharif Ghalib (the mufti of Mecca, as Rousseau called him) who had apparently espoused the new cause, seemed to transform every brief sigh into a lament of mourning for the old order which had been obliterated. Perhaps not even Rousseau could with any certainty interpret the desperation felt, as he put it, for “mosques demolished, pulpits upturned, external manifestations of the cult abolished, religious ministries destroyed”, though he clearly reports the murder of the members of the pilgrimage to Mecca and the insult to the maḥmal, a splendid palanquin borne on camelback solemnly transporting the precious cloth sent every year from Istanbul to cover the Kaʿbah. It was in any case certain that a “sad foreboding of the decadence of Mohammedanism” seemed to oppress the inhabitants of Syria and Mesopotamia.24

(1955), p. 93; Reissner (1988), pp. 433–38; Vassiliev (1998), p. 96; despite which 1801 is the date again proposed by Schwartz (2002), p. 75. 24 [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., pp. 170–72 (“Extrait d’une lettre écrite d’Alep, en date du 12 juin 1806”): “La caravane des Hagis ou Pélerins, a dû souffrir considérablement cette année du brigandage de ces sectaires fanatiques. Après avoir massacré une partie des dévots Musulmans qui la composoient, et soumis l’autre à des impositions excessives, ils ont brisé le sacré Mahmel, coffre d’un riche travail et couvert d’un drap vert brodé, qui renferme les pieuses offrandes que le Grand Seigneur envoie chaque année, pour être déposées sur le tombeau de Mahomet. (…) Un tel accident, fait pour jeter l’alarme parmi les Turcs, a plongé notre ville dans la dernière désolation; tout le monde le regarde comme le triste présage de la décadence du Mahométisme. Cependant, malgré tous ces obstacles, les pélerins soutenus par leur sainte ferveur, sont parvenus à accomplir le pieux devoir qui les avoit attirés en Arabie; ils sont entrés dans la Mecque, mais ils y ont trouvé toutes les mosquées démolies, les chaires renversées, les cérémonies extérieures du culte abolies, et les ministres de la religion détruits par le fer des vain- queurs. La Caba qu’ils ont visitée, subsiste seule au milieu des décombres d’un grand nombre d’édifices, tombés sous le coup du fanatisme et d’une aveugle fureur.” On the dreadful end to the Syrian caravan, ibid, pp. 178–79 (“Extrait d’une seconde lettre d’Alep, en date du 14 mars 1807”); on the sack of ʿAna, ibid, p. 181 (“Extrait d’une quatrième lettre datée de Bagdad, le 30 juillet 1807”). Wahhabi opposition to the Mecca pilgrimage was justified simply on the grounds of its supposed traditionally sacrilegious character or, politically, by the argument that the alleged need to protect the pilgrims from possible attacks had turned the caravans into hostile military expeditions. Within a few decades the greater safety against robbers guaranteed to pilgrims under Saʿudi dominion had Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 63

Apart from the fact that by then more was known about the Wahhabis, this prediction constituted the very thread of continuity with Volney. Profanation of the Holy Places and persecution of superstitious pilgrims (although a certain benevolence seemed to be shown to Persians and Indians25) carried more weight with Rousseau than the averred fidelity of the sect to Koranic revelation, and seemed to confirm the forecast of a political and religious revolution in Asia. How far this corresponded to the current theological dispute, what role was played by national and state motivations – the spirit of Arab insurrection against Turkish authority – and finally how far Rousseau’s assessment was influenced by the old European habit of including all followers of Islam under the incorrect definition of “Mohammedan”, still less applicable to the new movement, remained to be seen. The benevolence of Silvestre de Sacy ensured that ample credit be given to Rousseau’s exposé well beyond the frontiers of France.26 This, however, was not enough to shield him from the accusation of using unauthorised information from colleagues whom he had not

become a typical feature of pro-Wahhabi historiography, as also in the case of al-Alusi, already mentioned as a historian of Najd, cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 147, 160, 323; Vassiliev (1998), p. 105. 25 Rousseau interprets news of the unexpected welcome of Persian Shiʿi pilgrims at Mecca as a sign of interest on Saʿud’s part in an alliance with Persia, or even as proof of a desire for proselytisation. Alternatively, he thought the reason might also be to secure the return home of some Arab tribes still in that country where they had been moved by Tamerlane a good four centuries earlier, cf. [J.-B.L. Rousseau], “Nouveaux reinsegnemens sur les opé- rations militaires des Wahabis”, cit., pp. 104–105. 26 The Bibliothek der neuesten und wichtigsten Reisebeschreibungen zur Erweiterung der Erd kunde, founded by Matthias Christian Sprengel, promptly included among its volumes the Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cf. T.F. Ehrmann (hrsg.), Neueste Beiträge zur Kunde der Asiatischen Türkei. Mitgetheilt von Herrn Silvestre de Sacy. Aus dem Französi schen, Weimar, 1809. Rousseau is described in the preface as “ein junger talentvoller Fran- zose” who “als mehrjähriger Augenzeuge vollen Glauben verdient”, ibid, p. vi. A review of the Description and versions in the form of compendia of the two contributions sent by Rousseau to Hammer-Purgstall were published in 1809, 1811 and 1814 in the Allgemeine Geographische Ephemeriden, the journal edited by the geographer Friedrich Justin Ber- tuch. A German translation of part of the original article published in Le Moniteur (1804) had already appeared here in a section entitled Vermischte Nachrichten (initialled D.H.), apparently earlier (November 1803) than the original French. This may have been because of a previous communication by Rousseau – the translator makes a generic mention of “näheren Nachrichten” found in “oeffentlichen Blättern” and something similar seems to be suggested by Seetzen, infra, Chapter III, note 6 – or a delay in editing and printing the German edition (issued, perhaps only nominally, in 1803, but in fact in 1804). In 1811 a version of Rousseau’s “Nouveaux reinsegnemens” was also included in the well-known periodical Minerva directed by Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz. 64 Chapter 2

acknowledged. Suspicion of plagiarism already overshadowed the new investigation into the Wahhabis.

3 Corancez: The Cult of the Koran in its Original Simplicity

In the autumn of 1804, while the Republic was still in its death throes in Paris, a second longer anonymous article from Smyrna appeared in Le Moniteur, with the purpose of publicising “historical research” on the origin and existence of the Wahhabi sect.27 There was no reference to the previous article in the same publication, nor was there any indication as to sources. However, the modifica- tion of accepted facts and the reshuffle of commonly held opinions proceeded, at least for French witnesses, with a force equal only to that of Rousseau’s mature “Notice historique” of 1809. The correspondences with this last essay – certain passages were almost identical – must have been evident enough to cause the misconception that the “Notice historique” was an augmented, updated version of the second article in Le Moniteur and should thus be attributed to the same author.28 The correspondent from Smyrna in fact went back to the origins of the movement, recreating a connection with Islam and presenting his opinions as independent of Niebuhr’s. He knew that a Sheikh Muhammad, originally from a tribe of the Tamim horde (the Najdis), a man of humble birth who had been on journeys to Mecca, Damascus, Baghdad and Basra, was the true founder of the sect. This was in contrast with the usual attribution of that honour to his father ʿAbd al-Wahhab, as well as with the evidence of the actual name of the

27 Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, 39, 9 brumaire, an 13 (31 octobre 1804), pp. 137– 39, the article appeared in the section “Extérieur. Turquie”, merely headed: “Smyrne, le 15 sept. 1804 (28 fructidor.)”, in three paragraphs: I. “Origine des Whaabis. Histoire de shek Mahamed et d’Ibn Soout”; II. “Prise d’Imam-Hassem et de la Mecque; défaite des Whaa- bis, et mort d’Abdel-Aziz”; III. “Religion et usages des Whaabis”. It is worth noting that also this second article in Le Moniteur was also rapidly translated and published (1805) in Ber- tuch and Reichard’s Allgemeine Geographische Ephemeriden, but without relating it to the previous article on the subject (supra, note 26). 28 J.D. Barbié du Bocage, review of: Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, in Magasin Encyclope- dique, 1809, t. 5, p. 176: “La Notice sur la secte des Wahabis est une pièce historique du plus grand intérêt. Elle avoit déja été imprimée dans le Moniteur du 9 brumaire an 13 (31 octobre 1804); mais l’auteur l’a considérablement augmentée, et il l’a menée jusqu’à ces derniers temps.” (Review signed B. du B., the initials of the geographer Jean Denis Barbié du Bocage). Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 65

“Wahhabis”.29 His preaching could rightly be described as that of a “reformer jealous of the oneness of God” – innovative only when compared with degenerate religious Muslim practice in Arabia. The acknowledgement of the Koran as a divine work entrusted to Muhammad, albeit requiring emendments to the received text and more radical interpretations such as the death penalty for failure to respect the extension of the ban on alcohol to include tobacco, the supreme mission attributed to the Prophet and preservation of the honour due to the Mecca pilgrimage were clear proof of the continuity of the Muslim tradition. At the same time, however, the abandonment of the “tradition accepted by Mohammedans” (almost the same formula later to appear in Rousseau’s “Notice historique”, supra, note 14), the ban on praying to and honouring simple men, even Muhammad, who was merely a “sage” on a par with Moses, Jesus and other prophets, his name not even to be pronounced during the profession of faith or in public sermons, the unmasking of pilgrims’ presumption of sanctity and the ostentation of the title of hajj, and, finally, the obligation to bury even the most illustrious dead in the bare earth and the destruction of prince- ly tombs, implied a verdict of impiety and a “precept” of intolerance towards the “idolatrous Turks”, to whom the above errant practices were all imputed and who, in the person of the Prophet, gave “a companion to God”.30

29 Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, (31 October 1804), cit., p. 137, col. 2: “Les réfor- més furent nommés Whaabis, du nom d’Abdel-Whaab, père du réformateur”. Earlier, ibid, col. 1, Sulaiman’s dream was recounted, “un pauvre Arabe d’une petite tribu des Negdis” and grandfather of Sheik Muhammad, with slightly more detail than in Rousseau, supra, note 16. As they passed, the flames issuing from the dreamer’s body were said to have consumed the tents in the desert and the homes in the cities, from which one was to infer that a “religion nouvelle” [a “nouvelle puissance” in Rousseau’s “Notice historique”] was destined to convert the Arabs of the desert and subjugate the inhabitants of the cities. A similar news item in the Russian press of 1805 may have been based on this article in Le Moniteur, cf. Vassiliev (1998), p. 64. 30 Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, (31 October 1804), cit., col. 1: “Le shek Maha- med adopta une version particuliere du Coran. Il pretendit que ce livre, écrit par Dieu même, était descendu du ciel, et que Mahomet était l’instrument dont Dieu s’était servi pour le faire connaître aux hommes. Il adopta donc les dogmes qu’il enseigne, et les pré- ceptes qu’il contient; mais en admettant ce livre dans son entier, il reduisit à ce livre seul toute sa religion nouvelle, et rejetta les traditions qui sont reçues chez les Mahométans. Ainsi, Mahamed fut plutôt le réformateur du mahométisme que le fondateur d’une secte nouvelle; et la religion des Whaabis est celle du Coran dans sa pureté primitive”. And, ibid, p. 139, col. 2: “Quoique les pelèrîns de la Mecque soient estimés parmi eux, ils [scil.: the Wahhabis] ne souffrent pas qu’ils prennent, comme parmi les Turcs, le nom de Hadgis. Ils ont détruit tous les tombeaux des Cheks et des prophètes. Leurs morts sont mis en terre sans que la place de leur sepulture soit distingué par aucun ouvrage extérieur; cet usage 66 Chapter 2

Compared with the fanatical violence shown to those guilty of such religious aberrations – still sometimes simply called “Muslims” by the writer of the article – the treatment of Christians and Jews could even seem mild. They were indeed subjected to “the most humiliating discrimination”, and prevented from practising their respective cults in public, but their lives and possessions were preserved. The indignities commonly inflicted by the Turks did not exist. “Some travellers”, struck by such a strong wave of monotheism – the profession of the Muslim faith reduced, according to the writer, simply to the formula: Il n’a de dieu que Dieu (as Browne and Olivier concurred) – might thus have been mistakenly convinced that they were faced not with a “reformer of Moham- medanism”, but with a sect of “pure Deists”, who only respected the “natural religion”, and knew neither prophetic revelation, nor a sacred book, nor any commandments of redemption.31 The article continued with historical information, some of it echoing Niebuhr and some of it original. A prince, Ibn Saʿud, lord of al-Dirʿiyya and, according to the author, also of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ, had welcomed the preacher, Sheikh Muhammad, in order to bring together tribes which had always been divided (Najdi, ʿUtub, ʿAnaza) under the same banner of a single faith and merge them as a “new people”. The two men had agreed to separate the spiritual and temporal powers directly transmitted to their respective successors, to the celebrated ʿAbd al-ʿAziz by the prince, and to Husain, a blind son, by the religious reformer.32 A military expedition against the Wahhabis, equipped by the pasha of Baghdad (in 1801 in the article) had been unsuccessful only because of the

qu’ils observent rigoureusement, s’étend à toutes les conditions. Ils le fondent sur ce passage du Coran: le meilleure tombeau est la terre”. 31 Ibid, p. 139, col. 1: “Les Whaabis n’ont qu’un seul dogme, celui de l’existence de Dieu. Quoi qu’ils admettent une revelation, cette revelation ne leur enseigne que ce dogme même. En adoptant la profession de foi des Mahométans, il n’y a de dieu que Dieu, et Mahomet est son prophete, les Whaabis en ont retranché la derniere partie, et l’ont reduite à ces paroles, il n’y de dieu que Dieu. Aussi ont-ils eté regardés comme de purs deïstes; et quelques voyageurs ont faussement assuré qu’ils n’admettaient que la religion naturelle”. On the condition of Christians and Jews, despised and barred from practising their cults in public, but safe from monetary fines and maltreatment (like those suffered in the Otto- man territories), ibid, coll. 1–2. As to the Muslims, it is known that the Wahhabi monarch ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, on enjoining them to submit, used to accompany this invitation with a copy of the Koran and the message: “Votre devoir est de croire au livre que je vous envoie. Ne soyez pas comme les Turcs idolâtres qui donnent un compagnon à Dieu. Si vous êtes de vrais croyans, vous serez sauvés; si non je vous ferai la guerre jusqu’à la mort”, ibid, p. 137, col. 3. 32 Respectively “général” and “pontife”, or “shek-suprême”, ibid, p. 137, col. 2. News of a son of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab named Husain was confirmed. He held the office of qādī Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 67 treachery of an allied Arab leader and the venality of the commander ʿAli Pa- sha, “vicar” (Turkish kahya) of the reigning Pasha Sulaiman, to whom ʿAli later succeeded. As a result the sectarians who were encouraged to sack Kerbela remained unpunished despite the horror and the fury of the neighbouring king of Persia.33 Finally, the occupation of Mecca in 1803 had shown the impo- tence of the Damascene Pasha Yusuf, taken by surprise near the Holy City with a caravan of Syrian pilgrims and forced to leave hurriedly after the concession of three days to complete the customary rites. The flight of Sharif Ghalib to nearby Jidda had completed the humiliation of the traditional potentates. In- discriminate killings of Muslims (at al-Ta⁠ʾif, if not in Mecca), destruction not only of worthless shops but also of greatly venerated tombs of saints and prophets, including the tomb of Abraham which was not demolished but stripped of all its lavish furnishings – a carpet of silk and gold – caused the author to reflect bitterly on the rule of tolerance ascribed to these “Deists” and Bedouin, and to conclude: “The farther the sects are divided by hate, the nearer become their opinions”.34

at al-Dirʿiyya and died of cholera in 1809, cf. Peskes (1993), p. 172 nt.; Philby (1955), p. 112, (who make not mention of his possibly being blind). 33 The article gives the date for the attack on Imam-Husain (scil.: Kerbela) by 12,000 Wah- habis as 20 April 1802, to coincide with the Shia pilgrimage to the tomb of ʿAli (in nearby al-Najaf), leaving the town undefended. The disembowelment of the pregnant women is attributed to their determination to leave no members of the male sex alive. The victims are estimated to be 3,000 out of a population of seven or eight thousand. The booty pil- laged from the tomb of Husain (the votive offerings of centuries robbed, the dome stripped of its gold plating, the mosque and minarets destroyed) is estimated to be so great that at least two hundred camels were needed to transport it, cf. Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, (31 October 1804), cit., p. 138, col. 1. The only concrete measure taken by the pasha of Baghdad was supposedly the removal of the treasure from the other holy Shia city of Mashad-Imam-ʿAli (scil.: al-Najaf) to a different locality nearer the capital, ibid, p. 138, coll. 1–2 (precisely to Kadhimain, the sanctuary of the Imam Musa). Previ- ously, towards the end of 1798, a second expedition instigated by the pasha of Baghdad against the Wahhabis, armed with cannon and over 2,000 men strong (some sources even mentioned 18,000), set out under the leadership of ʿAli kahya, a native of Georgia and destined to become pasha in 1802. It came to nothing in the fruitless siege of the fortress of al-Kut in the province of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ, when news of reinforcements on their way from al-Dirʿiyya in aid of the besieged caused the Ottoman commander to accept a truce. Fur- ther unsuccessful expeditions were attempted or at least planned in Baghdad in 1805 and 1809, cf. Abu Hakima (1965), pp. 160–61; Brandes (1999), pp. 84, 86–87; Kelly (1968), pp. 99–100, 105; Margoliouth (1934), p. 1177; Philby (1930), pp. 77, 86; Philby (1955), pp. 91–92; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 95, 110. 34 What is more: “Les Whaabis ont donc les Musulmans en horreur. L’intolerance à leur égard est un précepte de leur loi”, cf. Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, 68 Chapter 2

Readers could no longer doubt the strength of the Wahhabis. The victories in the Hijaz were indeed still insecure, impeded by natural events – by the outbreak of an epidemic during the fruitless siege of Jidda, an anachronistic army, and even the dagger of an avenger (who had slipped into al-Dirʿiyya aiming to murder the old ʿAbd al-ʿAziz). Yet prejudiced rumours of the sect’s defeat were to be considered unfounded. Saʿud, the son and successor of the assassinated monarch, already able to muster 100,000 men in no time (at least according to “Arab exaggeration”), still had to instil in his troops sufficient military discipline to shake as they did the theocratic authority of the Ottoman sultan, based on his title as protector of the Holy Places and celebrated every Friday with a special prayer.35

(31 October 1804), cit., p. 139, col. 1. 1,500 inhabitants of al-Ta⁠ʾif are thought to have been massacred, Muslims and Jews without distinction, ibid, p. 138, col. 2. It appears, on the other hand, that Mecca fell without a fight and almost without violence to the inhabitants: “Vingt sheks seulement furent mis à mort pour avoir déclaré qu’ils ne pouvaient admettre la doctrine des Whaabis”, ibid, p. 138, col. 3. Although apparently in contrast with Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s recommendations forbidding the murder of religious leaders (at least in his Kitāb al-jihād, or Book of the Holy War, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 232, 288), this information concerning the assassination of twenty sheiks in Mecca alleged to have refused to accept the Wahhabi doctrine is confirmed in Philby (1930), p. 83. Before Saʿud’s first conquest of the Holy City (in early April 1803) an alliance had been formed by him with ʿAbd al-Muʾin and ʿUthman ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Mudhaifi, respectively a brother and an emissary of Sharif Ghalib, attracted by the prospect of gaining power by deposing the sharif. The brutal occupation of al-Ta⁠ʾif, which claimed about two hundred defenceless victims according to horrified witnesses, was seen by anti-Wah- habi sources as equivalent to the Kerbela massacre but on this occasion directed against Sunni Muslims. After Ghalib had escaped under the protection of a caravan of Syrian pilgrims, which arrived at that very moment under the leadership of the pasha of Damas- cus and had three days in which to complete the ritual, the Wahhabis entered Mecca without having to resort to violence. Their subsequent siege of Jidda, however, failed for lack of military organisation and fear of Ottoman retaliation. It ended when the assailants decided to withdraw to Najd and allow the sharif to resume control of the Holy City, which had only remained in their hands during the spring, cf. Brandes (1999), pp. 87–88; Philby (1930), pp. 82–84; Philby (1955), pp. 94–96; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 99–102. 35 ʿAbd al-ʿAziz’s assassination in October or November 1803 in connection with the sack of Kerbela was welcomed in Istanbul and all kinds of rumours emerged, the use of a dagger during ritual prayer evoking ancient Ismaʿili crimes. Even today there is no unanimous agreement among scholars as to who committed the murder, whether a Shia avenging the massacre of Kerbela (according to accounts accepted by early European observers), or a Kurdish dervish (according to Ibn Bishr), or even an Ottoman hired assassin hoping to gain a rich reward for his family by his sacrifice (as reported in the anonymous Lamʿ al-shihāb), cf. Brandes (1999), p. 88; Philby (1930), p. 84; Philby (1955), pp. 96–97; Rasheed Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 69

This fascinating forecast, which had a wide reception, must have helped to keep alive the author’s legitimate pride in his contribution to Le Moniteur and increase his displeasure in 1809 at the apparently greater success Rousseau’s “Notice historique” now seemed to enjoy and at the fact that his identity was often confused with that of Silvestre de Sacy’s favourite. Hence the decision to propose a more ambitious work of his own. No less than an Histoire des Wa- habis was published in 1810 by the author, Louis Alexandre Olivier de Corancez (1770–1832), a man who had taken part in Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, had lived for some time in Aleppo, and had recently been nominated consul general in Baghdad (where he never actually resided). Faced with the “obvious analogy” with Rousseau’s “Notice historique”, identical facts and the same “manner of presenting the objects”, even “the shape of the sentences”, Cor- ancez pointed out in the preface that the earlier research was his own. He stressed the originality of his essay published in October 1804 and the evident superiority of the complete and attractive monograph on the Wahhabis which he finally presented to the public. The semi-anonymous appearance of the latter, in curious contrast to an affirmed desire to clarify, seemed to be derived in both his case and that of his rival from respect for their consular positions and the realisation that it was as well to keep the account as impersonal as pos sible.36

(2002), p. 22; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 102–103. According the columnist on Le Moniteur the assassin must have lost three sons in Kerbela, even if this and other similar details seem to reflect the immediate transformation of the news into legend, perhaps to the benefit of the devotees of the desecrated sanctuary (primarily Shiʿis). Executed in prodigious circumstances, it was said that the man condemned to die at the stake had escaped from the flames and that it was then necessary to decapitate him – the killer was revered by “zelés musulmans” as a “martyr de leur religion”, cf. Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, (31 October 1804), cit., p. 139, col. 1. Precisely because of their theological “fatalisme”, however, these same “Musulmans” discerned the fall of Mecca as a sign of God’s will unfavourable to themselves and a disavowal of the Turkish despot, who derived “le fondement de son empire” from the formal possession of those places, ibid, p. 138, col. 2. The language of the writer denotes the constant tendency to oppose Wahhabis to “Muslims”, in spite of his having known that the former adhered to the religion of the Koran. The estimate of 100,000 men under Saʿud coincides with Olivier’s figure (supra, Chapter I, note 37), but is even triplicated by Gardane (supra, note 21). 36 [L.A. Corancez], Histoire des Wahabis, Paris, 1810, pp. ii-iv. He too came from a Genevan family – his father, Guillaume Olivier de Corancez, founder and director of the Journal de Paris, was a friend of the philosopher Rousseau, whose death he witnessed. Perhaps anxious to avoid publicly offending a colleague, Corancez wanted to spare his antagonist public reproach, making out that the “analogie” with the “Notice historique” was “la meilleure preuve de l’authenticité des détails” which he had already communicated in Le 70 Chapter 2

The first five chapters of his early text in Le Moniteur were now offered to the readers by Corancez in a corrected and amplified version, while further space was devoted to later events up to 1809, including the second Wahhabi conquest of Mecca, new incursions into Mesopotamia, threats to Syria and Egypt, and even the designation of a son called ʿAbd Allah as future heir to Saʿud’s throne. However, the Histoire was intended to be more than a meticulous chronicle. The author attempted a synthesis of all that was available in France on the subject, including Silvestre de Sacy’s suggestions and the latest information acquired by his rival Rousseau. In line with contemporary taste, further general remarks on the East betrayed his ambition to compete even with Volney, though the results failed to measure up to his model.37 The hypothesis of Qar- matian descent was barely mentioned and was broached with evident uncertainty. The true reason recently advanced by Saʿud to justify his own ruthless treatment of the “Muslims” tout court – the equivocal language in Le Moniteur was still to be found in the Histoire – was simply their infidelity to the Holy Book in spite of their possession of it.38

Moniteur. On the life and appointments of Corancez, from Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign to a long journey through Italy in 1822, cf. d’Amat (1961). The merits and defects of his history of the Wahhabis in the European perspective of the early nineteenth century are examined by Burrell (1995), p. xi; Rasheed (1997), who, albeit with various different emphases, expresses the concern that the work contains opinions far from being politically correct and might consequently offend readers no longer used to such language. He refers above all to generalisations in the final chapters on eastern customs which have little to do with the main subject of the Histoire. 37 For example, Corancez’s opinions on polygamy and the cloistering of women, typical of despotism but also the result of an excess of girls born in the area, and the need to limit “l’activité des desirs”, more intense in hot climates, cf. [L.A. Corancez], Histoire des Wahabis, p. 157. Included among the corrections in the second version were an earlier date for the expedition to Baghdad against the Wahhabis (1798 instead of 1801) and for the sack of Kerbela (now 20 April 1801, instead of 1802, in evident agreement with the correction made by Rousseau in the Description du Pachalik de Bagdad), ibid, pp. 25, 27. Among the additions is the explicit mention that Niebuhr and Volney were the only earlier travellers to have had some vague notions concerning the Wahhabis. 38 Ibid, pp. vi-vii: “Notre objet n’étoit pas de retrouver dans les siècles précédens l’origine des Wahabis. Ils paroissent descendre des Carmates (…). Mais ces derniers ayant défiguré la religion de Mahomet, et les Wahabis, au contraire, l’ayant ramenée à sa première simpli- cité, cette circonstance pourra peut-être faire douter que ces derniers aient la même origine.” Ibid, p. 134: “Il [scil.: Saʿud] ajouta que les musulmans seuls étaient coupables, puisqu’ils possédoient le vrai livre de la loi, et qu’ils corrompoient ce livre par une idolâ- trie grossière; que c’étoit contre eux qu’il portoit le glaive; que c’étoit à eux à choisir entre le Wahabisme ou la mort.” Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 71

At this point the author chose to sketch out a rudimentary religious phe- nomenology on the basis of a rather vague similarity to the development of Protestantism in Europe – the Wahhabis might be called “Muslim reformers” – in which elements from the Enlightenment seemed to coexist with contradictory echoes going back to Bossuet concerning the inevitable “variations” of heretical sects or false religions. Seen historically, each religion appeared initially to be characterised by a prevailing attention to “morality” rather than to dogma. Over the centuries, however, with the proliferation of personal interests, dogma would prevail in every case and, supported by “tradition”, so greatly distort original beliefs as to render them unrecognisable even to their originator – a curious echo of Gibbon transposed to the Muslim camp (supra, Chapter I, note 26). At this point it was natural that a cyclical need of moral rebirth and a popular taste for innovation and equality inspired plans for reform which even Islam could not evade, and of which the new teaching seemed to have all the characteristics – above all an implacable hatred of deep-rooted superstition and abstruse interpretations of sacred texts.39 In the case of the Wahhabis, however, the author seems to see a positive exception to the usual sterility of these repetitive waves of pious unrest from which, thanks to Napoleon’s concordat, even France had recently escaped. Af- ter innumerable wars of religion fought in every corner of the earth for “often ridiculous, always incomprehensible, reasons”, it might have seemed that, at the dawn of the nineteenth century, Arabia presented an almost reassuring picture. “Here obscure, ignorant men” took up arms, not to restore any particular faith, but to renew among eastern nations the only dogma indispensable to

39 Ibid, p. 3: “La religion de Mahomet, très-simple dans son origine, a dû éprouver et a eprouvé toutes ces altérations. De nombreux commentateurs ont dénaturé le Coran par de bizarres interprétations: partout se sont élevés des tombeaux célèbres par de miracles ridicules. La superstition qui les adore, a placé entre l’homme et le seul Dieu prêché par Mahomet, tant de nouveaux prophètes, que l’image de ce Dieu seul en est éclipsée aux yeux de ses modernes adorateurs.” Ibid, p. 18: “En général, le culte des Wahabis est celui du Coran débarrassée de toutes les superstitions qui l’ont défiguré parmi les mahométans. C’est donc moins un culte nouveau que le Mahométisme lui-même dans sa première sim- plicité. Aussi offre-t-il tous les caractères des religions réformées. La tradition, cette mère d’une religion nouvelle, souvent contraire à celle que l’adopte, en est sévèrement pros- crite. La morale en est l’objet important. Le dogme qui l’avoit remplacée n’occupe plus que le second rang. De là le rapprochement qu’on a pu faire à quelques égards entre les Waha- bis et les protestans. Les musulmans réformés ont négligé le dogme pour s’attacher à la morale. Ce dogme est le pur déisme. Pour donner à leur religion cette extrême simplicité, il ne leur a fallu que quelques années.” 72 Chapter 2 morality, which is “the dogma of the existence and oneness of God”.40 Although it had been rejected as fallacious by Corancez in 1804 in the light of more precise information, the Deistic interpretation, which originated with Niebuhr and was popularised by Volney, then underwent an unexpected partial rehabilitation in his Histoire, as it did in Rousseau’s “Notice historique”. The irresistible temptation to detect in the events signs of a spiritual advance in the common religiosity attributed to Muslims meant that in Corancez’s major work the Wahhabis’ military advance was represented as a war between opposing factions of Koranic believers, similar to the age-old antagonism between Catholics and Protestants. However, it still did not seem to him totally wrong to see the superior principle of natural religion gradually gaining ground, now in Muslim Asia as it had once done in Christian Europe, albeit by primitive Arab means. It almost appeared as if modern theological rationalism was recast in an Islamic mould and cleansed of the most radical European consequences. Hatred of the clergy and repudiation of all written revelation, harbingers of exclusivism and persecution, were about to spread over Asia thanks to the arms of intolerant, uneducated proselytes. At the end of the historical narrative proper, this conjecture developed into a far-reaching prophecy. Three decisive factors – climate, religion and government – held out the promise that, once patriarchal customs had been eliminated and despotism, according to the author indispensable for government in Syria and Egypt, established, the sectarians would include the whole of Asia in their “revolution”, revive the religion of a people fallen victim to superstition and religious indifference, repeat the medieval conquest of the Arabs, and perhaps experience an advance of civilization unknown to the Turks.41

40 Ibid, p. 44: “Après tant de guerres de religion, pour des questions souvent ridicules, toujours inintelligibles, le dogme de l’existence et de l’unité de Dieu arme enfin, au fond de l’Arabie, des hommes obscurs et ignorans. Leur but est de rendre à ce dogme partout reconnu, mais partout défiguré la simplicité qui en est essence [in a note: “La religion chrétienne n’est nulle part dominante en Orient”]”. 41 Ibid, pp. 169–70: ʿAbd-elwhaab [sic, although according to Corancez, his son Muhammad should be considered the founder of the movement] est venu rendre à ce zèle son ancienne ferveur. Les Wahabis sont aujourd’hui plus intolérans et plus fanatiques que ne le furent jamais les mahométans. Réunis sous un seul chef, ces Arabes regrettent leur ancienne puissance, et attendent impatiemment le moment de la rétablir. Tout porte donc à croire, que les Wahabis deviendront, au moins en Orient, ce qu’y furent autrefois les Arabes, et cette révolution ne peut être éloignée”. Corancez vacillated as to how far this religious upheaval would go. According to him, espousal of the “religion réformée” in Egypt and Syria would mark the ruin of “mahométisme”; however, the very “préceptes” Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 73

At this point Napoleonic influence welded the opinions of Corancez to those of other French observers. After centuries of division the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula, united under a single leader – we should remember the “man of genius” recalled in the “Observations sur les Wahhabites” – could revive their ancient glory and triumph in the name of a purer faith nobler than decadent “Mohammedanism” (or at least as it seemed to be practised within the Ottoman borders). Like the European upheavals after 1789, it was the duty of the political and religious renewal of an elect nation in the East to prepare the death of a decrepit order.42

4 Rousseau, Corancez and their Sources

There remained the problem of the sources of the two French consuls. The claim each one of them made for the originality of his own work was an opportunity to account to the public for the information he had received. In the preface to the Histoire Corancez affirmed that he had obtained detailed information on the origins of the Wahhabi movement from a Maronite Chris- tian from Aleppo named Diego Frangé (sic), “distinguished for his knowledge of Oriental languages” – information later verified and enriched through “active and constant correspondence” with European residents in the most important cities of the Ottoman pashadoms. Of these, particular merit was assigned to Jean Raymond, a French artillery officer in the service of the pasha of Baghdad. Apart from Niebuhr and Volney, no previous writer was mentioned, as if to confirm that the Wahhabis had first been investigated in depth thanks only to the “historical compendium” in Le Moniteur of October 1804,

held in common with the local communities, unchanged since Muhammad’s time, would soon be the vehicle for the fusion of victors and vanquished, ibid, pp. 148–50. 42 The at least ideal aspiration to world hegemony by the Wahhabis, which included above all Muslim countries, is sketched out in Ibn Ghannam’s chronicle when the original pact was made between Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saʿud, cf. Peskes (1993), p. 267. But a quest for analogies between the Wahhabi movement and the French Revolution or the Napoleonic enterprise can be detected not only among European contemporaries but also in considerably more recent interpretations, tending to see the existence of a sort of Ottoman ancien régime jeopardised by the new faith in Arabia, cf. Ménoret (2003), pp. 58, 61; Philby (1930), p. 58; Rentz (1972), p. 59. Neverteheless scholars generally advocate caution when equating the still vague Arab nationalism of the late eighteenth century with later revolutionary pan-Arab movements in the world of Islam, which developed as a reaction against an increasingly enfeebled Turkish domination and European colonialism, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 7, 238. 74 Chapter 2 used again in guilty silence by Rousseau five years later and finally reproduced by its true author when, after the conquest of Mecca, the Wahhabis had become the object of “general attention”.43 In his own support Rousseau invoked a life spent almost entirely in the East, “old, long-standing relations” in Baghdad, Basra and Muscat, but also with Ar- abs from Bahrain, Najd and even al-Dirʿiyya. Again, on the publication in 1818 of the Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sectes du musulmanisme, a late an- thology of his writings, the author of the “Notice historique” claimed that he had been the first to make the discovery and that his text on the Wahhabis had been nearly completed since February 1804. However, he failed to mention his article in Le Moniteur, published a few months before that of Corancez and which, when compared with the latter, contained evident imprecisions. On this slender basis the Maronite Frangé and the Frenchman Raymond, his rival’s two most reliable witnesses, were denigrated on suspicion of dishonesty, having supposedly transmitted information to Corancez as if it had derived from them, while they had in fact gleaned it from his younger colleague.44 To Silves-

43 [L.A. Corancez], Histoire des Wahabis, cit., p. vii: “Un chrétien maronite, habitant de cette ville [scil.: Aleppo], où il est distingué par ses connoissances dans les langues orientales [in a note: Diego Frangé], a réuni sur les commencemens de l’histoire des Wahabis, des détails très-intéressans, qu’il a bien voulu nous communiquer. Nous avions d’ailleurs une correspondance active et suivie en Syrie, en Egypte, à Damas et à Bagdad. Nous devons surtout distinguer dans cette dernière ville, M. Raymond, alors officier d’artillerie au service du pacha, qui nous a donné, avec une extrême complaisance, des relations que sa place et ses talens rendoient également fidèles et intéressantes.” 44 [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sectes du musulmanisme, cit., p. i: “En faisant réimprimer aujourd’hui ces faibles essais, avec des changemens et des additions considérables, nous sommes obligés de répondre cathégoriquement aux objections de M. C** [scil.: Corancez] qui s’est cru en droit de nous contester la propriété des renseignemens sur les Wahabis, pour les avoir publiés avant nous dans le Moniteur du 1804. Voici le fait. M. C** avait obtenu ces reinsegnemens de Didagos-Frandjié qui le tenait lui- même de nous. Ce chrétien maronite d’Alep dut, par pure vanité, lui laisser ignorer la source d’où ils provenaient; et c’est qui a, sans doute, donné lieu à l’erreur de notre collè- gue, dont, après tout, nous connaissons assez la loyauté et la franchise, pour ne pas l’accuser d’injustice envers nous.” As regards Frangé, who was himself the author of an account of the Wahhabis in Arabic, Rousseau let it be known that he was thought to have con- fessed to plagiarism in an authentic declaration sent to Paris in 1810. For his part, Ray- mond was said to have claimed for himself “fort mal-à-propos” the merit of at least part of the information, ibid, p. ii. To make matters worse for Corancez, there was the added insinuation that, through the mediation of Silvestre de Sacy and without saying anything about it, he may have used Rousseau’s “Tableau” of Saʿud’s territorial possessions in his Histoire (supra, note 18), still unpublished at the time, ibid, p. 23 nt. On the original version of the “Notice historique”, “achevé de rédiger au mois de fèvrier 1804”, ibid, p. 12. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 75 tre de Sacy, to whom the contestants turned as their arbiter, the dispute caused considerable distress. Initially a solution seemed possible by restoring to Co rancez his merit as a columnist on Le Moniteur and by Rousseau’s grudging recognition of the intrinsic value of the Histoire.45 Meanwhile Raymond, a de- serter who, after service in the East India Company, remained in Baghdad under Ottoman protection and rose to the rank of French consul in Basra in 1810, came forward to make his own claim based on a confidential memorandum he had sent to the ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris in 1808.46 The text, unpublished for over a hundred years and thus having no direct influence on European public opinion during the nineteenth century, advocated French arbitration between the Turkish empire and the Wahhabis. It also contained an original account of ʿAli Pasha’s expedition against the Wahhabis in the al-Ahsa⁠ʾ area which had concluded with a truce, and a wholly new justi-

45 The Magasin Encyclopédique, having caused, through Barbié du Bocage, the misunderstanding about the real authorship of the second article in Le Moniteur (supra, note 28), made amends the following year. A new reviewer recognized the earlier claim of Corancez and admitted that Rousseau had just “emprunté” from his colleague the contents of his own “Notice historique”, cf. E. Jomard, review of: Histoire des Wahabis, in Magasin Ency- clopédique, 1810, t. 6, pp. 429 nt., 439 (review signed E.J., initials of Edme Jomard). Rous- seau, though annoyed at the belittling of his own work, at least condescended to describe the later work of his rival as “intéressante”, cf. [J.-B.L. Rousseau], “Nouveaux reinsegnemens sur les opérations militaires des Wahabis”, cit., p. 102. However, the confusion created by the dispute was such that in 1815 an English reviewer of Rousseau’s Description du Pachalik de Bagdad even attributed the authorship of the “Notice historique” on the Wah- habis to Corancez, thus completely inverting the initial confused identities of the two consuls (“The account of the Wahabis, which follows the description of the pashadom by Mr Rousseau, is the work of Mr Corancez, for long French Consul in Aleppo”), cf. [J. Mack- intosh], “Western Asia”, in The Edinburgh Review, XXV, 1815, p. 438 (attributed to James Mackintosh, cf. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, cit., I, p. 454, nr. 738). 46 J. Raymond, Mémoire sur l’origine des Wahabys, Le Caire, 1925, p. iv. According to the editor Édouard Driault, Raymond’s Mémoire, dated 10 July 1806, was “la source plus originale des informations que l’on eut alors sur les Wahabites”. He thus implicitly acknowledged its hypothetical precedence over the major works by Rousseau and Corancez. We know from Gardane that in 1807 Raymond was artillery commander at the pasha of Baghdad’s castle, cf. A. Gardane, Journal d’un voyage dans la Turquie-d’Asie et la Perse, cit., p. 89. On Ray- mond’s activities up to 1815, his arrival in Baghdad during the second half of 1799 as a military instructor sent to the local pasha by the English, his acquaintance with the French Consul Rousseau, father of the orientalist, the hospitality he received in the Rous- seau family at Aleppo in 1805, the three memorials he wrote on Baghdad there, certainly used by the young Rousseau and in which the Wahhabis must have been mentioned, his involvement in Gardane’s Persian mission and his nomination as French consul in Basra (October 1810), cf. Dehérain (1930), II, pp. 47, 68–70, 260–63. 76 Chapter 2 fication of the terrible sack of Kerbela. This was described as a reprisal ordered by ʿAbd al-ʿAziz in answer to the pasha of Baghdad’s refusal to give satisfaction to the Saʿudi monarch for the assassination by Arab pilgrims of around thirty coreligionists, harmless merchants, while they were near al-Najaf on their way back from the sanctuary. In Raymond’s paper the account of doctrinal matters proper was no different from Corancez’s in Le Moniteur, which he said he had read and appreciated as a reprint in the Journal de Francfort, although he declared that it was marred by “numerous erroneous dates”.47 In Raymond’s text the only discordant notes were the assertion that the “prophet” and “sheikh” Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab had simply spread doctrines previously elab- orated by his father – perhaps a clumsy attempt to reconcile differing opinions as to the effective founder of the sect – and the added specification that what was meant by “traditions” concerning Muhammad which were unacceptable to the Wahhabis consisted principally of testimonies of presumed “miracles” attributed to the founder of Islam. It was confirmed that the “false Muslims” deserved extermination for their profanation of the Koranic dictates inherent in their sacrilegious veneration of saints and prophets, by perpetrating which the sectarians believed they would be well accepted by God. All that was required was that “practice of all the virtues”, “upright behaviour” and the “observance of exemplary frugality in daily life should compensate for such violence”.48

47 The article by Corancez is defined as “la pièce la plus véridique, la plus correcte que j’ai vue en ce genre”, conforming to “les récits multipliés que nous offre ici [scil.: in Baghdad] la tradition”; the author’s deplorable dating errors did nothing to impair this opinion (Corancez acknowledged his mistakes later in his Histoire), cf. J. Raymond, Mémoire sur l’origine des Wahabys, cit., p. 4. The Journal de Francfort, like Le Moniteur, must have been available to European residents of cities such as Aleppo and Cairo. 48 Ibid, p. 6: “Ce nouveau prophète [scil.: “Cheik Mahommed”] adopta l’Alcoran dans toute sa pureté, tel que Mahommed prétend l’avoir reçu des mains de Dieu, en retrancha les traditions futiles qui y furent ajoutées pour remplir de miracles la vie de ce prophète, et voulut qu’on le regardât seulement comme un homme sage et un homme juste. Déclarant à ses adhérans que toute espèce de culte n’était dû qu’à la divinité, et que quiconque révé- rait et honorait les prophètes et les saints, en leur déférant un hommage qui n’était que l’apanage de Dieu, se rendrait criminel envers sa toute puissance; il leur démontra que le seul moyen de devenir agréable aux yeaux de l’Éternel, était d’immoler à sa vengeance les profanateurs de sa religion; et leur fit croire qu’il était lui-même le ministre de sa colère, envoyé par lui pour exterminer les faux musulmans. Mais il les avertit en même tems qu’ils devaient supporter l’unité du culte qu’ils rendaient au Très Haut par la pratique de toutes les vertus, par la droiture de leur conduite et par l’observance d’une frugalité exem- plaire.” Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab was credited by Raymond with effectively descending from Muhammad, while for Rousseau the claim was blatantly fraudulent (supra, note 16). ʿAli Pasha’s expedition is described as having been held up by the Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 77

Through the testimony of this third witness the intricate overlap of information behind the later works of the two consuls became even more evident. Rousseau’s position, however, was worsened by Raymond’s assertion that the hospitality he had received for seven months in Aleppo in 1805 at the residence of the consul, the father of the future author of the “Notice historique”, had been repaid by the gift of a previous version of his own memorandum, intended for the son.49 This and the other circumstances mentioned by Corancez could only diminish the author of the “Notice historique” in the eyes of the better informed readers and cast him as an “eccentric” like his distant relation Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Anyone wishing to compare Rousseau’s original 1804 contribution in Le Moniteur (which he never publicly claimed to have written) with his expanded version of 1809 could observe some important modifications corresponding to the same number of items in the article by Corancez and the memorandum by Raymond. There was above all the role of founder attributed to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab; his putative prophetic dream; the dissent attributed to him over “traditions” concerning Muhammad’s mission; and finally, the preeminently religious motivation for his followers’ violent treatment of the surrounding populations. In an entry in the Biographie Universelle published by Michaud Rousseau at least had the satisfaction of being recognized as the longest-standing contributor on the subject.50 Nonethe-

intrigues of a pro-Wahhabi party at the court of Baghdad and finally undermined by the duplicity of an Arab ally (“Mahommed Cheaouï, le chef de la Tribu des Olubeïtes et des El Bénites”, also mentioned in Corancez’s article) after the fruitless siege of the capital of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ – in fact the fortress of al-Kut, ibid, pp. 10–15. The date proposed by Raymond, between 1797 and 1798 (instead of 1798 to 1799, perhaps due to the erroneous conversions of differing calendars), differs from the even less accurate date given by Corancez in Le Moniteur as 1801, but is identical to Corancez’s further proposal in the Histoire – which proved that he and Raymond had communicated in the meantime (supra, note 33 and 37). On the sack of Kerbela (April 20, the date first given by Rousseau and Corancez and later modified) and the particular motivation ascribed to the Wahhabis, including a digression on the origins of the sanctuary, ibid, pp. 15–21. Completing the memorandum were the descriptions of the two Wahhabi conquests of Mecca, the successful penetration of Oman, the unsuccessful attack on al-Najaf and other localities in the pashadom of Baghdad, thoughts on Arab management of the war, the sect’s spirit of conquest and the illustration of three plans of action (respectively defensive, offensive and diplomatic), according to the author still practicable by the Ottomans, the third depending on the involvement of a European power. Raymond imagined it would be France. 49 More precisely, Raymond mentions the existence of “mémoires que j’ai faits pendant mon séjour à Alep en 1805, à la réquisition de M. Rousseau le fils”, ibid, p. 35. 50 Biographie Universelle, Ancienne et Moderne, cit., XXIX, 1821, p. 239, s.v. Mohammed (Cheikh): “Ces deux ouvrages [scil.: Rousseau’s “Notice historique” and Corancez’s 78 Chapter 2 less, uncertainty as to attributions remained, as did the impression that a hidden competitive desire for notoriety and reward had ended up by destroy- ing his own efforts and those of Corancez. Raymond, for his part, admitted that it was solely for lack of literary skill that he had not sought publication. The episode ended up by blighting the whole period during which the writings of the two consuls had at first had the fascination of novelty and first-hand information, thus preventing, for the time being, a more balanced recognition of their real merits. To do Rousseau justice, the written Arabic documents he consulted were quite different from those of the disputed Maronite Frangé, and thus appeared as a truly original aspect of his work. His claim to be acquainted with a “chaplain” of Saʿud in the title of his article in the Fundgruben des Ori- ents of 1811, intended to increase credibility in the originality of his sources, soon provoked the sarcasm of Burckhardt, who was irritated by the misuse of the Christian term.51 However, two works in Arabic really do seem to have add-

Histoire] ont donné lieu à quelques discussions entre les deux consuls, qui paraissent avoir travaillé sur les mêmes matériaux; mais la priorité doit être accordée à M. Rousseau” (item signed A-t: for Audiffret). Even now critics have never fully explained the dispute between Corancez and Rousseau. Indeed, Corancez’s version has been accepted without question by recent commentators who never even mention Raymond, the odd man out, cf. Burrell (1995), p. viii; Faivre d’Arcier (1990), p. 175; Kelly (1968), pp. 48–49. The likely hypothesis that, wishing to gain Silvestre de Sacy’s approval, Rousseau chose to avoid mentioning his debt to his two compatriots was backed by Ruffin, who blamed the young consul for his superficiality and felt the obligation to thank Silvestre de Sacy for having helped to settle the unfortunate quarrel, which he did in a letter of 13 November 1811, cf. Dehérain (1930), II, pp. 259–60; Dehérain (1938), pp. 66–67, 72–73. But there is no reference here to Rousseau’s first article in Le Moniteur, or his apology in 1818. 51 The date of this acquaintance, apparently made in Aleppo, is given by Rousseau as 22 September 1809 (according to the subtitle of his “Tableau”, supra, note 18: “Dressé d’après des renseignemens exacts donnés par son propre chapelain, à Halep, ce 22 septembre 1809”). We gather from his travel diary, however, not only that the term “chapelain” should be understood as the equivalent of the Arabic khatīb (“preacher”), but that there had probably already been a brief encounter with someone designated thus at the court of Saʿud during his return journey from Baghdad to Aleppo. On this occasion the caravan with which the consul was travelling had apparently been subjected to extortion by the Bedouin guarding that very same “grave et impertinent” man, “vénéré à cause de son pré- tendu savoir et de ses saintes pratiques”, cf. J.-B.L. Rousseau, Voyage de Bagdad a Alep, cit., pp. 123–24 (4 December 1808). For Burckhardt’s irony concerning this “Chapelain du Saoude”, infra, chapter III, note 77. This, however, did not deter the English traveller Pal- grave many years later from designating as “chaplain of the palace” (for the Arabic mutawwa⁠ʾ, “an educated man”) a nephew of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, whom he had met in person at al-Riyad, (probably ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Hasan, infra, Chapter III, note 64), cf. W.G. Palgrave, Narrative of a year’s journey through Central and Eastern Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 79 ed to the French consul’s information. He must have had the first, a Dialogue entre Schéikh-Muhammed et Ibn-Seoûd edited by a certain Sheik al-Zubair, at his disposal during a stop on the diplomatic trip from Aleppo to Teheran and back.52 The second, a manuscript from al-Dirʿiyya on the ancient history of the Wahhabis and their military expeditions up to 1810, was published in French in his Mémoire of 1818 under the title “Précis historique sur l’origine du Wa- habisme”. No indication was forthcoming as to where such a remarkable, albeit undated, manuscript had been found. Apart from the note that a not otherwise identified Sheik Sulaiman, a native of Najd, was the putative author, the date on which Rousseau had entered into its possession was not even mentioned.53 The wealth of information on ancient Wahhabi history in the “Précis”

