The Wahhabis Seen through European Eyes (1772–1830)

Muslim “Puritans” 141 It must have seemed uncertain even to his contemporaries how far theseitems of information were fact or fiction, especially in the case of the latter as-sertion. Maurizi even affirmed that the prophet’s tomb at Medina had beendestroyed and that the leader ʿAbd al-ʿAziz – although at this point it must infact have been Saʿud – had proclaimed Muhammad “a deceiver rather than amessenger from Heaven”. Nothing less than the “conquest of the whole world”was the declared objective of the sect.48 The circumstances of the conversationwith the Wahhabi spokesman remained so veiled in mystery as to justify thesuspicion that it was a literary invention. Yet words misunderstood in an im-perfectly known language, accusations of the Wahhabis circulating among lo-cal Muslims, the majority of whom were not Sunni but Ibadi, and informationeasily accessible in Niebuhr and Corancez, both mentioned in the volume,may well have got mixed up in the author’s memory to produce this contradic-tory result. However questionable the account, it was redeemed by the alluringfact of its coming from someone who had actually met and fought against thesectarians.49 The same could be said of Finati and Sadleir who, although they never daredhazard interpretations of religious matters, nonetheless supplied elements fora deeper understanding of the entire phenomenon. The salient themes in bothaccounts 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 3Mecca” between two camps, with differing blends of mercenary spirit and fa-naticism; the mutual national antipathy between indigenous Arabs and Egyp-tian invaders, and even between the different ethnic groups in MuhammadʿAli’s army; and, finally, the complete destruction of al-Dirʿiyya and the appar-ent disappearance in 1819 of any traces of Wahhabi loyalty in Najd. Finati, whohad converted to Islam in Albania to avoid Napoleonic conscription, reachedAlexandria in the aftermath of an unsuccessful love affair. He then fought withMuhammad ʿAli in the Arabian Peninsula in 1814–15 before withdrawing toEgypt as an interpreter to European travellers who included his compatriotGiovanni Battista Belzoni and William Bankes, the English collector interestedin local antiquities.50 Sadleir, a captain in the army of the East India Companyalso engaged in warding off the pirates in the Persian Gulf, had crossed theentire 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 Pashawho had withdrawn to the neighbourhood of Medina after the victory. Sadleirhad 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 incontrast to contemporary opinion that they had no interest in the faith. A moreacute observer, however, would have attributed this to the effect of Wahhabiproselytism. Deaf to this hypothesis, which would have required a greater de-tachment 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” 143habism at the time, Sadleir preferred to imagine that this nomadic populationhad returned to the bosom of a no better identified Sunni orthodoxy, fromwhich it had previously departed through mere lust for loot during the years ofthe sect’s expansion.51 Lastly, although the Frenchman Vaissière, a former artillery officer underNapoleon and Ibrahim Pasha’s director of cannon against Wahhabi fortifica-tions, left no account in print of his extraordinary personal experience, henonetheless brought back interesting news from Najd. He was the bearer of51 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 them- selves 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 reli- gion 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 knowl- edge 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 3oral and written communications which may have lacked accuracy, but whichwere put to good use by someone else.52 On the strength of his information afellow Frenchman, Félix Mengin, for long a merchant in Cairo and a formerNapoleonic agent who was later reinstated as such by Chateaubriand, wroteand published an Histoire de l’Égypte sous le gouvernement de Mohammed-Alyin 1823, the date at which the narrative ended, with an epistle dedicatory to hisnew protector, the French foreign minister, which would long remain the bestsource in Europe on the last phase of the Egyptian campaign against the Saʿudikingdom.53 Here the notion of the strength of the Wahhabis must have beenconditioned by the desirability of multiplying the number of the defeated for52 A summary of this testimony, together with displeasure at Vaissière’s inadequate geo- graphic 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 cam- paign 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” 145the greater glory of their victor Muhammad ʿAli, but also by the fear that anindependent politico-religious body in Najd might constitute an impedimentto the interests of France. Mengin’s text, inspired by evident enthusiasm for theEgyptian pasha, aimed to gain the support of French power, now on its way torecovery, for the establishment of a modern dynastic state in Cairo entirelyindependent of the Porte. This, at least, was what the veterans of Napoleon’sBattle of the Nile hoped, as did the influential Consul Drovetti. Rather than thehypothesis of a national Arab renaissance, conceived of a few years earlier inthe writings of Rousseau and Corancez as the natural outcome of an autoch-thonous religious reform, the colonial dream harboured by Mengin and theother French admirers of Muhammad ʿAli envisaged an Egypt open to modernEuropean civilisation. This was to be transmitted through the despotism of anexceptional individual favoured by France who would also be able to propelSyria and Arabia along the path of progress. The desirable realisation of thissecond possibility meant that the fall of al-Dirʿiyya was necessarily propitious.54 For the entire period of Egyptian military tutelage of the Hijaz, which lasteduntil 1841, and particularly in the light of the multiplicity of international com-plications attending the “Eastern Question”, growing disappointment with theunfulfilled hope and astonishment at the constant Wahhabi insurrectionsagainst the occupiers finally became a recurrent theme in the communica-tions of Muhammad ʿAli’s French military advisors and doctors.55 In “the strug-gle 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 transfor- mation 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 vic- torious member of the 1918 French military staff and future commander-in-chief on the occasion of the defeat in 1940.

146 Chapter 3the moment in Europe, also projected thence to include Asia with its appar-ently similar social conflicts – it must have seemed ironic to less biased observ-ers that the resources of progress and modern civilisation ensured by Francewere employed on both shores of the Red Sea in support of an “immobile” re-gime. Traditional Islamic orthodoxy, reinstated by the Egyptians thanks toFrench arms and customs, seemed intent on eradicating indomitable aspira-tions to a “reform” still attributed to the Wahhabis.56 Just a few years after their apparently definitive defeat the Wahhabis hadagain become so threatening that, from 1824 on, Muhammad ʿAli’s troops wereconstantly 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 amilitary school on a European model in Cairo, even hinted at their temporaryreappearance in the Holy City and expressed considerable fear on account of arecent Egyptian defeat in the Wadi Fatima area.57 At this point in the rest of the56 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” 147peninsula not only Najd but also ʿAsir seemed destined to become hotbeds ofrenewed 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 wasbranded with impiety at least according to Wahhabi principles.58 Descoudray, Planat and Tamisier, the latter an adept of Saint-Simonianismand a participant in an unsuccessful Egyptian expedition in 1834 against theʿAsir (in his capacity as secretary to M. Chedufau, the doctor in charge), werealso dispassionate witnesses of the surprising difficulty the French had inachieving their aims in Arabia in spite of the resources supplied to their mainEgyptian 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 canvasin vain among the French public and Louis Philippe’s government for supportfor Muhammad ʿAli against the resentment of the court of Istanbul rekindledby Russia and Great Britain. This was the last occasion on which the ageingpasha’s efforts to decapitate the Wahhabi hydra met with approval from his oldadmirers in Europe.5958 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 cred- ited 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 “musul- mans 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-Taʾ⁠ if 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’sfirst work, at least where the debate about the political and religious events inNajd were concerned. His Histoire de l’Egypte of 1823 was finally accepted asbeing authoritative even by those who disapproved of the design behind it. Ata 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 viewand, even if already in existence, would only be published some time later. Stillinspired by Napoleon’s slogans in Cairo, enriched by the collaboration of thecelebrated orientalist Louis Mathieu Langlès, the young Egyptian JosephAgoub, not to mention Jomard himself, Mengin’s work was destined to coun-terbalance, at least partly, in nineteenth-century European eyes, the differentviews of the better known Swiss traveller, an anglophile who had no liking forMuhammad ʿAli. Published at a time when Burckhardt’s ideas were still rele-gated to manuscripts, it inevitably made the earlier impression on the readingpublic. But it also remained more linked to the past where the specific conclu-sions about religion were concerned. The same could not be said, however, ofsome 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 Wahhabisin Mengin’s Histoire. Consequently little needed to be said about the originsand beliefs of the sect. The reader was informed of the early cooperation be-tween the leader Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and Sheikh Muhammad ibnSaʿud at al-Dirʿiyya, the one moved by “principles of reform”, the other by themore prosaic desire to increase his possessions thanks to a “change of religion”.The review ended with the expansion under the successor ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, hisassassination and Saʿud’s conquest of the Holy Places – an authentic casusbelli 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 mis- sion 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” 149ment between the warring parties was could only be inferred from their recip-rocal accusations. On the one hand we have the Turkish and Egyptiandisapproval of the Wahhabis for inflicting sufferings on “the people of God”,particularly “Muslim pilgrims”, for waging war on the inhabitants of Mecca andMedina, and for the outrage to the divine majesty caused by the desecration ofMuhammad’s tomb. On the other scorn was poured on Muhammad ʿAli for hissupposed determination to impose on the “Muslims”, on pain of death, “a be-lief which makes of the Sultan an idol, permits pederasty, drunkenness, usury,games forbidden by law”, and worse still, a belief so incompatible with “theoneness of God” as in practice to admit His “plurality”. Mengin did not, how-ever, offer any interpretation, even on the evidence of the rivalry between thetwo religious factions each eager to be called “Muslims”, and he was still con-tent 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 inNajd. It discussed