Arabia, London-Cambridge, 1865, I, p. 379; II, p. 18. The existence of a “chaplain” at the Saʿudi monarch’s court appears to be confirmed by Philby (1955), p. 100, who notes the presence of a “Chaplain to the Imam” at al-Dirʿiyya around the beginning of the nineteenth century going by the name of ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Khamis. 52 [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sectes du musulmanisme, cit., p. 3. For more extensive information dated 1809, though a different title is mentioned and no author given, cf. [Id.], “Notice sur la secte des Wehabis”, in Fundgruben des Orients, cit., p. 193: “J’ai lu, pendant mon dernier séjour à Bagdad, un petit livre arabe, intitulé: Dialo- gues entre Abdul Wehabe et Abdulazize. Cet ouvrage, écrit dans un style nerveux, et plein de traits curieux, réunit le double intérêt de faire connoître le caractère de ces deux chefs, et de donner une juste idée de la croyance et des mœurs du peuple qu’ils ont organisé. L’on y voit surtout le premier déployer dans ses discours cette éloquence mâle et persua- sive, si efficace dans la bouche d’un esprit enthousiasmé, et possédé du désir de la gloire, surtout lorsqu’on en est à l’endroit où d’un côté il rappelle à son collaborateur la noblesse et l’ancienne prépondérance des arabes, leur énergie et ce qu’ils sont capables de faire encore, et de l’autre, l’état de foiblesse et de dégénération où sont tombées la Turquie et la Perse, toutes deux incapables de mettre obstacle aux progrès de la nouvelle secte”. 53 “Précis historique Sur l’origine du Wahabisme et sur les expéditions militaires de Schéikh- Muhammed, d’Ibn-Seoûd, d’Abd-il-Aziz et de Seoûd”, cf. [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sectes du musulmanisme, cit., pp. 27–35. An Arab manuscript from al-Dirʿiyya, composed by the mysterious Sheikh Sulaiman and narrating events until 1810 (1224 AH), must be at the root of the French text. In the preface Rousseau defines thus: “Un précis tout neuf, (…) morceau très-curieux, que nous avons rédigé à Alep, d’après un manuscrit original reçu de Dréié”, ibid, p. iii. The author may have been Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd Allah (d. 1818), a grandson of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, a victim of the Egyptian conquest and a man with considerable historical culture, if it is true that his father ʿAbd Allah compiled a summary of the first capture of Mecca (including the destruction of the famous tombs there) and the principal Wahhabi doctrines, which became accessible to the public in 1874 (thanks to James O’Kinealy with the title: “Translation of an Arabic Pamphlet on the History and Doctrines of the Wahhábis”, in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, XLIII, 1874, pp. 68–82). For this identification, cf. Cook (1992), p. 192 nt., who 80 Chapter 2 was a definite advance on both the “Notice historique” of 1809 and his rival Corancez’s Histoire. Only in 1823 was it superseded by a manuscript with similar but much more extensive contents, for which another future protagonist in the European field of information on the Wahhabis was responsible: Félix Mengin, a French agent in Cairo. Had it been known around the time of the dispute, the “Précis” could have enhanced Rousseau’s reputation considerably, although it seems more than likely that in the years leading up to 1814 he had not had access to this particular source. In France during the Restoration, with the splendours of the Empire barely past, the Mémoire sur les trois plus fa meuses sectes du musulmanisme was hardly noticed and the publication of this precious Arabic manuscript did nothing to prevent the author’s silent return to the East after eighteen months in France on the lookout for a better office under the new king.54 The contest had thus drawn to a close. Corancez withdrew to private life in France; Rousseau resumed service in Tripoli, Libya, in 1824, far removed from the scenes of his youthful activities. Only Raymond remained on the locations

observes that both Sulaiman’s al-Tawdīh ʿan tawḥīd al-khallāq (Clarification of the Creative Divine Unity) and “Précis” maintain that young Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab visited Basra and the Hijaz (in Rousseau’s text: “First Basra, then Mecca”), the sequence inverted with respect to the order of his journeys mentioned in the main Wahhabi chronicles. 54 Numerous new details in the “Précis” effectively add to our knowledge of ancient Wah- habi history, although they are at times inexact: thus the birth of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab placed in Huraimila (in reality the site of his first sermon); his first studies under the guidance of a mullah from Sanʿa; the friction with his father, a man seen as a usurer; his travels, only to Basra and Mecca (not Persia or Syria); his flight to al-Dirʿiyya, attributed to the uproar caused by his ordering an adulteress to be stoned; and finally, the alliance with Muhammad ibn Saʿud and the consequent conflicts with Ibn Muʿammar, sheikh of al-ʿUyaina, his one-time protector and brother-in-law (later captured and killed), and then with Dahham ibn Dawwas, sheikh of al-Riyad, and Sulaiman, emir of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ (predecessor of the bellicose ʿUraiʿir, already known to Niebuhr) etc. In general the account reflects the Wahhabi prejudice that “extrême ignorance sur la religion qu’a enseignée le Prophète” and “une superstition qui conduisait insensiblement à l’idolâtrie” prevailed in Arabia around the middle of the eighteenth century, cf. [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sectes du musulmanisme, cit., p. 27. Only one curious omission puzzled Rousseau. The manuscript does not mention the appalling sack of Ker- bela, ibid, p. 35. The “Précis” may be based on an Arabic transcription of the only Wahhabi chronicle of the time known today, by Husain ibn Ghannam (d. 1811), who included among his pupils at al-Dirʿiyya the aforesaid Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd Allah, grandson of the Wahhabi founder. If this is so, Rousseau had published the information before his fellow Frenchman Mengin, commonly held to be the first European writer to have worked on Ibn Ghannam (infra, Chapter III, note 64). Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 81 of the controversy, but was ignored and abandoned until his old English supe- riors, recalling his desertion, claimed him from the Ottomans and deported him to Bombay in 1826.55 Even Silvestre de Sacy had to relinquish the hypothesis of Qarmatian ancestry and accept the position Burckhardt had adopted in the meantime (infra, Conclusion, note 7). Their individual disappointments apart, the protagonists undoubtedly succeeded in advancing the discussion of the “new religion” – the term, though no longer accepted, reappeared in Co rancez’s article in Le Moniteur and in Raymond’s unpublished memorandum. It was by now an established fact that the Wahhabis derived from a Koranic matrix and used the same resources – simple doctrine, bellicose fanaticism – which had already assisted the original spread of Islam. Further established political and social facts were the existence of a dynasty, a capital, a rudimentary concept of property, taxation, and an army. In anthropological terms the conviction persisted that the simpler Wahhabi religiosity best corresponded to the instinctive sobriety of the Bedouin. An affinity was also seen in their manner of warfare and with the scanty acquaintance of these nomads with Islam as practised by the sedentary population.56 Hesitation and uncertainty still prevailed. In particular, greater clarification was needed on the points of actual disagreement about the doctrine preached in Najd and the contemporary form of historic Islam, the religion of a community united under the spiritual and temporal authority of the Ottoman sultan. It seemed indubitable that the cult of the saints was prohibited, as was the use of honorary titles and practices otherwise tolerated, such as the use of tobacco. It was not equally clear how far agreement went about the diminished regard by the Wahhabis for Muhammad, the omission of his name in professions of faith, the destruction of popular places of worship, and abstention from cere- mony and stages on pilgrimages. Finally there was the rejection of unspecified Sunni “traditions”. Did this include collections of ḥadīth, commentaries on the

55 His sentence was remitted in view of the long intervening period and mutual relations with France, cf. Lorimer (1915), I, p. 1292 nt. In 1829 there was also a friendly epilogue to the troubled relations between Corancez and Rousseau when a ministerial commission, which also included Corancez, absolved Rousseau, now consul at Tripoli, of having pur- loined the papers of the Scottish explorer Alexander Laing, assassinated near Timbuktu in 1826, cf. Dehérain (1938), p. 90. 56 In a long list of tribes which had gone over to the Wahhabi faith Rousseau felt the need to specify that some of the conversions should be considered partial and that adherence to the new cult had often caused migrations and divisions, cf. [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., p. 145 nt. On the Wahhabis’ military conduct – the tactics of the Bedouin – only applied on a large scale, cf. [L.A. Corancez], Histoire des Wahabis, cit., p. 24. 82 Chapter 2

Koran, customs validated by one or other of the four law schools recognized by the Sunnis, and so on? Corancez even stated that only a “faithful” version of the Holy Book – a “particular” version according to the 1804 article (supra, note 30) – was permitted by the leader of the Wahhabis, as if the latter had initiated a textual revision of the Koran not dissimilar to the one on the Biblical canon in Europe undertaken in the Protestant camp and in particular by rationalist theologians.57 The search for analogies with the Reformation did indeed seem promising. The comparison, only mentioned by Corancez and still implicit in Raymond (according to whom a ‘spirit of reform” was, ultimately, a threat to “Moham- medanism”), was clearer in Rousseau’s final Mémoire. He recalled how, from the origin of the Church to the birth of the principal Protestant movements, Christians had always stigmatised heretics by using the names of those guilty of starting each deviation, thereby incurring the displeasure of the members thus named. The new sectarians in Arabia seemed to be equally irritated by the name “Wahhabi”. In the al-Dirʿiyya manuscript, for example, they simply called themselves “Muslims”, in contrast to their enemies who were branded as of- fenders against monotheism, mushrikun, literally “associationists”, or in Rous- seau’s paraphrase, “all those who share their incense between God and men”. In the meantime a real dispute was taking place about the theological definition of the sin which corresponded to the Arabic term shirk. “Associating” God with simple humans worshipped as idols was regarded as blasphemy. Conse- quently the French consul did not hesitate to call the new cult “Musulmanisme réformé”, as opposed to a widespread Islamic religiosity seen as superstitious, external and caesaropapistic, close, in short, to Catholicism as seen by Protes- tants.58 A kind of traditionalist “church” going back to Muhammad, if not Is- lam as such, seemed to be heading towards inevitable exposure to a perhaps devastating attack by these reformers within the very city of Mecca. Wahhabi tolerance of Christians and Jews, but not of other Muslims, added credibility to the impression of a real similarity with the earlier wars of religion in Europe. This was why, when explaining the phenomenon, Rousseau and Corancez often introduced the same Deistic themes to which they had objected in the

57 [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sectes du musulmanisme, cit., p. 7. 58 Ibid, p. 28, nt. Note the change with respect to the former conviction, not only of Rous- seau, that the name “Wahabys” was spontaneously assumed by the “nouveau peuple” in Arabia, cf. [Id.], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., p. 135; J. Raymond, Mémoire sur l’origine des Wahabys, cit., pp. 7, 9. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 83 work of their predecessors.59 There was a widespread conviction that the Ref- ormation had more or less consciously prepared the way for rationalism, as Condorcet and Maistre had maintained, albeit on opposite fronts. That an in- discernible spiritual line connected Protestantism to Islam was a longstanding supposition in theological controversy. However, the originally negative significance of this juxtaposition, typical of both a Catholic perspective and the controversies on predestination in the Protestant camp, no longer existed among philosophers. If elements of “pure Deism” could be detected in Mu- hammad’s Holy Book, incompatible with the polytheistic superstitions of more primitive civilisations, even if intermixed with the fierce prejudices of a warrior society stirred up by the Prophet’s ambitions, there seemed to be nothing to prevent the Wahhabi movement from developing, perhaps in spite of itself, in the direction sketched out by Volney.60 Such a return to primitive Is- lam gave rise to the hope that the pure natural religion would one day flourish in Asia on the ruins of chapels once erected in superstitious honour of the saints, spurious legends about Muhammad and self-serving customs surrounding the Mecca pilgrimage, just as had occurred in Europe as a result of Re- formed attacks on the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church. A fleeting reference to a recent text on Islam by the former Jacobin Conrad Engelbert Oelsner, a thorough repository of typical reflections on rationalism and fanaticism during the Enlightenment, revealed the lasting influence of these views on Corancez’s Histoire, at least behind the scenes.61

59 Only Raymond, the least learned of these writers, resists the temptation to mention “Deism”; Rousseau, who still uses the term “déistes”, supra, notes 2 and 14, only omits it in the revised version of the “Notice historique” included in the Mémoire of 1818, cf. [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sectes du musulmanisme, cit., p. 7. 60 At least according to Barbié du Bocage and Jomard in their respective reviews of the main articles by Rousseau and Corancez in the Magasin Encyclopédique, still based on the conviction that “déïsme pur” must of itself inform Wahhabi theology, cf. J.D. Barbié du Bocage, review of: Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., p. 177; E. Jomard, review of: His- toire des Wahabis, cit., p. 430. Jomard even repeated, after Volney, that the sectarians allowed “ni révélation ni prophète” and foresaw in their vast expansion “l’abolition, ou du moins la réforme du mahométisme”, ibid, pp. 427, 440. With greater caution the aforesaid geographer Malte-Brun concluded from the principal works of the two consuls (mentioned in a note) that “les Wahabis ont les Mahométans en horreur. Ils ont cependant retenu d’eux beaucoup de pratiques”, cf. Précis de la Géographie Universelle. Par M. Malte- Brun, Paris, 1810–29, III, p. 204. 61 [L.A. Corancez], Histoire des Wahabis, cit., p. 169 nt. Oelsner postulated an “accord parfait” between “islamisme” and “religion naturelle” concerning “l’unité de l’Être suprême, sa providence, sa sagesse, sa justice et sa bonté”. In contrast to Volney he rehabilitated the Koran – a book “qui donne de la divinité des idées saines, très-élevées et bien dignes 84 Chapter 2

The results were unstable, however, always subject to disclaimers in the light of new events and affected by the resurgence of outdated beliefs. In 1818 the Magasin Encyclopédique (by then the Annales Encyclopédiques), which had been so important in the dispute, offered a new description of the Wahhabis, very slightly updated with respect to Rousseau’s latest information in his Mé- moire of the same year which included no event after 1813.62 The author, Au- guste de N., does not mention his fellow Frenchmen, the two quarrelsome consuls who had supplied the fullest information on the Wahhabis then available. He still believed that ʿAbd al-Wahhab was the founder of the movement and thought that the famous ʿAbd al-ʿAziz was ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s adopted son and head of the Banu Tamim tribe, the grandfather (not the father) of the ambitious and successful leader Saʿud who was ruling at the time. Niebuhr was still cited as the most authoritative source on conditions in Arabia, at least until more information had been provided by the research of Seetzen and Burckhardt – in particular by Burckhardt, who had also died recently and had been a friend of the writer.63 In view of these imprecisions and the reference to accounts still barely known, the interest of the article consisted primarily in a renewed attempt to give a doctrinal explanation of the phenomenon. The author started with the assumption that, after the demise of the Caliphate, the tribes in the Arabian Peninsula slowly relapsed into idolatry, thereby reducing the religion of Mu- hammad to an almost foreign entity in its land of origin. He was evidently aware that the new cult involved simple belief in one God, creator, preserver,

d’elle”, corresponding to “déisme pur”, cf. C.E. Oelsner, Des effets de la religion de Moham- med, pendant les trois premiers siecles de sa fondation, Paris, 1810, pp. 19–20, 30 nt. The work, rewarded in 1808 by the Institut de France and also published in German (Frankfurt a. M., 1810), contains no reference to the Wahhabis. On the other hand the austerity of the first Muslims is compared to that of the Presbyterians, at least where their hostility to the fine arts is concerned, ibid, pp. x, 168. 62 When, in this last work, Rousseau mentions the evacuation of Medina and Mecca by the Wahhabis, expelled by the Egyptians, and the insurrection in Bahrain which took place at the same time, he again expresses his confidence in the sectarians’ invincibility: “Tous ces revers ne peuvent les [scil.: the Wahhabis] avoir découragés; et l’on connaît assez leur systême de guerre, ainsi que le fanatisme religieux qui les anime, pour ne pas douter qu’ils ne cherchent, dans l’inaction même où ils paraissent plongés, les moyens de recouvrer leur ancienne prépondérance”, cf. [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sectes du musulmanisme, cit., p. 50. 63 A. de N***, “Notice sur les Arabes et sur les Wahabis”, in Annales Encyclopediques, 1818, t. 5, pp. 15, 17. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, should if anything have been understood as the grandfather of king ʿAbd Allah, the son of Saʿud and still in office in 1818 – hence perhaps the author’s confusion. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 85 dispenser of good and evil, and obedience to the precepts of the Koran. He knew that it also rejected the supplication of dead saints and prophets; that it held that epitaphs and sepulchres in their honour should be destroyed as well as books and Koranic commentaries praising the virtues of Muhammad and his companions; that it banned tobacco, music and dancing, and perhaps even coffee and silk. He realised too that it suppressed honorific titles and ceremonies and released its adherents from any and every duty to the Turkish sultan. Nonetheless, uncertainty remained about the major question raised by Niebuhr: were such teachings the fruit of a strong Muslim reaction to a relax- ation of the authentic faith, or were they derived from the spiritual refinement of the rough, popular Bedouin religiosity which had always been indifferent to Islamic orthodoxy?64 In the meanwhile there had been the Egyptian conquest of Hijaz, but the author only seemed to have heard of the early successes of the victorious army. The final eulogy of Muhammad ʿAli and the inauspicious forecast for the Wah- habis, who had seemed invincible shortly before, but were now subjected to the reversals of fortune which always accompany too rapid a rise, concealed from the reader the insufficiency of the available data.65 The main lesson to be drawn from the entire French controversy was that no further progress could be made without a more permanent stay in Arabia and close contact with the sect – something which had in fact already taken place although it was as yet unknown to the public. There were, however, a few valuable new items of in-

64 Without specifying whether the Wahhabi doctrine should be considered the result of the weakened Muslim observance of the Bedouin, or rather a reaction to it, the author intro- duces an account of the preaching of ʿAbd al-Wahhab (“un cheïkh du Dréïyé”, the adop- tive father of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, “chef de la puissante tribu des Béni-Témim”) by recalling the already well-known prophetic dream, but which is here attributed to the leader himself, specifying that the flames had burst from the spurt of his urine. There followed a description of the main dogmas, ibid, pp. 20–24. The writer’s contribution to the controversial question of the supposed Wahhabi tolerance of the followers of other religions, variously subject to accusations of idolatry, was more precise and original. If the sectarians originally “ne fasoient point de quartier aux chrétiens et aux juifs, et encore moins aux musulmans qui refusoient d’embrasser le Wéhâbisme”, the Emir Saʿud later became more interested in gain, (“commençant à devenir financier”) and, mindful that “le corân recom- mandoit la tolérance envers les nations qui reconnoissent une loi écrite” (probably an allusion to the so-called “peoples of the Book”), he was reported to accept twenty piasters from the followers of Moses and Jesus as an alternative to conversion, ibid, pp. 25–26. 65 The main causes of disagreement in the sect were an acquired habit of easy booty and a dislike of the tax system introduced by Saʿud. According to the writer, “activité, constance et ressources” had secured the lasting glory of Muhammad ʿAli, the instigator “en Arabie des entreprises qui feroient honneur aux plus illustres génies”, ibid, pp. 28, 30. 86 Chapter 2 formation from another area of the international geopolitical stage. Writings by English travellers and diplomats were circulating, their preoccupations re- flecting those of their Napoleonic counterparts. Nor were their aspirations to join the ranks of European informers about the Wahhabis negligible. The Saʿudi kingdom, hostile to both the Persians and the Turks, occupied a strategic position on the route to India. This made it of interest not only to the French. The dispute was more than purely literary. It now extended to the ambitions of the great colonial powers.

5 Waring: The Fractured Foundation Stone

The astonishing new politico-religious organisation in Arabia was discovered by the British earlier than the French – at least a decade before even Browne’s information. The existence of the Wahhabis was noted in the registers of the East India Company for the first time in 1787.66 A few years later, around 1793, an incursion against an outpost at Grain, an English corruption of al-Qurain, another Arabic name for the port of Kuwait, led to an awareness that the bellicose innovators, the subject of growing rumours in Basra, had even appeared in the Persian Gulf. On this occasion John Lewis Reinaud, a local emissary of the Company, was sent to re-establish good relations at the Saʿudi court and was the first European to visit al-Dirʿiyya. He produced a short account in 1805, which was dispatched to Europe by the German traveller Seetzen.67 The propagation of the sect caused considerable anxiety to the Bombay government,

66 In 1819 Francis Warden, a member of the Company’s governing body with access to the archive documents, (his Historical Sketch of the Wahabee Tribe of Arabs, with later additions, was not published till 1856) wrote: “This sect was founded about the year 1516 [sic] by an Arab of the name of Shaikh Mahomed, the son of Abdool Wahab, whose name they have taken (…) the first mention made of this in the Bombay records is in the year 1787”, cf. F. Warden, Historical Sketch of the Wahabee Tribe of Arabs, in R. Hughes Thomas (ed.), Arabian Gulf Intelligence. Selection from the Records of the Bombay Government, Cam- bridge-New York, 1985, p. 428. 67 U.J. Seetzen, “Auszug aus dem Briefe des Hrn. Reinaud an Dr. Seetzen”, in Monatliche Cor- respondenz zur Beförderung der Erd- und Himmels-Kunde, XII, 1805, pp. 237–41 (from Aleppo, 2 April 1805). Seetzen hardly mentions his acquaintance with Reinaud (about whom he speaks more extensively in his travel journal, infra, Chapter III, note 1) and says he gave his letter back “im Original”, ibid, p. 234. It was in fact published only in part in a German translation with a single chronological reference: the fact that ʿAbd al-ʿAziz was alive, portrayed as a man of about sixty. This estimate is not incompatible with the period of the Wahhabi attack on Kuwait, where there was a British station from 1793 to 1795. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 87 which exercised both extreme caution in its approach to the new kingdom in Arabia and considerable tolerance towards the piracy of the coastal tribes even when it damaged British trade. Harford Jones Brydges (1764–1847), the English resident in Baghdad who had served in Basra and in Kuwait under Manesty, wrote an important initial report in 1799. It was long unknown and was only published in 1834 after a thorough revision by the author. By then Burckhardt’s Notes had already confirmed the idea of the new sectarians’ essentially Muslim orthodoxy already mentioned by Brydges in his draft.68 In the early nineteenth century the public was influenced, rather, by a merely indirect account written in the spirit of Browne and contained in the narrative of a private journey to Persia in 1802 by Edward Scott Waring, a young employee of the East India Company who had grown up in India where his father, John Scott Waring, had been agent to War- ren Hastings and had acted as his spokesman at home during the sensational Bengali embezzlement trial. In the Tour to Sheeraz, by the route of Kazroon and Feerozabad (1804, 18073) an entire chapter is dedicated to the followers of the mysterious prophet who had appeared in Najd (chap. XXXI: Of the Wuhabees).

68 “The Religion they possess is Mohammedan according to the literal meaning of the Koran, following the Interpretations of Hambelly. (…) They term themselves true Mus- sulmans”, cf. Khan (1968), p. 42. This first report, simply entitled The Whabee, perhaps the source of Browne’s enlarged notice of 1806 (Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s travels, son, office and precepts, particularly the “positive duty” he instituted for “every Whabee … to join waging Continual War against all unbelievers” – it does no matter if Christians, Jews or unprincipled Muslims – but with a clearer distinction here between his stays and protectors in al-ʿUyaina and al-Dirʿiyya), was delivered in a letter dated 1 December from Brydges to Jacob Bosanquet, president of the East India Company’s Court of Directors. In the final draught of 1834, published under the title “A brief history of the Wahauby” and marginal to the account of his Persian mission, Brydges asserts that, as to Wahhabi doctrine, he follows Burckhardt, cf. H.J. Brydges, An Account of the transactions of His Majes- ty’s Mission to the court of Persia, London, 1834, II, p. 106. Brydges gives, however, a new description of the Wahhabi incursion in Kuwait (wrongly dated 1792 and with no mention of British military involvement) with news of a consignment of gifts from Manesty to al-Dirʿiyya, ibid, pp. 12–16. More generally, “A Brief History of the Wahauby” is a European source of undoubted interest for the political and military history of the first Saʿudi reign. On the life of Brydges, who spent twenty-five years in the East, in Basra, Shiraz, Baghdad and Teheran, narrated, at least at intervals, in his Persian account, cf. Henderson/Mat- thew (2004); Lorimer (1915), I, pp. 1291, 1294, 1894. For Brydges’ first report on the Wah- habis, written in Baghdad and now edited by Khan (1968), pp. 41–44, the previous activity at Grain and the establishment of an East India Company base following friction between the Jewish community in Basra and the English resident Manesty, who chose to move to Kuwait for three years, cf. Kelly (1968), pp. 32–33, 49, 50 nt., 54–55; Khan (1968), pp. 33. 88 Chapter 2

Although the narrator was hardly a model of factual accuracy and still derived much of his information from Niebuhr, his contribution, together with the second edition of Browne’s Travels, nonetheless signified, for the British reader, a thorough revision of the Deist hypothesis in parallel to what was also taking place in France.69 Like his predecessors Waring appeared convinced that what he had before him was a “new religion”. He noted, however, that to judge it as new meant contrasting the sectarians with “orthodox” Muslims. The leader ʿAbd al-Wah- hab, or alternatively his son, the mullāh Muhammad, who had been instructed “under the principal Moohammedan doctors at Bussora and Bagdad”, had always publicly defended “the purity, excellence and orthodoxy of his tenets”, first in Damascus, then briefly at Mosul, and finally in his own country in the city of al-ʿUyainah in the province of al-ʿArid where he had married the daughter of the local “governor”. Nevertheless, his adversaries and majority opinion imputed various “doctrines subversive of the Moosulman faith” to the preacher: the admission of a single God of justice, belief in the mere humanity of the so-called “prophets” and the refusal to accept any divine revelation deposited by a holy writer in an “inspired work”. The conventional features of the Wah- habi creed as reported by Niebuhr’s camel merchant were here presented again by Waring, albeit with the benefit of the doubt as to the limited reliability of partisan testimony. Waring is never quite explicit about the sources of his information on these conflicting views. He very probably used stories he had heard in Persia inte- grated with what he had read in Niebuhr, the only writer he mentions. Basra, where he stayed for three weeks between September and October 1802, seemed once again to be the hub of this information. Indeed, he described the city as being in a state of panic over a possible Wahhabi attack. He was convinced that the interests and prejudice of the sect’s denigrators had caused this agitation. “Orthodox sheiks” seethed with indignation at their own “legends and tales” being rendered ridiculous. Generally speaking, “bigoted and rancorous” Mus- lims tended to describe all that differed from their inveterate convictions in ominous tones. It seemed that the other main accusation levelled against the obscure innovator and his followers, apparently incompatible with their

69 E. Scott Waring, A Tour to Sheeraz, by the route of Kazroon and Feerozabad, London, 1807 (the date of the preface, concluded at Puna on 13 October 1804, is the terminus ad quem for information on the Wahhabis). It had first been printed and appeared in Bombay in 1804, but was “spoiled by numerous and absurd errors of the press”, ibid, p. vi; a second in London in 1805 (as vol. VI in the series: A Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages and Travels, sect. II: “Original Voyages and Travels”). Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 89 supposed Deism, and the cause of the same theological loathing, was that of “religious furor”, “intolerant zeal and holy cruelty”. However well-founded, noted Waring, the blame lay on the Wahhabis no less than on their Muslim critics, and on the earliest and most venerated followers of Muhammad.70

70 E.S. Waring, A Tour to Sheeraz, cit., pp. 119–20: “The priests were alarmed at the tendency of his [scil: ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s, or mullāh Muhammad’s] doctrines; he was obliged to fly from his city [scil: Damascus]; and on his arrival at Mousul, he publicly supported the purity, excellence, and orthodoxy of his tenets. After a short stay at Mosoul, he returned to his own country, and had soon the good fortune to convert the governor of his native town, and many of the principal Sheikhs. It is alledged that Moolla Moohummud received the sister of his protector in marriage, and that soon after he had the ingratitude to murder his benefactor, affirming, that he was an oppressor and a tyrant, and that his love of justice would not allow him to overlook such detestable crimes, even in a beloved relation. This story does not appear to me to be worthy of credit; I notice it as I have made mention of Moolla Moohummud, but it was the invention of some bigoted and rancorous Moosulman, willing to describe the character of this religious innovator in the blackest colours. Ubdool Wuhab was regarded by his new proselytes in the light of an independent lawgiver; and he prudently exerted his authority to compose the differences existing among his converts, and by this means put himself at the head of the most powerful party in Najd. His religious furor induced him not only to propagate his opinions by argument and persuasion, but with all the intolerant zeal and holy cruelty which marked the rise and progress of Mahometanism. Ubdool Wuhab greatly extended his conquest, and in a short time gained possession of nearly the whole of Ool Urud. On his death Ubdool Uzeez succeeded him, and continued to follow the same measures for conciliating the Arab Sheikhs as had been pursued by his father. This new religion, which had sprung up in the midst of Arabia, excited the attention, and roused the indignation of the orthodox Sheikhs, who could not bear the notion of the Wuhabees ridiculing with contempt the legends and tales which they so conscientiously believed. The Wuhabees are accused of professing the following belief: “That there is one just and wise God; that all those persons called prophets are only to be considered as just and virtuous men, and that there never existed an inspired work nor an inspired writer.” In his report of 1799, Brydges unhesitatingly attributed the murder of “Ibn Mahamer”, sheikh of al-ʿUyaina, to “Moollah Moham- med”. He also knew of some of the audacious preacher’s earlier misadventures in Damascus and Mosul, cf. Khan (1968), p. 41. Waring seems to regard with suspicion this particularly slanderous episode in the stories he heard of the life of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab – that is the murder of ʿUthman ibn Muʿammar, emir of al-ʿUyaina, his first political protector in 1745 and father-in-law to the future Saʿudi monarch ʿAbd al-ʿAziz. This may have been the source of the rumour that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab had had his father-in-law murdered, since he was often confused with ʿAbd al-Aziz. In fact ʿUthman was a nephew by marriage of the Wahhabi leader, who had not received a daughter of ʿUthman’s in marriage, but an aunt on the father’s side. ʿUthman, having been forced to break with Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab on the insistence of Sulaiman, emir of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ (great uncle and predecessor of the already mentioned ʾUraiʾir ibn Dujain), 90 Chapter 2

So eager was Waring to avoid appearing credulous by repeating all the hor- rors attributed to the “new religion” that he even classified clearly doctrinal dispositions such as the identification of Muslims deviating from the Koran as thorough “infidels” and “the destruction of magnificent tombs” ordered as an “act of necessary devotion”, among the “civil ordinances” which also included the zakāt, the tax mentioned by Niebuhr, and the criteria for the distribution of conquered lands and goods. He described these more precisely than did Browne (supra, Chapter I, note 43), and was apparently unaware of the fact that they were the same precepts as those of the Koran.71 Even the gravity of the sack of Kerbela, here dated 1802 and recounted to the narrator by numerous survivors still appalled by the horrendous profanation suffered by the “holy sepulchres” of the progeny of ʿAli, had, according to him, been exaggerated by Persian anger. More benevolent opinions were therefore called upon to counterbalance this view, such as that of some Armenian travellers, very probably Christians, who tended to credit the Wahhabis with considerable honesty and humanity.72

was slaughtered in 1750 by Wahhabis remaining in the city after their leader had been exiled. Whether they were praised or blamed for this act by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wah- hab is a matter of disagreement among Wahhabi chroniclers. Ibn Ghannam reports Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s displeasure, while Ibn Bishr maintains that, from a religious point of view, the crime was praiseworthy, and was justified by the suspicion that Ibn Muʿammar had himself tried to have Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab put to death while he was fleeing to al-Dirʿiyya. The problem, therefore, was not the fact in itself, but its representation by the Wahhabis, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 37–38; Peskes (1993), pp. 57, 268–73 (with an explanation of the differences between the accounts of Ibn Ghan- nam and Ibn Bishr in the light of the latter’s intention to discredit the dynastic claims of a nineteenth-century descendant of Ibn Muʿammar); Philby (1955), pp. 44–45, 60; Rentz (2004), pp. 46–47, 52, 62–63, 66. Only Khan (1968), pp. 36–37, is doubtful as to the reality of ʿUthman’s assassination. 71 E.S. Waring, A Tour to Sheeraz, cit., p. 121: “Among a number of civil ordinances of the Wuhabees, are the following: – illegal to levy duties on goods the property of a Moosul- man; on specie, the Zukat, or two and a half per cent.; land watered naturally to pay ten per cent.; artificially five per cent.; the revenues of conquered countries to belong to the community; the revenues to be divided into five parts, one to be given to the general treasury, the rest to be kept where collected, to be allotted for the good of the community, for travellers, and charitable purposes; a Moosulman who deviates from the precepts of the Koran to be treated as an infidel; the destruction of magnificent tombs a necessary act of devotion.” 72 Ibid, p. 123: “A party of the Wuhabees last year (1802) attacked Kurbulu, celebrated among the Persians as being the burial place of the sons of Ali, destroyed the tombs, and plundered the town and pilgrims. I met several of the people who had been there at that period, and they all agreed in complaining most bitterly of the cruelty of the reformers. It Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 91

As regards military information, there was the news of two unsuccessful expeditions by the pasha of Baghdad, the first led by the sheikh of the Arab tribe of Muntafiq, reported to have been killed by a hired assassin, and the second undermined by corruption at the level of command. On a second front the sharif of Mecca, by now on the defensive, had been dealt an equally crushing blow – an incursion by Ghalib in the direction of Najd had in fact been blocked at the oasis of Khurma in March 1798.73 The peace recently imposed on the sultan of Muscat and the very recent successful attacks on al-Ta⁠ʾif, as also on Medina and Mecca, were confirmation that the danger had now extended over the entire Arabian peninsula and that the assassination of the old monarch, ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, would change nothing since he had already delegated the military command to his son some years earlier. Eighty or ninety thousand men (scarcely fewer than those estimated by French sources) and sufficient ships to keep navigation in the Persian Gulf under control thanks to an alliance with the coastal ʿUtub Arabs intensified the belligerence of the new kingdom.74 Here, however, the account became somewhat vague. It was inhibited by the almost total lack of chronological references and a complete ignorance concerning the dynasty – the deceased ʿAbd al-ʿAziz is presented at times as the son of the leader ʿAbd al-Wahhab and at others as the son of an unidentified Saʿud. There was also the traditional uncertainty regarding the founder of the sect (whether ʿAbd al-Wahhab or his son Muhammad), and, finally, no distinction whatsoever was made between information derived from Persia and that from elsewhere.75 The assault on Mecca and Medina, the sack of both cities (“attacked and plundered”, no matter what circumstances this formula includ-

must be recollected, that the destruction of the holy sepulchres would alone be considered an enormous act of impiety and cruelty; I am led to think this the more probable, as some Armenians, who had fallen in with the party of Wuhabees, gave me a very favourable account of their honesty and humanity.” 73 Ibid, pp. 121–22. Two distinct expeditions by the pasha of Baghdad did indeed constitute original, well-founded news. By 1804 both had already been mentioned, one by Browne, the other by Corancez (recalling the leader ʿAli kahya), but had not been included in a single account and consequently ran the danger of being confused. 74 Ibid, pp. 123–24. Waring was informed about the murder of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz on a later journey to Bushir in 1804, ibid, p. 125: “It was supposed, by an inhabitant of Kurbulu, whose family had been murdered, and the house destroyed”. 75 Ibid, p. 119: “The founder of this religion, Ubdool Wuhab, was a native of Ujunu, a town in the province of Ool Urud; some have been of the opinion that Moola Moohummud, the son of Ubdool Wuhab, was the first person who promulgated doctrines subversive of the Moosulman faith; however this may be, it is certain that one or other of these persons was the founder of the religion of the Wuhabees, and the name inclines me to believe Ubdool Wuhab.” Though a little further on ʿAbd al-Aziz is indicated as the son of ʿAbd al-Wahhab, 92 Chapter 2 ed), must have reached Waring only some time after his visit to Shiraz. Nor was the mention of this latest shocking event the only reason for questioning the criteria informing his chapter on the Wahhabis.76 This contradictory information was not all that Waring offered by way of clarification. In the light of events he finally gave a personal explanation of the “dangerous heresy” which had appeared in Najd. The asserted incompatibility with Muslim orthodoxy could be justified, but not for the reason commonly given. Abandoning fundamental Koranic precepts (prayer, ablution, alms which he does not even mention), the prohibition of tobacco, opium and coffee (in conformity with the ideas of “many Moosulmans”, at least in the case of the first two items), and lastly the violent anathema against an enormous number of believers, proof, if anything, of rigour, offered insufficient evidence or completely inadequate reasons for dissent. The only irreparable break with Is- lamic tradition was, according to Waring, the attack on the institution of the Mecca pilgrimage. The pilgrimage was in fact no longer merely avoided or prevented by ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s proselytes. The armed occupation of the Holy Places in the Hijaz had rendered it virtually impracticable. “The foundation stone of Mahometanism”, a sacred duty trampled underfoot, threatened to drag in its wake the “mighty fabric” of a religion which had resisted centuries of stress and strain and was now, at the first rub with a troop of “Arab reformers”, on the point of collapse.77

a note warns, ibid, p. 120 nt.: “Some accounts make Saoud the father of Ubdool Uzeez”, who in turn then begot a son named Ibn Saʿud, ibid, p. 122. 76 Imprecisions and misconceptions (a “cautious and deliberate mode of inquiry is by no means to the taste of our traveller”), the tendency to mention “only a few insulated facts, and these without date”, were early imputed to Waring, in spite of the attenuating circumstance of his youth and the merit accorded him for his appreciable knowledge of the local languages, cf. [A. Hamilton], “Waring’s Travels in Persia”, in Edinburgh Review, X, 1810, pp. 62–63, 70 (for the probable attribution to Alexander Hamilton, cf. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, cit., I, p. 441, nr. 344). And a German reviewer observed: “Der Ver- fasser schwatzt viel, aber sagt wenig; er ist ein flüchtiger, folglich kein glaubwürdiger Beo- bachter”, cf. review of: E.S. Waring, Reise nach Sheeraz, in Allgemeine Geographische Ephemeriden, XXVII, 1808, p. 169. Unlike the English critic, who is suspicious of the account of the Wahhabis as well, preferring to consider the latter not as “followers of Mohamed” but as “oriental illuminati”, the German commentator exempts the chapter on the Wahhabis from any blame, even recommending its separate publication, ibid, p. 168. 77 E.S. Waring, A Tour to Sheeraz, cit., p. 124: “They have violated the sacred law which forbids armed men approaching within a certain distance of the temple. They have thus destroyed the foundation stone of Mahometanism” (the Biblical origin of the metaphor is evident); “and the mighty fabric, which at one period bade defiance to all Europe, falls, on the first attack, at the feet of an Arab reformer. The event may make a great change in the Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 93

An explanation was thus provided. The theory was that, even if it was rooted in Muslim territory, the new religious teaching threatened with destruction the entire cult which it intended to reform. Suggestive though it was, this interpretation was a compromise, since the factors determining such a counterproductive outcome for a movement supposedly inspired by Islam were not made plain. Equally unclear was the potential effect of this “great change” (a term modelled on Niebuhr) outside Arabia, especially among Muslims in India, the main preoccupation of the English. In this case, however, Waring was surprisingly reassuring, especially considering his ruinous forecast for that same Ko- ranic religion celebrated by Gibbon not long before for its millennial stability. “The temper of the times”, Waring argued, was no longer so favourable for the creation of religious empires as at the time of Muhammad. There was consequently no danger of Wahhabi teachings being instrumental in the creation of a power in conflict with British interests in the Deccan Plateau. A more specific impediment to the sect’s dreaded expansion lay in the spurious, “superstitious” character of the particular Indian variety of Muslim faith imbued with local pagan traditions which, in past centuries, had spread from the Indus to the Ganges.78 How far such optimism was premature would be seen in Patna some twenty years later with the preaching of Sayyid Ahmad Brelwi, a pilgrim to Mecca in 1822, a rebel at home in 1826, whom the English, the local potentates, the Mus- lims and the Sikhs would take a long time to suppress.79 What must have

Muhammedan world; for it appears to me almost certain, that the pilgrimages to Mecca have had nearly as great an effect in supporting this religion, as the first victories and conquests of Muhammed.” 78 Ibid, pp. 124–25: “Our speculations, on the probable effect of this event, might be carried to a great length; I shall content myself, however, by observing, that the temper of the times is greatly altered since the æra of Muhammed, and that however much Arabia or Persia may be convulsed by religious wars, it is almost impossible for the contagion to extend any further. Numberless are the superstitious observances which have been grafted on the religion of Muhammed in India; and the reliance which the Mooslims place on their conforming to a number of Hindoo customs, totally disqualify them from adopting or understanding a reasonable belief.” Nonetheless exportation of the Holy War to India, to the detriment of the English, was in fact contemplated by Saʿud and expressed in a letter of exhortation to the sultan of Oman in 1805, then passed on by the sultan to David Seton, the English resident in Muscat (“verily thou shalt speedily proceed to the holy war in India, by which thou wilt not be fighting for me but it is incumbent on thee to be obedient to God”), cf. Kelly (1968), p. 108. 79 On the so-called Indian Wahhabi movement in Patna, from 1822 up to the 1857–59 popular insurrection all over the peninsula, cf. Balkhi (1983); Bari (1965); Lorimer (1915), I, pp. 2376–77; Margoliouth (1934), p. 1179; Ménoret (2003), p. 80; Peskes (2002), p. 45; Peters 94 Chapter 2 seemed most surprising at the beginning of the nineteenth century were War- ing’s arguments in support of his own convictions. The slightly sarcastic remarks, inserted right at the end of his account, about the shield supposedly raised by inveterate Hindu superstition against the penetration of any “reasonable belief”, seemed to evoke the idea, hitherto unmentioned but which War- ing had come across before, at least in Niebuhr, that the Wahhabi movement could in fact be the expression of a type of Deism. He simply reasoned that if, at the time of its greatest glory, even Islam had been forced to advance in India by dint of compromises with local superstitions, and if Christianity, brought by European colonialists, had faced similar opposition, a rationalistic Muslim heresy could hardly expect to be accepted by such a degenerate population. However, the consolation was also a paradox. The guarantee against such fears consisted in belittling those very same indigenous traditions which he seemed to expect would guard, more than any other form of defence, against innovations from Arabia. But how far could he base his hopes on such reasoning?

6 Valentia and Other English Voices: The Din of Hostile Arms at Mecca

The chapter on the Wahhabis was an important reason for the German and French translations of Waring’s Tour.80 Soon, however, there were other Eng- lish contributions. In 1806 an anonymous reviewer in the Edinburgh Review, “by the assistance of a friend who has been in the East”, tried using his own information to make up for the disappointing omission of the “new sect” in John Griffiths’ recent narrative of his journeys in Ottoman territory. The Mus- lim origin of the Wahhabis was by now commonly accepted, and in the review this was not considered to be incompatible with the persistent belief that their

(1989), pp. 100–101; Puin (1973), p. 71; Rentz (1972), p. 66; Schwartz (2002), pp. 87–88; Vas- siliev (1998), p. 156. A possible intellectual affinity between Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wah- hab and Qutb ud-Din Ahmad ibn ʿAbd-al Rahim (1703–1762), the Indian Islamic reformer better known as Shah Wali Allah, is suggested by Khan (1968), pp. 35–36. 80 Reise nach Sheeraz auf dem Wege von Kazroon und Feerozabad. Aus dem Englischen mit Anmerkungen des Übersetzters, Rudolstadt, 1808–809; Voyage de l’Inde à Chyras. Traduit de l’anglais de M. Scott-Waring, Paris, 1813 (already mentioned as forthcoming by Silvestre de Sacy, cf. [J.-B.L. Rousseau], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad, cit., p. 182 nt., the French version appeared as the third volume of the translation of Morier’s above cited account, edited by Jean Baptiste Benoît Eyriès, cf. Voyage en Perse, en Arménie, en Asie-Mineure, et à Constantinople; Par M. Jacques Morier, Paris, 1813). Neither the French nor the German version contains significant additions or corrections to the chapter on the Wahhabis. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 95 religion was innovative. These conflicting points of view were united in an original synthesis according to which, although the founder ʿAbd al-Wahhab had not at first wished for any clash with the “Mohammedan faith”, this did in fact come about in the wake of the growing success of his preaching. One God, supreme, immaterial, eternal, omnipotent, the recipient of fervent prayer, was said to be an established principle recognised by every Muslim at the outset of the movement. However, anxious to “reform the old religion” and spurred on by a combination of enthusiasm and ambition, the leader was believed to have gone to the length of promulgating a “new creed” based on his personal interpretation of the Koran. This licence in the treatment of the Holy Book, respected since time immemorial, and the obedience refused to the dead Prophet Muhammad probably led the inhabitants of Najd to have further increasing doubts about the effective adaptability of Islamic precepts to their Bedouin life. In the course of time a different opinion seemed to prevail, according to which everyone received a clear idea at birth of right and wrong, thus obviat- ing written revelation.81

81 [M. Napier], “Griffiths’s Travels”, in The Edinburgh Review, VIII, 1806, pp. 41–42: “It is now more than half a century, since Abdul Wahab began to promulgate a new creed in Arabia. His first doctrines probably extended no further than his own particular interpretations of the Koran; and his disciples were confined for several years to a few tribes of the desert. By degrees, however, his opinions became more widely spread; his heresies were easily adopted by the illiterate robbers, whom they encouraged with the hopes of conquest and of pillage; and as he found new followers continually flocking round his standard, it is probable that his enthusiasm grew more enterprising, and his ambition more daring. The design of reforming the old religion of his country, seems to have given place in his mind to that of establishing a new one.” And further on, ibid, pp. 43–44: “Of the peculiar doctrines of the Wahabees, we pretend not to speak with any certainty. They assert, it is said, the unity of the Deity, like the Mahometans; they hold him to be immaterial, eternal and omnipotent; and in their addresses to the Supreme Being, they are fervent and devout. According to them, God has never dictated any written code of laws to men; nor has he made any particular revelation of himself. His existence, they think, is sufficiently manifested in his works. His will cannot be mistaken, since he has implanted the distinct perception of right and wrong in the human mind, together with the conviction that virtue alone can be agreeable to the Author of nature. They do not deny, however, that Provi- dence has occasionally interfered in the concerns of mortals in an extraordinary manner; and that it has chosen its instruments to promote the cause of truth, to reward the good, and to punish the guilty. Some men, they pretend, such as Mahomet and Abdul, have been distinguished by a peculiar favour of heaven. During their lives, the laws and ordinances of these men ought to be obeyed, and their persons venerated. Their authority, however, should cease with their lives; for the plans of Providence will then be furthered by other means, and with other instruments. If this statement be correct, and it comes to us from good authority, it is easy to see that ambition, not less than enthusiasm, dictated 96 Chapter 2

Such “Theism”, perhaps even “sublime”– the writer observed – was much more than one might expect of an Arab of the desert and a thousand times preferable to the whole heavy-going content of the Koran. And yet an inveterate tendency to rebellion, imposture and “persecution”, carried out with the same ferocious intolerance that had existed in the days of Muhammad, had corrupted the new message so far as to make it more or less exclusively accept- able to “illiterate robbers” authorised to keep for themselves the spoils wrested from anyone recalcitrant to conversion.82 Browne and Volney were still responsible for this view of the situation, the former as the first authority to refer to the Wahhabis’ different attitude to prophets both living and dead (supra, Chapter I, note 43), the latter because he was quoted by Malthus.83 A new theme, perhaps an echo of the contemporary theological debate in the East, was added to complete the picture. Islamic doctors of religion, ulamā, were said to have attempted the recuperation of the apostates by harking back to the exceptional circumstances of Muhammad’s mission. Their adversaries, however, were reported to have appealed with

his religious creed to the crafty Abdul.” The identity of the informer and friend back from the East mentioned by the author remains obscure (for author’s probable identity as Macvey Napier, publisher of the periodical, cf. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, cit., I, p. 438, nr. 276). 82 [M. Napier], “Griffiths’s Travels”, cit., p. 44: “As far as his [scil: ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s] theism goes, it is, perhaps, more sublime than could have been well expected from an Arab of the desert; but his pretensions to govern the minds and actions of his countrymen, under the special authority of Heaven, betrayed the imposter in the teacher, and the rebel in the reformer. In limiting those pretensions to the period of his life, he probably lost nothing for which he cared; while he assailed the Mahometan faith, without endangering his own immediate power. If, indeed, that power had been exercised only with the view of intro- ducing a religion more rational than Mahomet’s, we should not have much regretted its progress. It is humiliating to think that so many millions of people should consider such a miserable rhapsody as the Koran to be really of divine origin; and yet it is much more lamentable to know the ferocious bigotry and intolerance of its disciples. The dogmatical manner in which a Turkish doctor disposes of the souls of all whom he calls infidel, might excite rather derision than anger, if the insults and the cruelties experienced by strangers in Mahometan countries, did not efface every impression except that of indignation. Unfortunately for the cause of humanity Abdul appears to have had as little tolerance as Mahomet. His sword was stained with the blood of innumerable victims, and whole cities and districts have been desolated by his persecutions.” 83 Malthus had referred to Volney in order to document a conflict between Bedouin life and Islamic precepts, but without mentioning the “nouvelle religion” described by the French traveller, cf. T.R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population. A New Edition, very much enlarged, London, 1803, p. 93 (citation lacking in the first edition of the work, 1798). Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 97 equal force to events no less exceptional in the life of ʿAbd al-Wahhab, and the no less prodigious expansion of the new faith all over Arabia, with followers as far afield as Damascus, Aleppo and Smyrna.84 It seemed that two belligerent religious parties were confronting each other with the miracles of their respective founders. Although the review did not include this topic, we can detect an authentic motive of inspiration of the Wahhabi movement in the attempt to revive the struggle of the Prophet and his first companions to combat polythe- ism. The difference was that so much impiety now seemed to prevail not, as in the past, over ignorant pagan desert dwellers devoted to ancient idolatry, but rather among professed Muslims who were denounced for infidelity to their creed. There was no lack of contradictions in this reconstruction. First and foremost there was the problem about how to reconcile the rational cult attributed to the new but bellicose sectarians with their acknowledged claim that they only desired to cleanse Islam of “baneful innovations” which had nothing to do with the original spirit of the movement. The writer was forced to admit that there was still no “positive certainty” as to how to harmonise such discordant elements. He then proceeded to illustrate the possible consequences of the “revolution” taking place at the time. An audacious “rebel” (Browne’s definition), the Wahhabi reformer was said to have intimated the Turkish sultan to forego the title of “Commander of the Faithful”, thereby attacking the very structure of the Ottoman Empire, founded as it was on religion. Hampered by habitual sloth, the court at Istanbul seemed to have failed to derive any benefit from either the temporary retreat of the Wahhabis occupying Mecca – in July 1803 the invaders of the Hijaz suffered a smallpox epidemic – or the unfortunate assassination of the innovator ʿAbd al-Wahhab, whom the writer of the article, exactly as in Browne’s original, had obviously confused with the

84 [M. Napier], “Griffiths’s Travels”, cit., p. 45: it was said that: “Difficulties and dangers unprecedented in the religious revolutions of the East” had been overcome by ʿAbd al- Wahhab with the help of “frequent interpositions of Heaven.” This news of a possible debate among Muslims concerning circumstances in the preaching of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab comparable to those in the life of Muhammad corresponds to a relatively common tendency in the treatment of Islamic saints and leaders and is also found in the Wahhabi chronicles, above all in connection with the leader’s emigration or hijra and his first reception at al-Dirʿiyya, recycled on the model of the Prophet’s welcome at ʿAqaba in 622 by his auxiliaries, ansār, from Mecca, with the dominant notion that Islam, having become foreign in its homeland, should finally be protected by the Saʿudi dynasty. The question of if and how far Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab claimed for himself a sort of prophetic mission was still looming, cf. Laoust (1939), p. 509; Peskes (1993), pp. 204, 245– 46, 249, 266; Puin (1973), pp. 73 nt., 78, 81, 84; Rentz (2004), pp. 50–51 nt. 98 Chapter 2 assassinated Saʿudi king ʿAbd al-ʿAziz. Consequently the Holy City had soon fallen back into the hands of Saʿud, the son and successor of the dead leader, while Medina had been sacked. Such equilibrium was not destined to last long. Indeed, all the evidence suggested that Wahhabis and Muslims, the former motivated by “fanatical enthusiasm” and the latter by “intolerant bigotry”, would clash on a vast scale. The very survival of the Sublime Porte in Asia was at stake.85 This was the principal point of community with Waring and the writings of Corancez and Rousseau which were about to be published. As the expected “revolution” seemed gradually to become absorbed by a process of limited “reform” within Islam, European observers substituted this much favoured view with the equally evocative forecast of imminent political havoc also affecting the cult. Europe’s familiarity with the spectacle of reigns and dynasties destroyed and churches abandoned cast a sombre shadow over Muhammad’s politico-theological edifice with its fractured foundation stone. A witness therefore proclaimed that the honour still accorded the Koran in Asia could hardly hide the defunct religion indefinitely behind a semblance of life. The Wahhabis’ conquest of Mecca, the break with the millennial government of sharifs descended from the Prophet and the attack on the spiritual authority of the Turkish sultan already meant the virtual collapse of the “mighty fabric of Islamism”.86

85 [M. Napier], “Griffiths’s Travels”, cit., p. 45: “The throne of the sultan is already shaken in Europe. Who can doubt that the propagation of the new faith will rapidly accelerate the dissolution of his power in Asia?” It was believed that the arrogant assumption of the office of Protector of the Holy Places announced to the Ottoman sultan in a letter from freshly conquered Mecca had brought about the Porte’s revenge on the head of the Wah- habi leader by a hired assassin, dagger in hand, ibid, pp. 42–43. 86 G. Valentia, Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt, Lon- don, 1809, II, p. 393: “Low as the power of the Turkish empire is now fallen, I do not expect that the Wahabee will completely prevail against it, unless by a communication with Europeans, they obtain supplies of arms and ammunition, and, with them, learn a proportion of European discipline. I consider Arabia, however, as lost for ever to the Sultan; and, consequently, that he has ceased to be the head of the Mussulman religion. The order of Mohammed, that his followers should, once in their lives, visit Mecca, can no longer be performed. The sacred city has heard the din of hostile arms, and is in possession of a prince who denies to Mohammed the veneration which he has received for twelve hundred years. His descendants [scil: of Muhammad] will soon cease to reign; and although the Koran may be revered for a longer period throughout a portion of Asia, the mighty fabric of Islamism must be considered as having passed away, from the moment that Suud entered Mecca on the 27th of April, 1803” (the whole passage, but particularly the expression “mighty fabric”, recalls Waring, supra, note 77). For this forecast in Valentia, Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 99

George Annesley Valentia (1770–1844), the author of this forecast, having returned from a fruitful exploration of the southern shores of the Red Sea, expressed the fear in 1809 that the “eagles of regenerated France”, no less terrible than the ancient Muslim invaders of Europe, would extend their protective wings over the Wahhabi reformers, accelerate the crisis of the vacillating Otto- man Empire, and irrevocably cut off the routes between London and the Brit- ish possessions in India.87 Valentia’s counterrevolutionary emphasis and geopolitical considerations in his Voyages and Travels reflected, albeit from the opposite point of view, the ideas of the French consuls. His work influenced the now standard description of the armed occupation of Mecca, the destruction of the venerated sepulchres (including the fate of the monument to the memory of Khadija, the Prophet’s first wife), the profanation of Muhammad’s tomb in Medina, said to have been irreparably ruined, the violent attacks on pilgrims held up as they travelled from Syria and Egypt, and the union of different tribes under the standard of a faith which sanctioned looting and declared that the property of inveterate infidels was “not sacred” . Niebuhr was still Valentia’s main source, although he admitted that Niebuhr’s benevolent view of the Arabs contrasted with his own experience of blackmail, tyrannical governors, fraudulent and corrupt merchants, and ignorant and depraved masses, and ran counter to the well-grounded doubts a more God-fearing observer should have on the state of religion in that

“gloomily and somewhat inaccurate”, concerning the eclipse of the religion of Muham- mad, cf. Kelly (1968), p. 101 nt. On his impressions of Arabia, cf. Pfullmann (2001), pp. 429– 30. 87 G. Valentia, Voyages and Travels, cit., III, p. 263: “The crescent of Mohammed no longer, indeed, forebodes danger to Christianity, but the equally terrible eagles of regenerated France threaten universal destruction to ancient establishments; and it is apparent, that their formidable master has more particularly formed his plans against the eastern empire of England (…) By entering in alliance with the Wahabee, whose offers had been slighted by the Bombay government, and with the Imaum of Sana, who hated the British name, she [scil. France] should render a continuance in the Red Sea impracticable to any fleet except her own, by cutting off the necessary supplies.” Valentia aimed to emphasise the strategic importance of the islands he had identified along the Eritrean coast which, if occupied by the British, would defeat the enemy’s plans. He was not alone in fearing an alliance between Napoleon and the Saʿudi kingdom: supplies of French arms to the Wah- habis via Mauritius (Ile de France, until December 1810) were considered to be a fact, cf. T. Legh, Narrative of a journey in Egypt and the country beyond the cataracts, London, 1816, p. 30. Some Mauritian French colonials, captured by Arab pirates and having converted to the Wahhabi faith, were even said to have fought against the English side by side with their new coreligionists, cf. A. N***, “Notice sur les Arabes et sur les Wahabis”, cit., pp. 25–26. 100 Chapter 2 country.88 Valentia, however, added new local testimony, including information from at least two Wahhabis. The first was Sidi Muhammad Akil, a wealthy Yemeni landowner with Indian connections whom he had met in Mokha in August 1804, and the second was a hajj pilgrim, a not further identified ʿAbd Allah whom he had met in the same city and who had been on the pilgrimage with the conqueror Saʿud in 1803. As “a good friend” this interlocutor had agreed to show Valentia the text of a “profession of faith” used by his coreligionists, in which references to Muhammad and the Koran were respectfully worded and which seemed to confirm the hypothesis of a local religious dispute within Islam.89 A lively description ensues in the Voyages and Travels which, in spite of the Wahhabis’ wide-ranging achievements, progressively reduces the scope of their theological innovations. “An extraordinary man”, the reformer ʿAbd al- Wahhab, had banned such abuses of the cult as the veneration of saints and the consumption of liquor, coffee and tobacco, while accusing the Sunnis of preaching the supposed eternity of the Koran. He was, however, believed to have acknowledged the divine inspiration of the book, to have accepted the “sayings of Mohammed”, and to have retained the value of visiting the Kaʿbah. Although Valentia avoided drawing any conclusions, the premises were such as to convince the public that the abolition of the pilgrimage, albeit declared disastrous for Islam, was not in fact a prejudicial rejection on the part of the Wahhabis. Not only would it actually have been damaging for the economy of the new kingdom, but it depended on secondary causes such as the asserted prohibition of the cult of the Black Stone and the use of a maḥmal with the

88 To excuse Niebuhr’s “partiality” to the Arabs, Valentia suggests that he frequented Bedouin who were not as corrupt as the urban populations of Aden, Mokha, Jidda, Suez and Cairo. On the material and spiritual decadence of these, not only in Muhammad’s time, but also at the time of the Danish expedition, cf. G. Valentia, Voyages and Travels, cit., II, pp. 354– 55; III, p. 328. To document the religious indifference he deprecated he merely observed that the lower classes did not stop work on Fridays; nor did he seem to see any contradiction between the deplorable omission of religious practice and the evident antipathy to the English, the Christian destroyers of Muslim domination in India. 89 This is the compendium of Wahhabi doctrine as reported by Valentia, ibid, II, pp. 384–85: “There is only one God. He is God; and Mohammed is his Prophet. Act according to the Koran, and the sayings of Mohammed. It is unnecessary for you to pray for the blessing of God through the Prophet, oftener than once in your life. You are not to invoke the Prophet to intercede with God on your behalf, for his intercession will be of no avail. At the day of judgement it will avail you. Do not call on the prophet; call on God alone.” The other informer, Sidi Muhammad Akil, seems to have supplied his European interlocutor with information on military operations, in particular the defence of Jiddah, still protected in 1804 by a Turkish garrison from Egypt, ibid, pp. 93–94. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 101 accompaniment of trumpets and tambours when on pilgrimage to Mecca. Evi- dence of this was contained in letters from Saʿud to the Turkish sultan Selim III, reported by Valentia.90 Similarly, although the discussion of the Prophet’s role was only touched on in a brief note on the controversy about Muham- mad’s power of intercession, and although the traditional profession of faith in a sole God and His envoy was transcribed without any comment, his readers would have had the impression that the profanation of the sepulchre at Medi- na had been no more than a common episode of rapine, thus totally contradicting the rejection of the “tradition” concerning Muhammad as maintained by Corancez and Rousseau. Nothing was said in favour of this theory, although the author repeated that the Wahhabis showed “civil and religious hostility” to all “Mohammedans” without distinction. The assembled material, which was more than enough to prompt a thorough revision of Niebuhr’s original information, the only source with which Valentia was unquestionably familiar, was left as it was. The pilgrim ʿAbd Allah, possibly eager to please, declared that he had met the legendary Makrami at Mecca twenty-seven years earlier and had received confirmation of the fact that he subscribed to the new cause. Valentia’s entire attention focussed instead on the politico-military implications of the Wahhabis’ imminent recapture of Mecca early in 1806, just after his final departure from Jidda and the end of Turkish rule there.91 Valentia was entirely preoccupied with the hardships

90 Ibid, p. 390. The letter sent from Mecca on 3 May 1803 (very probably the one cited in the Edinburgh Review, supra, note 85), claims that the Wahhabis had behaved peaceably towards the city’s inhabitants, that a local judge, the qādī, nominated by the Porte, was retained, that tombs subject to illicit veneration were destroyed, and that peace with the Ottoman sultan was desired, on condition, however, that he forbid the Egyptian pashas from visiting the Holy Places in the usual scandalous processions. On the principal Wah- habi doctrines and prescriptions, ibid, p. 384; on the “idolatrous” cult of the Black Stone and that of Abraham’s footprint at the well of Zamzam, and on Saʿud’s self-interested calculations concerning the pilgrimage (later also registered by A. de N***, supra, note 64), ibid, p. 389. 91 The second and longest Wahhabi occupation of Mecca, from October/November 1805, up to the Egyptian conquest in January 1813, attended by the pilgrimage and preceded in the summer by the capitulation of Yanbuʿ and Medina, was negotiated this time, in February 1806, with Sharif Ghalib who had by now suffered repeated defeats and had given up all hope of holding out in Jidda but secured for himself the income from the port and exemption from taxation for the inhabitants of the Holy City, where he again took up residence. In order to keep an eye on his movements a governor loyal to Saʿud, the aforesaid al- Mudhaifi, was installed at al-Ta⁠ʾif, while Medina remained under the previous governor, Hasan al-Kalay, who had handed the city over to its assailants. Religious instructors were dispatched to the Hijaz with the object of imposing respect for Muslim orthodoxy 102 Chapter 2 suffered by the Ottoman Empire, which was no longer represented by a vicar in the Arabian Peninsula. He dwelt on the corruption and infidelity of the sharif of Mecca Ghalib, the uncertain fate of Aden, Mokha, Yemen and Oman, and the growing threat to English trade by Wahhabi pirates in the Persian Gulf.92 Instead of rectifying current interpretations, he offered a contribution for the future. Similar contributions were to follow, from other British envoys in the region such as Morier, posted with Brydges in Teheran in 1809, and John Mal- colm, also engaged in Persian missions for the East India Company in 1810. These, however, had to be content with confirming the Wahhabis’ close adherence to the essentially Deistic doctrine of Islam, as it was more convincingly confirmed by sectarians in arms against profane Muslims rather than against members of other religions. No further information was forthcoming from that quarter.93

according to Wahhabi principles; cf. Brandes (1999), pp. 90–92; Margoliouth (1934), p. 1177; Philby (1930), p. 87–88; Philby (1955), pp. 105–106; Rasheed (2002), p. 21; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 103–104. 92 G. Valentia, Voyages and Travels, cit., II, pp. 193–94, 356, 385, 391–92; III, pp. 325–27. Men- tioned without further detail: the seizure of two ships belonging to the English resident at Basra (Manesty), and the delay of the Bombay government which, after naval action against piracy, could in exchange have expected some help from Persia in defence of Northern India. 93 Malcolm observes that numerous superstitious ceremonies common among the pilgrims to Mecca and at the Shiʿi sanctuaries of al-Najaf, Kerbela and Mashad, were a deviation from the “principle of pure Deism upon which the Mahomedan religion is professedly grounded”. He then proceeds to illustrate the “reform” undertaken almost a century earlier by Sheik Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab with the help of Ibn Saʿud, “the prince of Dereah, the capital of the Province of Nujuddee”. The sect, in evident decline around 1815, was said to be founded on the belief in the absolute oneness of God and the prophecy of Muhammad, literal adherence to the Koran (but without “the whole of the traditions”) and the sacred duty to wage war on all who did not respect the Holy Book and were hated much more than Jews and Christians, as well as the destruction of unworthy places of worship, particularly the magnificent tombs of saints, cf. J. Malcolm, The History of Persia, from the most early period to the present time, London, 1815, II, pp. 378–79 nt. Morier (the future author of the best selling novel The Adventures of Hajji Baba, of Ispahan, 1824) was more prudent. He only informs us that in 1810, when asked to abstain from supporting the pirates in the Persian Gulf, Saʿud was said to have replied that he had no reason to be hostile to the followers of other sects (scil.: English Christians), but only to those “members of the faith who, having turned away from the Book of the Creator, refused to submit to their own prophet Mahomed”, cf. J. Morier, A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, cit., p. 374. A letter was effectively addressed in that year by the Saʿudi monarch to Nicholas Hankey Smith, who was in charge of the Persian commercial base at Bushir. It contained the promise that Muslim ships would no longer molest English ones and also a Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 103

Contacts were soon established with exponents of the tumultuous “reform”, contacts rather closer than those maintained by Rousseau, Valentia and other European diplomats. The Koranic matrix of the movement was thus confirmed and superficial comparison with any past heresy discouraged. There were con- fusing rumours of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s personal interpretation of the Koran and even textual revisions, in particular of the corpus of ḥadīth, which suggested the prospect of an animated debate on the “free examination” of the received texts, perceptible between the lines in Niebuhr’s account and formulated more coarsely in Corancez.94 Nobody yet knew whether all this re-

curious metaphor with regard to the vanity of military undertakings (“war in the first place may be assimilated to a young woman, who by her filters stimulates the exertions of an inexperienced youth until she kindles a blaze, and having succeeded in inflaming the ardour of his passions, she retires like an old woman without a husband”). However, the plan of an alliance with the Saʿudi kingdom, thought by Valentia to be a necessary anti- dote should Gardane be successful in Persia, was only contemplated briefly by the East India Company authorities, who became sceptical the moment the proposal was more seriously advanced by a Wahhabi intermediary who shared his coreligionists” concern with the growing threat of Muhammad ʿAli, cf. Kelly (1968), pp. 83, 113 nt., 124, 126, 131–32; Lorimer (1915), I, pp. 193, 650, 1077, 1096; Philby (1930), pp. 75–76, 94 (with expressions of regret at the enduring English diffidence towards the Saʿudi dynasty even during the twentieth century). 94 Stories of a special version of the Koran adopted by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab may account for certain interpretations of the Holy Book giving the impression of novelty to scholars used to the traditional literature and liable to denounce any recourse to unjustifi- ably free readings. He considered the reduction of the study of the Koran to mere mnemonics blameworthy, since keeping too literally to the text was bound to give an impression of the contradictions it contained and to cause the superfluous use of expla- nations based on the principle of abrogation, naskh. He questioned even more strongly any presumed knowledge of verses from the Koran omitted by Caliph ʿUthman and of which certain Shiʿis boasted at the time, such as the rāfidah, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 30, 43, 103–104, 107, 109, 282, 309. Other reports that he repudiated the Muslim tradition, with the consequent distinction between the Wahhabis’ claim to observe the Koran and their lack of observance of the sunna, seem to be based on accusations that the reformer had attributed to himself the ability of “free inquiry” which he did not possess. At the origin of this accusation lay Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s assertion – not an isolated case among his contemporaries – of the need to forego the customary practice of preferring the repetition of conventional interpretations and judgements to direct access to the sacred texts, as if at a certain date, generally made to coincide with the end of the ʿAbbasid Empire in 1258, all capacity for autonomous comprehension had been lost, cf. Caskel (1929), pp. 4–5; DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 12, 29, 56, 106, (here emphasis is on the hostility of numerous ʿulama⁠ʾ to “free inquiry”, heralding antipathy to the Wahhabi leader); Peskes (1993), pp. 41–44, 104–105; Vassiliev (1998), p.74. More particularly in the case of the ḥadīth, 104 Chapter 2 ally was unusual, or whether it did not perhaps correspond to the constant debate about abrogating a particular verse in the Koran or about the relative importance of individual episodes in the Prophet’s life. On closer scrutiny, however, the picture that gradually emerged seemed to offer further evidence of an analogy with Protestantism, at least equal to that of the confirmed polemic against the cult of the saints, their miracles and their intercession. The seemingly greater tolerance towards Christians and Jews, recorded by almost all the writers hitherto examined, tended increasingly to appear merely as the result of the minor importance attributed to the religious beliefs of protected minorities as opposed to anxiety about unacceptable religious practices among the majority of Muslims. Similarly, the desire to extirpate heresy in Eu- rope had once caused the most virulent conflicts among the followers of the various professed creeds of a single religion, Christianity. English accounts, like those of the Frenchmen Rousseau and Corancez, showed that the rigid monotheism attributed to the new devotees in Najd de- manding strict observance of the Koranic prohibition of “associating” common mortals with God was not altogether divorced from the previous Deistic interpretation of the Wahhabi doctrine. Establishing an analogy with the Ref- ormation was no obstacle to a more specific association of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s preaching with the anti-Trinitarian movements reappearing in the shadow of the Protestant Church and rooted in ancient Christian heresies such as Nestorianism and Monophyitism which were always considered originally to have inspired Muhammad. In this view, insistence on reducing the Prophet to a mere mortal, even talk of omitting his name from the profession of the Muslim faith, a point not so much as mentioned in the compendium of Wahhabi doctrine received by Valentia, must have assumed particular significance in the eyes of European witnesses who remembered the on-going theological controversies about the nature of Christ. Effective disapproval of popular forms of the cult of Muhammad culminating in certain traditional ceremonies in the Holy Places of the Hijaz kept alive the idea that a clamorous

the traditions regarding the Prophet corresponding to the definition of sunna, Muham- mad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab considered the criterion of recognised authenticity according to the Koran more important than the veracity of the chain of transmission or isnād, however authoritative the canonical collections might be considered, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 10, 46–49, 105, 111. There was, however, an undeniable vacillation in the Wahhabi camp between the assertion on the one hand that a scholar need not be an original interpreter or mujtahid in order to derive benefit from the Koran and the sunna, and on the other the acknowledgement of the leader as a renewer of Islam, a mujaddid, advanced among others by the later chronicler Ibn Bishr, cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 43–44, 209–11. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 105 dissent would oppose the new adepts at least to the pilgrimage, an inalienable cornerstone of Islam, thereby separating them from the faith as a whole. Muslim voices raised against Wahhabi proselytisation tended to grow in direct proportion to its success and must have contributed considerably to cast- ing doubt on this and other points. The lamentations of the devotees seemed to accompany the growing impression of the precipitous decline of the traditional faith. A curious travel document, the diary of Abu Talib Khan (d. 1805), an Indian prince of Persian descent and a guest in London between 1800 and 1801, was an example for the English public in those years of the sacred horror a Muslim Shiʿi could feel for those who profaned the sanctuary of Kerbela, visited by the narrator eleven months after the Wahhabi incursion.95 As only the sensibility of a pious pilgrim could conceive it, the conflict between the “new sect” and the “Mohammedan Church” (a very curious definition indeed coming from the pen of a Muslim writer) was said to be irreparable. It appeared to have gathered momentum with the persuasion finally reached by ʿAbd al-Wah- hab that the power of intercession possessed by Muhammad and numerous

95 While staying at Kerbela where an aunt of his had retired to the sanctuary in preparation for death, Abu Talib learned of the massacre perpetrated by the “Vahabies” – his estimate was of 5,000 victims. For the responsibility imputed to the city’s governor (nominated and punished by the pasha of Baghdad), the information on the sect he obtained, which was only incomplete because of the “indolence” of the inhabitants, cf. Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan in Asia, Africa, and Europe, London, 1810, II, pp. 323–29. A second edition of his Travels appeared in 1814. In the meantime there had been a French translation (1811) and a German one translated from the French (1812). The chapter on the Wahhabis had, however, already appeared in German in Archenholz’s publication, cf. “Die Wahabiten”, in Minerva. Ein Journal historischen und politischen Inhalts, 1811, 3, pp. 281–90. In spite of the events plausibly narrated by Abu Talib, who was of Persian origin but a native of Luc- know, and a friend of the English, suspicion still persisted about the author’s identity and the authenticity of the work; his voyage to Europe in 1798 in the wake of differences with the indigenous authorities of the kingdom of Oudh (now Uttar Pradesh); his reception by fashionable London society; and the circumstances of the preparation of the manuscript on his return to Calcutta in 1803, delivered in 1807 to his translator in Europe, Charles Stewart, a professor of Oriental Languages at Hertford College. In the preface to the second edition of the Travels Stewart therefore felt the need to propose a future edition of the Persian text (finally edited in Teheran in 1983 by Husain Hadijwam and entitled Masīr-i tālibi: yā Safar-nāma-i Mirzā Abū-Tālib Hān [Destiny of Talib, or Book of the Travels of Mirza Abu Talib Khan]). The greatest attraction of the diary naturally lay in its non- European perspective, culminating in a curious appendix entitled “Vindication of the Liberties of the Asiatic Women”, ibid, II, pp. 401–18, intended as a confutation of the prejudice against the condition of women in the East, a provocative hypothesis, previously advanced in England by Mary Wortley Montagu. 106 Chapter 2 saints was incompatible with Islam and amounted to idolatry. However, the racy narrative and the original perspective of the account was accompanied by a partisan testimony difficult to disentangle and the effect of which not even the general tone of the book, which tended to transpose the philosophical model of Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes into reality, was sufficient to neu- tralise.96 As we saw, the turning point only came with the East India Company’s naval expeditions against pirates in the Persian Gulf, and above all with Muhammad ʿAli’s invasion and the information published by the European travellers in his train who had reached the Muslim Holy Places. Once the Wahhabis’ halo of invincibility had dissolved it was customary to avoid incautious prophecies and commonplace generalisations about the East and the transience of empires, never completely divorced from the fickle variables of French or English

96 According to Abu Talib the founder, born on the banks of the Euphrates near al-Hilla, was brought up in Najd and from there went to study in Isfahan, in Khorasan and in Ghazni (central Afghanistan), and finally in Iraq, before returning to Arabia. At the close of 1757 (1171 AH) his preaching was originally on the lines of the Sunni Hanafi tradition, but it was not long before it turned into “doctrines entirely new”, based on the assumption that “the whole Mohammedan church” now consisted solely of “associators (giving partners to God), infidels, and idolaters”. The devastation of the saints’ tombs, including that of Muhammad in Medina, should be interpreted as revenge against the Muslim habit of only praying to mediators, in contrast to a more moderate recourse to this expedient by Jews and Christians (the entire passage, between inverted commas in the text, seems to confirm the impression of a direct quotation, in all probability from the Kitāb al-tawḥīd, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s best known text). The information on the Wahhabi expansion, including some occasional bright touch (the warriors were said to carry their passports for Paradise into battle with them, hung round their necks), ends with the first conquest of Mecca “at the instigation of the Turks”, sic), the submission of Oman almost as far as Muscat, and the development of an autonomous naval force. However, the author predicted the conquest of Basra, al-Hilla and Baghdad, and the arrival of the sectarians at the gates of Constantinople (sic). ʿAbd al- ʿAziz, the old monarch described as still living, is presented as ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s adopted brother who had granted a blind son called Muhammad the title of imām, or ‘supreme Pontiff” in the new religion – doubtless with the usual confusion of families and generations, members of the Saʿudi dynasty and relatives of the Wahhabi leader, but also with a very evident loan from Niebuhr by the translator. A letter from ʿAbd al-ʿAziz to the shah of Persia, a justification of the slaughter in Kerbela (though the text seems to refer to al-Najaf), is transcribed to prove the scope of Wahhabi aims and to suggest that Turks and Persians should form an alliance against their common enemy, ibid, II, pp. 329–37. At various points the account betrays its obviously Persian origin. In his diary Rousseau, back from his stay in Persia, also credited rumours of the Wahhabi leader’s birth on the banks of the Euphrates, cf. J.-B.L. Rousseau, Voyage de Bagdad à Alep, cit., p. 95. Literary Disputes and Colonial Aims 107 interests during the Napoleonic period. Investigation into the sect, and above all into the religious problem it represented, would now achieve a greater clarity.97

97 After Niebuhr, French and English predominance over information on the Wahhabis was undermined by Seetzen’s contribution. In the same years just one article in the journal of the theologian from Marburg, Ludwig Wachler, marked a timid Wahhabi entry into the theological debate in Germany. It was still based on Niebuhr’s writings, followed by those of Rousseau in particular, as well as the German translation of Abu Talib Khan’s Travels. Characteristically, the writer appears incapable of solving the dilemma of whether Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab had merely wanted to reform the religion of the Koran, or whether a “tiefe Wunde” had been inflicted on “Mohammedismus” with the capture of Mecca and the ban on pilgrimages, cf. “Die Wechabiten”, in Theologische Nachrichten, II, 1813, pp. 446–47, 455. 108 Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Muslim “Puritans”

There are different opinions about the Wahabys’ tenets, and I never met in Syria any person who even pretended to have a true knowledge of their religion. I think myself authorised to state, from the result of my inquiries (…), that the religion of the Wahabys may be called the Protestantism or even Puritanism of the Mohammedans. J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, 1830 ⸪

1 Seetzen before the Emir of Wuhabisten

The first direct European testimony of the Wahhabis was the account by the English envoy Reinaud at the court of al-Dirʿiyya, only published in 1805 even if it referred to an episode a decade earlier (supra, Chapter II, note 67). It contained very little about the “new religion”, as the narrator called it, apart from the fact that a certain Saʿud al-Wahhabi was the founder and father of Sheikh ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, by whom Reinaud said he had been received. Here again, modifi- cation of the religion was said to be due to the initiative of a member of the Saʿudi dynasty. The account of the move from al-Ahsa⁠ʾ to the capital of the new domain, which took him eight days escorted by a “foster brother” of the sovereign, an Arab from the ʿUtub tribe, consisted of a cursory description of the places he saw as “sandy solitude”. The capital al-Dirʿiyya, the object of a week’s visit, had the appearance of a well-built city, watered by a seasonal stream on cultivated land inhabited by an exclusively Wahhabi population, both wild and hospitable. Government was concentrated in the hands of the sheikh and seemed not to include court functionaries but only a mullāh acting as scribe – possibly the “chaplain” later described by Rousseau. For the benefit of the reader Reinaud added that, since then, the Wahhabi conquests must have progressed apace, to include al-Qatif, al-Zubara, even Bahrain (and perhaps Kuwait), while the number of soldiers available was estimated at twice the 100,000 commonly reported. Little importance was accorded to the actual conversation with ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, but the result must have been fruitful, at least ac-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004293281_005 Muslim “Puritans” 109 cording to the often repeated reports of frequent intercourse between the Wahhabis and the East India Company agent Samuel Manesty in Basra.1 The interest of this testimony lay not only in the text, but also in the person who had acquired it in Aleppo and transmitted it to Europe. It appeared in German in the Monatliche Correspondenz zur Beförderung der Erd- und

1 U.J. Seetzen, “Auszug aus dem Briefe des Hrn. Reinaud an Dr. Seetzen”, in Monatliche Cor- respondenz, XII, 1805, pp. 238–39: “Von Ascha bis Drahîa sind noch acht Tagereisen. Der ganze Weg ist eine sandige Einöde, die nur zuweilen mit Gebüsch bewachsen ist. Drahîa ist eine kleine aber im Arabischen Style schön gebaute Stadt, deren Lage den Aufenthalt daselbst sehr gesund macht. Um die Stadt herum liegen einige gut angebaute Hügel, und die ganze Gegend wird durch einen kleinen Fluss bewässert. Man findet hier einige Früchte, als Weintrauben, Feigen u. s. w., die aber, wie man mir sagte, von den Einwoh- nern sämmtlich schon unreif verzehrt werden. Die in diesen Gegenden hausenden Wha- habee sind sehr wilde, aber auch auf der andern Seite sehr gastfreundliche Menschen. (…) In der Zeit als ich mich zu Drahîa aufhielt, war der Name des dasigen Scheikhs Abdil Aziz Ibn Sand, der Vater des jetzigen. Sand al Whahabee war der erste, der die neue Religion stiftete, und Abdil Aziz schmückte sie nur noch mehr aus. Abdil Aziz war ungefähr 60 Jahr alt; ein schlanker hagerer Mann, und für einen wilden Araber sehr gebildet. Seine Familie belief sich nach den mir darüber mitgetheilten Nachrichten auf 80 Seelen. Er hatte keinen Hofstaat, und doch gingen alle Geschäfte durch seine Hände. Ein einziger Schreiber, Namens Mula (the editor notes: «Mula oder molla ist der gewöhnliche Arabische Name aller studirenden Personen), war sein Gehülfe. Seine Truppen bestanden damals aus 100,000 Mann, allein da jetzt die Hofiry, Aneve, Ibn Kalid, und noch andere Arabische Stämme unter seiner Botmässigkeit sind, so glaube ich mich nicht zu irren, wenn ich die Zahl seiner Truppen oder vielmehr seiner Unterthanen, die auf jeden Befehl die Waffen ergreifen müssen, auf 200,000 bestimme. In Drahîa gibt es weder Juden noch irgendeine andere Nation als Whahabee”. For a shorter, more imprecise version of this narrative in Seetzen’s journal on his stay in Aleppo (1803–805), not included in the nineteenth-century edition of his diaries, cf. Id., Tagebuch des Aufenthalts in Aleppo, Hildesheim-Zürich- New York, 2011, pp. 7, 272 (25 November 1803 and 25 December 1804), specifying that Reinaud was from Zante, of French Catholic parentage and later converted to the Angli- can Church in London, perhaps in order to marry an English woman who then accompanied him to Basra. His host “in Adráhiá” was in all probability the “philosophischer Gesetzgeber Wabi”, father of Abdul Asihl, his “General” and “ein sehr rechtlicher Mann”. Despite the ferocity Reinaud attributes to the Wahhabis – during the aforsaid attack on the port of Kuwait, local Arab prisoners were said to have been killed and the blood of one of them used for ablution, cf. Id., “Auszug aus dem Briefe des Hrn. Reinaud”, cit., p. 235 – and further violent acts in the meantime, Seetzen still appeared to believe in the lasting value of Manesty’s name in 1808 and that on his recommendation one could “eine Reise nach Derreija, der Residenz der Nachfolger Abd el Wuhâb’s, mit Sicherheit zu machen” and acquire further information on the “neue politisch-religiöse Monarchie der Wuhaby”, cf. U.J. Seetzen, “Einige Bemerkungen über die Kjerwanen-Strasse von Damask nach Bag- dad”, in Monatliche Correspondenz, XVIII, 1808, p. 511. 110 Chapter 3

Himmels-Kunde, a scientific periodical published by Franz Xaver von Zach, director of the astronomical observatory of Gotha. He had received Reinaud’s narrative thanks to the explorer Seetzen who had for some time resided in the Syrian city in the hope of improving his Arabic. He was there from November 1803 to April 1805. Of German nationality but a Russian subject – he was born in Jever, the property of the Romanoff dynasty from 1793 to 1806 – Seetzen left for Asia with the intention of reaching Egypt. From there he hoped to continue by caravan, treading in the footsteps of his late compatriot Friedrich Horne- mann, and to make for the heart of Africa in search of the unknown course of the Niger beyond Timbuktu. The project, backed by Niebuhr and the anthro- pologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach from Göttingen, sponsored by Emil Leopold August, duke of Gotha, and later by the czar, Alexander I, was to fasci- nate Burckhardt a few years later. Zach, who published calculations of longi- tude made by Niebuhr during his Arabian expedition (based on the original lunar tables of another scientist from Göttingen, Tobias Mayer), considered Seetzen to be a promising new traveller and undertook to instruct him in the technique of measuring geographic coordinates by observation of the heav- enly bodies.2

2 The exploration of the Lower Niger had been drawn to the attention of Niebuhr when he met an envoy from Tripoli in Copenhagen in 1772 and received news from the Danish settlements on the coast of the Gulf of New Guinea. The exploration had given rise to an article in 1790–91 which influenced Hornemann and Seetzen. It was assumed that Muslim domains in Central Africa had relations with bordering principalities to the North, although they were not so hostile to foreigners. Confirmation of this hypothesis was soon to be found in Bruce’s travel diaries, translated into German by Blumenbach, cf. C. Nie- buhr, “Das Innere von Afrika”, in Neues Deutsches Museum, III, 1790, pp. 978, 980–81, 990– 91; Id., “Noch etwas über das Innere von Afrika”, ibid, IV, 1791, p. 427. Seetzen intended to travel with a friend, Ernst Jacobsen, who had had to give up the idea soon after their arrival in Smyrna. For a biography of Seetzen and a description of his movements in Tur- key and Syria, in the Palestinian territories of the ancient Decapolis and Jerusalem, along the shores of the Dead Sea, to Cairo and the region of the Lower Nile, and, finally, his move to Arabia, largely based on information in the diaries, cf. Haberland (2011), pp. xxii- xxvi, Mutzenbecher (1891); Pfullmann (2001), pp. 402–408; Schienerl (2000). For information about his intellectual formation (his medical studies at Göttingen, the influence of the works of the Enlightenment which included the writings of Baron d’Holbach), his preparation for the journey during his stay at Gotha (financial support was vainly requested from the African Association, which had no means at the time), the publication of the posthumous diaries (first edited with some omissions by the historian Kruse and in which the Hegelian philosopher Hinrichs played an unfortunate role), cf. Bonacina (2010); Haberland (2011), pp. xxvi-xl; Mangold (2004), pp. 43, 55; Müller (1995) (with the description of the Seetzen fund in the Oldenburg library); Olivier (1995); Plischke (1937), Muslim “Puritans” 111

Despite his original objective, Seetzen’s journey initially consisted in tireless wanderings across Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Sinai and Egypt. He travelled as a doctor by the name of Musa, and his more memorable exploits included his discovery of the ancient cities of the Decapolis – Philadelphia and Gerasa – and his tour round the entire coast of the Dead Sea. He finally disembarked in Arabia, where he met his death on the road from Mokha to Sanʿa in distant Ye- men. He was murdered in mysterious circumstances in September 1811, in a place where, like Niebuhr, he had believed he could move with greater safety than in the rest of the peninsula.3 In the course of his peregrinations, on which he observed attentively even the slightest religious nuance and during which he was admitted to the temple of the last members of the Samaritan community, Seetzen inevitably encountered the problem of the recent Wahhabi doctrine. An admirer of Holbach and Volney, he frequented a masonic lodge in Cairo called the “Pyramid” which was also open to Jews and was presided over by a French interpreter, Louis Antoine Vasse. His orientation was towards the ideals of the Enlightenment and the freemasons, and he felt a certain enthusiasm for a universal political religion as well as an intense dislike of the “infernal” sectarian spirit. He was convinced that rational criticism should also be applied to the sacred texts and that a traveller was required not only to master the language, wear local dress and adopt the local diet, but that he should also simulate acceptance of the religious beliefs of the countries visited. The result was that, once he was in Arabia, he chose to pass himself off as a convert and to wear “the mask of Islam”, all of which favourably predisposed him to a close encounter with “the new religion” described by Niebuhr.4

pp. 31–42; Schäbler (1995), who clarifies a certain difficulty Seetzen had in understanding the political situation of the countries he visited. 3 Contemporary conjectures as to the cause of the murder include Seetzen’s ill-advised disguise as a dervish, the innumerable camels he was using for the transportation of his finds, his reputation as a magus (inseparable from his profession as a medical doctor), and even possession of maps of Mecca and Medina drawn in great secrecy. They are reported by the English journalist and traveller James Silk Buckingham and Carl Friedrich Hermann Kruse, the executor of Seetzen’s literary legacy and the editor of his diaries, cf. U.J. Seetzen, Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die Transjordan-Länder, Arabia Petraea und Unter-Aegypten, Berlin, 1854–59, I, pp. xxxviii-xxxix. On Seetzen’s movements in Arabia and his mysterious death in Yemen as he travelled from Mokha to Ta⁠ʾizz after ten months of epistolary silence – as late as 1836 the English missionary Joseph Wolff saw an Arabic manuscript at Zabid which had belonged to Seetzen – cf. Hogarth (1904), pp. 82–83; Nebes (1995). 4 Seetzen was firmly convinced that the “Geist der Meinungen”, at work in the name of religion or politics, was mainly responsible for all those “Verbrechen, worüber die Ver- nunft trauert”. He thus proposed, “als Lutheraner”, to be “unter Katholiken ein Katholik, 112 Chapter 3

Its founder, whose name is not mentioned, was described in Seetzen’s travel plan of 1802 as an extraordinary personality, worthy of inclusion among the legions of the greatest prophets, interesting precisely because of the philosophical character of his preaching. “Immortal men”, the dispensers of incalcu- lable good and evil, great innovators like Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, comparable in their power of suggestion to “so many Cagliostros of their times”, had manifested their genius and at times declaimed exemplary moral doctrines as if by divine ordination and in the guise of miracles. The lands whose earth they trod might well have preserved something of their ancient power to generate religions destined to spread throughout the world, the equivalent of true political revolutions, although they were apparently undertaken as reforms of the cult. Seetzen concluded that there was therefore nothing to prevent one from imagining that “analogous good fortune” might one day also smile upon that “philosophical sheikh of the north-eastern region of Arabia”, whom Niebuhr had previously described as “the harbinger of an extremely simple religious doctrine”.5

unter Griechen ein Grieche, unter Nestorianern ein Nestorianer”, or, “als Christ”, to be “bald Mahommedaner, bald Brachmane, bald Fetischendiener”, trusting “in den Augen der Aufgeklärtern meinen Charakter nicht zu beflecken” and able to distinguish “Cerimo- nien von einer guten Moralität, die Schaale vom Kerne”, cf. U.J. Seetzen, “Reiseplan ins innere Afrika”, in Monatliche Correspondenz, VI, 1802, pp. 326–27. He was not even discouraged by Niebuhr’s warning: “Auch verstehen die Türken in Ansehung der Religion eben so wenig Spas als die Römische Kirche” – which presaged the possibility that the slightest suspicion of a fake conversion might lead the unfortunate traveller to the gal- lows, cf. C. Niebuhr, “Über D. Seetzen’s Reiseplan”, ibid, p. 460. On Vasse (1782–1857), in his youth a Knight of Malta, a French interpreter manqué in Muscat, active in Cairo at the end of 1807 (an unpublished letter of his recounts his meeting with Chateaubriand, who liked to make people believe he was a general there), consul for three decades in later life in a long series of different posts, from Pristina to Candia, Odessa, and even Larnaca, cf. Faivre d’Arcier (1990), pp. 31–32, 91, 147, 180. 5 U.J. Seetzen, “Reiseplan ins innere Afrika”, cit., p. 202: “Arabien, Aegypten und Palästina waren von jeher Mütter und Säugammen religiöser Systeme, und ihre Urheber hatten das seltene Glück, ihre Lehre dem grössten Theil der bewohnten Erde zur Norm mitzutheilen. Wie wichtig wurden nicht für das Menschengeschlecht Moses, Jesus – denn Johannes das war, was etwa Huss dem Luther – , Mohammed? Und dem philosophischen Scheche in der nordöstlichen Gegend von Arabien, dem Verkünder einer sehr einfachen Religionslehre, scheint ein ähnliches glückliches Loos beschieden zu seyn. Wenn man gleich nicht läug- nen kann, dass jene unsterblichen Männer manches thaten, was eine strenge Moral ver- dammen würde, indem sie, wie Cagliostro’s ihrer Zeit, allerhand Taschenspieler – und Marktschreierkniffe ausübten, um das Ansehen eines vorzüglich von der Gottheit Begün- stigten und eines Wunderthäters zu erhalten, und sie unter der Maske einer religiösen Reform beständig eine politische Revolution bezweckten, an deren Spitze sie sich zu Muslim “Puritans” 113

During the early days of his travels Seetzen still harboured this attractive idea, but it proved to be a growing disappointment. As the guest of the local European residents in Aleppo, he was already under considerable pressure from them. His meeting with Reinaud, his acquaintance with the English

stellen bestrebten: so darf man doch ihren Kenntnissen, ihrem glänzenden Genie und manchen ihrer moralischen Lehren seine Huldigung nicht entziehen. Ich werde mit sehr gemischten Empfindungen das Vaterland dieser Männer betreten, deren Meinungen Jahrtausende hindurch bey zahllosen Generationen so unendlich viel Gutes und so unendlich viel Unheil anrichteten, und zwey der berühmtesten Wallfahrtsörter der Welt, Jerusalem und Mekka, die Centralpuncte von drey am weitesten ausgedehnten Religi- onsparteyen, mit der gespanntesten Erwartung besuchen”. After his arrival in Instanbul (December 1802), Seetzen still described the Wahhabi sheik in his private diary as “ein Arabischer Eroberer und Stifter einer neuen rein deistischen Religionslehre”, cf. Id., Tagebuch des Aufenthalts in Konstantinopel und der Reise nach Aleppo, Hildesheim- Zürich-New York, 2012, p. 132 (22 Februar 1803); also later described as a “philosophischer Gesetzgeber”, supra, note 1. A different version exists of the comparison between Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and the “philosophical sheik of the north-eastern region of Arabia”, evidently intended to safeguard the divinity of Jesus from such an audacious juxtaposition, and without the provocative mention of Cagliostro. I identified it by comparing the two collections of Monatliche Correspondenz owned by the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, one in the private collection of the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (shelf mark: Gauss Bibl. 1419), the other a regular library acquisition of the periodical (shelf mark: 8 Geograph. 67). The modified text says: “Wie wichtig wurden nicht für das Menschengeschlecht Moses und Jesus, welche es aus dem tiefsten Abgrunde des Aberglaubens zu der erhabensten Stufe des Lichtreichs emporgehoben haben. Nur ein so göttlicher Geist wie der Jesus war, konnte sich aus den widersinnigsten Thorheiten, aus der abscheulichsten Intoleranz, die bey diesem verworfenen Volke herrschte [scil.: the Jewish people], zur liebenswürdigsten Weisheit und zu dem menschenfreundlichsten Weltbürgersinn erheben. Nur eine majestätische Gotteswürde vermochte aus so dicken Finsternissen hervorzubrechen. Mohammed, und dem philosophischen Scheche in der nordöstlichen Gegend von Arabien, dem Verkünder einer neuen Religionslehre, scheint ein ähnliches Loos bechieden zu seyn. Obgleich sie ihre Lehren mit Feuer und Schwerd zu verkündigen und geltend zu machen suchten: so kann man doch ihren Kenntnissen, ihrem glänzenden Genie und manchen ihrer moralischen Lehren seine Huldigung nicht versagen”. The discrepancy did not escape Schäbler (1995), pp. 120–21, who was able to view and transcribe Seetzen’s original manuscript fully corresponding to the first text reported here. She nonetheless wrongly assumes that the amendment was included in all copies of the publication. It is not known whether the correction was made by Seetzen on his own initiative, or by Zach, in which case the traveller himself may not have known of the incident since he left Gotha (June, 1802) after delivering the manuscript but before its publication. But in fact there were definitely two different editions of the same issue, one faithful to the original, perhaps destined for a more select, enlightened readership (such as Gauss), the other cautiously emended. 114 Chapter 3 consul John Barker, who was also studying the Wahhabis, the hospitality of Corancez, who was about to send his own article to Le Moniteur, and finally the news of an essay by Rousseau, all occupied his mind and were mentioned in the letters he sent home.6 His subsequent stays in Damascus and Cairo produced a radical change of mind. In the Syrian capital early in 1806 the spectacle of the solemn departure of the caravan for Mecca – the pasha on horseback, the throng of dignitaries and the variety of richly adorned pilgrims, the military escort, even cannon and groups of musicians, the maḥmal at the head of the procession (“a camel carrying a rich covering for the Holy Sepulchre, which all those present respectfully saluted”) – increased Seetzen’s astonishment at the violent hostility of the Wahhabis to the pilgrimage thus conducted. This hostility was all the more apparent from the uncertain fate of the pious expedition and the disaster which overtook yet another one in the following year – a grim foreboding for the Ottoman Empire.7 In Cairo rumours of offensive

6 U.J. Seetzen, “Fortgesetzte Reise-Nachrichten”, ibid, XI, 1805, pp. 363, 365 (letter to his brother Peter Ulrich Seetzen, the Lutheran pastor at Heppens, 23 May 1804): “Ich brachte neulich einen Tag bey dem Französischen General-Consul De Corançe, und drey Tage beym Englischen Consul Barker in ihren Gärten zu. (…) Der neue Religionsstifter in Arabien, Wahäbi, hat hier zwey Biographen erhalten, den Französischen Consul in Bag- dad, Mr. Rousseau, und den hiesigen Englischen Consul Barker. Die kleine Biographie des erstern ist schon auszugsweise in Frankreich gedruckt, allein ich hoffe in Arabien noch mehrere Nachrichten von ihm einzuziehen”. Similarly in Seetzen’s journal: “Er [scil.: Rous- seau] hat Wuhäbi’s Leben beschrieben; eine kleine Biographie, die aber für Europa vieles Interesse haben dürfte”, cf. U.J. Seetzen, Tagebuch des Aufenthalts in Aleppo 1803–1805, cit., p. 59 (14 January 1804), followed by a transcription of Rousseau’s “Notice sur la horde des Wahabis” in Le Moniteur, as reproduced in Le Journal de Francfort, ibid, pp. 190–92 (27 August 1804). The reference to Rousseau, of evident interest also in relation to the dispute with Corancez, is partly confirmed by the consul’s assertion that he had already finished editing an article on the subject in February 1804 (supra, Chapter II, note 44), and by the first article in Le Moniteur, which appeared on the same day as Seetzen wrote his letter. There is no mention of a biography of the founder of the Wahhabis in Barker’s posthumously published memoirs, cf. J. Barker, Syria and Egypt under the last five sultans, Lon- don, 1876. Seetzen also seems to have sent an unpublished Nachricht über die Bewegungen der Wuhabis am Persischen Meerbusen from Aleppo to his mentor Zach (according to Kruse, cf. U.J. Seetzen, Reisen, cit., I, p. xxx) which was perhaps meant to supplement Reinaud’s information. 7 U.J. Seetzen, Reisen, cit., I, pp. 296–99: “Der Aus- und Einzug der Pilger ist ein wahres Fest für die Einwohner. (…) Eine Menge Soldaten, besonders Daláty oder Kavalleristen mit ihren langen Cylindermützen, eröffneten den Zug zu Pferde. Dann kamen lange Züge von Kameelen, die mit Zelten, Fourage und Lebensmitteln beladen waren. Dann kamen wieder viele Daláty. Dann kam ein Trupp usbeckischer Derwische zu Fuss, und diese wurden von einem Trupp Arnaûten gefolgt, welche die Infanterie ausmachen, und sich durch ihre Muslim “Puritans” 115 letters from ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s successor (strictly speaking, his “caliph”) addressed to Muhammad ʿAli, intimating that he should agree to an alliance or prepare to be invaded, gave credit to the idea of another imminent Arab conquest of Egypt. It was from Cairo that Seetzen sent a final report in which he still used the expression “new religion”. Not many months later he showed that he now knew with absolute certainty how dangerous it had become in the wake of the Wahhabi “reform” for Christians to travel in Arabia without a written declaration certifying their conversion to Islam. Even the Bedouin, once indifferent to Muslim ceremonies but ultimately subdued into accepting the new order, were obliged to pay a tax as a contribution to the “war of religion, for the misfortune of mankind”.8

besondere Tracht auszeichnen. Hierauf folgte ein Trupp Paukenschläger, welche zwi- schendurch mit lauter Stimme den Pascha hoch leben liessen. Dann kamen wieder Daláty auf Kameelen, wovon jeder vor sich eine Art langer Drehbassen hatte, die Súmbúra genannt werden, die sich leicht nach allen Seiten drehen lassen und die öfters von ihnen abgefeuert werden. Dann kam ein zahlreicher gedrängter berittener bunter Haufen von Vornehmen, Negern, Mulatten und Weissen, und gleich dahinter der Pascha zu Pferde, mit einem köstlichen Pelze bekleidet und beständig das Volk mit vielem Anstande grüs- send. Hinter ihm waren wieder eine Menge von seinen Hausleuten, Kaufleute, Pilger, Gepäcke etc. Der Zug dauerte von Aufgang der Sonne bis Mittag. (…) Im Anfange ein Kameel, das das reiche Zeug für das heilige Grab trug, dem alle Zuschauer ehrfurchtsvoll grüssten. (…) Die Hâdschys sassen fast alle auf Kameelen auf ihrem Gepäcke (…). Der Pascha von Dschídda ritt vor seiner prächtigen Sänfte; sein Hârim, das heisst seine Wei- ber, sassen in der kleinern Art Sänften, die alle mit Vorhängen versehen und sehr bunt geschmückt waren. Auch einige Kanonen von 6 – 12 Pfunden waren im Zuge, von Kamee- len gezogen”, cf. Id., Tagebuch des Aufenthalts in Aleppo, cit., p. 64 (20 January 1804). As to the fate of the later caravan of 1807, Seetzen learned in Jerusalem that it had apparently not even had permission from the “Regent von Derréïja” to approach Medina. The pilgrims were said to have been “angegriffen und grösstentheils zu Grunde gerichtet, die Uebergebliebenen sich genöthigt gesehen hätten, die eiligste Flucht zu ergreifen, und der Pascha gänzlich beraubt in Damask angekommen sey.” The scarce credit attributed to this account – the Wahhabis may only have asked the pasha to abandon arms and regalia, and he would have chosen to retreat in disarray rather than accept dishonourable conditions – did not prevent Seetzen from noticing widespread grief among the “Mohammedaner”: “Ein böser Unstern verfolgt jetzt die Osmanen: dieser Vorfall und ein neuer Krieg mit Russland, welche Begebenheiten könnten wohl niederschlagender für sie seyn?”, cf. Id. Reisen, cit., II, pp. 398–99. 8 Id., “Einige Bemerkungen über die Kjerwanen-Strasse von Damask nach Bagdad”, cit., p. 509; Id., “Beyträge zur Kenntniss der arabischen Stämme in Syrien und im wüsten und peträischen Arabien. Akre, im Junius 1806”, in Monatliche Correspondenz , XIX, 1809, pp. 112–13, 124–25. For the last instance of Seetzen’s use of the formula “neue Religion”, cf. Id., “Auszug aus einem Schreiben des Russisch- Kaiserlichen Cammer-Assessors Dr. 116 Chapter 3

Thus, through Seetzen’s successive accounts dispatched from Syria, Egypt and finally Arabia, all the different earlier interpretations of Wahhabism by Europeans were reproduced and concentrated in the work of a single author as a complete set of information on the phenomenon. Towards the end of Janu- ary 1806 Seetzen had already been able to note in his diary how ʿAbd al-Wah- hab and his appointed successor Saʿud preached at sword point a religion adhering to the “stark words of the law of the Koran” and collected a contribution known as sicke (perhaps meaning zakāt), while denying Muhammad the title of prophet, forbidding pilgrimage to his tomb and declaring it unlawful to invoke him rather than God. Further particulars of the murder of Saʿud by a Persian merchant mourning a son among the victims of Kerbela, or the mortal danger represented by the new sectarians even to Christians and Jews, revealed the peculiar source of this information which was less exact than that of Cor- ancez and Rousseau, albeit contemporary with it – suffice it to note the inverted roles of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz and Saʿud (the former transformed into a son of the latter). It came from men of unspecified religious allegiance encountered on the road between Damascus and Jerusalem who were, however, particularly shocked by stories of looting at the Shiʿi sanctuary.9 When he arrived in Cairo

U.J. Seetzen”, ibid, XVII, 1808, p. 147 (letter from Cairo, 22 September 1807). For the forced payment of tribute money by the Bedouin, cf. U.J. Seetzen, Reisen, cit., III, p. 9. The inti- mations to Muhammad ʿAli in June 1807 “von dem jetzigen Regent von Drehéija, oder dem Chef der Wuhabisten” (presented under the dynastic name of Ibn Saʿud), led Seetzen to conclude that Egypt had been left to choose between delivering itself up to a European power or else renouncing all progress, suffering a Wahhabi invasion and again living through “die Scene von Amru’s Eroberung bald nach Mohammeds Tode”, ibid, pp. 181–82, 197. It should be noted that the letter of Saʿud and another from Ghalib, delivered to Egypt by pilgrims in 1807, are also mentioned by al-Jabarti, according to whom the Saʿudi monarch was said to have denied expressing any accusation of having ever used words contrary to the principles of Islamic law, cf. al-Jabarti, History of Egypt, cit., IV, pp. 85–86. For confirmation of the information in Seetzen that the Wahhabi threat had also reached Egypt, cf. Gran (1979), p. 101. 9 U.J. Seetzen, Reisen, cit., I, p. 326: “Wenn die Juden und Christen den Glauben des Wuhâby nicht annehmen, müssen sie sterben. Zur Verbreitung seiner Religion durchs Schwerdt und zur Erhaltung der Truppen bezieht er den Sicke. Abd el Wuhâb hatte keine Kinder und war nie verheurathet. Einer aus seinem Hause wurde für seinen Nachfolger erkannt, und dies war Söaûd, der 8 Söhne hatte. Dieser eroberte Imam Ali und ermorderte dort unter andern den Sohn eines begüterten persischen Kaufmanns und plünderte die Stadt. Dieser schwur ihm Rache. Er war in Bagdad ansässig. Er zog als ein Armer nach Derréija und blieb dort eine Zeitlang als ein unschuldiger Mensch, bis Niemand Argwohn in ihn setzte. Einst beym Gebet nahm er die Zeit wahr, wo Söaûd das Allah hu akbar sprach, und sich dabey niederbückte, und versetzte ihm mit einem kleinen Messer, das er im Busen Muslim “Puritans” 117 in May 1807 Seetzen was able to acquire further information from local scholars whom he consulted on the purchase of manuscripts. His sources were the chronicler al-Jabarti, celebrated for his erudition, but more particularly an obscure Sheikh Hasan, a Bektashi dervish, who affirmed that he had stayed in al- Dirʿiyya and boasted knowledge of the most controversial religious sects – Druse, Nusayri, Ismaʿili and of course Wahhabi, the latter considered to be a reformed “Mohammedan” sect.10 Seetzen’s next journey to Arabia, namely to Jidda in August 1809, followed by his pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina, finally gave him the chance to form a first-hand opinion of the new masters of the Muslim Holy Places. This might perhaps have been decisive in spreading information about them in Europe, had not the sudden death of this unfortunate traveller meant the irreparable loss of the last part of his diary.11 His visit to the Hijaz meant that Seetzen, who had hitherto lived according to the rites of the eastern Christians in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, had now to perfect his adaptation to the East by trans- forming himself into a Sunni Muslim of the Hanafi school of law and undergo-

versteckt hatte, einen tödtlichen Stoss. Man glaubte anfangs, er sey von irgend Jemand abgesandt; allein er gestand, dass dies ganz auf seine Anstiftung aus Rachgier geschehen sey. Er wurde ermordert von Abd el Asis, ibn Szöoud. – Die Familie von Vettern etc. soll aus 40 Personen bestehen. Saöûd ist aus Derréijagebürtig und seine Familie wohnt immer dort. Wuhâby geht nach den trocknen Worten des Gesetzes im Koran. Allein er sagt, Mohammed sey kein Prophet, und man müsse nicht zu seinem Grabe wallfahrten, oder ihn statt Gottes anrufen”. According to an earlier annotation, the murderer of “Abdullah Wuhaby” was supposedly a “Schech aus Bagdad”, driven by “Religionseifer”, cf. Id., Tage- buch des Aufenthalts in Aleppo, cit., p. 265 (14 December 1804). 10 On his encounters with Hasan and al-Jabarti, cf. Id., “Auszug aus einem Schreiben des Russisch-Kaiserlichen Cammer-Assessors Dr. U.J. Seetzen”, in Monatliche Correspondenz, XVII, 1808, pp. 157, 162. On the genesis of the principal monotheist religions, Seetzen writes: “Die mosaische Religion gebar die christliche, und beyde vereint die mohamme danische, die Sekte der wahabitischen Reformirten nicht ausgenommen”, cf. Id., “Auszug eines Briefes an Herrn von Hammer”, in Fundgruben des Orients, I, 1809, p. 69 (letter from Cairo, 10 July, 1808). 11 The diaries published by Kruse, cf. U.J. Seetzen, Reisen, cit., based on the notes Seetzen sent to Europe during his progress, begin with his journey from Aleppo to Damascus (9 April 1805) and break off with his departure from Cairo for Arabia (23 March 1809). Previ- ous sections, omitted by Kruse, have been published in recent years, cf. Id., Tagebuch des Aufenthalts in Konstantinopel und der Reise nach Aleppo, cit.; Id., Tagebuch des Aufenthalts in Aleppo, cit. The Monatliche Correspondenz and Fundgruben des Orients, the only publications available to his contemporaries, are thus still today invaluable sources of information on the final purely Arabian part of his expedition. 118 Chapter 3 ing initiation into the “mysteries” of the “Mohammedan” religion.12 In particular, his journey to the tomb of the Prophet, looted three years earlier, was an occasion on which to reflect on the controversial relations of the Wah- habis with Islam and dispel some misinterpretations of the sect’s attitude to common Muslims. The result was a brief epistolary review of the main items under debate. Muhammad was held by the Wahhabis to be “as great a prophet as he was [held to be] by other Mohammedans”. Nonetheless, his sepulchre was not to be taken for a place of pilgrimage. Indeed, such worship was to be considered reprehensible, albeit not yet physically impeded by the garrison at Medina.13