demography, agriculture, medicine, the administration ofjustice, in particular family rights and negotiable conditions for a marriage (in-cluding the request that the future husband not take other wives and concu-bines), if and how the woman’s consent was sought, the obligations towardsher in the case of repudiation and so on, besides containing the usual observa-tions on the fate of Muslim women, their hidden faces causing Mengin toadopt the widespread metaphor of likening them to “walking ghosts”.62 In anappendix to the Histoire, geographical essays by Jomard described the physicalfeatures of Najd, while Langlès contributed a substantial note on the linguisticorigins 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 her-esy. Corancez’s influence on Langlès was still strong enough to induce him tospecify that the reasons for doctrinal rivalry were principally concentrated inthe following points: the sect’s total refusal to allow the worship of human be-ings; 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, thecommandment 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 accusa- tions from the other side are pronounced in a proclamation of ʿAbd Allah himself, prom- ulgated on the renewal of hostilities, ibid, pp. 57, 69.62 Ibid, pp. 181–84.

150 Chapter 3persecuted 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 sourcesupplemented the hitherto incomplete historical information in Europe. Italso made up for Mengin’s failure to mention the religious and political vicis-situdes of Arabia before the Egyptian invasion. The person actually responsible for this chronicle remained a mystery. Inthe editor’s premise to the Histoire the drafting of the “Précis” was simply in-cluded among the numerous results obtained by Mengin – the outcome of hisprofitable meetings with a grandson of the Wahhabi leader, a certain “Abder-rahman el-Oguyeh” (sic), otherwise unknown, deported to Cairo towards theend of 1818. Much information was attributed to this hostage, including mate-rial of use to Jomard in the preparation of his attached map of Najd. Whateverthe origin of the text, whether oral or written, in whatever way the translationfrom Arabic into French and the dates calculated on the Christian calendarhad come about, whether the work of Mengin, Jomard or Agoub, the docu-ment contained far more information than the almost homonymous text byRousseau published five years earlier (supra, Chapter II, note 53), and was­indeed a watershed in European acquaintance with the Wahhabis. It greatlyincreased knowledge of events and partly confirmed Niebuhr’s hitherto un-verified facts.6463 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 der- nier 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 men- tioned 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 Muhammadibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab’s residence during his brief association with Sheikh IbnMuʿammar, was given as the birthplace of the Wahhabi leader. Basra, Medinaand 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 educa-tional journey during his youth. On his return to Najd, first to Huraimila andthen again to al-ʿUyaina, his severity in ordering the stoning of a “prostitute” (in1818 Rousseau had written “adulteress”), a death decreed by law, led to his exileand exposed him to the attempted murder plotted by the emir of the provinceof al-Ahsa⁠ʾ in connivance with the local sheikh, neither of whose names arementioned. Only the flight to al-Dirʿiyya and the protection of Muhammad ibnSaʿud, obtained thanks to the intervention of friends won over to the newcause, put an end to these vicissitudes. It marked the beginning of armedpreaching prepared, in a series of letters, by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhaband 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 deliber- ately 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 tur- ning 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 3kingdom was the subject of an extensive account in which importance wasgiven to the rivalry of over twenty years’ standing with the neighbouring city ofal-Riyad and its sovereign Dahham ibn Dawwas; to two fruitless expeditions bythe emir of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ in 1757 and 1764, introduced by the name of ʿUraiʿir, whichNiebuhr also used; to the repeated involvement in 1764 and 1774 of the ra⁠ʾīs ofNajran called Hasan ibn Hibat Allah, clearly corresponding to Makrami inNiebuhr; and finally to a protracted conflict with the city of al-Dilam, which, in1779, succeeded al-Riyad in the leadership of the movement opposed to thesectarians. To this was added news of a strange war machine used by the de-fenders, a sort of armoured car propelled by human beings. Only in concomi-tance 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” 153movement’s opponents, spread, but, according to the chronicle, not before1779.66 An equal amount of space was dedicated to the subsequent advance to-wards the Hijaz and the Persian Gulf (the provinces of al-Ahsa⁠ʾ, al-Qasim, andal-Qatar). We read of the peaceful death at al-Dirʿiyya in 