12 Id., “Auszug aus einem Schreiben des Russ. Kais. Kammer-Assessors Dr. U.J. Seetzen”, in Monatliche Correspondenz, XXVII, 1813, p. 77 (letter from Mokha, 17 November 1810): “Ich benutzte meinen Aufenthalt in Dschidda, um mich immer mehr und mehr in die Myste- rien der Islàm einweihen zu lassen; und nachdem ich in allen Stücken einem Mùslim gleich geworden, kleidete ich mich in Pilgergewande (...) und zog am 8. Oct. nach Mekka, dem berühmtesten Wallfahrtsorte in der Welt, ab, um daselbst den Fastenmonat Ramadân zuzubringen”. Having embraced the Hanafi rite, Seetzen continued his religious instruction with a local teacher, Sheik Hamsa, his future travel companion to Yemen: “Ein Zelot in seiner Religion und daher ein gefährlicher Späher für mich”, but an expert on the law of inheritance and the interpretation of the “Sagen des Propheten”, ibid, pp. 160, 172. On the conversion, understood as a disguise, see ibid, p. 166; ibid, XXVIII, 1813, p. 238. This enabled Seetzen to make the pilgrimage to the Holy City under the control of the Wahhabis, and ensured good treatment by Sharif Ghalib – at least according to rumours reaching the prior of the Sinaitic monastery of St. Catherine which he reported to an English visitor, John Fazakerley, in February 1811, cf. “Journey from Suez to Mount Sinai (communicated by J. Fazakerley)”, in R. Walpole (ed.), Travels in various countries of the East, cit., p. 380. For the hypothesis that Seetzen did not convert to Islam out of mere opportunism, despite his disenchantment on discovering the true character of the Wahhabi teachings, (“Could he have understood at Mecca that he was close to a universal religion capable of creating of all mankind a brotherhood?”), cf. Weippert (1995). 13 U.J. Seetzen, “Auszug aus einem Schreiben des Russ. Kais. Kammer-Assessors Dr. U.J. See- tzen”, in Monatliche Correspondenz, XXVII, 1813, p. 163 (letter from Mokha, 17 November 1810): “In dieser Moschee (in deren Südost-Ecke) ist die berühmte Grabcapelle des Pro pheten, weswegen Medine von so vielen Pilgern besucht wird, obgleich sie sich dies nicht bey den Wuhabisten verlauten lassen dürfen, indem diese den Besuch von Wallfahrts- Örtern, Mekka ausgenommen, gänzlich verbieten. Übrigens halten sie Mohammed für einen eben so grossen Propheten, als es die übrigen Mohamedaner thun. Man versichert, dass Söûd, der jetzige Heerführer von Nedsched, alle Schätze aus dieser Capelle nach Dre- heia fortgeführt habe.” In 1807 Seetzen already knew that the Bedouin in the vicinity of Damascus, affected by Wahhabi teachings, professed their faith as follows: “Ich glaube an den einigen Gott und an Mohammed, Knecht des Gesandten Gottes, der gebohren ward und starb” – which was clearly intended to forestall any undue divine honour accorded to Muslim “Puritans” 119

Of far greater sanctity was the pilgrimage to the Kaʿbah, which the present ruler Saʿud in person – his name is at last correct – scrupulously observed as a monarch honoured with the religious title of imam. The simplicity of his garb and the subdued splendour of his train, almost insignificant when compared with the magnificence already witnessed along the streets of Damascus, for an instant suggested to Seetzen that he might join it himself as far as al-Dirʿiyya and from there go on to Bahrain.14 His description of the pious conquerors, which did not include any mention of the still evident destruction in Mecca, was not entirely favourable. Concerned for Seetzen’s safety, the eminent citizens of Mecca, who were his principal hosts, manifested a strong antipathy to the devotees from Najd. There were no Turkish pilgrims to be seen in the city, even if there were Persian Shiʿis, and there were still reports of caravans of travellers being massacred.15 The fear of common Muslims at the advance of Saʿud and his allied tribes, now extending southwards as far as the coastal region of Hadramaut (although the ports of Aden and Mokha were still holding out), even seemed to have created a new verb, “to wahhabise” (wuhabisiren), indicative of the profound effect such conquests had on laws and customs.16

the Prophet, cf. Id., Reisen, cit., III, p. 33. Precisely this circumscribed idea of Muhammad was the cause of the Wahhabi leader’s notoriety as “ein Mensch ohne Glauben, ein Kaffer” among the Sunnis who are as devoted to the Prophet “so wie die Madonna die Geliebte der katholischen Christen”, ibid, p. 61. 14 Id., “Auszug aus einem Schreiben des Russ. Kais. Kammer-Assessors Dr. U.J. Seetzen”, in Monatliche Correspondenz, XXVII, 1813, p. 170 (letter from Mokha, 17 November 1810): “Söûd, das weltliche Oberhaupt der Wuhabisten, welche ihn schon Imâm zu nennen anfangen, war auch in diesem Jahre mit einer grossen Pilger Karavane angekommen, worunter sich ein paar hundert schiitische Perser befanden. Ich sahe ihn einige male mit seinem Gefolge von etwa hundert Reutern, welche mit schweren Bambus-Speeren versehen waren, oben mit Straussfedern geschmückt. Söûd war sehr einfach gekleidet; er trug einen weissen Abbáje. Personen, die Gelegenheit hatten ihn zu sprechen, versichern, dass er vielen natürlichen Verstand besitze. Ich hätte eine fürtreffliche Gelegenheit gehabt, mit seiner Karavane nach Nadsched und Dreheïa und ferner nach el Bahhrán zu reisen; allein, da meine Bekannten ihn und alle Wuhabisten äusserst hassen: so würde ich alle ihre Achtung verscherzt und mich wohl gar ihren Verfolgungen ausgesetzt haben.” 15 A survivor from a caravan of Indian pilgrims intercepted by the Wahhabis on its way from Mokha to Mecca, on the other hand, did not hesitate to praise the religious tolerance shown by the English in Delhi, ibid, XXVIII, 1813, pp. 244–45 (letter from Mokha, 17 November 1810). 16 U.J. Seetzen, “Über das Küstenland von Szauáken und Massaúa auf der Westseite des arabischen Meerbusens, nebst Bemerkungen über einige Nachbarländer”, ibid, XX, 1809, p. 21 (letter from Cairo, 30 November, 1808); Id., “Auszug aus einem Schreiben des Russ. Kais. 120 Chapter 3

Seetzen had no time to produce and transmit a summary of the information he had gathered. His long last letter to Zach from Mokha of 17 November 1810, published posthumously in 1812–13 before the news of his death, included news of a summons he had received from the Wahhabi emir of Medina, guard- ed by a military garrison, to be interrogated about where he was from and his suspicious habit of procuring manuscripts. He was not released until his in- quisitor had been convinced that “he was not a Turk, but a Frank and a Muslim neophyte”.17 With the disappearance of the diary a circumstantial account was almost certainly lost of this extraordinary dialogue between a Wahhabi authority and a pilgrim from afar who, in his heart of hearts, was, according to notes made in Mokha in June 1810, a “scientific missionary” convinced that the building round the Kaʿbah could have been put to better use as an astronomical observatory. He was also convinced that enlightenment in the East might be achieved by translating fundamental European texts into Arabic in emulation of the Jesuits, but after any sign of “religious enthusiasm” had been removed.18

Kammer-Assessors Dr. U.J. Seetzen”, ibid, XXVII, 1813, p. 173; ibid, XXVIII, 1813, pp. 235, 240 (letter from Mokha, 17 November 1810). 17 “Den 22. Dec. wurde ich von dem Emir der Wuhabisten verlangt. Ich ging zu ihm, und man erkundigte sich, wer ich sey? weswegen ich hierher gekommen? warum ich hier so lange mich aufhalte? warum ich so viele Bücher kaufe? u. s. w. Letzteres hatte zuerst Auf- sehen erregt, und man hatte mich für einen Türken gehalten. Als man hörte, dass ich kein Türke, sondern ein Franke und Neophyt sey, liess man mich wieder abtreten”, ibid, XXVII, 1813, p. 166 (letter from Mokha, 17 November 1810). On his local friends’ fear for Seetzen’s fate, ibid; for the more extensive accounts in the lost diary, if not of this specific episode, certainly of his experience as a pilgrim, ibid, p. 79. It is hard to establish the identity of the emir who supposedly interrogated Seetzen, perhaps Maʿsud ibn Mudhaiyan, head of the Banu Harb, nominated “governor of Medina” by Saʿud, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 331. In what state of mind the traveller underwent this interrogation is revealed in a previous note of his: “Die Wuhabiten ermordern jeden, den sie für einen Ketzer (Méschik) halten; (...) man prophezeyt mir einen schlimmen Aus- gang”, cf. U.J. Seetzen, “Auszug aus zwey Schreiben des Russisch-Kaiserlichen Kammer- Assessors, Doctor. U.J. Seetzen”, in Monatliche Correspondenz, cit., XXI, 1810, p. 275 (letter from Suez, 15 May 1809). 18 Id., “Astronomische Beobachtungen in Arabien, nämlich in Hedschâs und Jemen”, ibid, XXVIII, 1813, p. 357: “Müsste ich hier nicht verstohlen beobachten, so würde es mir sehr leicht gewesen seyn, die trefflichsten Stellen zu meinen Beobachtungen zu finden, und ich würde keinen Augenblick angestanden haben, das platte Dach von Bêt Alláh oder der Kâba zum Observatorium zu wählen, wozu dies Gebäude, welches einem abgestumpften viereckigen Thurme gleicht, besser geeignet zu seyn scheint, als zu einer Wohnung der Gottheit.” For the causes of the backwardness of the Orientals in the field of Science – national pride, ignorance of European languages, limited distribution of the press, cf. Id., Muslim “Puritans” 121

One result at least was clear. In Arabia Seetzen had found the traces not of a simple philosophical religion but of an attempt to reorganise local material and spiritual relations still inspired by the norms established by Muhammad. There would soon be another account of Mecca during the Wahhabi occupation which would confirm this evidence. An enigmatic ʿAli Bey, a putative descendant of the ʿAbbasid caliphs, had been in the Hijaz before Seetzen, who had heard him mentioned with admiration, but not without suspicion, in Egypt. ʿAli Bey published a lively memoir in France, his adopted country, at the beginning of the Restoration. Although the political situation sketched out in his notes was no longer up to date, his work was an important advance along the path that would ultimately lead to Burckhardt.

2 Badía y Leblich: A Swarm of Bees Round the Kaaba

Concealed behind the name of ʿAli Bey al-ʿAbbasi was the Catalan traveller Badía y Leblich. With the support of the prime minister of Spain, Godoy, who hoped with his help to promote a dynastic revolution in Morocco, Badía was in London in 1802 concluding preparations for his mission and also frequenting the circle of the African Association under the leadership of Joseph Banks.19 After the virtual lack of success of his mission he disembarked in Egypt in May 1806 and, perhaps with contemporary developments in Europe in mind, he

“Aus einem Schreiben des Russisch-Kaiserlich Kammer-Assessors Dr. U.J. Seetzen”, ibid, VIII, 1803, pp. 441–42 (letter from Smyrna, 27 July 1803). With his desire to act as “ein wis- senschaftlicher Missionär”, Seetzen reflected ideas widespread in the French consulate in Cairo, cf. Id., “Auszug aus einem Schreiben des Russ. Kais. Cammer-Assessors U.J. Seetzen”, ibid, XX, 1809, pp. 446–48 (letter from Cairo, 17 March 1809). He had written a brief unpublished text the year before, eloquently entitled: Die wissenschaftliche Propaganda. Ein Werk des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. 19 The existence of a political aim to the journey, besides the initial scientific reasons, known only to Godoy, is admitted by Badía in a brief account written on his return for the new French government in Spain, cf. Viatjes de Ali Bey El Abbassi (Domingo Badía y Leblich) per África y Assia, Barcelona, 1888–89, I, p. 6 (a Catalan translation of the 1814 French volumes, preceded by a short biography of the author). The instructions he received are included in Godoy’s memoirs, with the following description of the traveller: “Courageux, entreprenant, rusé, aventurier par goût, caractère vraiment original, dont la poésie héroïque aurait pu s’emparer; il y avait quelque chose d’oriental dans ses idées; ses passions ardentes, la mobilité de son esprit, le rendaient capable de tout, propre à tout, et singulièrement à la mission que je lui confiais”, cf. Mémories du Prince de la Paix Don Manuel Godoy, traduits en français d’après le manuscrit espagnol par J.- G. d’Esménard, Paris, 1836, IV, pp. 70–71. 122 Chapter 3 chose to contact the French Consul Drovetti. On his return from the East he sought an audience with Napoleon in 1808, and was assigned missions in Spain, then ruled by the emperor’s brother Joseph. The exact aim of these missions in North Africa, Arabia, Syria and Turkey, the true religion of the supposed Mus- lim ʿAli Bey, believed to be of high Arab lineage, and the source of his lavish means which assured him introductions and reception almost everywhere, immediately became the subject of controversy. In Cairo it was suspected that the unacknowledged objective of his journey was the Wahhabi kingdom.20 His account, entitled Voyages d’Ali Bey and with a timely dedication to Louis XVIII, was published in 1814 in Paris, where he had returned in order to avoid Spanish persecution of the afrancesados. The editor defined the work as a “sort of he- roic poem”, extracted from a far greater number of manuscripts which in fact were never published. The fourth and final volume was embellished with draw- ings of Mecca, the Kaʿbah and the great mosque in Jerusalem – places normally inaccessible to Christians. An English version appeared within two years and was followed by a less pretentious German one .21

20 Hearing about the origins of the presumed ʿAli Bey from informers at the Cairo consulate, where it the fake Arab’s name was said to be Pedro Nuñez), Seetzen credited rumours that the British government had entrusted the mysterious traveller with a mission to the Wah- habi “Caliphe”, cf. U.J. Seetzen, “Auszug aus einem Schreiben des Russ. Kais. Cammer- Assessors U.J. Seetzen”, in Monatliche Correspondenz, XVII, 1808, p. 162 (letter from Cairo, 22 September 1807); ibid, XX, 1809, p. 452 (letter from Cairo, 17 March 1809). Thomas Legh, an English officer in Egypt, thought otherwise. He dismissed Badía as “employed by Bona- parte as a spy”, cf. T. Legh, Narrative of a journey in Egypt, cit., p. 25 nt. Familiarity with Godoy (the “Prince of Peace”) and contact with the African Association are also attributed to Badía by Burckhardt, who met him in Aleppo in 1807 and remembered having heard him mentioned in London, where he had seen a small portrait of him in Banks’ office, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, London, 1819, p. xxviii (letter from Aleppo, 12 May 1810). 21 [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi en Afrique et en Asie, Paris, 1814. The text, revised by Jean Baptiste de Roquefort, is preceded by a brief editorial note (8 July 1814) in support of the credibility of ʿAli Bey. In view of “faits qui paroîtroient incroyables” the editor refers to testimonials “des peuples, des consuls et des négociants des diverses nations européennes, qui résident dans les contrées décrites”, ibid, I, p. xv. Maintaining the fiction of the author’s identity, even if the true name of the traveller and his connection with Godoy had already been revealed by Isidoro de Antillón (cf. Principios de geografia fisica y civil. Por D. Isidoro de Antillón, Madrid, 1807, p. 76), did little to help the reputation of the work and fostered fantasies of every sort, cf. Viatjes de Ali Bey El Abbassi, cit., I, pp. 9, 11. In the entourage of Charles IV at Bayonne it was said that Badía was a Jew- ish convert to Islam, while a brilliant reviewer, Robert Southey, was happy to confirm the theory that the mysterious traveller was in fact descended from moriscos forcibly converted to Catholicism but still so faithful to his ancestral Muslim religion as to be forced into secrecy in post-Napoleonic Spain in order to escape the “Inquisition now that its Muslim “Puritans” 123

Among the many original experiences of this strange traveller one of the most remarkable is his participation in the pilgrimage to Mecca under the rule of the Wahhabis in February 1807, over two years before Seetzen. The main novelty was Saʿud’s own active participation in the ceremonies, likely to dispel any doubt as to the observance of the Muslim precept. But more interesting still was a lengthy description of the Wahhabi pilgrims. Badía, a guest of Sharif Ghalib, described them as veritable conquerors. They had indeed been so in the previous year and Badía’s error was probably due to the irate inhabitants’ impression of repeated invasion.22 An astonishing apparition of pilgrims simply clad in the ihram but armed, with no musical instruments, banners or military trophies, wound their way towards the Kaʿbah amidst the confused sounds of prayer and “shouts of holy merriment”. Soon, overcome by “holy zeal in the house of God”, they had pressed on in the direction of the Black Stone and then abandoned themselves to a wild circular movement round the sacred building, resembling a crazed “swarm of bees”. The guns resting on their shoul-

claws are grown again”, cf. [R. Southey], “Travels of Ali Bey”, in The Quarterly Review, XV, 1816, p. 299 (for the attribution to Southey, cf. H. Shine, H. Chadwick Shine [ed.], The Quarterly Review Under Gifford. Identification of Contributors, Chapel Hill, 1949, p, 52, nr. 387). The English translation (also supported by Alexander von Humboldt, who wrote about it to his friend Helen Maria Williams) still does not mention Badía as the author, but does refer to his visits to London in 1802 and 1814, cf. Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey, London, 1816, I, pp. v-vi, ix-x. For the Ger- man translation, cf. Ali Bey’s el Abassi Reisen in Afrika und Asien. Aus dem Französischen, Weimar, 1816. For information about the personality and the journey of Badía y Leblich (rumours of his presumed Jewish origin were also spread by William Bankes on the alleged basis of documents he had seen in Istanbul), for the undoubted value of his revelations in Mecca, the suspicions of political compromise, and his obscure death in Syria (1819) attributed by unreliable witnesses to poison on the orders of the English – still loyal to Napoleon during the Hundred Days, he must have felt ill at ease in France during the Restoration – cf. Bidwell (1995), pp. 27–31; Faivre d’Arcier (1990), pp. 95–96, 173; Hogarth (1904), pp. 80–82, 96 nt.; Pfullmann (2001), pp. 38–46; Sabini (1981), pp. 71–83 (by then the latter was about the only scholar to suggest that Badía had become a sincere Muslim). 22 The error noted by J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, cit., p. 254, caused some confusion about the actual date of Badía’s stay in Mecca, which was in fact 1807, not 1806. The Cata- lan traveller may have been bewildered by the enormous stir Saʿud’s presence created among the pilgrims, whereas the king had merely directed the recapture of Mecca from a distance the year before. Ghalib, initially suspicious of the self-styled ʿAli Bey, was later to allow him the supreme honour of taking part in the ritual cleansing of the Kaʿbah, and was to proclaim him “serviteur de la maison de Dieu la défendue”, cf. [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit, II, pp. 315–18. 124 Chapter 3 ders had smashed numerous lights hanging round the perimeter of the colon- nade, apparently unintentionally.23 The power of the new arrivals seemed irresistible. Before them the authority of the sharif and any other potentates was “annihilated”, especially when the treatment meted out to the Syrian caravan the year before was recalled. Badía therefore decided to dedicate a special section to the Wahhabis, Chapter XX of the second volume of the Voyages, a kind of intermezzo in the narrative, based, he asserted, on information received not only from the inhabitants of Mecca, but from the “reformers” themselves.24 Historical information, in contrast to

23 Ibid, pp. 320–22: “Qu’on se figure une foule d’individus étroitement serrés les uns contre les autres, n’ayant de vêtements qu’un petit pagne autour des reins, et quelques uns, une serviette passée sur l’épaule gauche et sous l’aisselle droite; du reste, entièrement nus et armés de fusils à mèche, avec un khanjear ou grand couteau recourbé à la ceinture. (…) J’en vis défiler une colonne qui me parut composée de cinq à six mille hommes, tellement serrés sur toute la largeur de la rue, qu’il ne leur auroit pas été possibile de remuer la main. La colonne, précedée de trois ou quatre cavaliers armés d’une lance de deux pieds de long, étoit terminée par quinze ou vingt autres, montés sur des chevaux, des chameux et des dromadaires, avec une lance à la main, comme les premiers; mais ils n’avoient ni dra- peux, ni tambours, ni aucun autre instrument ou trophée militaire. Pendant leur marche, les uns poussoient des cris d’une sainte alégresse, les autres récitoient confusément des prières à la haute voix, chacun à sa manière. Ils montèrent dans cet ordre jusqu’à la partie supérieure de la ville, où ils commencèrent à défiler par pelotons pour entrer dans le temple par la porte Beb es Selem. (…) Déja les premiers pelotons, pour commencer leurs tours de la Kaaba, s’empressoient de baiser la pierre noire, lorsque d’autres, impatients sans doute d’attendre, s’avancent en tumulte, se mêlent avec les premiers, et bientôt la confusion, parvenue à son comble, ne permet plus d’entendre la voix de leurs jeunes guides. A la confusion succède le tumulte. Tous veulent baiser la pierre noire, ils se préci- pitent; plusieurs d’entre eux se font jour, le bâton à la main: en vain un de leurs chefs monte sur le socle, près de la pierre sacrée, pour ramener l’ordre; ses cris et ses signes sont inutiles, parceque le saint zèle de la maison de Dieu qui les dévore ne leur permet pas d’entendre la raison, ni la voix de leur chef. Le mouvement en cercle s’augmente par l’impulsion mutuelle. On les voit à la fin, semblables à un essaim d’abeilles qui voltigent confusément autour de leur ruche, circuler sans ordre autour de la Kaaba, et, dans leur empressement tumultueux, briser avec les fusils qu’ils avoient sur l’épaule toutes les lampes de verre qui entouroient la maison de Dieu”. On the circumstances of Saʿud’s stately pilgrimage to Mecca in February 1807 with delegations from each province and the Arabian tribes under his authority, on the Syrian caravan being repulsed on that very occasion, on the expulsion of the remaining Turkish troops in the Hijaz, cf. Philby (1955), pp. 108–109. 24 [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit, II, pp. 335–36: “C’est d’eux-mêmes que je tiens la plupart des renseignemens que je donnerai sur leur secte.” Only the determination to avoid alienating the favour of Ghalib would have stopped Badía from Muslim “Puritans” 125 more credible reports already available from Corancez and Rousseau, induced him to locate the birth of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab in the neighbourhood of Medina, postdating it to about 1720. Only later, after completing his studies in that city and observing the cold reception with which his professed ideas were met, was the Wahhabi leader driven to move to Central Arabia, among the Bedouin largely “indifferent to the cult” and so, it might be assumed, more receptive to his own message. Arrival at al-Dirʿiyya in 1747 and the conversion of the local prince, a certain Ibn Saʿud, desiring to gain authority over the local war-torn tribes – this point was in accordance with the most credited accounts, although Badía failed to mention the reformer’s assent to such a plan of conquest – was finally to ensure a political basis for the “reform” and to initi- ate the formidable expansion of the kingdom. Here Badía reconstructed the precepts of the sect on the basis of more substantial elements than merely biographical ones. Far from considering himself a prophet, the Wahhabi founder had adhered strictly to Koranic revelation and merely repudiated the “particular doctrines”, “detailed devotional practices introduced by the doctors”, “superstitious principles with little or nothing to do with the simplicity of the [Muslim] cult and morality”, in the light of which Wahhabi principles must have looked like “innovations”.25 Muhammad was

presenting himself “auprès du sultan Saaoud, comme je desirois, afin de le connoître plus particulièrement”. Badía attributed the expulsion and dispersal of the Syrian caravan in 1806 and the retreat in 1807 to lack of respect for the conditions imposed, which consisted in not being accompanied by women, soldiers or artillery, not visiting Medina and not bringing a “riche tapis que le Grand-Seigneur envoyoit tous les ans pour couvrir le sépul- cre du Prophête” (an allusion to the maḥmal), ibid, pp. 329, 453–54. 25 Ibid, pp. 441–42: “Le Scheih Mohamed ibn Abdoulwehhàb náquit aux environs de Médine: je n’ai pu savoir le nom du lieu où il reçut le jour, ni l’époque exacte de sa naissance, que je place vers l’année 1720. Il fit ses études à Médine, où il séjourna plusieurs années. Doué d’un esprit peu commun, il reconnut bientôt que les minutieuses pratiques de dévotion introduites par les docteurs, ainsi que certains principes superstitieux, qui s’écartoient plus ou moins de la simplicité du culte et de la morale du Prophète, ou qui n’en étoient qu’une surcharge arbitraire, avoient besoin d’une réforme, comme attentatoires à la pureté du texte révélé. Il prit en conséquence la résolution de rappeler le culte à sa simpli- cité primitive, en le purgeant des doctrines particulières des docteurs, et en le renfermant dans le texte littéral du Kour-ann. Médine et la Mecque, trop intéressées à soutenir les anciens rites, ainsi que les usages et les préjugés populaires qui les enrichissoient, n’étoient pas propres au succès des innovations proposées par le réformateur. Il prit le parti de diriger ses pas vers le Levant, afin de s’insinuer parmi les tribus d’Arabes Bédouins, qui, plus indifférentes pour le culte, et trop peu éclairées pour soutenir ou défendre leurs rites particuliers, n’étant d’ailleurs intéressés au soutien d’aucun, lui lassoient plus de faci- lité pour répandre et faire embrasser son système sans courir de danger. En effet, 126 Chapter 3 still considered the highest and greatest prophet. His name was retained in the profession of faith. Only honorific titles and forms of the cult dedicated to him were censured, in particular pilgrimage to his tomb in Medina and legends which had grown up around his name, such as that according to which he had physically ascended to heaven after death (the “night journey”). His cult and that of the saints, “a very grave sin”, was what the Wahhabis found most scandalous, together with other customs irreconcilable with the duty of honouring God alone, and which even “educated Muslims secretly despised, although before the people they made a show of respecting them”.26 Hence the firm conviction of the new devotees that they were authentic Muslims, as they called themselves, and the consequent abrogation of the four Sunni rites which had until then been considered orthodox. This was information that Badía was the first to provide and was in contrast with Brydges’ and Browne’s affirmation that they observed the Hanbali tradition, probably the result of rumours intended to depict Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab as dangerous and subversive.27 However, a clear

Abdoulwehhab se fit un prosélyte d’Ibn-Saaoud, prince ou grand schek d’Arabes, établi à Draaïya, ville distante de dix-sept journées à l’est de Médine, dans le désert. C’est de ce moment (1747) que date la réforme d’Abdoulwehhab.” 26 Ibid, pp. 444–45: “Déjà les musulmans instruits méprisoient secrètement ces superstitions, quoiqu’ils fissent semblant de les respecter aux yeux du peuple. Mais Abdoul wehhab déclara hautement que cette espèce de culte rendu aux saints est un péché très grave aux yeux de la divinité, puisque c’est partager des honneurs qui ne sont dus qu’à Dieu. En conséquence ses sectateurs ont détruit les sépulcres, les chapelles et les temples élevés à leur honneur. En vertu de ce principe, Abdoulwehhab a défendu, comme un péché très grave, tout acte de vénération ou de dévotion envers la personne du Prophête. Ce n’est pas néanmoins qu’il refuse de reconnoître sa mission; mais il prétend qu’il n’étoit qu’un homme comme les autres, dont Dieu s’étoit servi pour communiquer sa parole divine aux mortels, et qu’après sa mission il étoit rentré dans la classe ordinaire des créa- tures humaines. C’est par cette raison que le réformateur a défendu à ses sectateurs d’aller visiter le sépulcre du Prophête à Médine; aussi, toutes les fois qu’ils parlent de lui, au lieu d’employer la formule adoptée par les autres musulmans: Notre Seigneur Mouhamméd ou Notre Seigneur le Prophête de Dieu, ils disent simplement Mouhamméd”. On the declared falsity of the Prophet’s ascension to Heaven after death, ibid, pp. 442–43; on the complete profession of the Muslim faith of the Wahhabis, ibid, p. 447. 27 Ibid p. 442: “Nous avons dit que cette réforme était absolument restreinte au texte du Kour-ann; qu’elle rejetoit toutes les additions des expositeurs, des imans, et des docteurs de la loi. En conséquence, les réformateur supprima la différence des quatre rits ortho- doxes, nommés Schaffi, Màleki, Hànbeli et Hàneffi”. Elsewhere, however, Badía shows a certain perplexity as to this information. He says that the imām of the four schools still directed prayers in the sanctuary of Mecca in rotation and that he had met Wahhabis adhering to one or other of these rites, ibid, p. 366; III, p. 6. Rumours of the suppression of the four Sunni law schools can probably be traced back to the first dispute in Najd Muslim “Puritans” 127 distinction was supposedly drawn in the Wahhabi camp between members of other religions and supposed Muslims. The former were stigmatised from the start as “infidels”, kāfirun, the second as schismatic and heretical, mushrikun, guilty of giving companions to God”.28

against Wahhabi expansion, for example to the aforesaid Ibn Suhaim.The dispute originated with the concern among local Hanbali ʿulamāʾ about the appearance of an innovator in their midst, cf. Delanoue (1982), I, p. 102; Hartmann (1924), p. 184; Peskes (1993), pp. 52, 77–78. Connected with this was the accusation that the Wahhabis had formed their fifth school, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 21, 31, 51, 110–11; Laoust (1939), p. 534; Laoust (1965), p. 331; Schwartz (2002), p. 71. Such accusations, unfounded in themselves and intended to brand the adversary as heretical, did at least reflect the sincerity of Muham- mad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s desire – he was himself a Hanbali jurist, although his writings do not entirely confirm this – and that of other Muslim reformers to return to the primitive source of the faith (the Koran and the sunna) and to go beyond mere imitation based on membership of a school, cf. Cook (1992), p. 199; Laoust (1939), pp. 521–22; Nallino (1937); Peskes (1993), pp. 9, 33–34, 38, 44; Peskes (2002), pp. 40–41; Peters (1989), pp. 92–93. According to DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 83, 96, 106, 249, in contrast with the views prevailing at the time, we should also keep in mind the possibility that freedom in interpreting the sacred texts and respect for different traditions had been maintained during the eighteenth century to a greater extent in the Hanbali camp than in any other school, thus creating a stimulus for Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab. 28 [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit, II, p. 446: “Les Wehhabis se disent les musulmans par excellence; aussi, lorsqu’ils parlent de l’Islàm, ils n’entendent par ce mot que les personnes de leur secte, qu’ils regardent comme le seule orthodoxe. Les Turcs et les autres musulmans sont à leur yeux des schismatiques Mouschrikìnns, c’est-à-dire, qui donnent des compagnons à Dieu; mais ils ne les traitent pas néanmoins d’idolâtres ou d’in- fidèles Coffàr”. Badía maintained that the Wahhabis drew a theological distinction between “infidels” (kafirūn) and Muslims who had sinned by “association” (shirk), having “associated” an idol with God, thus offending the fundamental dogma of the oneness of God. Hence their definition as “associationists”, mushrikūn, or, misleadingly, as “heretics”. This seems to reflect in Badía’s words an argument advanced in self-defence by the followers of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab against the accusations of their adversaries. The latter in fact imputed to the Wahhabis the abolition of such a distinction in law and deed. They thus accused them of seeing the sin of “association” and apostasy proper as being equivalent, resulting in the sect’s treatment of common sinners as true “infidels” against whom every good Muslim would be expected to wage a meritorious “holy war”, as against renegades guilty of deeds against the truth now acknowledged as monotheism. It was in this sense that the head of the Wahhabis was said to have relapsed into the Kharijite heresy and to have justified the murder of Muslims by other Muslims in flagrant violation of Koranic precepts. In less radical terms it was maintained that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab had wrongly imposed excommunication (takfīr, “accusation of unbelief”), and that he had excluded from the Muslim field, as if they were idolatrous, all those believers in the Koran who, in good faith, habitually mingled popular cultic manifestations with 128 Chapter 3

What the practical implications of this difference in condition actually were was not specified. However, Badía thought that the mere failure to acknowledge it was at the root of the error made by those European witnesses and writers who had imagined the Wahhabi teaching to be completely new. This misunderstanding had been abetted by long-standing misrepresentations, among which the author cited the superficial analogy, in fact introduced by Christians, of Muhammad with Jesus, the failure to understand the Islamic sense of what “prophecy” meant, and the undifferentiated use of the terms “Muslim” and “Ottoman”. As a result the belief subsisted that all revealed books had been equally devalued by the Wahhabis, that “the messenger of God” was in their eyes a mere sage, even a “philosopher” in the eighteenth-century sense, all reference to his divine mission being expunged, and that the followers of such a doctrine could no longer consider themselves Muslims.29 The names of the writers guilty of such a misapprehension were not mentioned. In the notes, however, the editor Roquefort called to account Co- rancez’s recent Histoire, drafted at a distance from the scene of events, in which

the worship of God or, in the case of doctors of law, even scholars who put the imitation of human authority before the direct study of the revealed text, cf. Caskel (1929), p. 5. Here emphasis was on “fanaticism” – takhassub – of which the Wahhabis were accused, not only by their detractors, cf. Laoust (1939), pp. 514, 525, 529; Nallino (1937); Peskes (1993), pp. 18, 83–94, 135, 157–58, quoting the aforesaid polemicist Ibn ʿAfaliq, who observed to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab that sparing thousands of infidels was preferable to mistakenly killing a single Muslim; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 77–78, 83, 106. Badía’s account, intended at least in part to absolve the Wahhabis from this charge, meets with the approval of DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 244–45, 308, who suggests that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s undoubtedly strict definition of the sin of “association” (even branding rep- robates as “infidels” in his Book of Monotheism) was misinterpreted in practice during the first Saʿudi kingdom. The Wahhabi leader, on the other hand, was said to have recommended in his writings not the proclamation of a Holy War, but rather renewed preaching and instruction, with a “battle” (qitāl) only if the missionary task were to be hindered by arms. The monarch ʿAbd al-Aziz was said to have introduced in the name of religion the blunter procedure of justifying the violence necessary to subjugate populations declared guilty of unbelief, cf. De-Long-Bas (2004), pp. 59, 64, 71, 81–83, 200, 221, 223, 236, 250, 253; similarly (but without mentioning Badía) Oliver (2002), p. 80. 29 [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit, II, p. 445: “Les chrétiens ont, en géné- ral, des idées fausses ou confuses sur les Wehhabis. Ils s’imaginent que ces sectaires ne sont pas musulmans, dénomination sous laquelle ils désignent exclusivement les Turcs, et confondent souvent les noms de Musulmàn et d’Osmanli.” See also ibid, pp. 446–47: “Ils (scil.: the Wahhabis) regardent Mouhhammed comme le dernier véritable prophête ou envoyé de Dieu, et nullement comme un simple savant, ainsi que le disent les chrétiens en parlant de la croyance des Wehhabis.” Muslim “Puritans” 129 the Wahhabi leader was still represented as inclined to consider himself inspired, while his followers were shown on the one hand to be faithful to the Koran, and on the other to be cold towards Muhammad and hostile to “Mus- lims”, meaning “Turks”.30 Badía’s assessment was unjust in so far as it appreciated the progress made by Corancez and his rival Rousseau far less than the account in Volney. Nonetheless, it promoted understanding of the originality of Badía’s own contribution, which seemed to offer at least plausible solutions to still unresolved contradictions, also considered as such by the public.31 Any doubts about the Wahhabis’ opinion of Muhammad and the tradition of the pilgrimage, or the nature of the devastation of Mecca, were soon dispelled. The depleted number of pilgrims, though real and which Badía’s estimate in 1807 at about 8,000, should not be considered the result of persecution by the sect, but rather a natural mitigation of an age-old religious enthusiasm. Destruction was not indiscriminate, having only included buildings of doubtful religious significance, chapels and places of pilgrimage dedicated to saints and Muham- mad’s relatives from his uncle Abu Talib to his daughter Fatima, places of worship on the Mountain of Light and Mount ʿArafa – a chapel which, according to tradition, originated with Adam – and Sharif Ghalib’s palace, the symbol of his “annihilated” power. What did seem deplorable was the fate of Medina. The sack of the Prophet’s tomb, the removal of the official custodians, and the

30 Ibid, p. 445 nt.: “Il est remarquable que l’auteur de l’histoire des Wehhabis (qu’il appelle improprement Wahabis), imprimée à Paris en 1810, soit tombé dans cette erreur, et dans plusieurs autres qu’on pourra aisément reconnoître en comparant son ouvrage avec la description d’Ali Bey. Telle est la différence qui existe et qui doit exister entre des rensei- gnements pris sur les lieux, et d’autres pris à quatre cents lieues de distance, c’est-à-dire, à Alep, qui étoit alors la résidence de l’auteur de l’histoire.” For further errors imputed to Corancez, ibid, pp. 447–48 nt. To do him justice Corancez had, like Rousseau, merely said that though Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab did indeed claim descent from Muhammad, he did not consider himself to be a prophet (supra, Chapter II, notes 16, 48). 31 The case of Southey can serve as an exemple. He did not hesitate to follow Badía in repu- diating Silvestre de Sacy’s comparison of Wahhabis to Qarmatians, merely based on geographic proximity and other chance analogies, “their tenets being widely different”. Neither did he consider the general opinion concerning the presumed fatal consequences for the “Mahommedan system” of the new reform – he made no mention of Waring and Valentia – any more reliable since Islam, “not likely to survive as a conquered religion”, would, if anything, have much more to fear if the Ottoman provinces were annexed by Christian powers – as Southey evidently hoped might happen for religious reasons, cf. [R. Southey], “Travels of Ali Bey”, cit., p. 336. 130 Chapter 3 ban on the pilgrimage all threatened the future of the city, which not even Badía, who had been held up and robbed along the way, was able to reach.32 Badía’s report clarified considerably the matter of the Wahhabis, but it also gave rise to further questions concerning the purely theological dispute. The mention of presumed Wahhabi “innovations”, bid a⁠ʾ, a term used by the movement’s detractors, and the asserted lack of involvement of their followers in any recognised law school, seemed to confirm the suspicion of a profound break with the past, also attested by Corancez and Rousseau in their references to the repudiation of “Muslim traditions”. The object of this disagreement was only partly defined more clearly, since Badía made no mention of the ḥadīth, merely observing vaguely that all “additions” to the Holy Book by interpreters and jurists should be considered repudiated. On this basis the accusation of “heresy” against the Wahhabis, who then themselves turned it against their adversaries, still seemed only to be explained in part. The manifold prescriptions and customs of the cult not based on the Holy Book and the fact that most Muslim theologians applied two truths to certain vulgar popular superstitions might well have provoked the devotees from Najd – some of this could be gleaned from Niebuhr’s account – but were insufficient to explain the accusations against them, nor did they throw any light on their conduct as a whole. The Wahhabis, implacable in prohibiting the cult of the saints – often veritable half-wits mistaken for inspired men, as Badía noted – and in condemning the use of rosaries, amulets and other artefacts and natural objects to which miraculous qualities were imputed, abandoned themselves enthusiasti- cally to the traditional rites of pilgrimage, including clearly irrational ceremonies such as the stoning of the devil, aspersions at the miraculous well of Zamzam and kissing the Black Stone.33 In the light of this conduct, their indignation at customs of dubious morality – the use of tobacco, silken clothes, an only partly shaven head when visiting Mecca – and their violent treatment of

32 On the capture and ransom of the caravan bound for Medina, the measures taken by the Wahhabis to discourage the pilgrimage, and the complete destruction of Muhammad’s tomb according to the testimony of the former “trésorier” or defterdar and other custodians of the temple expelled from the city and concentrated in the same camp as Badía, cf. [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit., III, pp. 28–33, 35–36. For a list of items destroyed and prohibitions in Mecca, in this case with negative consequences for trade connected with the cult, ibid, II, pp. 327–28, 332–33, 378, 452. 33 Ibid, p. 450: “Les Wehhabis ont défendu aux pélerins les stations du Djebél Nor ou mon- tagne de la lumière, et les autres stations de la Mecque, comme superstitieuses; cependant ils font celle de l’Aàmara, et vont à Mina jeter des petites pierres contre la maison du Diable: tel est l’homme!” The theological justification for this act is noted, because the Prophet Muhammad in person had inaugurated the throwing of stones, ibid, p. 339. Muslim “Puritans” 131

Muslims guilty of including acts of magic in the cult, seemed to be so greatly exaggerated as to arouse the suspicion that there was a stronger motivation and virtually to obliterate the theoretical distinction between specific trans- gressions concerning the prohibition of “associating” mere humans with God and any behaviour typical of true “infidels” which Badía reconfirmed. How far this distinction might be rooted in specific acts and beliefs rather than in un- derlying intentions and resistance to better teachings was still not specified.34 To these difficulties Badía finally found a solution by focussing principally on political and national divisions unconnected with the doctrinal sphere. The words of his interlocutors had sounded very reasonable, leading him to believe that their professed adherence to the exclusive revelation contained in the Ko- ran could hardly explain their degeneration from simple religiosity to intolerant fanaticism. It was to be supposed, rather, that by calling themselves “Wahhabis”, Bedouin Arabs, who could doubtlessly become civilised but were still largely uneducated, cloaked their loathing for ethnic Turks in devotional fervour. This came all the more naturally since, in Arabia, the Turks were generally perceived as corrupt oppressors. More particularly, it was to be assumed that Muhammad ibn Saʿud and his successors had taken advantage of the spiritual impetus of the new religious movement to introduce a policy of armed expansion based on the choice of conversion or death foisted on their enemies.35 The theological loathing nurtured by the sect was thus devitalised,

34 Remarkably enough neither Badía nor any other early European witnesses, even when affirming Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s loyalty to Hanbali tradition, appear ever to have heard of a question closely connected with this subject and much debated in the later literature (following Ignaz Goldziher, 1878): the question of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al Wahhab’s debt to the ideas of the Hanbali theologian and jurist Ahmad ʿAbd al-Halim ibn Taimiya (1262–1328). Ibn Taimiya had vehemently denounced the fact that the title of “Muslim” had been usurped by the Mongol demolishers of the ʿAbbasid caliphate, invoking armed resistance against them, and even over the centuries remaining the main inspirer of all radical opposition to every kind of foreign domination in Muslim territory. While Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s first adversaries in Najd even imputed to him polemically the exacerbation and misrepresentation of the doctrines of Ibn Taimiya, cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 40, 79, 84, 88, his name is not mentioned in early European writings. This is probably due to theological ignorance, but it could also corroborate the opinion of DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 52–53, 108, 247–48, 256, convinced as she is that Ibn Taimiya’s bellicose spiritual legacy, rather than being appropriated by the Wahhabi leader, had in fact become part of the official doctrine of the first Saʿudi kingdom merely as a specious justification for the state of war with the Ottoman authorities. 35 On the “prétexte” of religious reform as an instrument of conquest (“pour attaquer les tribus voisines”), on the backwardness and “barbare” language of the Wahhabis, on their inclination to armed robbery, though only of enemies and infidels, on their loathing of 132 Chapter 3 without Badía having to play down the recent excesses of violence committed in Arabia in the name of the faith but in fact due to quite different motives. A “religion of equality”, restricted to austere, rarefied dogmas, an Islam based solely on the Koran as again announced by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, would not displease the self-styled “Muslim philosopher” ʿAli Bey, who was quite prepared to see in the new movement an indispensable stage, however imperfect and turbulent, in the controversial process of reforming and limiting the revelation of Muhammad to the rational content it had always contained.36

the Turks (“dont le nom seul suffit pour les mettre en fureur”), and also the uncultivated potential inherent in their gifts of forbearance and obedience, cf. [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit., II, pp. 324, 450; III, p. 34. Badía, who even declares that he had made the acquaintance of a “brillante [Wahhabi] jeunesse” in Mecca, cannot resist noting a strident contrast between his own positive impressions and those of common pilgrims and the inhabitants of the Hijaz, ibid, II, pp. 335–36: “Je dois à la vérité d’avouer que je trouvai beaucoup de raison et de modération chez tous les Wehhabis à qui j’adressai la parole. (…) Cependant, malgré cette modération, ni les naturels du pays, ni les pélerins ne peuvent entendre prononcer leur nom sans frémir, et ne le prononcent eux-mêmes qu’en murmurant.” This widespread discontent in the Hijaz with the Wahhabis observed by Badía must have been caused by four main factors. The first was the doctrinal presumption of the conquerors, considered uneducated and still partly nomadic natives from the pagan areas of Arabia. Then there was the secretly nurtured bitterness at the destruction of venerated monuments and the compulsory study of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s works. According to Ibn Zaini Dahlan “they began to teach the religion of the herdsmen! But even the most ignorant inhabitant of Mecca knows more than the most important of them!” And finally there was the financial loss suffered by the population of Medina as the result of the city being included among the territories subject to taxation. All this is confirmed in Peskes (1993), pp. 112, 135, 144–46, 318–20; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 79, 92, 138. An eloquent manifestation of this discontent is to be found in a supposedly conciliatory address by Saʿud to the inhabitants of Mecca in April 1803 in which, besides con- cessions to their customs (the consumption of coffee, love poems, panegyrics of sovereigns, the use of drums in battle and tambourines at weddings, etc.), the inhabitants of the city were said to be as backward in their religion as the so-called “peoples of the Book”, by which were meant Jews and Christians in need of further instruction in monotheism, cf. Cook (2000), p. 172; Peskes (1993), pp. 144–45. 36 “Philosophie”, with its conventional words of approval for the “simplicité du culte et de la morale du Prophête”, expressed in Voyages, cf. [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit., I, p. ix; II, p. 441, made Badía the target of Southey’s sarcasm, according to which only thanks to his hierophobia, that is the “philosopher’s disease”, (“A Spaniard may be forgiven for this – better is any faith than the faith of St. Dominic and Philip the Sec- ond”) could the traveller hide from himself the all too evident presence of clerics in Mus- lim society, cf. [R. Southey], “Travels of Ali Bey”, cit., p. 310. Exactly how Badía intended his own opinion to be received emerges more clearly in an exclamation concluding the Muslim “Puritans” 133

Further information of a political and military nature included sporadically in other chapters of the Voyages – the Kerbela massacre, the conquest of the entire Arabian peninsula “except for Mokha and a few other fortified cities in Yemen and Fortunate Arabia”, the geographical position of al-Dirʿiyya, the discipline of the troops, etc. – added little or nothing to the information already existing in Europe. Although the account was published in 1814, it in fact still reflected the situation of 1807. The Wahhabi leader Abu Nuqta, a native of Ye- men but in fact from ʿAsir, a southern region of the Hijaz, who died young in 1811, was described as still living and presented in the act of parading through the streets of Mecca with Saʿud. He was ascribed the role of potential protagonist in the not unlikely event of a split in the movement after the king’s demise. Sharif Ghalib who, over the years, was to become a supporter, albeit an ambiguous one, of Muhammad ʿAli, was described as still living under the rule of Saʿud, cowed, impoverished and retaining only residual power. This was so despite an agreement with the new occupiers of the Holy Places that Ghalib was still to receive the taxes from Mecca and Jidda, apparently the only taxes left for him to collect, at least in theory, by the Wahhabi party. The Ottoman sultan, the instigator and hypothetical beneficiary of the Egyptian expedition which was about to be launched against Mecca, still seemed remote and inert. His name was no longer mentioned during religious functions anywhere in the Saʿudi kingdom and his scanty garrisons, initially consigned to the forts, were later expelled from the entire Arabian Peninsula and were in danger of extermination throughout their retreat.37 By contrast, Badía’s admiration for the power of the sect, almost at its peak in 1807, was sincere. Faced with the economic and demographic decline of the idle sedentary population of Mecca, refractory to all agricultural and mining work – “This country probably abounds in minerals, but such treasures will remain hidden for as long as the ignorance of the inhabitants lasts” – with no books or schools and where the immorality of women was widespread, at least when compared with severe Muslim customs, the Wahhabis had had the merit of effecting, “without a bloodbath”, a true “political revolution” in the Hijaz.

description of his personal participation in the pilgrimage to Mecca, cf. [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit., II, pp. 331–32: “Aucun culte ne présente aux sens un spectacle plus simple, plus touchant et plus majestueux! (…) Philosophes de la terre! Permettez à Ali Bey de défendre sa religion (…). Ici il n’a point d’intermédiaire entre l’homme et la divinité: tous les individus sont égaux devant le Créateur; tous sont intime- ment persuadés que les œuvres seules les rapprocheront ou les écarteront de l’Etre suprême, sans qu’aucune main étrangère puisse faire changer l’ordre de cette justice immuable.” 37 Ibid, pp. 432–34, 438, 456–57; III, pp. 5–6, 27. 134 Chapter 3

Only in the concluding observations was there any echo of later developments in Europe and Asia. Badía thus announced that the establishment of the Wahhabi movement as a modern caliphate would encounter a major obstacle in the very same strict moral and religious principles which had until then contributed so greatly to its victory, and of which Badía had approved for other reasons. If unattenuated, the norms so far established threatened to preclude any future growth of the sect and to cause insurmountable resistance by the multitude subscribing to traditional forms of the faith opposed with such determination by the movement – forms which, though superstitious, offered greater consolation and came closer to elementary human needs.38 According to these forecasts at least, the enlightened philosophy Badía professed seemed finally to yield to the new views of the Restoration on the social benefits of ancestral religiosity and the causes of Napoleon’s eclipse. The esprit de conquête nurtured on virtue, in this case the virtue of “religious fanaticism”, was threatened with extinction in both Arabia and Europe by simple contact with its natural rival, esprit de commerce (“trade with foreigners will inadver- tently make clear the error of an almost unnatural austerity”). It seemed realistic to predict that regret for the really much more humane civil and religious disorders of the past, possibly together with the weakening of the new faith, was likely to extend even as far as Najd, since the Wahhabis, vainly engaged in hampering the development of profitable economic relations even with mem-

38 Ibid, II, pp. 458–59: “Je trouve un grand obstacle à la propagation de la réforme hors des déserts de l’Arabie, dans l’extrême rigidité des principes presque incompatibles avec les mœurs des nations qui ont quelques idées de civilisation, et qui sont accoutumées aux jouissances qui l’accompagnent; de sorte que si les Wehhabis ne se relâchent pas de la sévérité de ces principes, il me paroît impossible que le wehhabisme puisse se propager dans les pays qui entourent le désert. Alors cette grande population, qui ne produit et ne consomme presque rien, restera toujours dans son état de nullité au fond de ses déserts, sans autres relations avec le reste du monde que ses brigandages sur les caravans ou sur les bâtiments qui lui tomberont sous la main, et les difficultés qu’elle pourra opposer au pélerinage de la Mecque. Mais le temps lui apprendra que l’Arabie, sans les relations com- merciales des caravanes et du pélerinage, ne peut pas exister. La nécessité forcera alors à se relâcher de cet intolérantisme envers les autres nations, et le commerce avec les étran- gers leur fera sentir insensiblement la vice d’une austérité qui est presque contre nature; peu-à-peu le zèle se refroidira; les pratiques superstitieuses, qui sont toujours l’appui, la consolation et l’espérance de l’homme foible, ignorant ou malheureux, reprendront leur empire; et dès-lors la réforme du wehhabisme disparoîtra avant d’avoir consolidé son influence, et après avoir versé le sang de plusiurs milliers de victimes du fanatisme religieux. Telle est la triste vicissitude des choses humaines”. Aspiration to the caliphate and the “révolution politique” represented by the conquest of Mecca are mentioned earlier, ibid, pp. 434–35. Muslim “Puritans” 135 bers of other religions, could no longer count on military success. The echo of the first Wahhabi defeats by the invader Muhammad ʿAli inevitably made an impression in Europe and on the Catalan traveller himself who had returned from Arabia. At home he was already confronted by a popular anti-French up- rising steeped in Catholic piety and was ultimately forced to witness the collapse of Napoleon’s European order based on warfare. It might thus have seemed permissible to suppose that the Wahhabi “revolution” would in turn give way to the powers of restoration – Ottoman pashadoms, traditional Mus- lim customs – or that it might even turn out to be no more than a phase typical within every society subject to constant oscillations between opposite poles, consisting, on the one hand, of the intermingling of rustic virtue with ferocity and, on the other, of immorality hand in glove with refinement.39 After the publication of the news of the Saʿudi retreat from Mecca the reader might the more readily have been assailed by doubts even if they were not formulated explicitly in the Voyages. However, although Badía conceded that the Wahhabis’ religious thrust had run out of steam, he warned the public against trusting in the total defeat of the sect, “invincible not through their military strength, but because of the nature of their uninhabitable country” and which had never been submitted by aggressors.40 In fact no one was yet able to tell which side the armed conflict would finally favour. Nor could the role of revolutionary or restorer be assigned with absolute certainty either to the religious reformer who had appeared in Najd some time earlier or to the Albanian pasha who had recently gained considerable fame as the “regenera- tor” of Egypt. From now on European testimony from Arabia either supported Muhammad ʿAli’s war of liberation against the usurpers of the Muslim Holy Places, or expressed admiration for the Wahhabis’ patriotic resistance to the danger of foreign occupation. A propensity, however vague, towards one of these two positions was also to condition future opinions about the religion professed by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, which was no longer consid-

39 Classification of the first Wahhabi movement by Badía and other European witnesses vacillated between “revolutionary” and “reactionary”. Observers today classify so-called “fundamentalist” Muslim movements in similar categories, cf. Bascio (2007), p. 228; Cam- panini (2003), pp. 180–81; Peters (1989), p. 95 (“Fundamentalism is often seen as a syno- nym of Conservatism. This is not correct”); Philby (1930), p. xix (the latter with a typically paradoxical formulation: “The reactionary fanaticism of his [scil.: Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s] puritanical system paved the way for the ordered progress of a modern state”). 40 [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit., II, pp. 459–60: “On pourra conquérir momentanément la Mecque, Médine et les villes maritimes; mais de simples garnisons, isolées au milieu d’affreux déserts, pourront-elles tenir long-temps?” 136 Chapter 3 ered original. In their individual accounts, observers would once again give voice to their discordant sympathies for one or other of the opposing sides.