1791 of the leader ofthe movement Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab who was supposed to have66 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 reac- tions 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 3had twenty wives and eighteen children; the hostile expeditions organised bythe pasha of Baghdad, the first in 1797, (commanded by Thuwaini, an Arableader from the Basra region, killed by the spear of an African slave) and thesecond in 1799, commanded by the aforesaid ʿAli kahya; and finally the belliger-ent attitude to the sharif of Mecca, Ghalib, from 1790 on (except for the periodof the truce between 1799 and 1802 which coincided with the participation ofvolunteers from Mecca in resisting the French in Upper Egypt). Indeed, thesharif was almost always beaten, except for once when he managed to take theenemy by surprise during prayer. Information originating from the Wahhabisand items derived from elsewhere seem to have been included in the accountof 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 ac-companied by a detailed description of the booty – the number of Venetiangold coins, Dutch ducats, Spanish piasters, guns, sabres, cashmere shawls etc.– provided by “a person close to Saʿud”. The assassination of ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, dated14 October 1803, was attributed to a Persian in quest of martyrdom. Lastly, theconquests of Mecca and Medina were presented as almost peaceful occupa-tions, agreed upon with the local elders and described as definitive only in1809, long after an epidemic had forced Saʿud’s army to retreat during his firstbrief occupation of the Holy City dated in 1802.6767 F. Mengin, Histoire de l’Égypte, cit., II, pp. 502, 506, 510–29, 531, 534. The enduring hostili- ties against the Wahhabis between 1790 and 1806 along the borders of the Hijaz were initi- ated 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 respon- sible 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 doc- trinal 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 fana- tique”. 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 sub-ject. We read in the “Précis” that at the heart of the institutions established bythe founder was a “sound morality” based on the simple acknowledgement ofdivine unity and the absolute prohibition of supplicating anyone other thanGod for grace or blessing. The widespread lack of respect for such Koranic pre-cepts was, in the eyes of the Wahhabis, due the people’s excessive devotion toMuhammad who, according to their principles, held the rank of a “privilegedbeing” and an “intermediary between God and men”, albeit in the manner ofMoses or Jesus Christ, “they too being revered by the faithful”. The Frenchtranslator, incidentally, still used the conventional term “Muslims” for the com-mon devotees of the Prophet, a choice his Wahhabi informer would certainlynever have approved.68 The pilgrimage to Mecca preserved its traditional va-lidity. Indeed, the sectarians seem to have gone on the pilgrimage well beforeSaʿud took the Holy City, with the consent of the sharif preceding Ghalib andon 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 men- tioned Raymond as responsible for an expedition organised in Baghdad against the sec- tarians, 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 sectar- ians 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 3nature of the destruction of tombs and other buildings honouring the saintswas evident, although it was not equally clear what the religious significancereally was of the threatened use of force against Muslims who persisted in theirreprehensible practices of the cult. Whether violence exerted on such peoplewas as indisputable a divine commandment as the raising of forbidden build-ings to the ground remained an open question.70 Unaware of these residualdoubts, the French translator still called Saʿud a “protector of Deism”, whileonly a rough exchange of letters between the ruler of al-Dirʿiyya and the pashaof Baghdad in 1810 clarified the reciprocal accusations of idolatry and impos-ture 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 misun- derstanding, 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 avail-able, consolidated European categories were still applied in the “Précis” andthroughout the Histoire to explain items which, if more closely examined, nowthrew a different light on the connection between the Wahhabis and SunniMuslim orthodoxy. This seeming intellectual laziness on the part of Menginand his collaborators may partly have been due to the impression, still preva-lent around 1823, that the new devotees in Najd were unable to recover afterthe ruin of their kingdom. Mengin told of the capitulation of al-Dirʿiyya fol-lowed by the decapitation of the unfortunate king ʿAbd Allah, described in theHistoire as lacking the ability to command, avaricious towards the Bedouin tothe point of losing their support, but nonetheless just and courageous, a victimof Turkish resentment and therefore put to death in the square before HagiaSophia 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 