3 European Testimonies of the Redemption of Mecca

The 1811 Egyptian invasion of Arabia, successful in recovering the Muslim Holy Places sixteen months later, diminished, but without totally obliterating, the impression of a great future for the Wahhabi movement. The presence of Mu- hammad ʿAli in the Hijaz from August 1813 to June 1815, the death of Saʿud in April 1814, and an amazing victory won at Basal over his successor ʿAbd Allah in January 1815 were not yet sufficient to warrant faith in the imminent fall of the Saʿudi kingdom in Najd. The pashas’s troops still encountered considerable obstacles even after entering Medina and Mecca. Adverse weather conditions proved increasingly worrying. The shortage of news and the heavy cost of the undertaking took their toll on Egypt, long weighed down by Mamluk and French taxes imposed once again by the new ruler in Cairo. A flattering comparison of the Wahhabis even seemed possible with the partisans Napoleon confronted in Spain and Russia who had also been assisted by climatic, national and religious factors.41

41 We can only mention here the principal stages of the Egyptian expedition in Arabia which took Muhammad ʿAli’s army seven years. The landing at Yanbuʿ in October 1811 led by Tusun Pasha was followed by the Wahhabi rout of the invaders on the way to Medina at the Wadi al-Safra⁠ʾ in December. This delayed the occupation of the city in October 1812 for almost a year. Thanks to the complicity of Sharif Ghalib and the simultaneous withdrawal of the Wahhabi garrisons no fighting was involved in the occupation of Jidda nor later in that of Mecca (January 1813). A further Egyptian defeat at the oasis of Turaba was compensated for by the subsequent capture of the former Wahhabi governor of al-Ta⁠ʾif, ʿUthman al-Mudhaifi, in the autumn of 1813. He was transferred to Istanbul and there beheaded. The arrival of Muhammad ʿAli to direct operations in the Hijaz in September 1813 led to a break with Sharif Ghalib in December 1813. Ghalib was deported to Cairo and eventually exiled to Thessalonica. If further Egyptian defeats on the way to ʿAsir near Turaba and during an attempt to disembark at al-Qunfudha in the winter of 1813–14 had no worse consequences this was because of Saʿud’s sudden death in May 1814. Muhammad ʿAli, however, then won a great victory over the new Wahhabi leader ʿAbd-Allah at Basal in January 1815, thus gaining complete control of the Hijaz. He returned to Egypt in triumph. Tusun Pasha’s subsequent arduous advance eastwards into the province of al-Qasim led to a truce with ʿAbd-Allah in the summer of 1815 until, following the failure of peace negotiations in Cairo in the autumn of 1816, hostilities were renewed by the Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha, his brother Tusun having died of the plague. A long siege of the capital of the area, al-Rass, in October 1817 was followed by the conquest first of al-Qasim and then Muslim “Puritans” 137

Seen from Cairo, certain remarkable circumstances seemed to support this comparison. All landed property and hard currency in Egypt were requisi- tioned for the purposes of war. “Arabs, Copts, even negroes” were recruited to swell the inadequate number of “Turkish” militiamen conscripted in the Bal- kans, and nothing less than the deposition of Muhammad ʿAli was plotted during his absence. The cost of individual military successes was high and afforded the pasha only temporary satisfaction. “Every victory diminished his army”, “new hordes”, hardened by the trials of the desert, advanced against him and were always ready to intercept supplies across the Red Sea.42 It seemed so evident to the public that they were witnessing the labours of Sisyphus that in 1817, only a year before the capture of al-Dirʿiyya, the spectre of the anti-Napo- leonic guerrilla in the Iberian peninsula could still be used as a threat by the French consul in Egypt, Joseph Roussel, to let it be known at home how a probable defeat, with a possibly fatal effect on the whole region, awaited the Egyp- tian troops under Muhammad ʿAli’s son Ibrahim Pasha, recently arrived in Najd to complete the occupation of Arabia.43

of al-Shaqra⁠ʾ. The province of al-Washm was occupied in January 1818 and the Egyptians finally entered the heartland of Najd and conquered Durma in March 1818, numerous local Bedouin tribes having defected to the Egyptian side. This prepared the way for the final siege of al-Dirʿiyya between April and September 1818, culminating in the city’s capitulation. The destruction of the Saʿudi capital, which was never again to be reinstated as such but was replaced by al-Riyad, and the rapid evacuation of the entire region completed by Ibrahim Pasha in January 1819 marked the end of the conflict and the apparent eclipse of Wahhabi power. ʿAbd Allah was first taken to Cairo as a prisoner and then beheaded in Istanbul together with his retinue in December 1818, cf. Brandes (1999), pp. 100–26; Lorimer (1915), I, pp. 1081–89; Philby (1930), pp. 92–102; Philby (1955), pp. 121– 46; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 140–57; Weygand (1936), I, pp. 69–115. 42 H. Light, Travels in Egypt, Nubia, Holy Land, Mount Libanon, and Cyprus, cit., pp. 32–33: “The war of the Wahabbees, though begun with such brilliant success, did not continue favourable to the arms of the Pasha: new hordes advanced against him; every victory diminished his army, which was recruited with great difficulty. The inhabitants of the desert, inured to long and speedy marches, capable of supporting every fatigue in their burning sands, satisfied with the coarsest and scantiest food, were formidable enemies to the Turkish soldiers; who, accustomed to the plenty of Cairo, required constant supplies of necessaries from Egypt, which the shores of the Red Sea could by no means afford them. The convoys were often cut off by the activity of the Wahabbees, who, ever on the alert, came down in large bodies, when the smallness of the Turkish force ensured success.” 43 E. Driault (ed.), La formation de l’empire de Mohamed Aly de l’Arabie au Soudan (1814–1823). Correspondance des consuls de France en Égypte, Le Caire, 1927, p. 81: ”Les déserts de l’Ara- bie sont aux Turcs ce qu’étaient les guérillos d’Espagne pour nous, et lorsqu’un despote usurpateur [scil.: Muhammad ʿAli, implicitly compared with Napoleon] veut tout à lui et 138 Chapter 3

The situation on the eastern seaboard of the Arabian Peninsula was equally complicated. Here the Wahhabis bore the brunt of the reactions of England and the sultan of Muscat to piracy by the coastal Qawasim tribes, allies of the Saʿudi monarch and bold enough to threaten both British shipping and the Persian coasts44. Even the capture and destruction of the pirate bases of Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaimah and Shinas in January 1810 afforded the English and the Omani victors only short-lived tranquillity. The outcome of the contest remained uncertain, and the attempt to establish European influence over the territories proved vain, at least until the 1820 truce when the former Pirate Coast, re- named the Trucial Coast, finally became the first nucleus of the future Trucial States, now the United Arab Emirates.45

tout pour lui, il est rare que sa cupidité ne finisse par lui être funeste” (Roussel to the Duke of Richelieu, from Alexandria, 30 September 1817). During the same period al-Jabarti in Cairo notes public readings of the ḥadīth of al-Bukhari, repeated for five consecutive days to invoke victory for Ibrahim Pasha, of whom nothing more had been heard, cf. al-Jabarti, History of Egypt, cit., III, p. 396. 44 [A. Dupré], Voyage en Persie, Paris, 1819, I, p. 403: “Les pirates s’emparent tous les jours sans crainte et sans péril des bateaux caboteurs. Ils descendent sur la côte, et enlèvent les femmes, les enfans, les troupeaux; ils se sont même établis sans obstacle dans plusieurs îles du golfe.” Also ibid, II, p. 41: “Les bateaux de Bender-Bouchêhr servent au cabotage de ce port avec le golfe, et sur-tout avec Bassora. Mais aujourd’hui, pour naviguer, ils se ras- semblent en convoi au nombre de quinze ou vingt, par la crainte des Wahabis, qui vien- nent exercer des pirateries sur toutes ces côtes, et osent même attaquer les navires anglais.” Having arrived in Persia with Gardane, Dupré went along the coastal regions in search of a base for a possible French fleet on its way to India. 45 For an account of the 1809–10 Anglo-Oman expedition, cf. H. Jones Brydges, An Account of the transactions of His Majesty’s Mission to the court of Persia, cit., II, pp. 35–44; on his return Maurizi also supplied information on the mission. English military moves against the Qawasim pirates were almost as complicated as the Egyptian campaign in Central Arabia, and English witnesses were not always reliable. The pirates’ bases in the Persian Gulf had been a danger to East India Company navigation since 1778. They were not, however, allied to the Saʿudi kingdom or driven by religious motives until 1799. After a first retaliatory move on the part of the English fleet in 1805–806 had led to a merely ephemeral truce, further repeated seizures of British shipping caused the English authorities in India, in concert with the sultan of Muscat, to move on a grand scale against Ra⁠ʾs al- Khaimah and Shinas, albeit with little success, in 1809–10. A memorable event was the capture in 1808 of the brig Minerva, of which almost the entire crew were killed and the wife of Captain Taylor taken hostage with her child, held up to ransom, and only released after payment. Ultimately, after extensive renewed piracy in 1812 and repeatedly unsuccessful negotiations, a second conclusive naval expedition was launched against Ra⁠ʾs al- Khaimah. It was seconded by the eclipse of the Wahhabi movement in 1819–20. It took twelve warships armed with more than a hundred cannon and over 3,000 combat troops Muslim “Puritans” 139

Thanks to the involvement of foreigners and their various contacts with individual members of the religious movement, these military expeditions, though fraught with difficulties, were nonetheless of decisive importance in better acquainting Europe with Wahhabi religion and history. Adventurers in every sense of the word, originally attracted to the East by the disorders of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and later by their inability to adapt to the peace established by the Congress of Vienna, regular army officers with limited duties, men such as the Frenchman Joseph Vaissière (1786–1845), the Italians Vincenzo Maurizi and Giovanni Finati and the Irishman George Forster Sadleir (1789–1859), in fact lacked the necessary culture and spirit of discovery which inspired Niebuhr, Seetzen and Badía y Leblich. They nonetheless provided accounts of personal experiences which were at least readable and partly credible, and they supplied information of later use to authors drafting more important works of greater accuracy. Meanwhile the re-establishment of stable contact between the Arabian Peninsula and the neighbouring countries, Mu- hammad ʿAli’s benevolent attitude to Europeans and, after the fall of al-Dirʿiyya in September 1818, the forcible creation of a small colony of illustrious Wah- habi deportees in Cairo, all contributed to an improvement in the circulation of information and in some cases even of documents. It was the enterprising Maurizi, rather than the others, who tackled the problem of the Wahhabis’ religion. He was a papal subject whose revolutionary sympathies had forced him to take refuge in the East, as a doctor in the service of the sultan of Muscat between 1809 and 1811, and again in 1814. His History of Seyd Said, published in London in 1819 under the auspices of Gore Ouseley, former British ambassador in Persia and barely perturbed by the rumour of Napoleonic espionage accompanying his protégé, was principally an account of events under the ruling sultan which included much autobiograph- ical information and general considerations on the East. It was evident from the preface that the recent destruction of the capital of Najd by the Egyptians, also reported in the press, had left the author with a “great desire to inform the world of the origin of this Mohammedan sect”.46 In Muscat some years earlier

to bring about the drafting of a preliminary peace treaty and the establishment of the first British garrison on that coast, cf. Hajri (2006), pp. 77, 111–13; Hamilton (2010), pp. 89–90; Kelly (1968), pp. 17–21, 99–166; Lorimer (1915), I, pp. 180–85, 442–43, 634–70; Philby (1930), pp. 90–92, 104–105, 110; Troeller (1976), p. 15; Winder (1965), pp. 37–38, 47–49. 46 [V. Maurizi], History of Seyd Said, Sultan of Muscat. By Shaik Mansur, a Native of Rome, London, 1819, pp. xix-xx. A further eighty letters (still in need of translation for publication), sent to Europe by Maurizi during his stay in the East, remained in manuscript. Mau- rizi’s personality and adventures, like those of Finati and Sadleir, are known principally through what they wrote and the information in the preface to their respective narratives. 140 Chapter 3 a conversation between Maurizi and Saʿud’s emissary – a sort of moral censor imposed on the sultan of Oman as one of the conditions of peace in 1803 – was described as the best opportunity he had in Arabia to form an idea of the Wah- habi doctrine. Belief in the divine origin of the Koran and its angelic transmission; opposition to all cults of prophets, including that of the leader Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab; the justification and even sanctification of the persecution of the Turks, with anyone following a different form of Muslim observance being degraded to “heretics” as opposed to “true believers”; the ban on fermented drinks, coffee and tobacco; a degree of tolerance towards “infidel” minorities (supposedly Christians and Jews) as long as they were willing to submit, should all be considered established facts which the writer himself may have gathered from his predecessors. However, in addition to these items, Maurizi claimed to know that, even if Muhammad was a man beloved of God who deserved emulation, he was blamed by the Wahhabis for being responsible for the subsequent misrepresentation of his own teachings. It was he who first indulged in the original deplorable tendency to misuse his personal authority and that of the Holy Book which was imitated by his successors to the increasing detriment of the faith.47

In order to avoid the reaction to the revolutionary upheavals in Rome, Maurizi first went to Turkey and then to the Arabian Peninsula. He stayed there for three years, from 1809 to 1811, acting as the personal physician of Sayyid ibn Sultan, the sultan of Muscat, before moving to Baghdad and then entering Persian service. He ended his life impoverished in London after having tried his luck in India and Brazil. His employer’s direct involvement in military operations against the Qawasim pirates and the dreaded Mutlaq al-Mutairi’s Wahhabi warriors at the oasis of al-Buraimi enabled him to visit the interior of Oman and the present United Arab Emirates. On the unquestionable importance of his Arabian experiences, but also on much of his information being only partly credible, cf. Bidwell (1995), pp. 199–200; Hajri (2006), p. 138; Hamilton (2010), p. 111; Hogarth (1904), p. 135; Pfullmann (2001), p. 294. 47 [V. Maurizi], History of Seyd Said, Sultan of Muscat, cit., pp. 40–41: “We do not differ from other Musaleems, or Muselims (Mussulmen) except in thinking that Mahomet arrogated to himself too much authority; and, that the Koran was sent to the earth by the hands of angels, and not that of man, who has even dared to falsify many of its doctrines; we also consider that the prophets, and especially Maamèt ìben Abdulvaàb, were beings like ourselves; and, therefore, not worthy of being addressed in prayer, although deserving of admiration and imitation for their piety and moral conduct. There is but one God, the Koran is his word, and mankind his children, who are bound to love him, in return for the proofs of his affection they are constantly receiving. True believers are strictly enjoined to persecute infidels, and oblige them to adopt the true faith. Not only fermented liquors are prohibited by our law, but music, the smoking of tobacco, and the drinking of coffee, are considered to have a tendency to evil. We rigidly inculcate an adherence to the precepts Muslim “Puritans” 141

It must have seemed uncertain even to his contemporaries how far these items of information were fact or fiction, especially in the case of the latter assertion. Maurizi even affirmed that the prophet’s tomb at Medina had been destroyed and that the leader ʿAbd al-ʿAziz – although at this point it must in fact have been Saʿud – had proclaimed Muhammad “a deceiver rather than a messenger from Heaven”. Nothing less than the “conquest of the whole world” was the declared objective of the sect.48 The circumstances of the conversation with the Wahhabi spokesman remained so veiled in mystery as to justify the suspicion that it was a literary invention. Yet words misunderstood in an imperfectly known language, accusations of the Wahhabis circulating among local Muslims, the majority of whom were not Sunni but Ibadi, and information easily accessible in Niebuhr and Corancez, both mentioned in the volume, may well have got mixed up in the author’s memory to produce this contradictory result. However questionable the account, it was redeemed by the alluring fact of its coming from someone who had actually met and fought against the sectarians.49 The same could be said of Finati and Sadleir who, although they never dared hazard interpretations of religious matters, nonetheless supplied elements for a deeper understanding of the entire phenomenon. The salient themes in both accounts were the extreme cruelty of the war waged for the “redemption of

of the Koran, without tolerating any heretics like the Othmans; and if we permit a few infidels to live in our dominions, it is only in the character of slaves, who are obliged to uncover the head in our presence; so that you will be permitted to live at Dereia, even should you refuse to adopt our creed; recollecting, however, always to behave with humil- ity and reverence towards every Vaàbi.” On the existence in Muscat of a Wahhabi wakīl entrusted with the supervision of local customs and the payment of tax to the ruler of al-Dirʿiyya (as recounted by Maurizi), cf. Lorimer (1915), I, pp. 442, 446, 1057, 1075. 48 [V. Maurizi], History of Seyd Said, Sultan of Muscat, cit., pp. 38, 44, 49, 124. “Vaàbi”, coming from him, the definition of himself by Saʿud’s envoy (presented simply as Muhammad), seems most improbable, while the contempt for the Prophet, the “author of the Koran”, manifested by the Wahhabis was held to be the reason for their being reputed heretics by other “Mahometans”. The dialogue appears to have taken place on Maurizi’s return to Muscat in 1814, since there are allusions to recent facts concerning Muhammad ʿAli’s recent expedition to Arabia – the Egyptian recovery by conquest of the Holy Places, Wah- habi success against Tusun Pasha at Turaba. Elsewhere, however, Maurizi says that the emissary of the sect had been expelled from Muscat in 1809 with the arrival of the English fleet and the Omani repudiation of the pact of submission to Saʿud, ibid, pp. 5, 53. 49 During the truce Maurizi recounts that he had also taken part in a conversation with the dreaded Wahhabi leader, Mutlaq al-Mutairi, and that he was impressed by both his “civil- ity” and “gentleness”, as also by the perseverance and courage of his men, inspired with “religious enthusiasm”, ibid, pp. 70, 117–18. 142 Chapter 3

Mecca” between two camps, with differing blends of mercenary spirit and fanaticism; the mutual national antipathy between indigenous Arabs and Egyp- tian invaders, and even between the different ethnic groups in Muhammad ʿAli’s army; and, finally, the complete destruction of al-Dirʿiyya and the apparent disappearance in 1819 of any traces of Wahhabi loyalty in Najd. Finati, who had converted to Islam in Albania to avoid Napoleonic conscription, reached Alexandria in the aftermath of an unsuccessful love affair. He then fought with Muhammad ʿAli in the Arabian Peninsula in 1814–15 before withdrawing to Egypt as an interpreter to European travellers who included his compatriot Giovanni Battista Belzoni and William Bankes, the English collector interested in local antiquities.50 Sadleir, a captain in the army of the East India Company also engaged in warding off the pirates in the Persian Gulf, had crossed the entire width of Arabia from al-Qatif to Yanbuʿ in 1819–20 and was the first Eu- ropean to complete the undertaking. He was on an embassy to Ibrahim Pasha who had withdrawn to the neighbourhood of Medina after the victory. Sadleir had thus been able to register not only the desolation produced by the Egyp- tians in Najd, but also the tenacious religious sentiment of the local Bedouin in contrast to contemporary opinion that they had no interest in the faith. A more acute observer, however, would have attributed this to the effect of Wahhabi proselytism. Deaf to this hypothesis, which would have required a greater detachment from the prevalently negative aura produced by the defeats of Wah-

50 W.J. Bankes (ed.), Narrative of the life and adventures of Giovanni Finati, London, 1830, I, p. 100: “Much was added to Mahometan ardour and enthusiasm [scil.: the soldiers of Muhammad ʿAli, called “Mahometans” in contrast to the Wahhabis] by the title now openly given to the expedition, which was that of the redemption of Mecca.” The author was, however, obliged to note the antipathy of simple Bedouin to the invaders, although he was indebted to a group of nomads for his life during the rout of the Egyptians at al- Qunfuda, ibid, pp. 244–50; ibid, II, p. 5. To complete the picture are stories of heads and limbs severed in contests held in the Arab villages captured by Albanians in the pasha’s service in exchange for money, or of Wahhabis inflicting similar mutilations on Egyptian prisoners then left to perish in the desert, ibid, I, pp. 223, 287. Finati from Ferrara deserted from the Napoleonic army stationed in Montenegro and took refuge at Scutari in Otto- man territory where he converted to Islam. He then sailed to Egypt, enlisted under Muhammad ʿAli, and took part in the deception and murder of the remaining Mamluk leaders hated by his employer in March 1811. After joining Tusun Pasha on his way to Ara- bia he was involved in some of the worst defeats the Egyptians suffered in the peninsula, from where he made an adventurous escape. Finally, after visiting Mecca and catching the plague in Jidda, Finati retired to Egypt, where he worked as an interpreter to European visitors who included Bankes, the future editor of his memoirs, cf. Bidwell (1995), pp. 121– 22; Hogarth (1904), pp. 85–86; Pfullmann (2001), pp. 210–11; Sabini (1981), pp. 87–92, 96, 129–30; Surdich (1997), Visani (1941). Muslim “Puritans” 143 habism at the time, Sadleir preferred to imagine that this nomadic population had returned to the bosom of a no better identified Sunni orthodoxy, from which it had previously departed through mere lust for loot during the years of the sect’s expansion.51 Lastly, although the Frenchman Vaissière, a former artillery officer under Napoleon and Ibrahim Pasha’s director of cannon against Wahhabi fortifica- tions, left no account in print of his extraordinary personal experience, he nonetheless brought back interesting news from Najd. He was the bearer of

51 G.F. Sadlier (sic), “Account of a Journey from Katif on the Persian Gulf to Yamboo on the Red Sea”, in Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, III, 1823, p. 490: “With the fall of Deriah and the departure of Abdoollah, the sect of the Wahabis appears to have been extinguished. All the Bedouins of Nedjed, and all whom I saw, universally declared themselves to be Soonees, and were particularly punctual in their devotions, never omitting to perform the stated prayers even on the longest marches and under the severest priva- tions. A strange contrast to the more enlightened Turk, who never allowed prayer or religion to interfere with his comfort or ease! I, however, met some persons at Munfooah and Riad, who avowed themselves to be of the Wahabi faith; but their number was inconsider- able, and they were the remains of the inhabitants of Deriah, and not Bedouins. The Bedouins, as I understood, had only been constrained followers of the Wahabi faith, and had merely adhered to it as long as the sect was powerful and afforded them the means of plunder.” Sadleir precedes this with a brief description of Ibrahim Pasha’s campaign in Najd, ibid, pp. 485–89. A complete edition of Sadleir’s travel diary – he never lost an instinctive antipathy for “Mahomedan superstition and fanaticism”, ibid, p. 476 – only became available in 1866. However, his first account, communicated to the Literary Soci- ety of Bombay (24 April 1821) was highly praised as the ideal continuation of Corancez’s Histoire. The French consul had followed the Wahhabis to the height of their power and now, thanks to the British envoy, the circumstances of their ruin had been made known, ibid, p. 451. Sadleir’s surname was often transcribed erroneously as Sadlier, even in official registers and his own publications. He took part in the same military operations against the Qawasim pirates in 1809–10 as Maurizi and then spent five years in Persia, from 1810 to 1815. He was entrusted by Lord Hastings with an unsuccessful mission to Ibrahim Pasha, which gained him lasting fame and obliged him to cross the entire Arabian peninsula from coast to coast in search of the Egyptian army which was then retreating to Medina. Having left the East India Company sometime between 1826 and 1837, he returned to his native Ireland where he became sherif of Cork before deciding to migrate to Australasia in 1855. He died in New Zealand in 1859, aged seventy-three, cf. Bidwell (1995), pp. 138–40; Edwards (1957); Kelly (1968), pp. 143–45, 151; Lorimer (1915), I, pp. 197, 661–64, 949–51; Philby (1930), pp. 103–105; Pfullmann (2001), pp. 395–96; Sabini (1981), pp. 168–78; Vassi liev (1998), p. 159; Winder (1965), pp. 40–46. Despite his prejudices and his limited knowledge of Arabic, the quality of the geographic and ethnographic information he collected in Central Arabia is comparable to that derived by Jomard from French sources in the appendix of Mengin’s first work, cf. Hogarth (1904), pp. 104–12, 115. 144 Chapter 3 oral and written communications which may have lacked accuracy, but which were put to good use by someone else.52 On the strength of his information a fellow Frenchman, Félix Mengin, for long a merchant in Cairo and a former Napoleonic agent who was later reinstated as such by Chateaubriand, wrote and published an Histoire de l’Égypte sous le gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly in 1823, the date at which the narrative ended, with an epistle dedicatory to his new protector, the French foreign minister, which would long remain the best source in Europe on the last phase of the Egyptian campaign against the Saʿudi kingdom.53 Here the notion of the strength of the Wahhabis must have been conditioned by the desirability of multiplying the number of the defeated for

52 A summary of this testimony, together with displeasure at Vaissière’s inadequate geographic and ethnographic knowledge, is to be found in a report from the Consul Roussel, cf. E. Driault (ed.), La formation de l’empire de Mohamed Aly de l’Arabie au Soudan, cit., pp. 129–33 (letter from Alexandria to the Duke of Richelieu, 29 December 1818). A work entitled Mèmoires sur la campagne de Méhémed-Ali, pacha d’Egypte, contre les Wéhabites, drafted in Italian (sic) based on some of Vaissière’s papers, was in fact mentioned in advance in a text by Pierre Paul Thédenat-Duvent, the French consul in Alexandria, but was never published, cf. L’Égypte sous Méhémed-Ali, publié par F.J. Joly, sur le manuscrit de M.P.P. Thédénat-Duvent, Paris, 1822, pp. 118–19 nt. Something of Vaissière’s information could have been used by Édouard Gouin in his celebrating account of the Egyptian campaign in Arabia, based mainly on Mengin’s work, but also mentioning the testimony of a mysterious Sheikh Aʿous (infra, note 59) and exalting the role of Muhammad ʿAli’s Euro- pean counsellors, Vaissière among them, cf. E. Gouin, L’Egypte au XIXe siècle, Boizard, Paris, 1847, pp. 262, 267–68, 310, 331 (Chapter VIII: Les Wahabis 1811–1819). 53 F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte sous le gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly, Paris, 1823. Vais- sière is presented as Ibrahim Pasha’s aide-de-camp and as taking part in the expedition against al-Dirʿiyya. With him were “Antonio Scoto, son (scil.: Ibrahim Pasha’s) médecin, Andrea Gentili, Todeschini et Socio, chirurgiens et pharmacien (...), les premiers Euro- péens peut-être qui pénétrerènt dans le pays de Nedjd”, ibid, II, p. 84. This information corresponds to Burckhardt, who mentions two or three French officers in the train of Ibrahim Pasha, “one of which a chef d’escadre, who had been with Bonaparte at Roche- fort”, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 420; Id., Travels in Nubia, cit., pp. lxxxv-vi. The numerous French military, medical and technical experts in the service of Muhammad ʿAli in Egypt, as well as the considerable Italian contingent, have yet to be thoroughly studied. They originally took part in the Egyptian campaign of 1798, from which by no means all the participants returned to Europe. Other soldiers from the imperial army arrived after 1815. Of these, Vaissière, a former officer in the engineers, is known principally for having taken part in Ibrahim Pasha’s expedition in Najd. Later, having settled in the Sudan in 1823, he earned a living as a merchant of rubber, coffee and slaves and as a French agent in Khartum, cf. Pfullmann (2001), p. 435; Weygand (1936), I, pp. 96, 112. Mengin was the main collaborator in Egypt of the French Consul Drovetti, the only French agent in Cairo between 1804 and 1807. Having left the country in 1812, he returned under the auspices of the new Foreign Minister Chateaubriand in 1823, but his Muslim “Puritans” 145 the greater glory of their victor Muhammad ʿAli, but also by the fear that an independent politico-religious body in Najd might constitute an impediment to the interests of France. Mengin’s text, inspired by evident enthusiasm for the Egyptian pasha, aimed to gain the support of French power, now on its way to recovery, for the establishment of a modern dynastic state in Cairo entirely independent of the Porte. This, at least, was what the veterans of Napoleon’s Battle of the Nile hoped, as did the influential Consul Drovetti. Rather than the hypothesis of a national Arab renaissance, conceived of a few years earlier in the writings of Rousseau and Corancez as the natural outcome of an autoch- thonous religious reform, the colonial dream harboured by Mengin and the other French admirers of Muhammad ʿAli envisaged an Egypt open to modern European civilisation. This was to be transmitted through the despotism of an exceptional individual favoured by France who would also be able to propel Syria and Arabia along the path of progress. The desirable realisation of this second possibility meant that the fall of al-Dirʿiyya was necessarily propitious.54 For the entire period of Egyptian military tutelage of the Hijaz, which lasted until 1841, and particularly in the light of the multiplicity of international complications attending the “Eastern Question”, growing disappointment with the unfulfilled hope and astonishment at the constant Wahhabi insurrections against the occupiers finally became a recurrent theme in the communications of Muhammad ʿAli’s French military advisors and doctors.55 In “the struggle of the innovating spirit against the stationary spirit”, – the great theme of

luck ran out after Chateaubriand’s resignation, cf. Faivre d’Arcier (1990), pp. 89–95, 104– 105, 178. 54 Mengin, worried that the Napoleonic character of such an interest in Egypt might harm the cause at the court of Louis XVIII, even went so far as to attribute to Muhammad ʿAli an awareness that “au mantien de la dynastie de l’antique maison de Bourbon est lié le repos du monde”, cf. F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., II, p. 48. A positive assessment of Muhammad ʿAli as the liberator of Mecca and Medina has recently been suggested by Schwartz (2002), p. 80, according to whom Muhammad ʿAli had obliterated the “dictator- ship” of the Wahhabis in the Holy Places. For a more sceptical view of the praise showered on Muhammad ʿAli, especially as regards his presumed merits as initiator of the transformation of Egypt into a modern state (as his nineteenth-century admirers in Europe and twentieth-century Egyptian nationalists maintained), cf. Fahmy (1997), pp. 275–77; Fahmy (1998), pp. 178–79. 55 As early as 1825, with Muhammad ʿAli’s intervention, so unpopular in Europe, against the Greek insurgency in Morea, how impossible the desired pro-Egyptian policy would be for the French monarchy began to emerge more clearly. However, the idea that Napoleon had established a special link with Egypt was destined to survive for some time to come. As late as 1936 a military history of Muhammad ʿAli was written by General Weygand, a victorious member of the 1918 French military staff and future commander-in-chief on the occasion of the defeat in 1940. 146 Chapter 3 the moment in Europe, also projected thence to include Asia with its apparently similar social conflicts – it must have seemed ironic to less biased observers that the resources of progress and modern civilisation ensured by France were employed on both shores of the Red Sea in support of an “immobile” regime. Traditional Islamic orthodoxy, reinstated by the Egyptians thanks to French arms and customs, seemed intent on eradicating indomitable aspirations to a “reform” still attributed to the Wahhabis.56 Just a few years after their apparently definitive defeat the Wahhabis had again become so threatening that, from 1824 on, Muhammad ʿAli’s troops were constantly engaged in driving the “heretics” back from the environs of Mecca. Jules Planat, a former officer in Napoleon’s Guard and since 1825 director of a military school on a European model in Cairo, even hinted at their temporary reappearance in the Holy City and expressed considerable fear on account of a recent Egyptian defeat in the Wadi Fatima area.57 At this point in the rest of the

56 Descoudray, “Voyage à la Mekke”, in Nouvelles Annales des Voyages et des Sciences Géogra- phiques, deuxième série, XI, 1829, pp. 198–99: “C’est un curieux spectacle que celui d’une réformation toute puissante, long-temps triomphante, et devant ses succès à l’invincible progression de l’esprit humain, obligée de reculer, de céder devant le régime stationnaire, aidé des arts de l’Europe et des secours de la civilisation occidentale. Tel est le schisme des Wahabis refoulé dans les déserts où il fermente de plus en plus; refoulé, dis-je, par les armes musulmanes de Mohammed-Ali, aidé d’artilleurs et d’officiers jetés sur les dunes de l’Égypte par les factions politiques de la France.” The article contains a summary of the past Wahhabi feats which only partly corresponds to Rousseau’s cited 1818 Mémoire. In fact Descoudray’s main theory, which can be traced back to his stay in Arabia in 1826–27, is that the leader ʿAbd al-Wahhab questioned the usurped authority of the sunna over the Koran and claimed to remove errors included in the Holy Book by Muhammad, ibid, pp. 205–206. The term “réformation” is eloquent. It is no accident that a few pages later the Wahhabis should be dubbed “protestant arabes”, ibid, p. 214. 57 The title of Planat’s memoirs, published in epistolary form as letters to Count Alexandre de Laborde when he had returned to France but after his suicide, make his bias towards Muhammad ʿAli evident. The Wahhabis are portrayed as a threat to Islam and their origin ascribed to 1770 under a leader of the name of Saʿud, cf. J. Planat, Histoire de la Régénéra- tion de l’Égypte, Paris-Genève, 1830, p. 13: “Les Wahebis [sont] Arabes d’un schisme héré- tique, et n’admettent pas le prophète”. In letters XXXI and XXXII (respectively from the outskirts of Cairo, 20 September 1827 and Alexandria, 30 October 1827) there are accounts of clashes in the Hijaz with Egyptian troops disciplined in the European manner, based on news spread through the Egyptian capital, where Sharif Yahya, a nephew and since 1814 the successor of the deposed Ghalib, was rumoured to be guilty of betrayal, ibid, pp. 223, 256. Planat’s inaccurate report that the Wahhabis had again entered Mecca in 1827 can be explained by the fact that the dreaded name was applied indiscriminately to numerous different opponents of Egyptian administration in the Holy Places, including the followers of the rebellious Sharif Yahia ibn Surur, who was deposed in that same year, cf. Winder (1965), pp. 50 nt., 69. For Planat’s service record, cf. Weygand (1936), II, p. 201. Muslim “Puritans” 147 peninsula not only Najd but also ʿAsir seemed destined to become hotbeds of renewed resistance to the proclaimed pan-Arab projects of the pasha of Egypt, a man of Albanian origin and, in native eyes, no more than a “Turk” who was branded with impiety at least according to Wahhabi principles.58 Descoudray, Planat and Tamisier, the latter an adept of Saint-Simonianism and a participant in an unsuccessful Egyptian expedition in 1834 against the ʿAsir (in his capacity as secretary to M. Chedufau, the doctor in charge), were also dispassionate witnesses of the surprising difficulty the French had in achieving their aims in Arabia in spite of the resources supplied to their main Egyptian ally and ruler of the region. In 1838, at the time of the second short- lived Egyptian occupation of Najd, it again fell to Mengin and his mentor Jo- mard, the most important spokesman for France’s Egyptian projects, to canvas in vain among the French public and Louis Philippe’s government for support for Muhammad ʿAli against the resentment of the court of Istanbul rekindled by Russia and Great Britain. This was the last occasion on which the ageing pasha’s efforts to decapitate the Wahhabi hydra met with approval from his old admirers in Europe.59

58 M. Tamisier, Voyage en Arabie. Séjour dans le Hedjaz Campagne d’Assir, Paris, 1841, I, pp. 359–60. In the disenchanted view of the author, Muhammad ʿAli was no longer credited with a religious motive, which was considered merely the mask of ferocious personal ambition. Much space is dedicated to the words of a sheikh descended from the deceased leader Abu Nuqta, who recognised the Wahhabis’ “le dessein bien arrêté de reconstituer sur des bases nouvelles la nationalité arabe”. Their benevolent representation as “musulmans novateurs”, hostile only to “mahométisme tel qu’on le conçoit à la Mekke”, does not, however, deter Tamisier, faced with the ruin of monuments at al-Ta⁠ʾif still visible twenty years after the expulsion of the “fanatiques”, from denouncing the “vandalisme des Oua- habis”, and affirming that the latter would not spare the heavens if only it were possible to attack them, ibid, pp. 277–78, 289. A sad reversal indeed compared with the hypothesis that the new devotees merely promoted a simple cult beneath the celestial vault! (supra, Chapter I, note 43). 59 In a full introduction to Mengin’s continuation of Histoire de l’Égypte, written as before by Jomard, a renewed attempt was made on 25 March 1839 to oppose the Eastern policy of the minister Guizot, guilty of judging the Egyptian government by “liberal” standards, cf. F. Mengin, Histoire sommaire de l’Égypte sous le gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly, Paris, 1839, pp. xiii-xiv, xxxv. Mengin’s new account, starting from 1823, also includes a brief description of the Egyptian invasion of Najd led by Kurshid Pasha in 1838, ibid, pp. 473–78. A sketch of Wahhabi history under the past sovereigns ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, Saʿud and ʿAbd Allah, by a Sheikh A’ous, a follower of Abu Nuqta, entitled “Tableau des événements qui se sont passés naguère dans l’Hedjâz”, is given here in the French version by the future translator of Abu ’l-Fida⁠ʾ Joseph Toussaint Reinaud, ibid, pp. 318–24. On the Wahhabis as “Hydra” in Arabia (a metaphor destined to have a great success with reference to radical Islamic movements) see the German geographer Carl Ritter, Die Erdkunde im Verhältniß zur Natur und zur Geschichte der Menschen, Berlin, 1822–59, XII, p. 934; XIII, p. 520 (volumes 148 Chapter 3

None of these writings, however, achieved the same importance as Mengin’s first work, at least where the debate about the political and religious events in Najd were concerned. His Histoire de l’Egypte of 1823 was finally accepted as being authoritative even by those who disapproved of the design behind it. At a later stage it still enjoyed an enduring reputation as a completion of Burck- hardt’s Notes which were written from a completely different point of view and, even if already in existence, would only be published some time later. Still inspired by Napoleon’s slogans in Cairo, enriched by the collaboration of the celebrated orientalist Louis Mathieu Langlès, the young Egyptian Joseph Agoub, not to mention Jomard himself, Mengin’s work was destined to counterbalance, at least partly, in nineteenth-century European eyes, the different views of the better known Swiss traveller, an anglophile who had no liking for Muhammad ʿAli. Published at a time when Burckhardt’s ideas were still relegated to manuscripts, it inevitably made the earlier impression on the reading public. But it also remained more linked to the past where the specific conclusions about religion were concerned. The same could not be said, however, of some of the remarkable documents which it reproduced.

4 Wahhabi Hostages in Cairo: Mengin’s “Précis”

The Egyptian expedition to Arabia was the reason for including the Wahhabis in Mengin’s Histoire. Consequently little needed to be said about the origins and beliefs of the sect. The reader was informed of the early cooperation between the leader Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and Sheikh Muhammad ibn Saʿud at al-Dirʿiyya, the one moved by “principles of reform”, the other by the more prosaic desire to increase his possessions thanks to a “change of religion”. The review ended with the expansion under the successor ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, his assassination and Saʿud’s conquest of the Holy Places – an authentic casus belli for the Porte and the pasha of Egypt.60 What in fact the doctrinal disagree-

XII-XIII of the second edition comprise Vergleichende Erdkunde von Arabien, 1846–47). Jomard, who was one of the savants accompanying Napoleon to Egypt and co-founder of the Société de Géographie (1821), dedicated a large part of his life to the development of Franco-Egyptian relations and was the initiator of a project to establish a permanent mission of Egyptian students in Paris. His support of Muhammad ʿAli, but also his increasing doubts as to the value of this choice are confirmed in unpublished archive material, in particular his Notes sur plusieurs branches de l’administration publique de l’Egypte of 1839, cf. Silvera (1971). 60 F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., I, pp. 378–82. The Wahhabis are described as “auda- cieux rebelles” as they appeared to Ottoman power; few events marked their history: the Muslim “Puritans” 149 ment between the warring parties was could only be inferred from their reciprocal accusations. On the one hand we have the Turkish and Egyptian disapproval of the Wahhabis for inflicting sufferings on “the people of God”, particularly “Muslim pilgrims”, for waging war on the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina, and for the outrage to the divine majesty caused by the desecration of Muhammad’s tomb. On the other scorn was poured on Muhammad ʿAli for his supposed determination to impose on the “Muslims”, on pain of death, “a belief which makes of the Sultan an idol, permits pederasty, drunkenness, usury, games forbidden by law”, and worse still, a belief so incompatible with “the oneness of God” as in practice to admit His “plurality”. Mengin did not, however, offer any interpretation, even on the evidence of the rivalry between the two religious factions each eager to be called “Muslims”, and he was still content with the conventional definition of the Wahhabis as “devotees of Theism” (sectateurs du Théisme).61 The originality of the work resided in the information about customs in Najd. It discussed demography, agriculture, medicine, the administration of justice, in particular family rights and negotiable conditions for a marriage (including the request that the future husband not take other wives and concu- bines), if and how the woman’s consent was sought, the obligations towards her in the case of repudiation and so on, besides containing the usual observations on the fate of Muslim women, their hidden faces causing Mengin to adopt the widespread metaphor of likening them to “walking ghosts”.62 In an appendix to the Histoire, geographical essays by Jomard described the physical features of Najd, while Langlès contributed a substantial note on the linguistic origins of the name “Wahhabi” (to be traced back to the adjective wahhab, “generous”, the thirty-first name attributed to God), and the extent of the heresy. Corancez’s influence on Langlès was still strong enough to induce him to specify that the reasons for doctrinal rivalry were principally concentrated in the following points: the sect’s total refusal to allow the worship of human beings; the literal acceptance of the Koran rather than of the “traditions” – Lan- glès assumed that this meant the entire corpus of the ḥadīth; and, finally, the commandment to treat Muslims refractory to the reform as “infidels”, to be

birth and death of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (1691–1787); the death of Muhammad ibn Saʿud in 1765; an expedition from Baghdad to annihilate them in 1796; the sack of Kerbela in 1810 (sic, misprint for 1801). 61 Ibid, II, p. 159. Remonstrations against the Wahhabis are contained in a letter from Tusun Pasha to their sovereign ʿAbd Allah on the occasion of a truce in June 1815. The accusations from the other side are pronounced in a proclamation of ʿAbd Allah himself, promulgated on the renewal of hostilities, ibid, pp. 57, 69. 62 Ibid, pp. 181–84. 150 Chapter 3 persecuted with such ferocity as would have provoked the envy of the Inquisi- tion.63 Although this merely confirmed what was already known, a brilliant, more innovative “Précis de l’histoire des Wahabys” based on an Arabic source supplemented the hitherto incomplete historical information in Europe. It also made up for Mengin’s failure to mention the religious and political vicissitudes of Arabia before the Egyptian invasion. The person actually responsible for this chronicle remained a mystery. In the editor’s premise to the Histoire the drafting of the “Précis” was simply included among the numerous results obtained by Mengin – the outcome of his profitable meetings with a grandson of the Wahhabi leader, a certain “Abder- rahman el-Oguyeh” (sic), otherwise unknown, deported to Cairo towards the end of 1818. Much information was attributed to this hostage, including material of use to Jomard in the preparation of his attached map of Najd. Whatever the origin of the text, whether oral or written, in whatever way the translation from Arabic into French and the dates calculated on the Christian calendar had come about, whether the work of Mengin, Jomard or Agoub, the document contained far more information than the almost homonymous text by Rousseau published five years earlier (supra, Chapter II, note 53), and was indeed a watershed in European acquaintance with the Wahhabis. It greatly increased knowledge of events and partly confirmed Niebuhr’s hitherto unverified facts.64

63 Ibid, pp. 620–32: “Notes de M. Langlès”, in particular, “Signification du mot Wahâby et plus correctement Wéhhâby” , ibid, pp. 620–22: “Ils [scil.: the Wahhabis] professent, comme tous les musulmans, l’unité de Dieu, et regardent Mahomet comme son prophète; (...) ils traitent de blasphémateurs ceux qui prétendent que Mahomet, les imâms ou les saints, peuvent exercer quelque autorité, quelque influence sur les affaires des hommes, ou leur rendre quelque service dans la vie future”; thus they recommend as an “act méritoire” the destruction of “sépultures pompeuses”. Added to which, ibid: “Ils [scil.: the Wahhabis] conviennent que le Corân a été envoyé du ciel à Mahomet, mais ils ne regardent ce dernier que comme un homme de bien chéri de Dieu, et rejetant toute tradition orale, nom- mée Hhadytz. Ils pratiquent la circoncision, les ablutions, etc., plutôt par habitude que comme des rites exigés par la religion et indispensables. Par une intolérance égale au moins à celle qui animait les membres de nos inquisitions d’Europe, ils se croient au moins obligés de poursuivre et d’exterminer tous ceux qui professent une croyance diffé- rente de la leur, les musulmans même qui n’adoptent pas la réforme qu’ils veulent intro- duire”; thus reducing them to “infidèles” because of their deviance “du sense simple et littéral du Corân”. Hence Langlès’ conclusion: rather than a “secte”, the Wahhabis are to be considered a “hérésie de l’islamisme”. Corancez, the source for the entire note, is mentioned slightly later on. 64 Ibid, pp. 449–544: “Précis de l’histoire des Wahabys” – with no indication of the author. The mysterious “cheyk Abderrahman el-Oguyeh, petit-fils du célèbre ebn-Abdul-Wahab, Muslim “Puritans” 151

The “village” of al-ʿUyaina, previously mentioned by Niebuhr and indicated, both in Rousseau’s “Précis” and in Brydges’ unpublished report, as Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s residence during his brief association with Sheikh Ibn Muʿammar, was given as the birthplace of the Wahhabi leader. Basra, Medina and Mecca, in that order – the same order used by Rousseau’s Sheikh Sulaim- an, with the exception of Medina – must have been the stages of his educational journey during his youth. On his return to Najd, first to Huraimila and then again to al-ʿUyaina, his severity in ordering the stoning of a “prostitute” (in 1818 Rousseau had written “adulteress”), a death decreed by law, led to his exile and exposed him to the attempted murder plotted by the emir of the province of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ in connivance with the local sheikh, neither of whose names are mentioned. Only the flight to al-Dirʿiyya and the protection of Muhammad ibn Saʿud, obtained thanks to the intervention of friends won over to the new cause, put an end to these vicissitudes. It marked the beginning of armed preaching prepared, in a series of letters, by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and under his spiritual direction.65 The first military expansion of the Saʿudi

fondateur de cette secte fameuse”, is later mentioned by Langlès as “cheikh A’bd-er-Rah- mân” having the same illustrious forbear, ibid, I, pp. vi-vii; II, pp. 560–61 nt. He seems to be identifiable with ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Hasan (1779–1868), the learned grandson of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, held hostage in Cairo from 1818 to 1826, a scholar who influenced the entire cultural life of the Saʿudi kingdom in the nineteenth century, cf. Cook (1992), p. 192 nt., Peskes (1993), pp. 172–75, 190. He must have known Ibn Ghannam’s chronicle well (supra, Chapter II, note 54), since this author had for long been his teacher. The “Précis” may well have been influenced by the complete work of Ibn Ghannam, Raw- dat al-afkār wal-afhām li-murtād hāl al-imām wa-taʿdād gazawāt dhawī l-islām (Garden of ideas and concepts to the desired end of knowing the position of the imām, and enumeration of the military campaigns of the people of Islam, otherwise known as Tārīkh Najd, or His- tory of Najd), which only became accessible to European scholars during the twentieth century. It is, however, limited to events before 1799, whereas the “Précis” brings them up to 1811, the year of Ibn Ghannam’s death, and probably the end of his original narrative, cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 189–91; Puin (1973), p. 50; Rentz (2004), pp. 226 nt., 237. In this case the loss of its final section in the course of the nineteenth century still remains to be explained. The current hypothesis that the missing text may have been omitted deliberately by Wahhabi scholars, perhaps because of accounts of actions at the time of the occupation of the Hijaz which were considered too generous and in the meantime had become incompatible with the more moderate religious practices of the Saʿudi dynasty after the Egyptian withdrawal from Arabia, is regarded as doubtful by Cook [1988], pp. 683 n., 689 nt. 65 This is the story of the “conversion” of Muhammad ibn Saʿud (dated 1745), a decisive turning point in Wahhabi proselytism, cf. F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., II, p. 451: “Échappé au danger imminent dont il était menacé, ebn-Abdul-Wahab entra dans Der- rayeh, où il habita chez un de ses amis. Mohammed ebn-Souhoud, dont il reçu la visite, 152 Chapter 3 kingdom was the subject of an extensive account in which importance was given to the rivalry of over twenty years’ standing with the neighbouring city of al-Riyad and its sovereign Dahham ibn Dawwas; to two fruitless expeditions by the emir of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ in 1757 and 1764, introduced by the name of ʿUraiʿir, which Niebuhr also used; to the repeated involvement in 1764 and 1774 of the ra⁠ʾīs of Najran called Hasan ibn Hibat Allah, clearly corresponding to Makrami in Niebuhr; and finally to a protracted conflict with the city of al-Dilam, which, in 1779, succeeded al-Riyad in the leadership of the movement opposed to the sectarians. To this was added news of a strange war machine used by the defenders, a sort of armoured car propelled by human beings. Only in concomitance with these colourful events did the name “Wahhabi”, coined by the

l’engagea à rester dans le pays, puisque les habitans l’aimaient et l’estimaient. Il y consen- tit d’autant plus volontiers, que cette ville lui offrait un refuge assuré, où il allait donner de l’extension à ses projets. Constamment il travaillait à mériter la confiance de ses hôtes, auxquels il inculquait ses dogmes. Dès que ses opinions eurent acquis quelque crédit à Derrayeh, il écrivit aux cheykhs et aux principaux habitans des provinces, pour les enga- ger à renoncer aux principes vicieux qu’ils professaient, à mettre un frein à leurs passions dérégleés, et à recevoir une nouvelle doctrine, qu’il leur enseignait sous les formes les plus séduisantes. Des menaces accompagnaient ses missions. Il déclarait que lui et le peuple de Derrayeh feraient la guerre à ceux qui ne voudraient point adopter sa doctrine. Plu- sieurs se soumirent; d’autres aimèrent mieux conserver leurs anciens préjugés, et voulu- rent tenter le sort des armes. Les nouveaux sectaires, que les chefs de leur pays empêchaient de suivre l’impulsion donnée, vinrent à Derrayeh. Leur nombre augmenta tellement, qu’ils furent bientôt en état d’employer la force pour réduire les réfractaires.” A little later the Saʿudi prince is described as “plein du désir d’étendre sa domination et de propager les maximes du cheykh Mohammed ebn-Abdul-Wahab, qui le dirigeait en tout”, ibid, p. 456. The controversial episode of the stoning of an adulteress at al-ʿUyaina, ordered by Muhammmad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and carried out by the local Sheikh Ibn Muʿammar, occurred during the early period of Wahhabi proselytism. Perhaps sincerely, the hostile ʿulamāʾ in Najd claimed to have detected in the episode evidence of the cruel spirit of innovation they had denounced in their rival. The Wahhabi chroniclers, on the other hand, insisted on the painful necessity of pronouncing such a sentence (which was rare by then, even if it was one of the most ancient Muslim customs) once the woman had repeatedly admitted reiteration of the offence, and evidence was available that she was in perfect mental health, cf. Abu Hakima (1965), p. 130; DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 27–29; Peskes, pp. 238–40; Philby (1930), p. 11; Philby (1955), pp. 37–38; Puin (1973), pp. 74–75; Rentz (2004), pp. 45–46. The correspondence of this account to a ḥadīth on the life of Muhammad suggests that the whole story was invented to enhance the impression of similarity between the work of the Prophet and that of the new Muslim reformer, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), p. 297; Peskes, p. 240. Muslim “Puritans” 153 movement’s opponents, spread, but, according to the chronicle, not before 1779.66 An equal amount of space was dedicated to the subsequent advance towards the Hijaz and the Persian Gulf (the provinces of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ, al-Qasim, and al-Qatar). We read of the peaceful death at al-Dirʿiyya in 1791 of the leader of the movement Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab who was supposed to have

66 F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., II, pp. 453–55, 458–67, 471–77, 483–84, 491–92. The coincidences with Niehbur, not mentioned in Mengin’s account, are even more precise, in particular the fact that the raīs of Najran who defeated the Wahhabis did not persecute them, since he was “séduit par une force morale prenant sa source dans les écrits du cheykh Mohammed ebn-Abdul-Wahab”, ibid, p. 463. Hence perhaps the rumour Niebuhr reported of the views the two men held in common (supra, Chapter I, note 6), although Niebuhr himself may be Mengin’s unmentioned source on this point. The date suggested in the “Précis” for the first diffusion of the term “Wahhabis”, ibid, p. 468, is a sufficient explanation as to why it was still unknown to the German traveller. The stages of the Saʿudi conquest of Najd, which lasted about forty years, from 1746 to 1787, and included the northern region towards Nafud known as Jabal Shammar, were recounted in detail for the first time in Mengin’s “Précis” and are now the subject of various in-depth reconstruc- tions, cf. Brandes (1999), pp. 74–80; Philby (1930), pp. 13–23, 29–45; Philby (1955), pp. 42–77; Rentz (2004), pp. 55–203 (the fullest account, closely based on the Wahhabi chroniclers); Vassiliev (1998), pp. 84–88. The intermittent advance, periodic truces and the frequent reversal of alliances typical of wars in the form of “forays” (gazw) in the Arabian Penin- sula, should not obscure the religious background to the struggle, to which the effectively long-lasting submission of Najd was partly due. On this basis it was possible to maintain that the campaigns against al-Riyad in particular – the contention with Dahham ibn Daw- was – and against the province of al-Washm, again under the moral leadership of Muham- mad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab who withdrew from political affairs in about 1773, had the nature of missionary activities albeit combined with military operations whenever hostile reactions made them necessary, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 36, 287. The name “Wahhabi”, unwelcome to the movement since it seemed to suggest a blasphemous cult of its founder by its followers, is first used in a controversial text by Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, the dissident brother of Muhammad, entitled Kitāb as-sawāʾiq al-ilāhiyya fi r-radd ʿalā l-Wah- habiyya (Book of Theological Thunderbolts in Confutation of the Wahhabis). As noted by some European witnesses (Brydges, Badía, Rousseau in 1818), “Muslim” (al-muslimūn), “people of Monotheism” (ahl al-tawḥīd, al-muwaḥḥidūn), were the names which the new adepts of Najd chose to call themselves, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 246, 333, 339; Peskes (1993), pp. 15–16, 310, 322, 370 (alternatively: “people of faith”, or of “religion” [ahl al-imān, ahl al-dīn]). Those who still do not accept the current term “Wahhabi” prefer to define Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and his followers as “salafi” (salafiyyūn, from salaf, “ancestor”), to indicate the model of the unsurpassable politico-religious community embodied in the first Muslims, and the desire to recreate it shared by numerous different Islamic movements during the twentieth century as a reaction against colonialism, cf. Juhany (2002), pp. ix, 1, 139, 157; Oliver (2002), pp. 3, 5. 154 Chapter 3 had twenty wives and eighteen children; the hostile expeditions organised by the pasha of Baghdad, the first in 1797, (commanded by Thuwaini, an Arab leader from the Basra region, killed by the spear of an African slave) and the second in 1799, commanded by the aforesaid ʿAli kahya; and finally the belligerent attitude to the sharif of Mecca, Ghalib, from 1790 on (except for the period of the truce between 1799 and 1802 which coincided with the participation of volunteers from Mecca in resisting the French in Upper Egypt). Indeed, the sharif was almost always beaten, except for once when he managed to take the enemy by surprise during prayer. Information originating from the Wahhabis and items derived from elsewhere seem to have been included in the account of these better known events, but is increasingly interspersed with recognisa- bly European opinions. The report of the sack of Kerbela, dated 20 April 1801, fatefully coinciding with the “feast of the sacrifice”, the qurbān bairam, was accompanied by a detailed description of the booty – the number of Venetian gold coins, Dutch ducats, Spanish piasters, guns, sabres, cashmere shawls etc. – provided by “a person close to Saʿud”. The assassination of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, dated 14 October 1803, was attributed to a Persian in quest of martyrdom. Lastly, the conquests of Mecca and Medina were presented as almost peaceful occupa- tions, agreed upon with the local elders and described as definitive only in 1809, long after an epidemic had forced Saʿud’s army to retreat during his first brief occupation of the Holy City dated in 1802.67

67 F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., II, pp. 502, 506, 510–29, 531, 534. The enduring hostilities against the Wahhabis between 1790 and 1806 along the borders of the Hijaz were initiated by Ghalib who, fearing for his own independence, sought spiritual support among the theologians of the Holy City and material support from the Bedouin. He was responsible for at least four unsuccessful forays against the Saʿudi dynasty or its allies, in 1791, 1795, 1798 and 1805, and on each occasion enormous spoils went to the victors. But above all he made a decisive contribution to the view of the clash as a religious conflict, with reciprocal accusations of “heresy” and proclamations of Holy War, cf. Brandes (1999), pp. 81–84, 91; Peskes (1993), pp. 298–301, 307–308, 318 (here great differences of emphasis appear between Ibn Ghannam and Ibn Bishr, the latter committed to playing down doctrinal motives in favour of political ones, at least in the struggle for control of the Hijaz); Philby (1955), p. 78; Rentz (2004), pp. 218–23; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 92–93, 103. Right from the start the comment in the “Précis” on the controversial stoning of the “prostituée” sounds unquestionably European: a “farouche sentence”, imposed by a “barbare fanatique”. The same can be said of the “anciens préjugés” imputed to the population of Najd, supra, note 65. There is also an evident discrepancy in the “Précis” as to the dates of the birth and death of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (supra, note 60) given differently by Mengin earlier on and in Jomard’s “Notice géographique”, cf. F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., II, p. 610 nt. An analogous distortion appears in connection with Thuwaini’s attack on the Wahhabis, dated 1796 in the main text of the Histoire. All this was probably Muslim “Puritans” 155

The result was a further amendment of the traditional treatment of the subject. We read in the “Précis” that at the heart of the institutions established by the founder was a “sound morality” based on the simple acknowledgement of divine unity and the absolute prohibition of supplicating anyone other than God for grace or blessing. The widespread lack of respect for such Koranic precepts was, in the eyes of the Wahhabis, due the people’s excessive devotion to Muhammad who, according to their principles, held the rank of a “privileged being” and an “intermediary between God and men”, albeit in the manner of Moses or Jesus Christ, “they too being revered by the faithful”. The French translator, incidentally, still used the conventional term “Muslims” for the common devotees of the Prophet, a choice his Wahhabi informer would certainly never have approved.68 The pilgrimage to Mecca preserved its traditional validity. Indeed, the sectarians seem to have gone on the pilgrimage well before Saʿud took the Holy City, with the consent of the sharif preceding Ghalib and on at least two further occasions during the truce.69 The just and meritorious

due to errors in the conversion of the Muslim calendar to the Christian one, or in some cases perhaps to the use of the Julian, rather than the Gregorian, calendar cf. Rentz (2004), p. 230 nt.; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 486, 489–90, 493–94. It should be noted that Jomard mentioned Raymond as responsible for an expedition organised in Baghdad against the sectarians, from Basra to al-Qatif which, if true, means that Raymond may have been directly involved in the second expedition led by ʿAli kahya – partly in contrast to the extremely abundant but not always consistent information he supplied on the subject, (supra, Chapter II, note 48), cf. F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., II, p. 569. The date given in the “Précis” for the sack of Kerbela seems to be based on the calculation confirmed by Rous- seau in the “Notice historique” (supra, Chapter II, note 23). 68 Ibid, II, pp. 451–52: “Les préceptes de ce réformateur zélé étaient fondés sur des maximes d’une saine morale; il engageait ses compatriotes à ne reconnaître qu’un Dieu, à ne demander la grâce et les bénédictions que de lui seul: telle était la base de ses institutions. Suivant lui, le prophète Mohammed, qu’invoquent les Musulmans, n’est qu’un intermé- diaire entre Dieu et les hommes, un être privilegié, ainsi que Jésus-Christ et Moïse, que révèrent aussi les vrais croyans”. Earlier Mengin reports that when praying the Wahhabis omit the fifteenth-century formula: “Dieu salue le prophète”. But he does not seem to link this information to rumours noted by a number of authors according to which the sectarians omitted the second half of the profession of the Muslim faith, ibid, I, p. 385 (supra, Chapter I, notes 37, 43; Chapter II, notes 14, 31). 69 News of Wahhabi pilgrimages authorised by the sharif of Mecca refer to 1769 and 1781 (on the first occasion, in exchange for the release of an imprisoned nobleman), and later in 1799 and 1800 (led by Saʿud, after the truce agreed with Ghalib), ibid, pp. 470, 490, 521–22. The Wahhabi participation in the Mecca pilgrimage before their conquest of the Hijaz, although occasional, is sufficient to indicate their respect for this fundamental Muslim precept. Permission was requested by repeated delegations sent to debate with the sharifs and ʿulamāʾ of the Holy City. Nevertheless the ongoing theological controversy meant 156 Chapter 3 nature of the destruction of tombs and other buildings honouring the saints was evident, although it was not equally clear what the religious significance really was of the threatened use of force against Muslims who persisted in their reprehensible practices of the cult. Whether violence exerted on such people was as indisputable a divine commandment as the raising of forbidden buildings to the ground remained an open question.70 Unaware of these residual doubts, the French translator still called Saʿud a “protector of Deism”, while only a rough exchange of letters between the ruler of al-Dirʿiyya and the pasha of Baghdad in 1810 clarified the reciprocal accusations of idolatry and imposture that the two adversaries slung at each other.71

that the presence of pilgrims from Najd was no more than sporadic – in 1749, 1769, 1783 and 1799–801. According to their opponents they were supposed to be subject to the same taxes as the Shiʿis. The accounts give an idea of the main reasons for dissent and misunderstanding, although almost always from a partisan point of view. Ibn Ghannam, for example, wrote that an anonymous Hanafi of Mecca was said to have unashamedly told his Wahhabi interlocutors that he preferred to adhere to the opinion of the founder of his own school rather than to the word of God or Muhammad themselves (!), cf. Abir (1971), pp. 188–89; Peskes (1993), pp. 137–38, 290, 295, 304, 313; Philby (1930), pp. 23, 38, 81; Rentz (2004), pp. 140–41, 144–46, 184, 215–18; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 92–93. 70 The “Précis” contains the following compendium of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s prescriptions, cf. F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., II, p. 452: “Il ordonnait de prier cinq fois le jour, de jeûner pendant le mois de rahmadàn; De ne point faire usage de boissons spi- ritueuses; De ne point tolérer les prostituées; De prohiber les jeux de hasard et la magie; De donner en aumônes la centième partie de son bien; De punir sévèrement les pédérastes et les faux témoins; D’empêcher l’usure; De faire au moins une fois le pèlerinage de la Mekke; De ne point fumer de tabac ni toumbak, cet usage étant une chose futile et de pure vanité; De ne point permettre que les hommes se vétissent d’étoffes de soie, parce qu’ils doivent tenir dans la modestie: l’or et la parure n’appartiennent qu’aux femmes, dont ils relèvent la beauté; De ne point élever des dômes et de mausolées; d’abattre ceux qui existent, cette pompe favorisant l’idolâtrie, et parce qu’à la vue d’un semblable monument le malheureux peut s’arrêter, et domander des grâces à un être qui fut semblable à lui.” [Italics in the original.] The editor comments: “La plupart de ces dogmes sont prescrits par le Coran, dont les Musulmans se sont souvent écartés.” The devastation of Husain’s tomb in Kerbela and of that of Muham- mad in Medina is described as only partial – in the Shia sanctuary because of the untimely murder of the custodian of the treasure and in Medina because of the wishes of Saʿud himself who was satisfied with booty amounting to over 40,000 thalers (though there were subsequent thefts even committed by the local governor), ibid, pp. 522–23, 535–36. There is no mention of any attempt to demolish the dome over the Prophet’s tomb or of destruction in Mecca such as had been observed by Badía and Burckhardt. . 71 Particular discredit was cast on their respective home-lands: that of the pasha, once pop- ulated by pagan fire worshippers; that of the Wahhabis previously inhabited by the false prophet Musailima, ibid, pp. 539–40. For Saʿud “protecteur du déisme”, see ibid, p. 537. Muslim “Puritans” 157

It could on the whole be said that, although better information was available, consolidated European categories were still applied in the “Précis” and throughout the Histoire to explain items which, if more closely examined, now threw a different light on the connection between the Wahhabis and Sunni Muslim orthodoxy. This seeming intellectual laziness on the part of Mengin and his collaborators may partly have been due to the impression, still prevalent around 1823, that the new devotees in Najd were unable to recover after the ruin of their kingdom. Mengin told of the capitulation of al-Dirʿiyya followed by the decapitation of the unfortunate king ʿAbd Allah, described in the Histoire as lacking the ability to command, avaricious towards the Bedouin to the point of losing their support, but nonetheless just and courageous, a victim of Turkish resentment and therefore put to death in the square before Hagia Sophia in Istanbul in December 1818. All this was recounted in the compas- sionate tone reserved for a movement no longer to be feared, the weakness of which permitted a benevolent treatment of some of its defeated members living in exile.72 In fact Mengin continued to assert that the Wahhabis were dangerous, but merely in order to emphasise the greatness of the victorious Muhammad ʿAli and to contrast his pro-European bias in policy-making and organization of the state with the decrepitude of the Ottoman institutions. “Fanaticism” and “desire for revenge”, still smoldering beneath the ashes of al- Dirʿiyya, might again become a real threat to the peace, but only if the pasha were to die early or his vast project of modernising the entire region were to fail.73

72 The conversation between Ibrahim Pasha and the prisoner ʿAbd Allah (“Dieu a favorisé vos armes, ... c’est lui qui a voulu m’humilier”) seems to have been inspired by a conventional fatalism which did credit to the unfortunate monarch, ibid, pp. 132–33. His execu- tion together with the members of his bodyguard in Istanbul is said not to have been desired by Muhammad ʿAli but to have been demanded by the Turks to satisfy the “res- sentiment d’un peuple fanatique”, ibid, p. 141. Similar remarks made just before his fatal deportation to Istanbul by ʿAbd Allah during celebrations of Muhammad ʿAli’s triumph in Cairo can be read in al-Jabarti who, however, reports the fate of the Wahhabi monarch and his retinue in a different tone: “They are now with the martyrs”, cf. al-Jabarti, History of Egypt, cit., IV, pp. 420, 424. Before the final catastrophe, the opinion that ʿAbd Allah was unequal to his task was widely held, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 382. 73 In this connection a particular dislike of Muhammad ʿAli’s taxation system might, in the case of his early death, have rendered the Wahhabi “maximes” attractive among the sedentary populations of Egypt, Syria and Baghdad, although they were more evolved than the uncouth Bedouin who, in Arabia, had received the first “germes de la civilisation” from the sect and who, no longer troubled by Egyptian arms, would not fail to resuscitate the “principles religieux” assimilated and the accompanying spirit of conquest, cf. F. Mengin, 158 Chapter 3

The comparison with the Reformation suggested by Corancez was shelved but not forgotten. A few years later (1838) Mengin took upon himself to rein- state it, albeit adapted to subsequent developments and with a veiled reference to French history. “Protestants of Mohammedanism”, he wrote, the Wahhabis were destined to wound the established religion mortally and to un- dermine its political foundations, but in so doing they would merely accelerate the welcome process working against them and consolidate the monarchic power introduced by Muhammad ʿAli in Egypt and neighbouring territories.74 The reason for reverting to this comparison was entirely political and rested on the notion that, as civilisation progressed in Muslim Asia just as it had once done in Christian Europe, the importance of religious differences would disap- pear. Even at home this tendentious pro-Egyptian formulation harking back to Napoleonic schemes impeded recognition of the authentic merits of Mengin’s contribution to the debate on the Wahhabis and aroused the diffidence of orientalists. Silvestre de Sacy in particular even attributed to Mengin a “commercial rather than a scientific intention”, and expressed his incredulity at the “brilliant illusions” under which Jomard too laboured where Muhammad ʿAli’s policies were concerned.75 Burckhardt’s Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys had a far greater impact, also in France. The clashes in Arabia and the real significance of the comparison with Protestantism could, it seemed, now be explained quite differently from Mengin’s scheme. Almost paradoxically, the fact that they were published posthumously increased the original fascination of the Notes. Rather than de-

Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., II, pp. 142–44. Jomard, even more worried at the prospect of a Wahhabi revival, still seemed to believe that the “la réforme mahométane (car le wahâbisme est une véritable réforme)” had “porté à l’islamisme un coup funeste” and was merely “le premier degré de sa ruine à l’occident du golfe Arabique”. Hence his fear of “une nouvelle révolution plus terrible que la première”, ibid, pp. 586, 610. 74 F. Mengin, Histoire sommaire de l’Égypte, cit., pp. 3, 5: “Marchant hardiment à son but, malgré les obstacles du fanatisme, Mohammed-Aly avait délivré l’Egypte de l’oppression des Mamlouks, comme jadis Louis XI avait délivré la France du pouvoir des barons. Pour plaire au sultan, il avait vaincu les Wahabys, ces protestants du mahométisme; (...) ainsi il continuait son œuvre de réforme, (...) il rendait à l’Égypte sa nationalité; il confiait la force publique aux mains d’hommes dévoués et soumis”. In this perspective the Wahhabis were to have a function analogous to that of the Huguenots. 75 A.I. Silvestre de Sacy, review of: F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, in Journal des Savants (1824), pp. 586, 595. “Précis” is barely mentioned in the reviewer’s list of contributions in the appendix to Histoire, ibid, p. 596. A strange silence indeed for the author who had been the principal upholder of the analogy with the Qarmatians, not to mention Rous- seau’s patron. Muslim “Puritans” 159 positing a veil of dust over the old story, intervening events had made it appear all the more authoritative. They bathed both the author and his notes in the attractive light not only of intelligent personal testimony but also of almost prophetic foresight.

5 Burckhardt: Materials for a History of the Wahhabis

Ever since 1819 the European public had been aware that Burckhardt intended to supply an interpretation of the Wahhabi phenomenon and to send useful material to London for this purpose. In an extensive biographical introduction to the first printed edition of part of the manuscripts left by Burckhardt – the very ones which recounted his Nubian journey – the editor, William Leake, included letters from the author to his protector Banks. These were more than a mere source of information on military events up to 1817, the year of the author’s death in Cairo. Burckhardt described the obstacles he faced when drafting his notes on the Wahhabis during his pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina between September 1814 and April 1815. They were only published, however, in 1830, by William Ouseley, at the end of the entire series of Burckhardt’s travel accounts. In 1810, in a letter to Banks, Burckhardt admitted his ignorance of the Wahhabis and his difficulty in finding his way amid all the conflicting rumours concerning them. Six years later, however, he was in possession of the desired information.76 In view of the complete reinsertion of the apparently new reli-

76 J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, cit., p. xxx (letter from Damascus, 15 August 1810): “As to the state of the Wahabi power in the southern parts of Arabia, I must confess that I am in perfect ignorance of it. Without being an eye witness, or meeting by chance with a credible eye witness, it is impossible to guide oneself through the labyrinth of false reports, which policy, fanaticism, and party spirit spread on their account.” Six years later there appears a notable improvement, ibid, p. lxv: “A lucky chance has put me in possession of very interesting papers concerning this Wahabi war, together with the information I collected in the Hedjaz, will enable me to throw considerable light upon the whole Wahabi sect and their affairs” (letter from Cairo, 8 February 1816). A few months later, he announced that the Notes were concluded and had been sent to England, ibid, p. lxxi: “I have the honour of transmitting to the Committee of the African Association some papers, forming part of the information obtained by me, during my journey through Ara- bia. They consist of 1st. Some further fragments on the Bedouins of Arabia, in sequel to those forwarded on former occasions. 2nd. A history of the Wahabi, and principally of Mohammed Aly’s campaign in the Hedjaz. 3rd. A few notes to my former journals” (letter from Cairo, 15 October 1816)”. For a biography of Burckhardt, known for his discovery of Petra and who, from 1809 on, travelled in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Nubia, and Arabia where he contracted the malaria of which he died a few years later, cf. Löwenberg (1876), but 160 Chapter 3 gion or heresy in the mainstream of Koranic revelation, his was by far the most important contribution at the time. Thanks to Burckhardt, the fervent devotees in Najd began to appear to the public eye as authentic restorers of the original Islamic faith. As “reformers” and “puritans”, they were shown in a positive light. The principal element of continuity with Niebuhr and Volney was still substantial sympathy with the movement, but filtered through a different reading of the relationship between the Reformation and the Enlightenment, religious commitment and free thought. The fact that he hardly mentioned the European writers preceding him was indicative of how sure of himself Burckhardt felt and of his faith in the originality of his sources. The correspondence published by Leake did, however, reveal his opinions of those predecessors to whom he seemed to be indebted. In London, before embarking for the East, Burckhardt had met Browne who was a rich source of information on the Wahhabis. Later, when he was in Alep- po from 1809 to 1810 in order to improve his Arabic, he met a dervish of Persian origin who asserted that he had spent two years in al-Dirʿiyya. Also in Aleppo the English Consul Barker, described by Seetzen as being very interested in the founder of the sect (supra, note 6), supplied hospitality and further information. During these years the sensation caused by the dispute between Rous- seau and Corancez could not fail to be noticed by European residents in Syria, thus further whetting Burckhardt’s curiosity, although he probably soon felt a thinly disguised diffidence towards the two French consuls, motivated by vanity and far too dependent on indirect evidence given at a great distance from the places concerned and distorted by fear and religious antipathy. The author’s personal quest for an autonomous opinion is evident in the Notes in both his obviously ironical treatment of Saʿud’s “chaplain”, quoted as a source by Rousseau, and his increasing tendency to risk positive error rather than to trust authorities he deemed unreliable. This is the case in his account of the two military campaigns launched by Baghdad against the Wahhabis which appear in the Notes in the wrong chronological order. The same is true of the name which Burckhardt, like Niebuhr, attributes in his notes to the

more particularly Sim (1969), a more literary work with a sympathetic bias towards the sincerity of his conversion to Islam, although not formally supported: “God – the one God – had perhaps always meant to him more than the divinity of Christ”. On that same subject and Burckhardt’s movements in Arabia between Jidda, al-Ta⁠ʾif, Mecca, Medina and Yanbuʿ from July 1814 to April 1815, cf. Bidwell (1995), pp. 50–59; Freeth/Winstone (1978), pp. 92–120; Hogarth (1904), pp. 88–96 (here with a classical accolade: “The credit due to Burckhardt is not for seeing many things in much of Arabia, but for seeing much in a little of it, thanks to his clear vision and the careful preparation of his mind by the study of native authorities”); Pfullmann (2001), pp. 86–97; Sabini (1981), pp. 132–61. Muslim “Puritans” 161

Wahhabi leader, here called ʿAbd al-Wahhab, without taking into account the better information from France on a son of his called Muhammad.77 On his return to Cairo, during the revision of the notes he had taken on his pilgrimage in the Hijaz containing information of decisive importance, Badía’s work, which had appeared in the meantime, must have aroused Burckhardt’s interest. He read it with care and considered it reliable, although he found the style unpleasantly pompous and ostentatious.78

77 J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 277–78: “In two short treatises on the Wahabys, written at Baghdad and Aleppo, about 1808, by M. Rousseau, it is posi- tively asserted, that the Wahabys have a new religion, and that although they acknowledge the Koran, yet they have entirely abolished the pilgrimage to Mekka. This is certainly the vulgar opinion about that time at Aleppo; but more accurate information might have easily been obtained from intelligent pilgrims and Bedouins even in that town; and it is surprising that it should not, as the author was professedly giving a description of the Wahábys, and as he states that he derived part of his information “du chapelain de Saoud”, implying an office in the court of Derayeh, respecting the nature of which I am not able to form any exact notion.” To what treatises Burckhardt refers, whether merely to Rous- seau’s articles in the Fundgruben des Orients or also to the “Notice historique”, is not clear. A certain personal animosity may perhaps have inspired the Swiss traveller, if it is true that Rousseau, an unprincipled collector of manuscripts, did not scruple to appropriate a sacred book of the Nusayris, originally intended as a gift to Burckhardt from an Arab friend, cf. Id., Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, cit., p. 151. There is in any case no doubt that the lack of appreciation in the Notes contributed to an unmerited downgrading of Rousseau in the subsequent literature, starting with Brydges’ uncharitable opinion in these few words, cf. H. Jones Brydges, An Account of the transactions of His Majesty’s Mis- sion to the court of Persia, cit., II, pp. 109, 112: “But one cannot help smiling at the absurdity and ignorance of a Frenchman taking on himself in 1808 to state to the world that the Wahaubys preach a new religion” and who claimed that “he derived his information from a “chapelain de Saoud”, an office of which Saoud himself never heard, nor even dreamt.” 78 J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, cit., p. lxxi: “I see that Ali Bey el Abbasi has got the start of me in his description of Mekka, but I hope to be able to give some information in addition to his. I have lately had an opportunity of perusing his work; little as I like the style in which it is written and the pretensions of its author, yet I find it incumbent on me to state, that after a minute examination of it, I find no reason to doubt the general veracity of Ali Bey; what he says of himself in Syria, Egypt and the Hedjaz, I know to be true, although he has not always thought proper to state the whole truth” (letter from Cairo, 15 October 1816). More particularly, Burckhardt contests Badía’s vaunted mastery of the language. Indeed, he accuses him of “almost utter ignorance” of Arabic, in contrast not only with Badía’s own words, but also with the testimony of Godoy, according to whom the Catalan traveller spoke modern Arabic “comme s’il n’en eût jamais appris d’autre langue”, cf. [D. Badía y Leblich], Voyages d’Ali Bey el Abbassi, cit., II, p. 311; Mémories du Prince de la Paix Don Manuel Godoy, cit., IV, p. 65. 162 Chapter 3

The best information in the Notes, gathered by the author in person during his travels round Arabia, was in fact only oral and derived from witnesses who had no acknowledged connection with the Wahhabi movement or any particular knowledge of the doctrines it professed. Like Badía, Burckhardt believed that intellectual decadence had existed in the Hijaz for some time, all the more evident from the scarcity of manuscripts in circulation. “Bedouins of the common classes” were mostly too uneducated to have a thorough grasp of any sort of theological principle, and no educated person from Mecca or Medina seemed to have bothered to write a history of the new sect. In the light of this somewhat disconsolate opinion, it was hard to establish how far Burckhardt was in fact convinced that those individuals in Arabia who had agreed to speak to him about Saʿud’s system of government were in fact “many well-informed people”. In the Notes Burckhardt did indeed ultimately include three main types of informer on the Wahhabis. The first were Bedouin previously converted to the new faith who had later joined Muhammad ʿAli for reasons of self-interest; the second Egyptian officers and soldiers who had come into contact with the enemy; and the third citizens of Mecca and common Muslim pilgrims who must have had vivid memories of the period of Saʿudi domination which had only ended the year before. Conversations with authoritative figures may also have helped to improve his information on the sect. In January 1814 Burckhardt crossed paths with Sharif Ghalib, still extremely dignified and apparently un- daunted, in the area of Qena in Upper Egypt. Ghalib was on his way into the exile Muhammad ʿAli had prudently imposed on him. But there was also the Egyptian pasha himself, whom Burckhardt met at al-Ta⁠ʾif with his qādī. They talked on several occasions with the European pilgrim on his way to Mecca, wishing to ascertain the authenticity of his Muslim sentiments.79 Arabic manuscripts translated and published in an appendix had only become accessible to Burckhardt during his last stay in Cairo, when he managed to gain possession of a Wahhabi “catechism” commonly to be found in Mecca during the Saʿudi occupation, as well as some letters which included a communication from ʿAbd Allah to Tusun Pasha at the time of the 1815 truce between the two.

79 J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, cit., pp. 71, 73; Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 366–67. Burckhardt writes that Muhammad ʿAli secured Ghalib’s arrest and exile by deception, justifying this procedure by referring to a presumed authorisation received from the Porte. In November 1813 the sharif was kidnapped during a courtesy visit to Tusun Pasha and only saved his own life by urging his sons to hand over to the Egyptians the citadel he possessed in Mecca, cf. Brandes (1999), pp. 110–14; Philby (1955), p. 126; Vas- siliev (1998), p. 147. Muslim “Puritans” 163

No mention was made, however, of the origin of the documents, nor whether Burckhardt had seen others.80 One final significant circumstance remained unclear in the Notes: whether and to what degree the author had been able to take advantage of the presence of two Wahhabi emissaries in Cairo, who were there for further inconclusive negotiations with Muhammad ʿAli between August and November 1815. Heat- ed theological debates between them and local scholars in the great mosque and university of al-Azhar culminated in the unexpected admission by Egyp- tian ʿulamāʾ that not a trace of “heresy” was detectable in these foreigners. The news could hardly fail to make an impression on the educated public, especially since the pasha would inevitably find such absolution unacceptable. At least an echo of the whole affair must have reached Burckhardt.81

80 J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 425–28: “The Catechism (or Creed) of the Wahabys”; ibid, pp. 431–32: “A Letter from Abdallah Ibn Saoud to Tousoun Pasha, upon occasion of the latter’s departure from Kasym towards Medinah”. The “catechism” and letters from ʿAbd Allah to Tusun Pasha, and from the “Wahaby chief” (that same ʿAbd Allah, or his father Saʿud) to the Egyptian general Ahmad Agha, ibid, pp. 345 nt., 414, appear to be the written component of the “original information, both written and oral” recognised by Ouseley as the basis of the second part of the Notes about which Burckhardt had informed Banks in 1816, ibid, p. iv; supra, note 76. On the non-existence of local historical works about the Wahhabis, ibid, p. 321: “During my residence in Arabia I made repeated enquiries after a written history of the Wahabys, thinking it probable that some learned man of Mekka or Medinah might have composed such a work; but my search proved fruitless”. Perhaps Baghdad, “from its vicinity to Nedjd”, might have offered a better harvest. Sure enough Seetzen had previously heard from a bookseller in Aleppo of a large corpus of anti-Wahhabi theological literature in both Baghdad and Basra, cf. U.J. Seetzen, Tagebuch des Aufenthalts in Aleppo, cit., p. 248 (28 November 1804). On the same subject, more generally on the scarcity of books and libraries, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, cit., pp. 212–13, 390. Burckhardt’s early death prevented him from knowing both Rousseau’s Mémoire and Mengin’s Histoire, containing the reworkings of original Wah- habi chronicles. 81 Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 283: “In the autumn of 1815, two envoys were sent to the city [scil.: Cairo] by the Wahaby chief, one of whom was a perfect Wahaby scholar. Mohammed Ali Pasha wished them to give an explanation of their tenets to the principal learned men of Cairo; they, in consequence, met repeatedly; and the Wahaby had invariably the best of the controversy, because he proved every proposition by a sentence of the Koran, and the Hadyth, or Tradition, the whole of which he knew by heart, and which were of course irrefragable authority. The olemas declared, that they could find no heresy in the Wahabys; and as this was a declaration made in spite of themselves, it is the less to be suspected.” Burckhardt again mentions “a book containing various treatises on religious subjects, written by Abd el Wahab himself” and in the opinion of the ʿulamāʾ equally unassailable. Further on he reveals that the more learned of the two 164 Chapter 3

Perhaps owing to the difficulties involved in unearthing written sources or in thoroughly assessing the sources used, the editor Ouseley published the purely historical section of the Notes under the very modest title of “Materials for a history of the Wahábys” – as if it were an incomplete collection still requiring further work, rather than a completed monograph. Burckhardt himself admitted that he could only be precise about the period starting with the Egyp- tian invasion of Arabia, and could offer no more than a sketchy account of the earlier history of the movement. He knew that the founder, ʿAbd al-Wahhab, belonged to the large tribe of Banu Tamim, quite distinct from the line of Mu- hammad ibn Saʿud, lord of al-Dirʿiyya and promoter of the new dynasty reigning in Arabia, who was said to belong to the Masalikh (a minor branch of the ʿAnaza horde) and to be related to his religious mentor only by marriage to a daughter82. The Notes then stated that the original aim of the Wahhabi founder was to implement a simple spiritual reform without any intention of establishing a principality. The wars for the control of Najd were armed proselytising missions to convert Bedouin who had lapsed into religious ignorance. Howev- er, a true political and theological controversy can only have come about at the end of the eighteenth century, coinciding with the rise of Ghalib to sharif of Mecca and the beginning of the conflict with the Ottoman authorities. The opening of hostilities along the Hijaz border was placed in 1792 and attributed

envoys, “named Abd el Azyz”, was “a relation of the great founder of the Wahaby sect, Abd el Wahab”, ibid, p. 417. This al-Jabarti confirmed, admitting that he too had been struck by the extraordinary erudition of the two foreigners he had met twice; but he does not mention a public discussion, cf. al-Jabarti, cf. History of Egypt, cit., IV, p. 321. On the two Wah- habi emissaries sent to Cairo in 1815 and information on this account in Burckhardt and al-Jabarti, cf. Delanoue (1982), I, pp. 53 nt., 100. 82 J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 274. This last information was rectified by Brydges, who said it was ʿAbd al-Wahhab who married a daughter of Muham- mad ibn Saʿud, while the son and heir of the latter, the future king ʿAbd al-Aziz, married the daughter of the Wahhabi leader, cf. H. Jones Brydges, An Account of the transactions of His Majesty’s Mission to the court of Persia, cit., II, p. 107. The Masalikh were already known to Niebuhr as practising a form of circumcision connected with original religious ideas, cf. C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, cit., pp. 19, 269–70. Burckhardt’s assertion that the Al Saʿud unquestionably belonged to the Masalikh tribe, a branch of the Banu Wa⁠ʾil, who were in turn a branch of the ʿAnaza, has not been confirmed. Other authors tend to prefer the Banu Hanifa, cf. Fahad (2004), pp. 43, 49; Rasheed (2002), pp. 15–16. It seems in any case very probable that, by the eighteenth century, the Saʿudi had become a settled dynasty of land owners, cf. Fahad (2004), p. 49; Philby (1955), p. 8; Rasheed (2002), p. 15; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 54–55. Nevertheless the theory that the principal resource of the Saʿudi kingdom was still banditry is supported by Schwartz (2002), p. 74. Muslim “Puritans” 165 to the sharif’s fear of Wahhabi proselytism. The date of the disagreement with the Porte was said to be 1797. A decisive factor in the popular perception of the Wahhabis as “heretics” or sometimes even “infidels” was the Wahhabi ban on pilgrimages, which produced a very negative effect on the theological and political order of the time. Here Burckhardt’s opinion differs from that of Waring and Valentia. The elimi- nation of such a basic Muslim precept, the inevitable result of Ghalib’s resentment of the movement, was immediately repaired after the sharif’s submission by reinstating the original precept of the Prophet Muhammad, but retaining the ban on the traditional caravans led by Ottoman pashas, perceived as sacrilegious and a possible means of invasion.83 From the outset, therefore, Burckhardt’s account was somewhat apologetic, unlike those of the writers preceding him. The permanent obscurity surrounding real conditions in Najd, considered to be culturally extremely backward in the mid-eighteenth century, suggested to him that doctrinal disputes must have begun late and that Wahhabi preaching had initially met with resistance only among the simple superstitious population. However execrable, the violence committed by the new devotees under Saʿudi military leadership in aid of religion was in the tradition of the early successors of the Prophet. In any case, the enemy’s exaggerations of this violence had to be expurgated from the information. Even the massacre of Kerbela had not been so indiscriminate as had been thought, but had merely followed the “fundamental rule to kill all their enemies found armed, whether they be foreign heretics (such as Syrian,

83 J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 321–22: “The Wahabys had for nearly thirty years established their doctrines, made numerous proselytes, and successively conquered Nedjd and subdued most of the great Bedouin tribes, who feed their cattle there in spring and retreat afterwards to the Desert. Yet war had not been declared, nor did the Wahabys encroach upon the rights of the two governments nearest to them; that of Baghdad on the north, and that of Hedjaz towards the south. The pilgrim-caravans passed from Damascus and from Baghdad without any molestation through their territory. Their increase of power, and the assiduity with which they propagated their doctrines, seems first to have excited the jealousy of Sheríf Gháleb. Under his authority, and partly under his influence, were placed all the tribes settled in Hedjaz, and several on the frontiers of that country. The attempts made by Abd el Azyz to gain over these latter to his party after he had subjugated their neighbours, could not be viewed with indifference by Gháleb, whom we may consider rather a powerful Bedouin sheikh than an eastern prince, and the same causes that produce constant wars between all great neighbouring tribes of the Desert, sowed the seeds of contest between him and the Wahabys. A few years after his succession to the government of Mekka, Gháleb first engaged in open hostility with the Wahabys, about the year 1792 or 1793. This warfare he continued until the final surrender of Mekka.” 166 Chapter 3

Mesopotamian, or Egyptian soldiers or settlers), or Arabs themselves, who have opposed the great chief, or rebelled against him.” Old men, women and children were spared, and with them an entire quarter named in commemora- tion of the ʿAbbasid caliphate, held in ever greater consideration by Saʿud the stronger his hatred grew of the Turks, usurpers of the caliphate. A gratuitous taste for massacre could not, therefore, be imputed to the “sectarians”.84 More generally, the experience of recent events, beginning with Muham- mad ʿAli’s propaganda and war tactics, made Burckhardt cautious of defama- tory accusations and exaggerated fears. He believed an impartial observer should acknowledge the obvious Wahhabi inability to make any conquests outside Arabia, or to conceive forays beyond the borders of the peninsula as anything but mere pillage.85 All of this must have dampened expectations of the creation of an empire based on religion analogous to that created by Mu- hammad’s heirs a millennium earlier. Observation of the Hijaz under the brand new authority of Muhammad ʿAli, criticism of the backward condition of the Wahhabi military, doomed to defeat in the field in spite of their greater numbers, their evidently untrustworthy Bedouin allies easily corrupted by money and who obeyed only their own

84 Ibid, pp. 318–19: “In propagating their creed, the Wahabys have established it as a fundamental rule to kill all their enemies found in arms, whether they be foreign heretics (such as Syrian, Mesopotamian, or Egyptian soldiers or settlers), or Arabs themselves, who have opposed the great chief, or rebelled against him. It is this practice (imitated from the first propagators of Islám) which makes the Wahaby name so dreaded. During their four years’ warfare with the soldiers of Mohammed Aly Pasha, not a single instance is recorded of their having given quartier to the Turk. When Kerbela (or Meshed Hosseyn) and Tayf were taken, the whole male population was massacred; and in the former town the Haret el Abasieh, or quarter of the Abasides, was only spared because Saoud had a particular veneration for the memory of the Abaside khalifahs.” And also ibid, pp. 324–25: “The sacking of Imám Hosseyn [scil.: Kerbela], in 1801, spread terror among all true Muselmáns as much as it elated the sectaries. The veneration paid to that tomb of Mohammed’s grandson was sufficient cause to attract the Wahaby fury against it. Five thousand persons were massacred in the town. Old men, women, and children were spared; and the quarter called Haret el Abbasye was respected on account of the Wahaby regard for the memory of its founders.” As a partial excuse for the massacre, Burckhardt sees the cause of the hostilities in the attack on a caravan of Persian pilgrims under Wahhabi protection by local Arab marauders. This idea may have been based on a variant version of the story also known to Raymond (supra, Chapter II, note 48). For the year of the attack, 1801, he follows the calculation of the reviled Rousseau. 85 Never would the Wahhabis have considered extending their dominion beyond the borders of the Arabian Peninsula. Pillage alone would have drawn them towards Syria and Mesopotamia, ibid, p. 313. Muslim “Puritans” 167 leaders also in religious matters and were never really satisfied with the legal conditions established by the Saʿudi monarch, all strengthened the perception that the danger had been overestimated. However, these weaknesses of the enemy were insufficient to save the exhausted Egyptian soldiers from defeat, ignorant as they were of the region. The peace terms signed by ʿAbd Allah in the truce with Tusun Pasha – a strategic error made by the Wahhabi leader – included his at least formal undertaking to recognise the supreme political, if not religious, authority of the Turkish sultan, thus diminishing the impression of a Holy War or of an insoluble conflict between a new religious order and a sort of Ottoman ancien régime. This explains Burckhardt’s avoidance in the Notes of the much abused term “revolution” to define the Wahhabi expansion. Nor did he accept that abolition of the prayer honouring the sultan in the Great Mosque in Mecca had been a consciously subversive decision. He took it, rather, as a devious undertaking by the defeated Ghalib anxious to provoke the Porte to rapid punishment of the rebels.86 Of even greater note is the fact that, in contrast to the testimonies of Badía and Seetzen, Burckhardt declared that the memory the settled urban population had of the Wahhabi government was by no means so bad in the Hijaz region. Muhammad ʿAli’s measures, he said, had given rise to far greater discontent.87 Such originality, together with greater care than in the past to keep facts separate from opinion, rendered Burckhardt’s narrative objective and unbi- ased, thus adding greatly to his credit. The wealth of events narrated, comparable to that of Mengin, at least where the military operations of the Egyptians in Arabia were concerned, only fell short of the French account because of the chronological limitations of the period treated, which necessarily came to an end when Ibrahim Pasha left for the Hijaz in August 1816. Nevertheless, as we have already seen, Burckhardt’s account even seemed even to gain in authority precisely because of the time lag between the writing and the publication of the Notes. The intervening events seemed in fact to corroborate the author’s opinions. Although the Wahhabis were not wiped out, the fall of al-Dirʿiyya led to the belief that their concrete aspirations would for years be limited to re- establishing authority over Najd. On the opposite front, the increased ambitions of the victor, Muhammad ʿAli, made it evident that he was far from satisfied with the simple role of restorer of the Muslim faith, but rather consid-

86 Ibid, p. 336. 87 Ibid, pp. 278, 303, but with a few exceptions among the inhabitants of Medina, who had lost gains deriving from the cult connected with Muhammad’s tomb, and had for the first time been subjected to Saʿud’s imposition of the zakāt, ibid, p. 331; Id., Travels in Arabia, cit., pp. 354, 394. 168 Chapter 3 ered Arabia and Syria as belonging to his own personal sphere of influence, free of an already weakened Ottoman control. The public must consequently have found the outdated works of Corancez and Rousseau less convincing when compared to the Notes and the two French consuls were eclipsed by Burckhardt. Yet the specific historical detail they provided was by no means valueless, albeit still partly inspired by a residual Deistic sentiment and the idea that, owing to the Wahhabis, Islam and the whole of Asia were moving towards a cataclysm. What stood out above all else in Burckhardt was his own claim to be the most credible interpreter of Wahhabi teachings related to the main doctrine and ritual elements of Islam. His reflections in the Notes on the national and geopolitical aspects of the Arab conflict, although lucid and interesting, rested on previous even more relevant conclusions concerning its religious implications. It was these which warranted him such respect, apparently undimin- ished by the sadly unfinished nature of his work.