ofwhich permitted a benevolent treatment of some of its defeated members liv-ing in exile.72 In fact Mengin continued to assert that the Wahhabis were dan-gerous, but merely in order to emphasise the greatness of the victoriousMuhammad ʿAli and to contrast his pro-European bias in policy-making andorganization 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 pashawere to die early or his vast project of modernising the entire region were tofail.7372 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 conven- tional 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 sed- entary 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 shelvedbut not forgotten. A few years later (1838) Mengin took upon himself to rein-state it, albeit adapted to subsequent developments and with a veiled refer-ence to French history. “Protestants of Mohammedanism”, he wrote, theWahhabis were destined to wound the established religion mortally and to un-dermine its political foundations, but in so doing they would merely acceleratethe welcome process working against them and consolidate the monarchicpower introduced by Muhammad ʿAli in Egypt and neighbouring territories.74The reason for reverting to this comparison was entirely political and rested onthe notion that, as civilisation progressed in Muslim Asia just as it had oncedone in Christian Europe, the importance of religious differences would disap-pear. Even at home this tendentious pro-Egyptian formulation harking back toNapoleonic schemes impeded recognition of the authentic merits of Mengin’scontribution to the debate on the Wahhabis and aroused the diffidence of ori-entalists. Silvestre de Sacy in particular even attributed to Mengin a “commer-cial rather than a scientific intention”, and expressed his incredulity at the“brilliant illusions” under which Jomard too laboured where Muhammad ʿAli’spolicies 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 compari-son with Protestantism could, it seemed, now be explained quite differentlyfrom Mengin’s scheme. Almost paradoxically, the fact that they were publishedposthumously 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” 159positing a veil of dust over the old story, intervening events had made it appearall the more authoritative. They bathed both the author and his notes in theattractive light not only of intelligent personal testimony but also of almostprophetic foresight.5 Burckhardt: Materials for a History of the WahhabisEver since 1819 the European public had been aware that Burckhardt intendedto supply an interpretation of the Wahhabi phenomenon and to send usefulmaterial to London for this purpose. In an extensive biographical introductionto the first printed edition of part of the manuscripts left by Burckhardt – thevery ones which recounted his Nubian journey – the editor, William Leake,included letters from the author to his protector Banks. These were more thana mere source of information on military events up to 1817, the year of the au-thor’s death in Cairo. Burckhardt described the obstacles he faced when draft-ing his notes on the Wahhabis during his pilgrimage to Mecca and Medinabetween September 1814 and April 1815. They were only published, however, in1830, by William Ouseley, at the end of the entire series of Burckhardt’s travelaccounts. In 1810, in a letter to Banks, Burckhardt admitted his ignorance of theWahhabis and his difficulty in finding his way amid all the conflicting rumoursconcerning them. Six years later, however, he was in possession of the desiredinformation.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 credi- ble 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 col- lected 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 3gion or heresy in the mainstream of Koranic revelation, his was by far the mostimportant contribution at the time. Thanks to Burckhardt, the fervent devo-tees in Najd began to appear to the public eye as authentic restorers of theoriginal Islamic faith. As “reformers” and “puritans”, they were shown in a posi-tive light. The principal element of continuity with Niebuhr and Volney wasstill substantial sympathy with the movement, but filtered through a differentreading 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 wasindicative of how sure of himself Burckhardt felt and of his faith in the origi-nality 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 whowas 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 Persianorigin who asserted that he had spent two years in al-Dirʿiyya. Also in Aleppothe English Consul Barker, described by Seetzen as being very interested in thefounder of the sect (supra, note 6), supplied hospitality and further informa-tion. 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 athinly disguised diffidence towards the two French consuls, motivated by van-ity and far too dependent on indirect evidence given at a great distance fromthe places concerned and distorted by fear and religious antipathy. The author’s personal quest for an autonomous opinion is evident in theNotes in both his obviously ironical treatment of Saʿud’s “chaplain”, quoted as asource by Rousseau, and his increasing tendency to risk positive error ratherthan to trust authorities he deemed unreliable. This is the case in his accountof the two military campaigns launched by Baghdad against the Wahhabiswhich appear in the Notes in the wrong chronological order. The same is trueof 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 sub- ject 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” 161Wahhabi leader, here called ʿAbd al-Wahhab, without taking into account thebetter information from France on a son of his called Muhammad.77 On hisreturn to Cairo, during the revision of the notes he had taken on his pilgrimagein the Hijaz containing information of decisive importance, Badía’s work,which had appeared in the meantime, must have aroused Burckhardt’s inter-est. He read it with care and considered it reliable, although he found the styleunpleasantly pompous and ostentatious.7877 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 acknowl- edge 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 addi- tion 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 duringhis travels round Arabia, was in fact only oral and derived from witnesses whohad no acknowledged connection with the Wahhabi movement or any partic-ular knowledge of the doctrines it professed. Like Badía, Burckhardt believedthat intellectual decadence had existed in the Hijaz for some time, all the moreevident from the scarcity of manuscripts in circulation. “Bedouins of the com-mon classes” were mostly too uneducated to have a thorough grasp of any sortof theological principle, and no educated person from Mecca or Medinaseemed to have bothered to write a history of the new sect. In the light of thissomewhat disconsolate opinion, it was hard to establish how far Burckhardtwas in fact convinced that those individuals in Arabia who had agreed to speakto him about Saʿud’s system of government were in fact “many well-informedpeople”. In the Notes Burckhardt did indeed ultimately include three main types ofinformer on the Wahhabis. The first were Bedouin previously converted to thenew faith who had later joined Muhammad ʿAli for reasons of self-interest; thesecond Egyptian officers and soldiers who had come into contact with the en-emy; and the third citizens of Mecca and common Muslim pilgrims who musthave had vivid memories of the period of Saʿudi domination which had onlyended the year before. Conversations with authoritative figures may also havehelped to improve his information on the sect. In January 1814 Burckhardtcrossed 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 theexile Muhammad ʿAli had prudently imposed on him. But there was also theEgyptian pasha himself, whom Burckhardt met at al-Ta⁠ʾif with his qādī. Theytalked on several occasions with the European pilgrim on his way to Mecca,wishing to ascertain the authenticity of his Muslim sentiments.79 Arabic man-uscripts translated and published in an appendix had only become accessibleto Burckhardt during his last stay in Cairo, when he managed to gain posses-sion of a Wahhabi “catechism” commonly to be found in Mecca during theSaʿudi occupation, as well as some letters which included a communicationfrom 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” 163No mention was made, however, of the origin of the documents, nor whetherBurckhardt had seen others.80 One final significant circumstance remained unclear in the Notes: whetherand to what degree the author had been able to take advantage of the presenceof two Wahhabi emissaries in Cairo, who were there for further inconclusivenegotiations with Muhammad ʿAli between August and November 1815. Heat-ed theological debates between them and local scholars in the great mosqueand university of al-Azhar culminated in the unexpected admission by Egyp-tian ʿulamāʾ that not a trace of “heresy” was detectable in these foreigners. Thenews could hardly fail to make an impression on the educated public, espe-cially since the pasha would inevitably find such absolution unacceptable. Atleast an echo of the whole affair must have reached Burckhardt.8180 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 “cate- chism” 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 sen- tence 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 trea- tises 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 orin thoroughly assessing the sources used, the editor Ouseley published thepurely historical section of the Notes under the very modest title of “Materialsfor a history of the Wahábys” – as if it were an incomplete collection still re-quiring further work, rather than a completed monograph. Burckhardt himselfadmitted 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 theearlier 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 reign-ing in Arabia, who was said to belong to the Masalikh (a minor branch of theʿAnaza horde) and to be related to his religious mentor only by marriage to adaughter82. The Notes then stated that the original aim of the Wahhabi founderwas to implement