6 Burckhardt: Arabia from Puritanism to Infidel Indifference

It had required considerable effort to achieve this result. Until his stay in the Hijaz Burckhardt too had evidently believed the rumours of an imminent downfall of the Porte in the wake of the Wahhabi occupation of the Holy Plac- es. The obstacles encountered by the Syrian caravans, the subsequent decision of the pasha of Damascus not to attempt the pilgrimage again, and Turkish dissatisfaction over the financial damage caused by this break with tradition had led him, like his predecessors, seriously to doubt the ability of the Otto- man Empire to withstand the religious crisis undermining its foundations. Whether the emphasis was on the underestimation of the danger by the corrupt court in Istanbul, a court so secularised as now hardly to recognise the spiritual value of the rites at Mecca, or the fact that the dire prophesies were attributable to popular Muslim fanaticism frustrated by the impossibility of visiting the Holy City, Burckhardt’s letters before 1813 conveyed the idea of a catastrophe.88

88 Id., Travels in Nubia, cit., p. xxxii (letter from Damascus, 15 August 1810): “In the present degenerate and tottering state of the empire, the Porte has forgot that the religious and fanatical spirit which is diffused over its subjects by the visitors of the Kaaba, is perhaps the last supporter of its political existence. She thinks no longer of the religious importance of the pilgrimage; her troubles and cares are all for money; as the money alone would uphold an empire.” Later, ibid, p. xliii (letter from Damascus, 30 May 1812): “The Muslim “Puritans” 169

Where he differed from other authors was, if anything, in the fact that he held out no hope of renovation to mitigate such forecasts. Unlike Seetzen, his immediate precursor in Arabia and so similar to him in many biographical respects – the same enthusiasm inspired by Blumenbach in Göttingen, the same expedition planned from Egypt to the Gulf of Guinea, the same metamorpho- sis into a brilliant explorer of the Middle East, the same controversial adherence to Islam – Burckhardt did not survey the recent religious developments of humanity, either in the East or in the West, with any philosophical optimism.89 His initial impression of general Ottoman decadence, his perception of a war declared in Egypt in the spirit of a crusade for the redemption of Mecca, and finally Muhammad ʿAli’s being hailed as the saviour of Muslim orthodoxy and vicar of the sultan in the Hijaz, all conspired to produce in him a strong sense of disgust at the political abuse of religions which were otherwise more or less neglected. This applied to Islam within the confines of the Turkish Empire perhaps to an even greater extent than to Christianity in Europe under Napoleon.90

hopes of re-establishing the pilgrim caravan to Mekka is entertained only by those fanatic Turks, who, from the discontinuance of it, prognosticate the fall of the empire.” 89 Seetzen was a celebrated predecessor of Burckhardt, who found numerous traces of his passage through Syria and Palestine, and much was expected of the publication of his diaries, ibid, p. xxxix (letter from Aleppo, 3 May 1811). The two travellers differed not only in their philosophical and religious approach, but also in their political opinions of Muhammad ʿAli and Napoleon. For Seetzen the former was “der jetzige scharf blickende Regent von Egypten”, “der aufgeklärter als gewöhnlich ist”, the latter: “ein der selten- sten und grössten Männer”, cf. U.J. Seetzen, “Reiseplan ins innere Afrika”, cit., p. 219; U.J. Seetzen, “Auszug aus einem Schreiben des Russ. Kais. Kammer-Assessors Dr. U.J. Seetzen”, in Monatliche Correspondenz, XXVI, 1812, p. 384 (letter from Mokha, 17 November 1810); Id., Reisen, cit., III, p. 353. 90 Burckhardt also illustrates the supposedly religious character of the expeditions in Arabia thus: “Two great olemas of Cairo, Sheikh el Mehdy and Sheikh el Tahtawy, likewise embarked with the troops; that by their controversial learning, as it was said, they might convince the Wahabys of the errors which they had adopted in their new faith”, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 345. This episode was confirmed by al-Jabarti who assigned Muhammad al-Mahdi to the Shafiʿi school, Ahmad al- Tahtawi to the Hanbali and a third scholar to the Hanafi one, while later noting the widespread non-observance of Muslim precepts among the soldiers participating in the undertaking, cf. al-Jabarti, History of Egypt, cit., IV, p. 189, 195, 407. Burckhardt describes Muhammad ʿAli elsewhere as the “restorer of the faith, by delivering the holy cities”, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, cit., p. liv (letter from Esne, 2 May 1813). He must have been all the more irritated by the contrast between the ostentatious devotion of the pasha, his assiduous attendance at the religious ceremonies in the Hijaz, and his participation in the reconstruction of the monuments ruined by the Wahhabis, and his own memory of the “sceptical or rather atheistical principles” the pasha had professed with a 170 Chapter 3

At the basis of his polemical attitude was the distance that had developed between him and the ideal of a religion founded simply on reason or natural sentiment, typical of the Enlightenment. Niebuhr’s and Volney’s appreciation of very simple forms of religious observance was alien to him. Although his intellect and experience of exotic lands had made it impossible for him to believe in any particular historic revelation, Burckhardt was convinced that an institutional religion followed by the people, “false” though it might be, was in any case preferable to “infidel indifference”. The Islamic rites he followed, no one could know with what conviction, seemed to confirm this opinion.91 In his eyes the natural religion of the Deists was merely the first germ of spirituality, or alternatively the residue of an ancient faith now impoverished and unable to offer any organised social intercourse. Certain populations seemed never to have truly raised themselves above such rudimentary ideas; others had perhaps reverted to them. This could be seen all over Europe, but it also “pervaded all Arabia and a great part of Turkey”, in this case not only among the uneducated nomadic tribes, but also among the inhabitants of the cities where corruption was rife. In the case of the Bedouin who lacked any form of priesthood, the simple “deistical principles” inherent in human reason were to be deemed totally insufficient to “instruct a nation so wild and ungovernable in the practice of morality and justice”. Credit should be accorded to the Wahhabis not for the presumed simplification of abstruse written revelation as imagined by

fair dose of sincerity in Cairo, cf. Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 381. The best known Egyptian ālim to follow Tusun Pasha’s troops in Arabia mentioned by Burck- hardt was Muhammad al-Mahdi (d. 1815), originally a Copt converted to Islam, who rose to the rank of an eminent scholar at the university of al-Azhar, but was known for his avarice and easy compliance with the authorities in power, first with the French occupiers of Egypt and then with Muhammad ʿAli. The best source on him is still al-Jabarti who, however, says nothing of his departure for the Arabian Peninsula in 1811, cf. Delanoue (1982), I, pp. 29–30, 168; Raymond (1998), pp. 30, 39. 91 There is perhaps no better way to define Burckhardt’s personal, totally unconventional religiosity than in a letter from Damascus written to a friend, Angelica Rush, in which he imagines her son might first be educated at Eton and then in al-Dirʿiyya. Once an adult he would be able to choose freely, “either to become a fellow of Jesus College, or an Olema at Medinah” (cf. Sim [1969], p. 61). The wish for a “Mohammedan” funeral expressed in the Notes during his last illness in Egypt did not prevent his biographer Leake from considering specious his adherence to the faith of the Koran, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, cit., pp. lviii, lxxxix. Muhammad ʿAli’s opinion was not different, nor was that of the French Consul Roussel, who defined Burckhardt as “cet apparent rénégat anglais qui s’est naturalisé dans ces contrées”, cf. La formation de l’empire de Mohamed Aly de l’Arabie au Soudan (1814–1823), cit., p. 53 (Roussel to the Duke of Richelieu, letter from Alexandria, 23 April 1817); J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, cit., p. 83. Muslim “Puritans” 171

Niebuhr, Volney and those who came after them, but rather for imposing on the nomads the strict observance of the precepts of a positive religion, in this case Islam. According to the author it was of little importance whether the religion was tempered with more or less Koranic orthodoxy. 92 According to Burckhardt the proclaimed Wahhabi innovation, sustained for so long and in so many different quarters, was actually the political and social advance which they introduced, so remarkable as to end by placing the theo-

92 Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 285: “Whether the commonly received doctrine considered as orthodox, or that of the Wahabys, should be pronounced the true Mohammedan religion, is, after all, a matter of little consequence; but it became important to suppress that infidel indifference which had pervaded all Arabia and a great part of Turkey, and which has a more baneful effect on the morals of a nation than the decided acknowledgement even of a false religion. The merit, therefore, of the Wahabys, in my opinion, is not that they purified the existing religion, but that they made the Arabs strictly observe the positive precepts of one certain religion; for although the Bedouins at all times devoutly worshipped the Divinity, yet the deistical principles alone could not be deemed sufficient to instruct a nation so wild and ungovernable in the practice of morality and justice.” Referring in particular to the numerous bedouin of the ʿAnaza tribe, still lacking “priests”, Burckhardt observed that “since their conversion to the Wahaby faith”, perhaps only in deference to their heads, these nomads have accepted some mullahs, pray punctually and strictly observe fasting at ramadān, ibid, pp. 57, 61 (the analogy with Sadleir’s observations is evident here, although in a completely different context and with a different explanation, supra, note 51). The idea accepted by Burckhardt that the population, especially the Bedouin of Central Arabia, had been pacified and practically islami- cised ex novo by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and his followers has had firm supporters up to the present day. They have been inclined to appropriate the version given by the Wahhabi founder in his writings and in the chronicles he inspired, according to which, about half way through the eighteenth century, the inhabitants of Najd were immersed in a sort of renewed paganism. It was above all the settled population that was said to have contaminated Islam with magic forms of the cult, while the Bedouin merely had a generic belief in God and Muhammad, without ritual prayer, legal alms, the ramadān fast, or a belief in resurrection, cf. Hartmann (1924), p. 190; Juhany (2002), pp. 152–53, 156; Rentz (2004), pp. 18–22, according to whom the local governors, no longer inhibited by Islamic precepts, had become more despotic; Philby (1955), pp. 34–35, 40; Puin (1973), p. 48; Rasheed (2002), pp. 20–21. With greater moderation DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 25, 306, raises doubts about how far Islam had really declined at that time, although she also takes for granted that there must have been considerable resistance to the planned destruction of places of local superstition among the “local populace”. For a sub- tler reconstruction, mindful of the arguments given by the opposite side – only “fools”, according to Ibn Zaini Dahlan, could impute to the Wahhabis the merit of controlling the Bedouin and leading them back to their forgotten religious duties – see Peskes (1993), pp. 7, 45, 151–52, 162, 215, 218, 262, 264, 275. 172 Chapter 3 logical controversy proper in the background. In contrast to the Bedouin hab- its of feuding and robbery, immunity from taxation and the ancient custom of the right of criminals to asylum (dakhīl, “protected”), the new movement tended to establish a consecrated law and collective responsibility.93 As to the reaction of traditional Muslim religious institutions to such precepts, only the material interests of influential enemies such as Sharif Ghalib or the Ottoman pashas on the borders could explain the discredit the Wahhabis suffered as heretical innovators, not to say “infidels”.94 The destruction of the venerated tombs of Muslim saints and to a greater degree the disapproval of customary forms of pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina had been exploited outside Najd in the first place both to ignite popular resentment against the followers of the obscure ʿAbd al-Wahhab and to fuel religious zeal aimed at reinforcing totter-

93 J.L Burckhardt, pp. 296–98; Id., Travels in Arabia, cit., p. 461. Burckhardt’s acknowledgement of the Wahhabis’ settlement of ancient tribal feuds and procuring greater safety along the Arabian overland routes to the advantage of honest, decorous foreign pilgrims largely corresponds to the claim of those directly concerned, or so says Ibn Bishr in his chronicle. Most historians still agree with this judgement, admitting that Bedouin attacks on the settled population were mitigated and that at least the basis for a common national feeling was laid in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, cf. Cook (1992), p. 174; Fahad (2004), p. 41; Juhany (2002), p. 156, so enthusiastic that he spoke of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wah- hab’s “genius” in regulating society according to divine law; Peskes (1993), p. 160; Philby (1930), pp. 53–54; Philby (1955), pp. 97–98; Rasheed (2002), p. 18; Rentz (1972), p. 55; Vas- siliev (1998), pp. 63, 80, 128, 138, although the latter sensibly conceded that the thrust towards greater order and political centralisation might well provoke discontent. The custom of protection (dakhīl), granted to whoever was persecuted as a criminal, implied the possibility of assistance and exemption from the sentence by a well-disposed tribal leader interested in the services of the person protected. In the Saʿudi kingdom responsibility for the crime fell in such cases upon all members of the tribe receiving the criminal, cf. Fahad (2004), p. 45; Vassiliev (1998), pp. 45, 128. 94 J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 275–76: “As generally has been the case with reformers, he [scil.: “Abd el Waháb”] was misunderstood both by his friends and his enemies. The latter, hearing of the new sect, which accused the Turks of heresy, and held their prophet, Mohammed, in much less veneration than they did, were easily persuaded that a new creed was professed, and that the Wahábys were consequently not merely heretics, but káfir or infidels. They were the more confirmed in this belief, first by the artifices of the Sherif Gháleb of Mekka, and secondly, by the alarm raised among all the neighbouring Pashas.” And ibid, p. 322: “Gháleb, who was then a regular correspondent with the Porte and received every year the pilgrim caravan, left no means untried for prejudicing the Turkish government against his enemies. He represented them as infidels, and their behaviour towards the Turkish hadjys, or pilgrims, did not remove this unfavourable opinion. The Porte listened more readily to these representations as the pashas of Baghdad had made statements of a similar nature.” Muslim “Puritans” 173 ing ancient authorities, and in the second place to cover the expansionist aims of Muhammad ʿAli. In answer to such accusations Burckhardt emphasised the superstitious character of the cult of the saints, similar to the Catholic cult, and the indubitable scandal provoked by the sumptuous caravans of armed Syrian pilgrims. Supposed miracles were attributed to simple men. Oaths sworn on the tombs of figures such as Abu Talib were considered more sacred than oaths in the name of God himself. The entire procedure of the visit to the Holy Places was peppered with reprehensible cultural practices.95 Never, the writer emphasised, had the Wahhabis objected to the pilgrimage as such. Indeed, following their leaders, they had always gone on it themselves, and had always admitted other dignified pilgrims such as those from the Maghreb. So it had been from the time of the Saʿudi conquest of Mecca and so it still was towards the end of 1815, during the truce with Tusun Pasha. Nor, once it was clear that the only objective was the visit to the mosque, but not the tomb, of Muhammad, had the traditional visit to Medina ever been forbidden. The tomb had indeed been robbed, but only following the precedent of past robberies by previous custodians. The prohibitions concerning the tomb existed merely to prevent acts implicating the sin of undue “association” of the dead Prophet with God him-

95 Ibid, p. 280: “The Mohammedan saints are venerated as highly as those of the Catholic church, and are said to perform as many miracles as the latter. (…) The Wahabys declared, that all men were equal in the eyes of God; that even the most virtuous could not intercede with him; and that it was, consequently, sinful to invoke departed saints, and to honour their mortal remains more than those of any other person.” Further, ibid, pp. 327–28: “In refusing to let the caravans pass, the Wahabys appear to have acted from religious motives, for they knew that the soldiers who accompanied them would not attempt any hostile measures in a country where they might be at once cut off from all supplies and reinforcements. But the hadjys, or pilgrims, composing those caravans had always acted in so indecorous a manner, their chiefs had so openly sanctioned the vilest practices, and the ceremonies of the hadj itself had been so polluted by the conduct of the devotees, that the Wahabys, who had long insisted upon a reform of these disorders, resolved to terminate them. The Syrian caravan performed its pilgrimage for the last time in 1802” (more precisely in the spring of 1803, on the occasion of the first Wahhabi conquest of Mecca). On the veneration of Abu Talib, Muhammad’s uncle and ʿAli’s father, considered the patron of Mecca: such deep veneration that “many persons at Mekka who, though they would have little scruple in breaking an oath taken before God, yet would be afraid of invoking the name of Abou Taleb in confirmation of a falsehood”, cf. Id., Travels in Arabia, cit., p. 129: “The Wahabys reduced the building which covered the tomb to a mere heap of rubbish.” 174 Chapter 3 self, thereby degrading such perpetrators to “infidels”.96 The divine messenger, whom the new devotees were accused of honouring insufficiently, was respected by them as a great legislator inspired by heaven, albeit still human. The

96 Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 279–80: “The Wahábys reproach the Turks with honouring the prophet, in a manner which approaches adoration, and with doing the same also to the memory of many saints. In this they seem not to be much mistaken. (…) Though Turks never address any distinct prayers to their prophet, yet they pronounce his name, as if to invoke him, in the same manner as we say “O Lord!” and this was enough to draw on them the severe reprehension of the Wahabys. They moreover visited his tomb, with the same devotion as they do to the great temple of Mekka, and, when standing before it, uttered aloud their impious invocations, as the Wahabys called them; so that they fully deserved the opprobrious appellation of infidels, who associate an inferior divinity with the Almighty.” Further: “As saints are often more venerated than the Deity himself, who it is well known accepts no other offerings than a pure conscience or sincere repentance, and is therefore not easily appeased, so the visit to Medina is nearly as much esteemed as that to the house of God, the Beitullah at Mekka; and the visitors crowd with more zeal and eagerness to this shrine, than they do even to the Kaaba.”, cf. Id., Travels in Arabia, cit., p. 347. Admission of the caravan from the Maghreb to Mecca in 1811 was also confirmed for the previous years by al-Jabarti, History of Egypt, cit., III, pp. 388–92; IV, pp. 73, 120, 198, (with the text of a doctrinal communication which the Wahhabis had already delivered to the leader of the pilgrims from the Maghreb in 1803, when Saʿud first entered the Holy City); J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, cit., p. 252; Id., Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, cit., p. 437. The sack of Muhammad’s tomb in Medina ordered by Saʿud at some point between 1806 and 1810 was partly to discourage an illicit form of the cult based on rich offerings to the man who was considered the highest intermediary with God. In time, however, the negative repercussions of the pillage induced chroniclers and Wahhabi apologists to avoid mentioning the episode (as did Ibn Bishr), or even to deny it (as in the case of ʿAbd al-Latif ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Hasan). After Burckhardt, Mengin and al-Jabarti, the main authorities on the subject, the tendency has nonetheless been to maintain that forms of surreptitious appropriation of such goods by the custodians already existed in that venerated place and that Saʿud did not personally pocket the entire booty but shared it out between himself, Sharif Ghalib and the city garrison, cf. Peskes (1993), pp. 148–49, 191, 325–26; Vassiliev (1998), p. 104. Still more controversial was the ordained prohibition to visit the Prophet’s tomb and the consequent Wahhabi ban on pilgrimages to the sepulchre. Although Ibn Ghannam showed a sincere dislike of the practice, as confirmed in the opposite camp by Ibn Zaini Dahlan, cf. Hartmann (1924), p. 185; Peskes (1993), pp. 148, 196; Puin (1973), p. 69, some scholars are inclined to assume that the prohibition was only applied to visits intended for worship (prostration, prayers etc.), but not the rite as such, cf. Laoust (1939), pp. 508, 520; Rentz (2004), pp. 22, 28 nt. The arrival of a fair number of pilgrims to Mecca from the Maghreb in 1811, as in previous years although the pilgrims were fewer, was assisted by the sultan of Morocco Mulay Sulaiman (d. 1822), who was favourably disposed to the Wahhabi doctrine, cf. Laoust (1965), p. 330; Peskes (1993), p. 324; Peters (1989), p.103; Pröbster (1935), p. 70; Vassiliev (1998), p. 105. Muslim “Puritans” 175 value of his mission was unimpaired. Only the abnormal manifestations of the cult were abolished, those practised among Muslims, in particular Turks, who did not even believe in his death, or preferred to pray to him for the remission of their sins rather than to God.97 Burckhardt concluded that the Wahhabis were totally orthodox Muslims, defamed for political reasons and hated for their implacable denunciation of widespread sinful actions, such as the consumption of alcohol, adultery, pederasty, corruption of the judiciary, omission of legal alms, and so on, as also for their severity towards non-observant co-religionists who were cast as “heretics” and exhorted to redemption by concrete death threats. Although he personally gathered some opinions contrary to the new movement, for example concerning the virtually indiscriminate massacre of the male population of Kerbela, he nonetheless felt no obligation to credit the variegated views on the Wahhabis outside Arabia. Their religion deserved to be called “the Protestant- ism or even the Puritanism of the Mohammedans”, or, more precisely, “Muselmán puritanism” in the form of a “Bedouin government” modelled on the authority supplied by Muhammad’s early successors.98

97 In the Notes the Wahhabi “catechism” on Muhammad runs as follows: “Mohammed is nothing but a prophet”, “Our duty is to obey his commands, to believe what he related, to renounce what he forbade.” However, the name of the Prophet appears to be retained in the profession of faith: “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet”, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 426. Theft from his tomb before the Wahhabi conquest, followed by the vain attempt to destroy the dome and finally the ban on the pilgrimage in its customary form (“idolatrous any visits, prayers, or exclama- tions, addressed to the tomb”) are described by Burckhardt, but he specifically states that all this in no way implicated the abolition of the ritual visit to the Mosque at Medina, ibid, pp. 331–32; Id., Travels in Arabia, cit., pp. 334–35, 346, 394. 98 Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 58–59: “There are different opinions on the Wahaby’s tenets, and I never met in Syria any person who even pretended to have a true knowledge of their religion. I think myself authorised to state, from the result of my enquiries among the Arabs, and the Wahabys themselves, that the religion of the Wahabys may be called the Protestantism or even the Puritanism of Mohammedanism. The Wahaby acknowledges the Korán as a divine revelation; his principle is, “The Korán, and nothing but the Korán:” he therefore rejects the Hedayth or “traditions”, with which the Muslim lawyers explain, and often interpolate, the Koran. He regards Mohammed as a prophet, but merely as a mortal to whom his disciples pay too much veneration. The Wahaby forbids the pilgrimage to Mohammed’s tomb at Medinah, but exhorts the faithful to visit the Kaaba, and, principally, to sacrifice upon Mount Arafat, sanctioning so far the objects of the pilgrims at Mekka. He reproves the Muselmans of this age, for their impious vanity in dress, their luxury in eating and smoking. (…) They reject music, singing, dancing, and games of every kind, and live with each other on terms of perfect equality; 176 Chapter 3

In the light of such ideas the Wahhabis appear in the Notes as the belligerent apostles of an ancient, forgotten faith, new only in so far as so-called Muslims had been unaware of it, as was the case of the Najd Bedouin who had only recently reverted to the true cult. The return to the simple letter of the Koran understood as “divine revelation” free from interpolation – in this sense it seems correct to reinterpret Corancez’s mention of a “particular” version of the Holy Book – respect for “the best commentators of the Koran (…), although not implicitly followed”; adherence to the prescriptions and traditions in the sunna considered to be equally fundamental, all completed the basic structure of the “purified” Muslim religion99. Only plebeian neophytes inclined to “fanaticism”, inevitable in any “new sect”, had been able to resolve the founder’s grave

because no respect, says the chief, is due to any but God, before whom all are equal. (…) He exclaims against any intercourse between his faithful people and the heretics (meshrekein), as he calls the Muselmans. The Wahaby (as Ibn Saoud, the chief, is emphat- ically styled) propagates his religion with the sword. Whenever he purposes to attack a district of heretics, he cautions them three times, and invites them to adopt his religion; after the third summons, he proclaims that the time for pardon has elapsed, and he then allows his troops to pillage and kill at their pleasure. When the town of Mesdjed Aly [scil.: al-Najaf, but Kerbela must be meant here] was taken, his Arabs slaughtered all the inhabitants.” Critics now reject as misleading the comparison of the Wahhabi movement to one or other of the Christian Protestant denominations, which has become something of a commonplace thanks to Burckhardt’s reference to Puritanism and has often been repeated during the twentieth century, cf. Vassiliev (1998), p. 75 (“Wahhabism is compared with medieval Europe’s Reformation on the purely formal basis of the outer striving to “purify” the original, “genuine” religion from the later admixtures. It is only in this sense that one may speak of any outward resemblance between two phenomena whose socio- political and even theological content is entirely different”). Today, if anything, there is a prevalence of a perhaps no less questionable analogy based on the term “fundamentalism”. Scholars thus attempt to project onto religious phenomena of the past totally unconnected with the Christian world a term not used in the Protestant field until the second half of the nineteenth century to denote a declared need to return to the “foundations” of the faith by rejecting modern Bible criticism, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), p. 9; Peters (1989), pp. 91–92; Schwartz (2002), pp. 69, 76, who rejects the positive implications of the reference to the Reformation and sketches a comparison, in his view less flattering, with contemporary Born again Christians. On the connection between faith and good works, intention and performance, and emotional and formal adherence to ritual as preached by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, cf. DeLong-Bas (2004), pp. 71, 76, 79, 115–16, 197, 218, 284. 99 J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 278–79: “The chief doctrines of the Wahabys, it will be seen, correspond with those taught in other parts of the Musel- man empire. The Koran and the traditions of Mohammed (Sunne) are acknowledged as fundamental, comprising the laws; and the opinions of the best commentators on the Koran are respected, although not implicitly followed.” Muslim “Puritans” 177 theological concerns and the strict equality he re-established among the faithful, focussing attention on the prohibition of material goods such as silk, jew- ellry, and tobacco.100 In support of his arguments Burckhardt advanced the absolute orthodoxy of the “catechism” spread by Saʿud in Mecca, as well as the authoritative opinion expressed by the Cairo ʿulamāʾ in 1815.101 Had a reader of the Notes gone back to the words of the scholar of Basra interrogated by Niebuhr half a century earlier, he would have noted that a very similar answer had already been given then. The diversity lay in the widely differing premises of their research. While Niebuhr was content to give this opinion beside a second deviant one attributed to a camel-selling sheikh, the two presented as of equal value, Burckhardt now reached his own conclusion, acknowledging the basic Sunni orthodoxy of the Wahhabis only after careful thought and rectifying Muslim and European prejudices. The question of the sect’s religious intolerance remained open. Special benevolence shown to Christians and Jews, imagined in the past, was to be excluded. They might perhaps be accepted, but only on submission and the payment of tribute, without any illusions as to kindlier sentiments on the part of the devotees.102 The treatment of other Muslims, however, was more controversial, because of both the justifications provided and the violence exerted. It

100 Ibid, pp. 283–84: “As the fanatic mob of a new sect can seldom be impressed with the true spirit of its founder, it happened that the greater part of the followers of Abd el Wahab considered as chief points of doctrine such as were rather accessories, and thus caused their enemies to form very erroneous notions of the supposed new religion. Next to the war which they declared against saints, their fanaticism was principally turned against dress, and the smoking of tobacco. (…) It was by the dress that Wahabys could be immediately recognised in Arabia”. 101 “Knowledge of God” based on prohibition of any “association” with other divinities; “submission to the Almighty”, consisting in the profession of the oneness of God and the prophetic value of Muhammad, praying as prescribed, distributing alms, fasting during Ramadan, going on pilgrimages to the holy house of God; “faith” in God, the angels, the books revealed, the prophets, the Day of Judgement and divine omnipotence; lastly the good works condensed in the precept: “Adore God, as if thou didst see him; and if thou canst not see him, know that he sees thee” form the columns of the Wahhabi “catechism”, together with “knowledge of our prophet Mohammed”, the “seal” of all prophets, “a dele- gate whom we dare not adore, and a prophet whom we dare not belie”. All of this is in any case “nothing more than what the most orthodox Turk must admit to be true”, ibid, pp. 278, 425–28. It is not hard to detect in the formulas “submission”, “faith” and “good works”, the English equivalents of the canonical Arabic terms islām, īmān and ihsān, contained in the “catechism”, translated in an appendix to Notes. 102 On the little tolerance felt by the Wahhabis for Jews and Christians, ibid, pp. 59–60. 178 Chapter 3 was only with considerable difficulty that such behaviour could in principle be attributed to the early successors of Muhammad. The systematic murder of “their enemies found in arms” (supra, note 84) could no longer be excused when applied to men who also believed in the Prophet, since the murderers had ceased to act in the name of the need to propagate the faith among hostile populations greater in number and total strangers to the revelation of the Ko- ran, as had happened at the time of the original spread of Islam. In the Notes typical episodes illustrated the phenomenon without mitigating Wahhabi cruelty. It was, however, clear to Burckhardt that any opinion on the subject had to account for the fact that the violence was mutual and thrived on the inevitable reciprocal accusations exchanged between opposing theological groups.103 If fanaticism horrified Burckhardt no less than it did his predecessors, it was, he believed, equally propagated by both contending sides and was counterbal- anced in his mind by his similarly strong contempt for hypocrisy where faith was concerned, current among common Muslims and the upper classes. Burckhardt despised the indifference of governments to religion, including those within the Ottoman frontiers, almost to the point of preferring the sec-

103 The impossibility that either party would modify its convictions, even when treating for peace, was particularly emphasised by Burckhardt in connection with the conciliatory letter from ʿAbd Allah to Tusun Pasha in the appendix, in which the former describes himself and his subjects simply as Muslims. Burckhardt observes: “Which is as much as to say to the Pasha, ‘You are no Moslem’”, ibid, p. 429 nt. This total lack of a common code of communication in religious terms is confirmed in two typical examples, one entertaining, the other dramatic: “One day an Ateybe Bedouin presented himself before the Pasha [scil.: Muhammad ʿAli], kissed his beard, and exclaimed – “I have abandoned the religion of the Moslems” (or “True Believers”, as the Wahabys style themselves); “I have adopted the religion of the heretics”, so the Wahabys entitled all those Mohammedans who are not of their creed); “I have adopted the religion of Mohammed Aly”. This unintended blunder caused a general laugh; and the Pasha answered through his interpreter (for he but imperfectly understood Arabic), “I hope you will always be a staunch heretic” ”, ibid, p. 380. Hasan Pasha, a general of Muhammad ʿAli, was less humorous in his treatment of an Arab Wahhabi chief, Salim ibn Shakban, who had come to the Egyptian camp to negotiate the surrender of his tribe, ibid, p. 403: “Having gone to pay his respects in the tent of Hassan Pasha, this fanatical Turk reproached him with heresy. Shaban boldly defended his opinions, and retorted upon the accuser, who became so enraged that when Shaban and his followers quitted the tent, he ordered his soldiers to fall upon them, and they were all cut to pieces.” It should be noted that Burckhardt himself sometimes used terms common in Egypt, including the formula “orthodox Moslims” to define the non-Wahhabi majority, cf. Id., Travels in Arabia, cit., p. 347. Muslim “Puritans” 179 tarian spirit of sincere zealots – especially if they were able to defy political interests.104 Hence his ill-disguised sympathy for the Wahhabis. Nonetheless, it could not be said that there was a solution to every question that Wahhabi doctrine raised for foreign observers, since Burckhardt himself admitted that he was “not qualified by a sufficient knowledge of the controversy” to supply “full details”. His opinion wavered in particular when considering the Wahhabi attitude to the traditions concerning Muhammad, which had, according to Corancez and Rousseau, been expunged from the “canon” of the reformed Muslim faith. On the one hand Burckhardt admitted that ḥadīth were not permitted (supra, note 98). On the other he affirmed that the sect considered “the traditions of Muhammad” or sunna as fundamental to the point of being read and interpreted together with the Koran in the presence of Saʿud, “according to the commentaries of the best writers”. The same was said of the “laws” (supra, note 99).105 A Wahhabi envoy in Cairo was also known to have ably defended the theological principles of his faith by referring to such “traditions”, which he knew by heart (supra, note 81). The only real restriction on their use apparently lay elsewhere, in the fact that the opinions of the greatest commentators, although studied, were not always applied “implicitly”. However, it was still unclear what exactly this meant: whether and how far the Wahhabis respected the main collections of ḥadīth, the authority of those who wrote them down (starting with the Prophet’s companions), and certain lines of transmission, or whether they preferred to assess individual traditions on the basis of their conformity to the Koran or their historical context. Nor was it completely clear what validity was still attributed to the body of laws expound- ed by the heads of the four main Sunni law schools, of which the majority of Muslims stood in almost sacred awe. Burckhardt’s opinion of the movement’s adversaries or, more generally, those Muslims not connected with the new preaching in Najd, was even more

104 News of a holy man, “a rash devotee, or mad Sheik or Dervish” who insulted the Greek patriarch of Damascus in the street although the Greek was protected by the local authorities caused Burckhardt to comment: “Whatever may be thought of it in a moral point of view, we must respect the energy of a man who enters headlong into a contention, of at least uncertain issue, and generally detrimental to his own worldly interests, merely because he fancies or believes that his religious duty commands his exertions”, cf. ibid, p. 207. In the case of the Turkish Empire Burckhardt attributed the rarity of such “genuine popular commotions, which were once so frequent in Europe” not to increased enlightenment, but to “interest, or according to the wish or example of the ruling power”, ibid. 105 Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 290. A few pages earlier, ibid, p. 282: “Abd el Waháb took as his sole guide the Koran and the Sunne or the laws formed upon the traditions of Mohammed.” 180 Chapter 3 problematic. Since he was guided by the same positive conclusions on Wah- habi orthodoxy as its adepts themselves, he also applied to their enemies the same disparaging categories that they did.106 The close followers of ʿAbd al-Wah- hab no longer appeared in the Notes as “heretics” or “infidels”, nor was a clear distinction made between these two categories such as Badía had at least par- tially attempted (supra, note 28). It was their enemies the Turks who were defined thus, and with them the great mass of “indifferent” Arabs, or those guilty of religious practices that the Protestant, rationalistic traveller could not help considering superstitious and contrary to direct communion with the god- head. Burckhardt in fact felt no repugnance for concrete individual common Muslims subject to such harsh reprobation on the part of the Wahhabis. He could not, however, accept popular veneration of the saints, belief in their intercession and miracles, or commerce in relics and customs of pagan origin.107 The result was a rehabilitation of the Wahhabis thanks to a feeling no less favourable than that which had induced Niebuhr and Volney, albeit with quite different motives, to speculate on the supposed Deism of those same Arabs. Burckhardt’s sympathy for Islam in general was significant, but his wish to do justice to a combative religious minority hated by the powerful and the corrupt was even stronger. Whatever his personal religious convictions, whether Chris- tian, Muslim or syncretic, the Calvinist environment of his childhood and his youthful anglophile, liberal ideas, fomented by opposition to the French Revo- lution, predisposed him to establish a firm link between religion and freedom, as was the case of many of contemporaries in Europe. In contrast to the invader Muhammad ʿAli, encountered in Cairo and al-Ta⁠ʾif, who seemed to em- body the worst defects of the usurper Napoleon and whose behaviour appeared to legitimise the most deep-rooted prejudices against Ottoman customs (cruelty, avidity, lasciviousness, hypocrisy, irreligion), Burckhardt ended up by ad- miring the Wahhabis as the devoted and austere champions of a purer religiosity and the national Arab cause. Their “fanatical zeal” to which he testi- fied, by pure chance escaping the massacre of a small caravan between Mecca

106 Ibid, pp. 282–83: “The only difference between his sect [scil.: of “Abd el Waháb”] and the orthodox Turks, however unproperly so termed, is, that the Wahabys rigidly follow the same laws which the others neglect, or have ceased altogether to observe. To describe, therefore, the Wahaby religion, would be to recapitulate the Muselmán faith; and to show in what points this sect differs from the Turks, would be to give a list of all the abuses of which the latter are guilty.” 107 Among the illicit customs suppressed by the Wahhabis the author also notes the trade in Zamzam water, prostitution in Holy Places and the festivities accompanying circumcision, Id., Travels in Arabia, cit., pp. 128, 144; Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 293. Muslim “Puritans” 181 and Jidda, could partly be justified not only by the rough sincerity of the Wah- habi faith, but also by the extreme difficulties involved in standing up to an unscrupulous enemy.108 Readers of the Notes, having learned in the meantime of the Wahhabis’ struggle for survival after 1818, were inclined to revise their past notion of the danger the sect represented, which was now apparently contradicted by the facts. They tended, rather, to accept this new interpretation as the more credible one. The main attraction of Burckhardt’s work was the analogy with certain aspects of Puritanism: the severity of its customs, social equality also practised among the Arabian sectarians, and a similarly direct reference to their sacred texts. Possibly having learnt from the over-hasty inferences of some of his predecessors, Burckhardt seemed to be aware of the pitfalls inherent in applying European categories to Arab phenomena. Thorny theological questions such as the individual inspiration necessary for the interpretation of the revealed book, or the redemptive values respectively of grace and freedom, or faith and charitable works, were not touched on. How far the Wahhabis were subordi- nate to a secular power which in their view was impious and immoral, was also left unexplored. How far, in other words, did their religion allow them the right to resistance or insurrection, actions which had led the Puritans to commit regicide, a still much debated event? Thus the question of whether and to what degree the new preaching admitted, or perhaps even demanded, the violent overthrow of a corrupt political power, although proclaiming itself Muslim, received an unsatisfactory answer in the Notes which could be inferred only indirectly from evidence of the not always uniform behaviour of the warriors in Najd, at times extremely belligerent towards the established authorities (the

108 Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 386–87. “Turkish” duplicity and cruelty are constantly mentioned in the Notes, particularly in the description of the three-hundred Wahhabi prisoners Muhammad ʿAli had impaled at the gates of Mecca and along the road as far as Jidda, despite the promise of a pardon and the anger of his own Arab allies, ibid, p. 401. On the other hand the sufferings of the Egyptian troops – poor forcibly conscripted fallāhūn, or mercenaries assembled from every corner of the Ottoman Empire, particularly the dreaded Arnaut Albanians – their apprehension and lack of training were attributed to the obtuseness and brutality of the officers rather than the ferocity of the enemy. As Burckhardt writes, it was known from the enemy that “certain death awaited all Turkish prisoners”, ibid, p. 378. The bad name Muhammad ʿAli had acquired as a result of his cynicism and “impiety”, disapprovingly emphasised by Burckhardt and amply confirmed by al-Jabarti, was often trumpeted abroad by his political opponents. It was also proclaimed at home during the great 1824 popular insurrection in Upper Egypt, led by a self-styled mahdī, Sheikh Radwan, who even declared that the pasha was an “infidel”, cf. Fahmy (1997), pp. 53, 95. 182 Chapter 3 sharif of Mecca, the pasha of Egypt, the sultan of Oman), at others conciliatory to the point of declaring their willingness to accept at least the temporal power of the Porte. It was equally unclear who in the Wahhabi camp had a legitimate spiritual authority since, after the founder ʿAbd al-Wahhab, only members of the Saʿudi dynasty seemed to have filled the post, albeit assisted by the ʿulamāʾ. In later life, having retired from combat to devote himself to scholarship, Saʿud ended up by appearing in the Notes almost as a prince of theology, with a greater resemblance to James I of England than to Oliver Cromwell.109 Burckhardt’s personal experience, consisting of his visit to the Holy Places of Islam only after they had passed under the dominion of Muhammad ʿAli, was sufficient to explain why questions concerning the legitimacy of Wahhabi claims to the government of the Hijaz and the religious investiture of the Saʿudi monarch were no longer of interest to the inhabitants of Mecca. It was natural, therefore, that the benevolent reference to Puritanism in the Notes should have appeared primarily as antithetical to the liberticide essence of a dreaded Machiavellian ethos such as had taken root in Europe, capable of masking its own temporal designs under the cloak of any religion whatsoever and appearing in the Muslim East disguised as the liberation of the Holy City, the restoration of pilgrimages, and the rebuilding of desecrated places of worship as proclaimed in Turkish and Egyptian propaganda. Suspicion and treachery as established systems of government, intimidation and ferocious punishment and revenge merely to conceal cowardice and disorganisation – in brief, the sad spectacle of the reprehensible methods Burckhardt observed first in the pashadom of Damascus and then in Egypt and Arabia under Muhammad ʿAli – must have provoked in him a more favourable estimation of the Saʿudi kingdom where he had never set foot, but which various clues led him to suppose paid greater heed to the public good and was rooted in a common spiritual heritage.110

109 Burckhardt writes of him, cf. Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 290: “It is said that he equalled, or perhaps excelled, any of the olemas in his knowledge of religious controversy and of the law in general.” 110 If up until 1813 Burckhardt evidently appreciated as “just and vigorous” Muhammad ʿAli’s predisposition to confiscate the worldly goods of the Muslim clerics in Egypt, as well as that of the Mamluks, he changed his mind on his return from Arabia, where the requisi- tioning of goods and lands under the Wahhabi regime of those in opposition, who twice refused to capitulate, seemed to him to meet the collective interest better – at least compared with the systems of any “Turkish governor”, since “nothing can induce him to adopt measures of general utility”, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, cit., p. liv (letter from Esne, 2 May, 1813); Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. 307–11, 341. Muslim “Puritans” 183

The hypothesis was to meet with approval in Great Britain, where the rebirth of the Wahhabis in Arabia appeared to some as a desirable remedy against Muhammad ʿAli’s ill-concealed sympathy for a still unsettled France. In 1834 Brydges, a careful reader of the Notes, did not hesitate to carry this idea to its extreme consequences. All who knew Asia well found preferable “fanaticism to atheism; the operations of the most imperfect laws, to the operations of anarchy”. Indeed, “imagination cannot figure to itself a more despicable, a more dangerous, a more cruel being to society, than an atheist Turk”.111 The choice thus expressed, which at the time conformed to a counterrevolutionary spirit still very much alive in Europe, was merely shifted to the Arabian field, and continued to meet with approval even as historical circumstances changed. It would still be evident in certain circles in Europe and North America a long time hence, even if it would be applied to other countries in the Islamic world. Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation is a case in point.112

111 H. Jones Brydges, An Account of the transactions of His Majesty’s Mission to the court of Persia, cit., II, p. 114: “I shall not regret to see the government which this paçha has, for the present, dissolved [scil.: “the political government of the Wahaubys”, overturned by Muhammad ʿAli], rise from its ashes, for faulty as no doubt it was, time would have sof- tened or corrected the worst of its faults; and I have no hesitation in saying, I prefer enthusiasm, or, if you will, fanaticism to atheism; the operations of the most imperfect laws, to the operations of anarchy; and that my imagination cannot figure to itself a more despicable, a more dangerous, a more cruel being to society, than an atheist Turk.” 112 As Brydges hoped, the resurrection of the Wahhabis in Central Arabia was also supported in the same year, 1834, by a report from the Board of Directors of the East India Company, in which the wish was expressed that the renewed influence of Turki ibn Saʿud, the new Saʿudi ruler who died soon afterwards, the victim of a plot, could put an end to the tire- some conflicts of the small local potentates along the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf, cf. Winder (1965), p. 82. Brydges’ opinion, however, was far from unanimous among his countrymen, some of whom liked to assume that that “extraordinary sect of Wahabees”, less ferocious only than the Algerian pirates in the Mediterranean, were destined “it is to be hoped never to rise again”, cf. F. Warden, Historical Sketch of the Wahabee Tribe of Arabs, cit., p. 436. 184 Conclusion Conclusion Conclusion

It was in the month of May, 1816, that hostilities had broken out between the Anazie Arabs and another tribe, each belonging to the great division of this people which had embraced the new and reforming doctrines of the Wahabees, a sect of deistical puritans, who had, for some time past, disturbed the peace of Arabia, by their conversions and their wars. J.S. Buckingham, Travels in Mesopotamia, 1827 ⸪ With the publication of Burckhardt’s Notes, followed soon afterwards by Ger- man and French translations, the early wave of European information on the Wahhabis had come to an end. It had been a period in which contact was established with an unknown religious movement in Arabia without any direct relation to powers outside the region.1 Most observers were by now aware that they were faced with a spiritual phenomenon within Islam which could be described as a variously shaded “reform” of doctrine and customs. It was equally evident that the religious conflict centred on the decision of who the authentic Muslims actually were had become caught up in national and political factors. The conviction that the renewed faith could survive even the Saʿudi kingdom’s military setbacks eventually became a certainty.2

1 For the French and German versions of Notes, cf. J.L. Burckhardt, Bemerkungen über die Beduinen und Wahaby, Weimar, 1831; Id., Voyages en Arabie, suivis de Notes sur les Bédouins et d’un Essai sur l’histoire des Wahhabites, Paris, 1835. The three-volume French edition in particular also contained an original “Notice de différens voyages en Arabie”, probably by the translator Eyriès, devoted to Burckhardt’s predecessors (starting with the sixteenth- century Bolognese Ludovico di Varthema,), and a “supplément” on the Egyptian military campaigns in Najd, up to the capture of al-Dirʿiyya based on Mengin’s Histoire, although this was not mentioned, ibid, I, pp. v-xxii; II, pp. 449–70. 2 According to the geographical periodical of Heinrich Berghaus: “Ob aber die Wahabi- Lehre durch die Feldzüge Mohammed Alys ausgerottet, dies ist eine Frage, welche nicht füglich bejahend zu beantworten sein dürfte. Sie hat in Arabien zu tiefe Wurzeln geschlagen, um völlig verschwinden zu können; es bedarf zum Anfachen des glimmenden Funkens nur eines kühnen, unternehmenden Hauptes, das im Stande sei die Beduinen der Wüste zu elektrisiren und ihren Fanatismus wieder zu beleben”, cf. “Über die Wahabi- ten. Von Burckhardt”, in Annalen der Erd-, Völker- und Staatenkunde, III, 1831, p. 486.

Although conditions resulting from the Egyptian presence in Arabia favoured a close encounter with the sect, they were too unstable to promote confidence in a smooth advance of knowledge or a rapid assessment of the most recent information acquired. Ten years after the publication of Burckhardt’s Notes the complete withdrawal of Muhammad ʿAli from the Arabian Peninsula was, if not an insurmountable obstacle, certainly a complication where further relations with Europe were concerned. In 1838 the Egyptian invaders reached the Persian Gulf for the second time and installed a puppet ruler at al-Riyad in Najd, his name Khalid ibn Saʿud, a younger brother of the unfortunate ʿAbd Allah. As a result of the different education he had received as a hostage in Cairo, Khalid had grown up with little feeling for the Wahhabis. Success, however, was short-lived, and the London conference in July 1840 found France aligned with England, Russia and Turkey in the wish to check Muhammad ʿAli and to put an end to the danger he had presented to the political and religious independence of the whole of Arabia for over twenty years.3 In 1843 the revived Saʿudi monarchy was stabilised under the command of Faisal ibn Turki, a great-grandson of Muhammad ibn Saʿud from a cadet branch of the dynasty. As rulers he and his successors failed to gain sufficient cohesion to reignite the theological controversy or to preach widely and take up arms. Only in 1925 did Mecca and Medina, until then under Ottoman tutelage and the lordship of the sharif, return to the Saʿudi dynasty by which they had been governed amid such outrage between 1806 and 1813. Thanks, however, to religious fervour the kingdom that had escaped destruction managed to encapsulate Najd in an aura of suspicion strong enough to discourage all but a handful of explorers and ambassadors from setting foot in the region during the entire nineteenth century – these included a Finn, Georg Wallin, and two Englishmen, William Palgrave and Lewis Pelly.4

3 Thus the forecast made just after the Egyptian conquest of al-Dirʿiyya by the aforesaid Belzoni came to pass: “Mecca will be to the Turks, what Jerusalem is to the Christians; for, unless a strong army be kept there, the croisades of Mahomet Ali will have no better effect, than that of our Godfrey of Bouillon”, cf. G. Belzoni, Narrative of the operations and recent discoveries within the pyramids, temples, tombs and excavations, in Egypt and Nubia, London, 1820, p. 8. 4 Jomard’s disappointment at these modified relations was eloquent and prophetic. He deplored the change not only as a scholar: “Aujourd’hui que les événements ont fait ren- trer sur les bords du Nil les troupes égyptiennes qui occupaient l’Arabie depuis une tren- taine d’années, il est permis de craindre que les portes de cette vaste péninsule soient fermées pour longtemps aux investigations de l’Europe savante. L’empire Ottoman n’y exerce et n’y exercera toujours qu’une puissance nominale: comment protégerait-il les excursions des voyageurs? Le fanatisme des Wahabis, le caractère intraitable des 186 Conclusion

Owing in part to these complications, Burckhardt would for some time have a profound and decisive influence on historiography and on the opinions of subsequent travellers. The historian Andrew Crichton, parts of whose History of Arabia (1833) were closely based on Burckhardt’s Notes, learned from his Swiss predecessor that “the gross and primitive superstitions of the Koran” were in any case preferable to widespread “infidel indifference”, and he observed with satisfaction that the principal merit of the Wahhabis was not that of preaching a “purer religion” as an alternative to Islam, but to have reinstated Koranic precepts without which improved political conditions and the mitigation of “wild passions” could never have reached those regions.5 The Arabist Edward Lane, having stayed in Cairo on several occasions, confirmed both the Muslim orthodoxy of the new devotees and the idiosyncrasies in the practice of the cult which they defined as idolatrous.6

habitants du Nedjd, de l’Acyr et même de l’Hedjâz sont des obstacles tels qu’il est impos- sibile de prévoir quand il se présentera des circonstances favorables pour les découvertes”, cf. E. Jomard, “Géographie de l’Arabie”, in Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, deuxième série, XIX, 1843, p. 106. 5 A. Crichton, History of Arabia, Ancient and Modern, Edinburgh, 1833, II, pp. 344–45: “Some writers lament the suppression of the Wahabees, from a belief that the downfall of Islam was to follow the propagation of their doctrines, and that a purer religion would be established in its stead. These regrets appear to be inspired by erroneous conceptions of the principles of this sect, which are nothing else than the gross and primitive superstitions of the Koran enforced with greater rigour. Their creed was even more sanguinary and intolerant than that which the first followers of Mohammed offered to the nations on the point of their swords. Their reform extended to only a few absurd and scandalous practices, and the more strict injunction of certain moral precepts; but they left untouched all the impious and heretical dogmas of the Moslem faith. Their chief merit consisted not in their teaching their countrymen a more refined and rational theology, but in suppressing their infidel indifference to all religion; in improving their political condition; and in sub- jecting their wild passions to the restraint of law and justice.” The expression “infidel indifference” is sufficient proof of dependence on Burckhardt (supra, Chapter III, note 91), mentioned in a note. Mengin and Corancez supply further information, while Crich- ton has doubts regarding Rousseau (perhaps because he was openly criticised by Burck- hardt?), and also concerning Niebuhr and Valentia, ibid, p. 290 nt. However, it was Niebuhr who was mentioned as the most important source on modern Arabia, together with Burckhardt and the “Spanish Mussulman” Badía y Leblich, ibid, I, pp. 30 nt., 32. 6 E.W. Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, London, 1836, I, pp. 148–49: “Their [scil.: of the Wahhabis] religious tenets are still professed by many of the Arabs, and allowed to be orthodox by the most learned of the ‘Ool’ama of Egypt. The Wah’ha’bees are merely reformers, who believe all the fundamental points of El-Isla’m, and all the accessory doctrines of the Ckoor-a’n and the Traditions of the Prophet: in short, their tenets are those of primitive Muslims. They disapprove of gorgeous Conclusion 187

In France Burckhardt’s authority was recognised by all. Silvestre de Sacy indirectly repudiated his own past opinions in that he acknowledged the decisive merit of the Swiss writer in his conclusive discovery that all suspicion of Wahhabi heresy was the result of nothing but malevolence due to the personal interests of the sharif of Mecca and the Ottoman potentates.7 The opinion of such an authoritative scholar caused even liberal historians finally to hail the Notes as a salutary corrective to the pro-Napoleonic works of Mengin and Jo- mard in support of Muhammad ʿAli. Achille de Vaulabelle who, in 1836, had the task of completing and updating Reybaud’s Histoire scientifique et militaire de l’expédition française en Égypte, thus reached the conclusion that Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and his followers had merely “reformed” the cult of Islam, thereby re-establishing its original essence. It was only as a corollary that he announced that, at the heart of their revision, lay a sort of “pure Deism” in the sense of a reaffirmation of the basic dogma of the oneness of God.8

sepulchres, and the domes erected over tombs: such they invariably destroy when in their power. They also condemn, as idolaters, those who pay peculiar veneration to deceased saints; and even declare all other Muslims to be heretics, for the extravagant respect which they pay to the Prophet. They forbid the wearing of silk, and gold ornaments, and all costly apparel; and also the practice of smoking tobacco. For the want of this last luxury, they console themselves in some degree by an immoderate use of coffee. There are many learned men among them, and they have collected many valuable books (chiefly historical) from various parts of Arabia, and from Egypt.” This last observation is also an obvious borrowing from J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 142. 7 A.I. Silvestre de Sacy, review of: J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, in Journal des Savans (1831), p. 426: “Si les Wahhabites ont été généralement regardés par les Musulmans turcs, syriens, égyptiens et autres, comme des hérétiques dont la doctrine étoit en opposition avec les dogmes et les pratiques religieuses de l’islamisme, c’a été plu- tôt l’effet de l’ignorance, du prejugé, de l’intrigue, enfin de l’intérêt particulier du schérif de la Mecque et des pachas de Bagdad, de Damas et du Caire, que la conséquence des principes que ces sectaires avoient embrassés et qu’ils chercheient à propager. (…) Les principaux points de la doctrine des Wahhabites ne diffèrent en rien de la doctrine com- mune des Musulmans.” 8 Vaulabelle’s contribution is in vols. IX-X of the complete Histoire scientifique et militaire, dedicated to the Egypt of the time, cf. Histoire moderne de l’Égypte (1801–1834). Par A. de Vaulabelle, Paris, 1836, II, pp. 10–11: “Le réformateur arabe, comme on le voit, ne prenait du Koran que la morale la plus saine, et repoussait toutes les interprétations à l’aide des- quelles on avait obscurci et étendu le dogme fondamental de l’Islamisme, l’unité de Dieu. Sa doctrine était déisme tout pur; en cela, il n’innovait pas, il réformait; car le Koran, dégagé de tout l’alliage qu’y ont introduit les commentateurs et les sophistes, ne prêche pas autre chose.” From Burckhardt he took the information on the favourable opinion of the ʿulamāʾ of Cairo on Wahhabi Muslim orthodoxy. Yet Vaulabelle was still convinced that being faithful to the Koran did not implicate adhering to the sunna and he preferred 188 Conclusion

Meanwhile the new movement and its protagonists had found their way into contemporary literature. Thomas Hope, a mediocre imitator of Byron, had the protagonist of his long-winded novel Anastasius (1819) even go so far as to visit al-Dirʿiyya, still described as the capital of a sect unconnected to Sunni Islam, under the long-lived king ʿAbd al-ʿAziz.9 In 1835 Lamartine, then still only known as a poet and traveller in the East, which he had visited three years earlier, embellished his own oriental memoirs with an incredible account of a conversation supposed to have taken place in the capital of Najd between an unidentified Wahhabi monarch and a Christian Arab, Fathallah al-Sayegh, who was said to have extinguished his haughty interlocutor’s prejudice against the Gospel.10

to present the Wahhabi precepts exposed in Mengin’s “Précis” (supra, Chapter III, note 70), of which he emended only the chronology, ibid, pp. 8–10. Vaulabelle objected to Muhammad ʿAli, “puissance la plus formidable et la plus redoutée”, having levied taxes on Egypt, “de toutes les contrées musulmanes, la plus opprimée et la plus misérable”, ibid, p. 490. Despite some oscillations (“ils rejetaient les Kadith – les traditions orales, – et s’ab stenaient de croire que jamais livre eût émané de l’inspiration divine”), Burckhardt’s judgement also prevails in the later work by Gouin, still composed in the spirit of Mengin and Jomard: “Par le culte, les Wahabis étaient les protestants de l’islamisme; par la morale c’était les puritains de l’Orient”, cf. E. Gouin, L’Égypte au XIXe siècle, cit., pp. 222–23. 9 [T. Hope], Anastasius or Memoirs of a Greek, London, 1819 (in particular: vol. III, chaps. VI-IX). The novel reflects the information about the Wahhabis available in 1810, their austere customs and fighting techniques, their contempt for the Turks, their threat to Otto- man power and their incompatibility with orthodox Islam. The latter consideration appears in Hope’s novel in the words of a Bedouin sheikh from the lower Euphrates, who confesses to the protagonist: “Though a sunnee in name, my religious sentiments have, in reality, claimed kindred with those of Abd-ool-Wahhab”, ibid, III, p. 164. 10 A. de Lamartine, Souvenirs, Impressions, Pensées et Paysages, pendant un Voyage en Orient, Paris, 1835, IV, p. 221: “J’avai cru, jusqu’ici, que les chrétiens étaient les plus superstitieux des hommes, et maintenant je suis convaincu qu’ils approchent beaucoup de la vraie religion que les Turcs.” The whole conversation and this response which the author attributes to a son of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, grandson of ʿAbd al-Wahhab and great-grandson of Saʿud (sic), ibid, p. 205, derive from “Récit du séjour de Fatalla Sayeghir chez les Arabes errants du grand désert”, published in Souvenirs as an appendix. Lamartine presents the French text as the reworking of an Arabic manuscript he had acquired in Syria, containing the auto- biography of the mysterious al-Sayegh and referring to the time he spent as an interpreter in the service of the adventurer and Napoleonic agent Lascaris. Apart from the doubts soon raised concerning the authenticity of this document and partly confirmed in 1871 – the result of an inquiry organised by Jean Mohl on behalf of the Société Asiatique, unpublished until after Lamartine’s death – the unrealistic extravagance of the entire episode of al-Sayegh’s supposed mission to al-Dirʿiyya seems suspicious, not least the Wahhabi leader’s euphoric words on Napoleon (an “envoyé de Dieu”, “en communication intime avec son créateur”) and his Christian interlocutor’s assertion according to which Jesus could Conclusion 189

The mysterious sectarians so little known to Niebuhr had finally gained a firm place in European culture, although, as we have seen, not all interested scholars had recognised their importance at the time. Nor were the most enduring and important misunderstandings completely dispelled, even among enthusiasts of things oriental. It was no accident that during this period possibly the two most ambitious, but also very different, essays in the field of the philosophy of religion, by Benjamin Constant on the one hand and Hegel on the other, did not mention the new movement in Arabia. They chose instead to share the conviction, prevalent during the age of the Restoration, that, in the Ottoman territories, Islam was wholly decadent and, rationally speaking, inferior to Christianity.11 At the same time a widespread obsession with sinister conspiracies imputed to the renewed Society of Jesus even produced echoes of

neither have suffered nor died as the Word but only as man – a seemingly gnostic theme which appeared not to have worried Lamartine, although he was still a fervent Catholic at the time. Where Fathallah al-Sayegh’s almost forgotten “Récit” is concerned, examination of the original Arabic manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, only part of which is included in Lamartine’s French adaptation – he worked from a previous translation in “lingua franca”, edited by his interpreter Mazolier – leads to the conclusion that the author was fairly reliable as long as he was in Syria in the service of an otherwise unknown Lascaris in about 1810, but ceases to be so as soon as he travels to Arabia, Persia and India, where he and his master were supposed to have been given the task of uniting the local populations of Arab origin in an unlikely alliance with Napoleon, to the detriment of both the British and Ottoman Empires, cf. Haddad (1966). 11 Constant wrote that after the first two centuries of heroism for which Muhammad had been responsible in Arabia, comparable “aux plus belles époques de la Grèce et de Rome”, “l’islamisme [est], de toutes les religions modernes, la plus stationnaire, et par là même aujourd’hui la plus défecteuse et la plus nocive”. This example supplies the author with proof of his basic tenet, according to which “toutes le crises religieuses ont fait du bien”, whereas “les religions constituées, travaillées, exploitées par les hommes, ont fait souvent du mal”, cf. B. Constant, De la Religion, considerée dans sa source, ses forms et ses dévelop- pements, Paris, 1824–31, I, pp. 15–16 nt. For his part, Hegel emphasised the abstract Muslim notion of God, corresponding to the Jewish one, but without its national and local details, in antithesis to which only Christianity would be able to recognise the infinite dignity of the individual: “An der muhamedanischen Religion hat das Christenthum seinen Gegen- satz, weil sie auf gleiche Sphäre mit der christlichen Religion steht. Sie ist wie die jüdische geistige Religion, aber nur im abstrakten wissenden Geiste ist dieser Gott für das Selbst- bewußtseyn und steht mit dem christlichen Gott insofern auf einer Stufe, daß keine Par- tikularität beibehalten ist. (...) Der Gegenstaz ist, (...) der Muhamedaner haßt und verbannt alles Konkrete, Gott ist der absolut Eine, wogegen der Mensch keinen Zweck, keine Partikularität, keine Eigenthümlichkeit für sich behält”, cf. G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesun- gen über die Philosophie der Religion, Berlin, 1832, II, p. 283. 190 Conclusion improbable rumours in the East concerning the European origin of the religious leader who had appeared in Najd and was believed to be a closet Jesuit.12 Though cleansed of these fantastical excesses, the idea of a deadly dissent between Sunni Islam and the new movement in Arabia still occasionally raised its head even among authors above suspicion. The Sinologist Pierre-Abel Ré- musat, Silvestre de Sacy’s successor as secretary of the Société Asiatique, actually maintained that there was a distinction between Wahhabis and Muslims analogous to the one between Christians and Jews or between Buddhists and Hindus.13 Baron d’Eckstein, a dilettante orientalist and a curious example of the romantic Catholic intellectual strongly drawn to esoteric wisdom, fanned his hopes of palingenesis with the idea that the Ismaʿili origin, Deistic harmo- ny and universal tolerance of the Wahhabis would, in the long run, prove fatal to orthodox Muslims.14 And even in the midst of the storm over Das Leben Jesu by David Friedrich Strauss there were those who, in sympathy with the greater spirituality of Sufism and aiming to establish a deprecatory parallel between rationalistic Christian and Muslim heresies, pointed to the Wahhabis as exponents of an intellectualistic doctrine, purely moral at heart, indifferent to the

12 A. Vaulabelle, Histoire moderne de l’Égypte, cit., II, pp. 38–39: “L’imagination épouvantée des habitans de l’Égypte et de la Syrie voyait en eux [scil.: the Wahhabis] les instrumens d’une puissance surnaturelle. Saoud, aux yeux des masses musulmanes, avait le pouvoir des miracles; les chrétiens voyaient en lui l’Antechrist et trouvaient le nombre mystérieux de la bête de l’Apocalypse dans son nom réuni à celui d’Abd-êl-Wahab, les juifs le procla- maient comme le précurseur immédiat du Messie tant désiré: les habiles de la première communion lui donnaient un moine pour conseil; ceux de la seconde voulaient que ce guide caché fût un rabbin. Enfin, nombre d’Européens éclairés, agens consulaires, voyageurs ou négocians, regardaient en pitié ces bruits divers et affirmaient sérieusement que Saoud n’était autre qu’un ancien jésuite français naturalisé arabe.” 13 Concerning the persistent confusion of Hinduism and Buddhism Abel-Rémusat observed: “Il en serait à-peu-près ainsi de celui qui confondrait les Wahabites avec les musulmans ou les Juifs avec les chrétiens”, cf. P. Abel-Rémusat, Observations sur quelques points de la doctrine samanéenne, Paris, 1831, p. 13. 14 [F. v. Eckstein], “De l’Asie, dans ses rapports avec l’Angleterre et la Russie”, in Le Catho- lique , IX, 1828, pp. 343–44: “Les Wechabites proclament guerre à mort contre l’Ottoman orthodoxe, et arborent l’étendard de l’ismaelisme sous une forme moderne. Ce sont les partisans d’un système de tolérance pour l’univers entier: l’Ottoman aveugle est seul mis hors la loi. Il est singulier que le même génie de conquête, qui sortit des sables brûlans de l’Arabie pour soumettre par la glaive le monde entier aux lois du Coran, réapparisse aujourd’hui dans les mêmes contrées et s’insurge pour la destruction de la loi sacrée. Le Wechabite est sectateur fanatique d’une tolérance qu’il prêche l’épée à la main au Musul- man orthodoxe. D’ailleurs il se proclame déiste, et prétend vivre en paix avec le monde entier.” Conclusion 191 contents of the ḥadīth, and destructive of the highest “speculative and mystic elements” otherwise present in the “Mohammedan” religion.15 Never again, however, was it possible for better informed scholars to doubt that the Wahhabis were Muslims or, as the study of past heretical groups gradually progressed, that they were totally unrelated to these. It was indeed indicative that Silvestre de Sacy failed to mention the Wahhabis in his ample introduction to the Exposé de la Religion des Druzes of 1838, a synthesis of the decades of research he had devoted to Ismaʿili heresies.16 Compared with Niebuhr’s first tentative information about a Deistic movement in Najd, Burck- hardt’s comparison with Puritanism led to the confirmation of an internal crisis in Islam, destined to be resolved by the timely emendation of a corrupt popular religiosity which had lost sight of revelation. Hammer-Purgstall confirmed this result soon afterwards, not only in his review of the Notes (supra, Introduction, note 7), but to a greater extent in his monumental historical work on the Ottoman Empire of 1832.17 Even the English traveller Palgrave, an

15 A Pietist theologian, Friedrich August Tholuck, already noted for his search for traces of the Trinitarian dogma in religious Muslim thought, was inclined to present the Wahhabis as the champions of an arid rationality of the Enlightened type, cf. F.A. Tholuck, Die Glaubwürdigkeit der evangelischen Geschichte, Hamburg, 1837, pp. 4–5: “Ein Rationalis- mus praktischer Art findet sich dagegen z. B. bei der Sekte der Wehabiten, welche sich ohnehin von spekulativen und mystischen Elementen entblößte muhammedanische Religion noch mehr von ihrer praktischen Seite fassen und z. B. die Dogmen von der Präexistenz Muhammeds, von der ewigen Gesetztafel und auch die Hadith oder Ueberlie- ferung verwerfen, in der sich mehrfache tiefere Elemente finden, die Geschichte Muham- meds zwar stehen lassen, aber nur als die eines gewöhnlichen Menschen.” 16 Here the author, following al-Maqrizi, clearly expresses his scepticism about philosophy, and explains the first flowering of Muslim heresies as due to contact with Greek thought, even suggesting a comparison with more recent German Protestant theology tending to “trouver partout, depuis les livres de Moise jusqu’à l’Apocalypse, les idées de Kant”. While the ancient Qarmatians, considered as an “association philosophique” with a “doctrine secrète”, were still presented as that sect “qui porta plus loin que toutes les autres l’abus de la philosophie” and aimed to “mener les hommes à l’atheisme et à l’immoralité”, no further mention is made of the Wahhabis, cf. A.I. Sylvestre de Sacy, Exposé de la Religion des Druzes, Paris, 1838, I, pp. xxxiii-iv, xxxvi. 17 J. v. Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, Pest, 1827–35, VIII, p. 122: “Das acht- zehnte Jahrhundert der christlichen Zeitrechnung legte nicht nur allein in Europa, sondern auch in Asien den Keim neuer Reformen; die der politischen Einrichtungen des osmanischen Reiches kommen erst zu Ende des Jahrhundertes in Vorschein, aber schon vor der Hälfte desselben ging in Arabien, im Vaterlande des Propheten und des Islams, das Feuer der neuen Lehre Abdulwehhab’s auf, welcher der Beduinen neuer Apostel. Zwanzig Jahre früher, als das Muster deutscher Reisender im Oriente, Niebuhr, über Abdulwehhab und seine neue Lehre die erste Kunde in Europa gegeben, macht davon schon die osmanische Reichsgeschichte, wiewohl nur im Vorbeygehen, als von einer 192 Conclusion

Anglican converted to Catholicism, who was indeed for some years a genuine Jesuit, was ultimately unable to describe the theological content of Muham- mad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s writings other than by using categories taken from modern ecclesiastical history such as “Supralapsarianism” and “Antinomian- ism”, thus in practice belying his own revived theory that, unlike Christianity, Islam would never undergo any historical evolution – in this case his view of such immutability was contrary to Gibbon’s – and his own abstract recommendation of caution.18 Throughout the twentieth century, and perhaps until more recently, it was still normal to speak of the customs of the Wahhabis as “puritan”, even defining them as “unitarian” Muslims, muwaḥḥiddun, from the root waḥda, “unity”. Al- though a claim could here be made for a greater lexical precision it also betrays a lack of compunction in describing a religious group within Islam in terms of a category derived from the Christian debate on the Trinitarian dogma. During the Reformation, on the other hand, it was to the Unitarians or Socinians that the profession of an obscure form of “Mahometanism” had been imputed.19

verderblichen und verdammenswerthen Irrlehre Erwähnung, und die von Niebuhr vor einem halben Jahrhunderte gegebenen ersten Nachrichten sind erst jüngst durch den zweyten Dioskuren der Wüste, den deutschen Burckhardt, berichtiget worden. Sein Reisebericht entschädigt uns über das Stillschweigen der osmanischen Geschichtschrei- ber.” And in conclusion, ibid, p. 125: ʿAbdulwehhab (...) ist der Calvin des Islams, der Zurückführer desselben auf seine ursprüngliche Reinheit, der Wiederhersteller erschlaff- ter Andacht der Moslimen.” 18 W.G. Palgrave, Narrative of a year’s journey through Central and Eastern Arabia, cit., I, pp. 369–70: “More than one writer, treating of this phase of Islam, has entitled it a “Maho- metan Protestantism”, and compared it with the religious movement of our sixteenth century known as the “Reformation”. Now the fact is, that between the mutual bearings of Mahometanism and Wahhabeeism on the one side, and of Christianity in general and dogmatic Protestantism (if I may use the words thus for the comparison’s sake) on the other, there exists no real parallel, and the very slight analogy traceable is fanciful and delusive. (…) The contrast between Christianity and Islam is that of movement with fix- edness, of participation with sterility, of development with barrenness, of life with petri- faction.” Only a few pages later, however, the author observes that the Wahhabi leader’s writings are those “which a Supralapsarian might peruse with edification and an Antino- mian almost mistake for the Acts of the Synod of Dort”, ibid, p. 379. Here the renewed analogy with Calvinism is evident. 19 “Nouveaux unitaires, qui suivent le dogme des Wahabis”, is Jomard’s description of them in his compendium of the geography and history of Arabia (“De l’Arabie en général”), included in his “Études geographiques et historiques sur l’Arabie, avec des remarques eth- nographiques”, and written under the influence of Corancez, cf. F. Mengin, Histoire sommaire de l’Égypte, cit., p. 353. The definition is equally explicit in the diary of the English traveller Richard Burton: “The Wahhabi calls himself a Muwahhid, or Unitarian, in opposition to Mushrik – Polytheist”, cf. R. Burton, Personal narrative of a pilgrimage to Conclusion 193

The lasting success of such a questionable equivalence – already implicit in the writings of Rousseau and Corancez and later accepted by Burckhardt – would be hard to conceive without recalling the decisive part it played in dispelling previous tenacious doubts even about the Islamic nature of the Wahhabi message. The Deistic conjecture of Niebuhr and Volney did not only stem from the particular philosophical system the both espoused or from their tendency to imagine events unfolding in the direction they secretly desired. It reflected, at least in part, widespread views in the Arabian peninsula and the Ottoman provinces which had been transmitted to Europe and lacked any real awareness of testimonies gathered on the spot, inspired by early Islamic criticism of the dreaded innovators from Najd guilty of arbitrary interpretation, contempt of tradition, and impiety towards individuals and places sanctified by an age-old cult. This difference was due to the fact that earlier European observers were prone to attribute merit to whatever had been declared reprehensible. With the accentuation of the “protestantical” nature of the Wahhabi movement, a rectification of its previous characterisation as rationalistic, theological dissent true and proper was opportunely diminished in the face of political and moral controversy, arousing sympathy of a quite different nature and destined to endure for some time to come thanks to comparisons with the Reformation. Half way between the champions of Wahhabi “Puritanism” and Deism” stood the ditherers between the two options, ready to exploit a residual margin of uncertainty in their attempt to unite the most discordant elements in the image of a single exotic subject.20 A further difference lay in individual approaches which could lead to the same comparison. While interpreters such as Rousseau and Corancez tended

El-Medinah and Meccah, London, 1855–56, III, p. 272 nt. In the same sense but with yet greater nonchalance, the Wahhabis had already been labelled “Socinians of the Moham- medan Church” in an anonymous review of Legh’s Narrative, cf. [E.D. Clarke], “Legh’s Voy- age up the Nile”, in The Edinburgh Review, XXVII, 1816, p. 442 (for the probable identity of the reviewer as Edward Daniel Clarke, cf. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, cit., I, p. 456, n. 782). The legitimacy of the definition of the Wahhabis as “Unitarians” (muwaḥḥiddūn), still maintained by some scholars, is justified by one of them in an explicit analogy with the Christians so defined, cf. Rentz (2004), p. 6. 20 Buckingham describes with some irony a Wahhabi prisoner originally from Najd he had met in Turkey who, thanks to “a wound which he had received in his face”, had supposedly been “redeemed from his deistical and puritanical heresy” and led back “to the orthodox Islamism of the Turks”. More generally the Wahhabis were thought to be “a sect of deistical puritans, who had, for some time past, disturbed the peace of Arabia, by their conversions and their wars”, cf. J.S. Buckingham, Travels in Mesopotamia, London, 1827, I, pp. 2, 83 (the source acknowledged by Buckingham, despite his personal though problematic acquaintance with Burckhardt in Egypt from 1813, is here again the Consul Rousseau, ibid, pp. 204–205, 207, 239–43 nt.). 194 Conclusion to propose an analogy with the Reformation, convinced that wars of religion belonged to the European past and had now reappeared in Muslim society only as a result of a historical time lag, observers such as Burckhardt and Brydges set out with the different assumption that the ever deeper rift between philosophy and religion up to the time of the French Revolution, which had rendered them irreconcilable during the eighteenth century, was a European development so inauspicious in itself as to cause both the antagonism between Catholics and Protestants and that between Ottomans and Wahhabis to pale in comparison. The historical significance of Protestantism was not to be found in the long advance from superstition to reason, but in the desire to recover the original conditions of the early Church. It thus seemed possible to hope that a similar movement might penetrate Islam and, even in the stagnant societies produced by that religion, promote a regeneration of customs not greatly dissimilar to the movement initiated by Luther in Europe. Nonetheless, where all these distorted interpretations of the Wahhabi movement tended to produce the same result was in their poor opinion of common Muslims, apparently the main target of the violent charges brought against the “impious” by the followers of the new message. In whatever terms the religious reformers of Najd were defined it was almost inevitable that their opponents, whether sincere or simply slanderous, should come away the worse for wear in comparison with such fervent devotees to whom noble ideals were attributed even if they were pursued with a deplorable recourse to violence. From a European perspective “Mahometans”, “Ottomans” or “sunnis” had virtually no choice but to appear as half-hearted defenders of a religious tradition riddled with superstition, loose living and despotism, or as the incredulous denigrators of a re-emerging Muslim faith representing a danger to their material interests. At worst, the followers of traditional Islamic rites appeared as the purveyors of all the evil that popery meant to a Protestant, or fideism to a rationalist. At best, they were valuable instruments in the far-sighted policies of Muhammad ʿAli, who could exploit their proved religious zeal to expand and renew his state. The deep dismay of the simple faithful at the mounting wave of the Wahhabis’ iconoclastic and murderous intolerance was unlikely to attract the appreciative gaze of foreign observers holding different beliefs and persuaded of their own far greater cultural refinement. European accounts thus took this information to document growing popular fears of the imminent collapse of Islam under the shockwaves of Saʿudi force, even if they addressed this phenomenon with more or less sympathy, according to the negative or positive effects (depending on whether their point of view was French or English) which were expected from such a great “revolution”. Conclusion 195

Opinions in Europe were rendered more complex by the pious hope placed by some in an early revival of Christianity in the East, and the conventional opinions of others regarding the Bedouin. In the first case millenarian expectations, medieval in character, were mingled with recent colonial aspirations in the hope that recent strife in the Muslim world might redress the balance of centuries of Christians’ suffering as a result of their dissent.21 In the second, a charitable attitude to the desert nomads seen as simple and uncorrupted appeared to prevail over the negative view, which saw them as tending to treachery and rapine. However discordant their respective ideas on the Wahhabis, Niebuhr, Volney, Seetzen and Burckhardt, in common with many other travellers, were all subject to the fascination of the “savage” inhabitants of the sandy wastes. Such sympathy, deriving from the myth of man in a state of nature, was intensified as a result of the disapproval the Turks, and more generally the practising Muslims among the settled populations of the Ottoman Empire, fre- quently expressed of both European travellers and Bedouin. Hardly anything was known about what the real relations between the nomadic and settled populations of the Arabian Peninsula might be, particularly in Najd where virtually no European had ever set foot, or about the real influence of Wahhabi proselytism on both the settled and the nomadic populace. Frequent mention of the foundations of political and religious law being established in the Saʿudi kingdom led to the inference that a change was underway which could hardly be attributed to uneducated Bedouin, however idealised. Nonetheless, Burck- hardt’s solution, suggested by the juxtaposition of Bedouin to Wahhabis in the title of his Notes, resided in the assumption that, in practice, only the propa gation of Islam undertaken by ʿAbd al-Wahhab had created an authentic state in Najd, thereby turning the tribal head into a hereditary monarch and wandering shepherds or robbers into legal subjects. As recounted in Ouseley’s preface, it seemed that only the Wahhabis, “Mohammedan sectaries and fierce enthusiasts”, had managed to legislate over populations otherwise unchanged

21 John Barrow, secretary to the British Admiralty and reviewer of Burckhardt’s Travels in Arabia, thus liked to think that “the utter infidel” Muhammad ʿAli, and with him “educated Moslims everywhere”, would be the instruments of the “decline of arch-heresy of the East” until “the re-establishment of the true religion”, cf. [J. Barrow], “Pilgrimages to Mekka and Medina”, in The Quarterly Review, XLII, 1830, p. 49 (for attribution of the review to Barrow, cf. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, cit., I, p. 709, n. 218). Sim- ilarly, Charles Forster, an Anglican clergyman and theologian, the mature author of a confutation of the English Deists – he never mentioned the Wahhabis – saw an encour- agement for Christianity in news of the decadent condition of Muhammad’s religion in India, cf. C. Forster, Mahometanism Unveiled, London, 1829, II, pp. 372–74. 196 Conclusion since the times of Moses and Muhammad – here Gibbon was quoted delib erately.22 Such considerations confirm the general impression that progress in the knowledge of the Wahhabis from Niebuhr to Burckhardt did not proceed in a direct line. Nor was the revival of apparently obsolete representations rare. During the process of clarification there were some losses. Hence the gain consisting in the final awareness that the new movement was a truly Koranic “orthodoxy”, was in danger of being a simplification. The representation of the Wahhabis as an isolated phenomenon on the Muslim scene of those years, the image of Najd as so retarded in its “Bedouin” condition as to owe every aspect of its development – political, social and cultural – to the religious “reform”, was partly based on prejudice. The comparison with any particular development in European history ran the risk of concealing more distant aspects of continuity inherent in the Muslim theological discussion of the presumed “heresy”, only obscured either by the ignorance of witnesses questioned in the East or by their amazement at the armed expansion of the new religious message. Nor could the true novelty of the Wahhabi instigation to purity of doctrine and customs merely be reduced to the contrast between morality and depravity, devotion and superstition. However, if we take into account the objective dearth of information and the chaotic vested interests surrounding events in Arabia and the neighbouring territories, we must admit that the understanding achieved in the span of half a century was considerable and the results commendable. Seen from this angle, nothing could be more counterproductive in an objective assessment than inserting these European writers and events in Arabia into critical categories only partly known at the time. We would be ill-advised to read into them the notion of the equal dignity of very different civilisations, foreshadowing much later developments occurring long after the first Wahha- bi impetus had died down. In the Introduction I said that this impetus was widely, and more or less credibly, reinterpreted as the precursor of today’s Is- lamic “fundamentalism”. Not one of the protagonists taking part in the Euro- pean debate reconstructed here, however, could have imagined such an outcome. Whatever we may think of the present-day Saʿudi monarchy in Arabia, its apparent stability represents a clear break with the events of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even the recurring subjects, under

22 J.L. Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., pp. iv-v. On European overesti- mation of the Bedouin role in the Wahhabi movement in contrast to the existing division between nomadic and settled populations in Najd, cf. Fahad (2004), pp. 55–56; Puin (1973), p. 49. Conclusion 197 discussion then as now, tend to assume a quite different value in each case. The well-meant or at least neutral reference to “Puritanism” in connection with the Wahhabis for most of the twentieth century is rejected with contempt, or assumes a negative connotation, when applied to their present presumed or real continuators. On the opposite front, past discredit of common Muslim religiosity, as distinct from the exclusive intolerance attributed to a fanaticized “fundamentalist” élite, can sometimes change to sympathy today, but without any possibility of basing this presumed “majority” religion on a political entity comparable to the Ottoman Empire.23 More generally, the shift in relations between Europe and Asia during the twentieth century has automatically modified the significance of descriptive and evaluative categories when applied to a different period. This does should not blind us to the fact that certain aspects of the development of the early information in Europe on the Wahhabis are still of value to this day. There is, above all, a lesson in method, applicable to this and similar subjects, which may be summarised in three general points. First, even if absolute freedom from prejudice is impossible, a clear idea of what prejudice means and the determination to keep it in check is an approach preferable to the illusory expedient of merely replacing one prejudice with another contrary one, in this case an anti-Wahhabi with a pro-Wahhabi prejudice, or vice-versa. Secondly, there is the enormous importance of intellectual curiosity, closely concerned with its object – the contrary would smack too much of a frivolous taste for the exotic – and rooted in the conviction that not even the highest moral disposition and a mind most generously open to human diversity can dispense with acquiring greater knowledge of another civilisation, while

23 The existence of a majority Islam, as opposed to Wahhabi “fundamentalism”, based on the spiritual Sufi tradition and political tolerance in the Ottoman Empire is affirmed among others by Schwartz (2002), pp. xiv, xxii, 27, an implacable critic of the present Saʿudi monarchy which, far from being a moderate pro-Western Islamic government, could better be compared to a “totalitarian” regime with Wahhabism as its ideology. The point is made by way of strained or superficial analogies with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, cf. Schwartz (2002), pp. 74–75, 105, 155, 175–79, 262. On the other hand Oliver (2002), pp. 40, 57, 61, a defender of the Koranic orthodoxy of Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and a critic of the degeneration of the popular Muslim cult, believes that a profound difference exists between Wahhabi proselytism and a sort of twentieth-century semi-religious ideology full of “western” revolutionary concepts. This is called “qutbism” after the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, who died in 1966. An exponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, he is regarded as the first man to incite his fellow members to terrorism. The result is to transfer to this new target accusations traditionally levelled against the Wahhabis, in the first place that of continuity with the ancient Kharijite heresy, cf. Oliver (2002), pp. 13–14, 26–27, 37. 198 Conclusion avoiding self-deception or any other form of illusion serving to enhance the image of the expert or the object under examination. In the third place, there is the inestimable importance of direct experience and contact with people, places and documentation, acquired as far as possible without intermediaries unless they should prove absolutely necessary. Scholarly travellers like Niebuhr, Browne, Seetzen, Burckhardt, even the controversial Badía y Leblich, or sedentary scholars such as Silvestre de Sacy, or indeed Rousseau and Corancez albeit less scrupulous and responsible, all have one or other of these qualities from which we can learn, particularly if they are taken as a group and their reciprocal personal relations are examined. The original self-confidence typical of these men may well no longer exist. Today, however, it seems to have been replaced by an increased tendency to suspicion and an unwillingness to learn, effectively blinding more than one “western” observer of the Muslim world. This is perhaps a symptom of weakness. Against it a sober reminder of past events may be of use if not as a remedy, then at least to arouse awareness of our own uneasy conscience. BibliographyBibliography 199 Bibliography

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ibn ʿAbbas, ʿAbd Allah 42n. ʿAli Bey al-Kabir (sultan of Egypt) 31. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz (Wahhabi envoy in Cairo) al-Alusi, Mahmud Shukri 30n, 63n. 164n. Amr ibn al-As 116n. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Muhammad ibn Saʿud, see Antillón y Marzo, Isidoro 122n. al-Saʿud, ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Muhammad. Aʾous (sheikh) 144n, 147n. ʿAbd Allah, hajj 100, 101. Archenholz, Johann Wilhelm von 63n. ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʿud ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Audiffret, Pierre Hyacinthe 21n, 78n. Muhammad ibn Saʿud, see al-Saʿud, ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʿud ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Badía y Leblich, Domingo 36, 121, 121n, 122n, Muhammad. 123, 123n, 124n, 125, 125n, 126, 127n, 128, ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd 128n, 129, 129n, 130, 130n, 131, 131n, 132, 132n, al-Wahhab, see al-Musharraf, ʿAbd Allah 133, 133n, 134, 135, 135n, 139, 153n, 156n, 161, ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab. 161n, 162, 167, 180, 186n, 198. ibn ʿAbd al-Latif, ʿAbd Allah ibn Muham- Bankes, William John 123n, 142, 142n. mad 14n, 174n. Banks, Joseph 7n, 121, 159, 163n. ʿAbd al-Latif ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Barbié du Bocage, Jean Denis 64n, 75n, 83n. Hasan 174n. Barker, John 114, 114n, 160. ʿAbd al-Muʾin ibn Musaʿid, see ibn Musa ʿid, Barrow, John 195n. ʿAbd al-Muʾin. Belzoni, Giovanni Battista 142, 185n. ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Hasan, see ibn Hasan, Berghaus, Heinrich Karl Wilhelm 184n. ʿAbd al-Rahman. Bernstorff, Johann Hartwig Ernst von 28. ibn ʿAbd al-Rahim, Qutb ud-Din Ahmad Bertuch, Friedrich Justin 63n, 64n. 94n. ibn Bishr, ʿUthman ibn ʿAbd Allah 3n, 14n, Abel-Rémusat, Jean Pierre 190, 190n. 23n, 58n, 61n, 68n, 90n, 104n, 154n, 172n, Abraham 67, 101n. 174n. Abu Bakr (caliph) 15n. Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich 110, 110n, Abu l-Fidaʾ 29n, 147n. 169. Abu Nuqta, ʿAbd al-Wahhab 133, 147n. Bonaparte, Joseph-Napoléon 122. Abu Talib (Muhammad’s uncle) 129, 173, Bopp, Franz 49n. 173n. Bosanquet, Jacob 87n. Abu Talib Khan Isfahani 105, 105n, 106n, Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne 71. 107n. Boulainvilliers, Henri de 24, 29n, 34. Adam 129. Boutin, Vincent Yves 61. ibn ʿAfaliq al-Ahasʾi, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Brelwi, Sayyid Ahmad 93. al-Rahman 23n, 59n. Browne, William George 40, 41, 41n, 42, 42n, Agoub, Joseph 148, 150. 43, 43n, 44, 45, 45n, 47, 59n, 66, 86, 87, 87n, Ahmad (aga) 163n. 88, 90, 91n, 96, 97, 126, 160, 198. Akil, Sidi Muhammad 100, 100n. Bruce, James 40, 110n. Alexander I of Russia 110. Bruguières, Jean Guillaume 39. ʿAli (kahya, later pasha of Baghdad) 67, 67n, Brune, Guillaume Marie Anne 60n. 75, 76n, 91n, 154. Brydges, Harford Jones 8, 8n, 44, 87, 87n, ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (Muhammad’s son-in-law) 102, 126, 151, 153n, 161n, 164n, 183, 183n, 194. 67n, 90, 173n. Buckingham, James Silk 111n, 193n. ʿAli Bey al-Abbasi, see Badía y Leblich, al-Bukhari, Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil 138n. Domingo. Burckhardt, Jakob 6.

Burckhardt, Johann Ludwig 4, 6, 7, 7n, 8, 9, ibn Dujain, ʿUraiʿir (emir of al-Ahsaʾ) 18n, 9n, 10n, 21n, 32n, 78, 78n, 81, 84, 87, 87n, 20, 80n, 90n, 152. 110, 121, 122n, 144n, 148, 156n, 158, 159, 159n, Dupré, Adrien 138n. 160, 160n, 161, 161n, 162, 162n, 163, 163n, 164, 164n, 165, 166, 166n, 167, 168, 169, 169n, 170, Eckstein, Ferdinand von 190. 170n, 171, 171n, 172n, 173, 174n, 175, 175n, Emilius Leopold Augustus (duke of Saxony- 176n, 177, 178, 178n, 179, 179n, 180, 181, 181n., Gotha-Altenburg) 110. 182, 182n, 184, 184n, 185, 186, 186n, 187, 187n, Eyriès, Jean Baptiste Benoît 94n, 184n. 188n, 191, 192n, 193, 193n, 194, 195, 195n, 196, 198. Faisal ibn Turki, see al-Saʿud, Faisal ibn Turki Burckhardt, Rudolf 6. ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Saʿud. Burton, Richard Francis 192n. Fatima (Muhammad’s daughter) 129. Buyuk Sulaiman (pasha of Baghdad) 67. Fazakerley, John 118n. Byron, George Gordon 188. Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe 34. Cagliostro, Alessandro 19, 112, 112n, 113n. Finati, Giovanni 139, 139n, 141, 142, 142n. Calvin, John 6n, 192n. Fleischer, Heinrich Leberecht 49n. Catherine (Saint) 118n. Forster, Charles 195n. Charles IV of Spain 122n. Frangé, Diego 73, 74n, 78. Chateaubriand, François René de 112n, 144, Frederick V of Denmark 28. 144n, 145n. Forsskål, Peter 19. Chedufau 147. Clarke, Edward Daniel 193n. Gabriel (angel) 16, 16n, 33n. Condorcet, Marie Jean Nicolas Antoine de Gardane, Claude Mathieu de 46, 53, 60, Caritat de 83. 60n, 103n. Conrad, Joseph (Józef Teodor Konrad Gardane, Paul Ange Louis de 60n, 69n, 75n. Korzeniowski) 11. Garzoni, Maurizio 53. Constant de Rebecque, Henri Benjamin 189, Gauss, Carl Friedrich 113n. 189n. Gentili, Andrea 144n. Corancez, Guillaume Olivier de 69n. Ghalib ibn Musaʿid, see ibn Musaʿid, Ghalib. Corancez, Louis Alexandre Olivier de 69, ibn Ghannam, Husain 14n., 23n, 39n, 40n, 70, 70n, 72, 72n, 73, 74n, 75n, 76, 76n, 77, 58n, 73n, 80n, 90n, 151n, 154n, 156n, 174n. 77n, 78, 78n, 80, 81, 81n, 82, 83, 83n, 91n, 98, Gibbon, Edward 29, 29n, 30, 30n, 34, 71, 93, 101, 103, 104, 114, 114n, 116, 125, 128, 129, 129n, 192. 130, 141, 143n, 145, 149, 150n, 158, 160, 168, Girardin, Stanislas 35n. 176, 179, 186n, 192n, 193, 198. Godfrey of Bouillon 185n. Crichton, Andrew 186, 186n. Godoy Alvarez de Faria Rios Sanchez Zarzosa, Cromwell, Oliver 182. Manuel 121, 121n, 122n, 161n. Goldziher, Ignaz 131n. ibn Dawwas, Dahham (emir of al-Riyad) Gouin, Édouard 144n, 188n. 80n, 152, 153n. Griffiths, John 94. Derenbourg, Harwig 50n. Guignes, Joseph de 25, 33n. Desaix, Louis Charles Antoine 1, 3-4. Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume 147n. Descoudray 146n, 147. Diyaʾ al-Din Ismaʿil 18n. Hadijwam, Husain 105n. Dominic Guzmán (Saint) 132n. al-Hakim, Bi ʿAmriʿllah (Fatimid caliph of Driault, Édouard 75n. Egypt) 31. Drovetti, Bernardino 61n, 122, 144n, 145. Hamilton, Alexander 92n. 228 Index

Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von 6n, 53, 54n, Jesus Christ 2n, 3n, 16, 16n, 29, 32n, 33n, 48, 58, 63n, 191. 48n, 65, 85n, 112, 112n, 113n, 128, 155, 155n, Hamsa (sheikh) 118n. 160n, 170n, 188n. ibn Hanbal, Ahmad ibn Muhammad 45n, ibn-Jirjis al-Baghdadi al-Naqsbandi al-Halidi, 87n. Daʾud ibn Sulaiman 16n. Hankey Smith, Nicholas 102n. John the Baptist (saint) 53n, 112n. Hasan (bektashi dervish) 117. Jomard, Edme François 75n, 83n, 143n, 147n, Hasan (pasha) 178n. 148n, 149, 150, 154n, 155n, 158, 185n, 187, ibn Hasan, ʿAbd ar-Rahman 78n, 151n. 188n, 192n. Hasan ibn Hibat Allah (Makrami) 13n, 17, Joseph of Spain, see Bonaparte, Joseph-Na- 17n, 18n, 19, 19n, 20, 21n, 25n, 26, 27n, 33, poléon. 33n, 101, 152. Hastings, Warren 87, 143n. al-Kalay, Hasan 101n. Haven, Frederik Christian von 19. Kant, Immanuel 191n. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 189, 189n. Khadija (Muhammad’s wife) 99. Herbelot de Molainville, Barthélemy de 51, Khalid ibn Saʿûd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn 51n, 54n. Muhammad, see al-Saʿud, Khalid ibn Saʿûd Heron, Robert 20n, 27. ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Muhammad. Hinrichs, Hermann Friedrich Wilhelm 110n. ibn Khamis, ʿAbd al-Rahman 79n. Hirt, Johann Friedrich 28n. Kruse, Carl Friedrich Hermann 110n, 111n, ibn Hisham, Abu Muhammad ʿAbd al-Ma- 114n, 117n. lik 58n. Kurshid (pasha) 147n. Holbach, Paul Henry Thiry d’, 31, 110n, 111. Hope, Thomas 188, 188n. Laborde, Alexandre de 146n. Hornemann, Friedrich 110, 110n. ibn Laden, Osama 10n. al-Humaidi, Sulaiman ibn Hamd ibn Ghurair Laing, Alexander 81n. (emir of al-Ahsaʾ), 80n, 89n. Lamartine, Alphonse de 188, 188n, 189n. Humboldt, Alexander von 123n. Lane, Edward William 186. Husain ibn ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (Muhammad’s Langlès, Louis Mathieu 148, 149, 150n, 151n. grandson) 61n, 67n, 156n. Lascaris de Vintimille, Théodore Jules Husain ibn Ghannam, see ibn Ghannam, de 188n, 189n. Husain. Lawrence, Thomas Edward 8n. Husain ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, Leake, William 7n, 159, 160, 170n. see al-Musharraf, Husain ibn Muhammad Legh, Thomas 122n, 193n. ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab. Light, Henry 8, 8n. Huss, Jan 112n. Louis XI of France 158n. Louis XVI of France 31n, 53. Ibrahim (pasha) 136n, 137, 137n, 138n, 143, Louis XVIII of France 145n. 143n, 144n, 157n, 167. Louis-Philippe of France 147. Italinskij, Andreij Yakovlevic 4. Luther, Martin 112n, 194. al-Jabarti, ʿAbd al-Rahman 3, 116n, 117, 138n, Mackintosh, James 75n. 157n, 164n, 169n, 170n, 174n, 181n. al-Mahdi, Muhammad 169n, 170n. Jacobsen, Ernst 110n. Maistre, Joseph de 83. James I of England and Scotland 182. al-Majmuʿi, Muhammad 14n. al-Jannabi, Abu Tahir 51n. Makrami, see Hasan ibn Hibat Allah. Jaubert, Pierre Amédée Émilien-Probe 60. Malcolm, John 102, 102n. al-Jaylani, Muhammad 3, 4n. Malte-Brun, Conrad 53, 58, 83n. Index 229

Malthus, Thomas Robert 96, 96n. Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, see Manesty, Samuel 61n, 87, 87n, 102n, 109, al-Musharraf, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd 109n. al-Wahhab. al Maqrizi, Taqi ad-Din Ahmad ibn ʿAli ibn Muhammad ʿAli (pasha, later viceroy of ʿAbd al-Qadir ibn Muhammad 191n. Egypt) 4, 4n, 5, 6, 7, 7n, 36, 60n, 85, 85n, Mary (mother of Jesus) 48, 48n, 119. 103n, 106, 115, 133, 135, 136, 136n, 137, 137n, Maʿsud ibn Mudhaiyan, see ibn Mudhaiyan, 139, 141n, 142, 142n, 144n, 145, 145n, 146, Maʿsûd. 146n, 147, 147n, 148, 148n, 157, 157n, 158, Maurizi, Vincenzo 138n, 139, 139n, 140, 140n, 158n, 159n, 162, 162n, 163, 163n, 166, 166n, 141, 141n, 143n. 167, 169, 169n, 170n, 173, 178n, 180, 181n, 182, Mayer, Tobias 110. 183, 183n, 184n, 185, 185n, 187, 188n, 194, Mazolier, Joseph 189n. 195n. Mengin, Félix 21n, 80, 80n, 143n, 144, 144n, Muhammad Cheaoui 77n. 145, 145n, 147, 147n, 148, 149, 150, 153n, 154n, Muhammad ibn Saʿud, see al-Saʿud, Muham- 155n, 157, 158, 163n, 167, 174n, 184n, 186n, mad ibn Saʿud. 187, 188n. Muhlem (sheikh of al-Zubair) 79. Michaelis, Johann David 28, 28n, 35. Mulay Sulaiman, (sultan of Morocco) 174n. Michaud, Louis Gabriel 21n. Muradgea d’Ohsson, Ignatius 51n. Millin, Aubin Louis 54. Murat Bey 1. Mohl, Jean 188n. Murray, Hugh 9n. Montagu, Mary Wortley 105n. Musa (imam) 67n. Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Sécondat de ibn Musa ʿid, ʿAbd al-Muʾin 68n. La Brède et de 106. ibn Musaʿid, Ghalib (sharif of Mecca) 3, 3n, Morier, James Justinian 30n, 94n, 102, 102n. 4n, 58, 62, 67, 68n, 91, 101n, 102, 116n, 118n, Moses 2n, 3n, 16, 16n, 32n, 33n, 48, 48n, 65, 123, 123n, 129, 133, 136n, 146n, 154, 154n, 155, 85n, 112, 112n, 113n, 155, 155n, 191n, 196. 155n, 162, 162n, 164, 165n, 167, 172, 172n, Mourier, Frédéric Moïse 25n, 26n. 174n. ibn Muʿammar, ʿUthman ibn Hamd (emir of Musailima 29, 29n, 30, 30n, 156n. al ʿUyaina) 80n, 89n, 90n, 151, 152n. al-Musharraf, ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Mudhaifi, ʿUthman ibn ʿAbd al-Rah- ʿAbd al-Wahhab 79n. man 68n, 101n, 136. al-Musharraf, ʿAbd al-Wahhab ibn Sulai- ibn Mudhaiyan, Maʿsud 120n. man 6n, 13, 13n, 14n, 15, 15n, 16, 16n. 17, Muhammad (prophet of Islam) 2n, 3n, 9n, 18n, 19, 19n, 21, 21n, 22n, 23, 26n, 30, 33, 33n, 15n, 16, 16n., 17, 18n, 24, 24n, 25n, 27n, 28, 37, 37n, 38, 48, 50, 55n, 58n, 64, 72n, 84, 29, 29n, 30, 30n, 31, 31n, 32, 32n, 33n, 34, 36, 85n, 86n, 88, 89n, 91, 91n, 92, 95, 95n, 96n, 38n, 41n, 42, 42n, 44, 46, 48, 48n, 51, 52n, 97, 100, 105, 106n, 109n, 114n, 115, 116, 116n, 54n, 55, 55n, 56n, 57, 57n, 58n, 60n, 62n, 65, 117n, 146n, 161, 163n, 164, 164n, 172, 172n, 65n, 66n, 70n, 71n, 73n, 76, 76n, 77, 82, 83, 177n, 180, 180n, 182, 188n, 190n, 191n, 192n, 84, 85, 89, 92n, 93, 93n, 95, 95n, 96, 96n, 195. 97n, 98, 98n, 99, 99n, 100, 100n, 101, 102n, al-Musharraf, Husain ibn Muhammad ibn 104, 105, 106n, 112, 112n, 113n, 116, 116n, 118, ʿAbd al-Wahhab 44, 45n, 66, 66n. 118n, 119n, 121, 121n, 126n, 128n, 129, 129n, al-Musharraf, Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wah- 130n, 132, 140, 140n, 146n, 150n, 152n, 155, hab 9, 9n, 10n, 14n, 15n, 16n., 17n, 19, 19n, 155n, 156n, 165, 166n, 167n, 171n, 172n, 173, 21, 21n, 22, 22n, 23n, 26, 27n, 30, 30n, 38, 173n, 174n, 175, 175n, 176n, 177n, 178, 179, 38n, 39n, 42n, 43n, 44, 44n, 45n, 50, 51n, 179n, 186n, 191n, 195n, 196. 55n, 56n, 57, 58n, 59n, 60n, 64, 65n, 66, Muhammad (Wahhabi emissary in 66n, 68n, 72n, 73n, 76, 76n, 77, 78n, 79n, Oman) 141n. 80n, 86n, 87n, 88, 89n, 90n, 91, 91n, 94n, 230 Index

97n, 102n, 103, 103n, 104, 104n, 106n, 107n, Pages, Pierre-Marie François de 28. 125, 125n, 126, 126n, 127, 128n, 129n, 131n, Palgrave, William Gifford 78n, 185, 191. 132, 132n, 135, 135n, 140, 140n, 141n, 148, Paul of Tarsus (apostle and saint) 29. 149n, 150n, 151, 151n, 153, 153n, 154n, 156n, Passama, J., 21n. 161, 171n, 172n, 176n, 187, 192, 197n. Pelly, Lewis 185. al-Musharraf, Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Peter (apostle and saint) 29. Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab 79, Philby, Harry St. John Bridger 7. 79n, 80n. Philip II of Spain 132n. al-Musharraf, Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd al-Wah- Planat, Jules 146, 146n, 147. hab 16n, 23n, 153n. Poussielgue, Jean-Baptiste 3, 3n. al-Musharraf, Sulaiman ibn ʿAli 22n, 55, 57, Priapus 32n. 58n, 65n. al-Mutairi, Mutlaq 140n, 141n. Qutb, Sayyid 197n. al-Mutawakkil, ʿAla Allah Jaʿfar ibn al- Muʿtasim (ʿAbbasid caliph) 49. Radwan (sheikh) 181n. al-Mutiʿ (ʿAbbasid caliph) 52. Raymond, Jean 73, 74n, 75, 75n, 76, 76n, 77, al-Muways, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿIsa 14n. 77n, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83n, 155n, 166n. Reichard, Christian Gottlieb 64n. N***, Auguste de 84. Reinaud, John Lewis 86, 86n, 108, 109n, 110, al-Najdi al-Madani, ʿAbd Allah ibn Ibrahim 113, 114n. ibn Saif 14n. Reinaud, Joseph Toussaint 147n. Napier, Macvey 96n. Reiske, Johann Jakob 29n. Napoleon I Bonaparte (emperor of the Reybaud, Louis 2n, 187. French) 2n, 3n, 5, 7, 7n, 33, 35n, 39, 40, Richelieu, Armand Emmanuel Sophie 46, 52, 53n, 69, 70n, 71, 99n, 122, 123n, 134, Septimanie du Plessis de 137n, 144n, 135, 136, 137n, 143, 144n, 145, 145n, 146, 148, 170n. 148n, 169, 169n, 180, 188n, 189n. Ritter, Carl 147n. Niebuhr, Barthold Georg 11, 12n, 27n. Robespierre, Maximilien Marie Isidore de Niebuhr, Carsten 8, 9, 9n, 11, 12, 12n, 13, 13n., 39n. 15, 17, 18n, 19, 20, 21, 21n., 22, 22n, 23, 23n, Roland de la Platière, Jean Marie 39. 24, 24n, 25, 25n, 26, 26n, 27, 28, 28n, 29, Romieu, Alexandre 60. 29n, 30, 31n, 32n, 33, 33n, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41, Roquefort, Jean Baptiste de 122n, 128. 42, 42n, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 53n, 55, 57, Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste Louis 53, 53n, 54, 64, 66, 70n, 72, 73, 80n, 84, 85, 88, 90, 93, 54n, 57, 57n, 58, 58n, 60, 60n, 61, 62, 63, 94, 99, 100n, 101, 103, 106n, 107n, 110, 110n, 63n, 64, 65, 65n, 69, 70, 72, 74, 74n, 75, 75n, 111, 112, 112n, 130, 139, 141, 150, 152, 153n, 160, 76n, 77, 77n, 78, 78n, 79, 79n, 80, 80n, 81n, 164n, 170, 171, 177, 180, 186n, 189, 191n, 192n, 82, 82n, 83n, 84, 84n, 98, 101, 103, 104, 106n, 193, 195, 196, 198. 107n, 108, 114, 114n, 116, 125, 129, 129n, 130, Nuñez, Pedro, see Badía y Leblich, Domingo. 145, 146n, 150, 151, 153n, 158n, 160, 161n, 163n, 166n, 168, 179, 186n, 193, 193n, 198. Oelsner, Conrad Engelbert 83, 83n. Rousseau, Jean François 53. el-Oguyeh, Abderrahman 150, 150n, 151n. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 53, 69n. O’Kinealy, James 79n. Roussel, Joseph 137, 137n, 144n, 170n. Olivier, Guillaume Antoine 36, 37, 38, 38n, Ruffin, Pierre 54n, 78n. 39, 39n, 40, 41, 47, 47n, 48, 66, 69n. Rush, Angelica 170n. Ouseley, Gore 7n, 139. Ouseley, William 7n, 159, 163n, 164, 195. Sadleir, George Forster 139, 139n, 141, 142, 143, 143n, 171n. Index 231

Said, Edward William 9. Silvestre de Sacy, Antoine Isaac 49, 49n, 50, Sajah 30n. 50n, 51n, 53, 53n, 54, 54n, 55n, 58n, 60n, 63, Sale, George 24, 24n, 28n. 69, 70, 74, 74n, 75, 78n, 81, 94n, 129n, 158, Salim ibn Shakban, see ibn Shakban, Salim. 187, 190, 198. al-Saʿud, ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʿud ibn ʿAbd al-Sindi al-Madani, Muhammad Hayat 14n. al-ʿAziz ibn Muhammad 70, 84n, 136n, Sisyphus 137. 137n, 143n, 147n, 149n, 157, 157n, 162, 163n, Socci 144n. 167, 178n, 185. Southey, Robert 122n, 123n, 129n, 132n. al-Saʿud, ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Muhammad 22, Sprengel, Matthias Christian 63n. 40, 41n, 42, 43, 43n, 44, 47, 48, 48n, 49n, 58, Stewart, Charles 105n. 58n, 59n, 66, 66n, 68, 68n, 76, 84, 84n, 85n, Strauss, David Friedrich 190. 86n, 89n, 91, 91n, 92n, 98, 106n, 108, 109n, Stubbe, Henry 29n. 116, 117n, 128n, 141, 147n, 148, 154, 165n, 188, ibn Suhaim, Sulaiman ibn Muhammad 23n, 188n. 59n, 127n. al-Saʿud, Khalid ibn Saʿud ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz Sulaiman (pasha of Baghdad), see Buyuk ibn Muhammad 185. Sulaiman al-Saʿud, Muhammad ibn Saʿud 22, 43, 44, Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn 45n, 48, 49n, 58, 66, 73n, 80n, 91, 92n, 108, ʿAbd al-Wahhab, see al-Musharraf, 109n, 116, 116n, 117n, 124n, 125, 126n, 131, Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad 146n, 148, 149n, 151, 151n, 164, 164n, 185, ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab. 188n. Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, see al-Mush- al-Saʿud, Saʿud ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Muham- arraf, Sulaiman ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab. mad 43n, 58n, 59, 59n, 63n, 68, 69n, 70, ibn Sultan, Sayyid (sultan of Muscat) 140n. 74n, 78, 78n, 84, 84n, 85n, 92n, 98, 98n, 100, ibn Surur, Yahia (sharif of Mecca) 146n. 101n, 102n, 116n, 118n, 119, 119n, 123, 123n, 133, 140, 141, 147n, 148, 154, 155, 155n, 156, al-Tahtawi, Ahmad 169n. 156n, 160, 162, 163n, 166, 166n, 167n, 174n, ibn Taimiya, Ahmad ʿAbd al-Halim 131n. 176n, 177, 179, 182, 190n. Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de al-Saʿud, Turki ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad 60n. ibn Saʿud 183n. Tamerlane 63n. al-Saʿud, Faisal ibn Turki ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Tamisier, Maurice 147, 147n. Muhammad ibn Saʿud 185. Taylor, Robert 14n, 138n. Savary, Claude Étienne 31n. Telemachus 34. al-Sayegh al-Latini, Fathallah ibn Antun Thédénat-Duvent, Pierre Paul 144n. 188, 188n, 189n. Tholuck, Friedrich August Gotttreu 191n. Scotto, Antonio 144n. Thuwaini ibn ʿAbd Allah 40n, 154, 154n. Seetzen, Peter Ulrich 113n. Tippu Sahib, Fateh ʿAli 39n. Seetzen, Ulrich Jasper 36, 63n, 84, 86, 86n, Todeschini 144n. 107n, 109n, 110, 110n, 111, 111n, 112, 113, 113n, Toland, John 29n. 114, 114n, 115, 115n, 116, 116n, 117, 117n, 118n, Turpin, François 28, 28n. 119, 120, 120n, 121, 122n, 123, 139, 160, 163n, Turki ibn Saʿud, see al-Saʿud, Turki ibn ʿAbd 167, 169, 169n, 195, 198. Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Saʿud. Selim III (Ottoman sultan) 101. Tusun (pasha) 136n, 141n, 142n, 149n, 162, Semler, Johann Salomo 24n. 162n, 163n, 167, 170n, 173, 178n. Seton, David 93n. Tuʿayyis 40n. Shah Wali Allah, see ibn ʿAbd al-Rahim, Qutb ud-Din Ahmad. ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab (caliph) 15n, 16n, 41n. ibn Shakban, Salim 178n. ʿUraiʿir ibn Dujain, see ibn Dujain, ʿUraiʿir. 232 Index

ʿUthman ibn Affan (caliph) 103n. Wachler, Ludwig 107n. ʿUthman ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Bishr, see ibn Wallin, Georg August 185. Bishr, ʿUthman ibn ʿAbd Allah. Walpole, Robert 45n. ʿUthman ibn Hamd ibn Muʿammar, see ibn Warden, Francis 86n. Muʿammar, ʿUthman ibn Hamd. Waring, Edward Scott 61n, 87, 88, 89n, 90, 91n, 92, 92n, 93, 94, 98, 98n, 129n, 165. Vaissière, Joseph Marie François 139, 143, Waring, John Scott 87. 144n. Weygand, Maxime 145n. Valentia, George Annesley Mountnorris 9n, Williams, Helen Maria 123n. 99, 99n, 100, 100n, 101, 103, 104, 129n, 165, Wolff, Joseph 111n. 186n. Wyttenbach, Jacob Samuel 25, 26n. Varthema, Ludovico di 184n. Vasse, Louis Antoine 111, 112n. Yahya ibn Surur, see ibn Surur, Yahya. Vaulabelle, Achille Tenaille de 187, 187n, Yusuf (pasha of Damascus) 67. 188n. Vergennes, Charles Gravier de 31n. Zach, Franz Xaver von 110, 113n, 114n, 120. Vivant Denon, Dominique 1, 2n, 3,4, 4n, 5. Zaid ibn al-Khattab 16n. Volney, Constantin François Chassebœuf ibn Zaini Dahlan, Sayyid Ahmad 16n, 51n, de 30, 31, 31n, 32, 32n, 33, 33n, 34, 35, 35n, 132n, 171n, 174n. 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 47, 51, 56, 63, 70, Zopire 57n. 70n, 72, 73, 83, 83n, 96, 96n, 111, 129, 160, al-Zubair, see Muhlem (sheikh of al-Zubair). 170, 171, 180, 193, 195. Voltaire (nom de plume), François Marie Arouet 29n, 34, 48n, 57.