a simple spiritual reform without any intention of establish-ing a principality. The wars for the control of Najd were armed proselytisingmissions to convert Bedouin who had lapsed into religious ignorance. Howev-er, a true political and theological controversy can only have come about at theend of the eighteenth century, coinciding with the rise of Ghalib to sharif ofMecca and the beginning of the conflict with the Ottoman authorities. Theopening 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 men- tion 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” 165to the sharif’s fear of Wahhabi proselytism. The date of the disagreement withthe Porte was said to be 1797. A decisive factor in the popular perception of the Wahhabis as “heretics” orsometimes even “infidels” was the Wahhabi ban on pilgrimages, which pro-duced 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 resent-ment of the movement, was immediately repaired after the sharif’s submissionby reinstating the original precept of the Prophet Muhammad, but retainingthe ban on the traditional caravans led by Ottoman pashas, perceived as sacri-legious 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 surround-ing real conditions in Najd, considered to be culturally extremely backward inthe mid-eighteenth century, suggested to him that doctrinal disputes musthave begun late and that Wahhabi preaching had initially met with resistanceonly among the simple superstitious population. However execrable, the vio-lence committed by the new devotees under Saʿudi military leadership in aidof religion was in the tradition of the early successors of the Prophet. In anycase, the enemy’s exaggerations of this violence had to be expurgated from theinformation. Even the massacre of Kerbela had not been so indiscriminate ashad been thought, but had merely followed the “fundamental rule to kill alltheir 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 succes- sively 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 terri- tory. Their increase of power, and the assiduity with which they propagated their doc- trines, 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 sur- render of Mekka.”

166 Chapter 3Mesopotamian, or Egyptian soldiers or settlers), or Arabs themselves, whohave opposed the great chief, or rebelled against him.” Old men, women andchildren were spared, and with them an entire quarter named in commemora-tion of the ʿAbbasid caliphate, held in ever greater consideration by Saʿud thestronger his hatred grew of the Turks, usurpers of the caliphate. A gratuitoustaste 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 observershould acknowledge the obvious Wahhabi inability to make any conquestsoutside Arabia, or to conceive forays beyond the borders of the peninsula asanything but mere pillage.85 All of this must have dampened expectations ofthe 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 defeatin the field in spite of their greater numbers, their evidently untrustworthyBedouin allies easily corrupted by money and who obeyed only their own84 Ibid, pp. 318–19: “In propagating their creed, the Wahabys have established it as a funda- mental 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 ven- eration 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 grand- son 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 bor- ders of the Arabian Peninsula. Pillage alone would have drawn them towards Syria and Mesopotamia, ibid, p. 313.

Muslim “Puritans” 167leaders also in religious matters and were never really satisfied with the legalconditions established by the Saʿudi monarch, all strengthened the perceptionthat the danger had been overestimated. However, these weaknesses of theenemy were insufficient to save the exhausted Egyptian soldiers from defeat,ignorant as they were of the region. The peace terms signed by ʿAbd Allah inthe truce with Tusun Pasha – a strategic error made by the Wahhabi leader –included his at least formal undertaking to recognise the supreme political, ifnot religious, authority of the Turkish sultan, thus diminishing the impressionof a Holy War or of an insoluble conflict between a new religious order and asort of Ottoman ancien régime. This explains Burckhardt’s avoidance in theNotes of the much abused term “revolution” to define the Wahhabi expansion.Nor did he accept that abolition of the prayer honouring the sultan in theGreat Mosque in Mecca had been a consciously subversive decision. He took it,rather, as a devious undertaking by the defeated Ghalib anxious to provoke thePorte 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 thatthe memory the settled urban population had of the Wahhabi government wasby 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 factsseparate from opinion, rendered Burckhardt’s narrative objective and unbi-ased, thus adding greatly to his credit. The wealth of events narrated, compa-rable to that of Mengin, at least where the military operations of the Egyptiansin Arabia were concerned, only fell short of the French account because of thechronological limitations of the period treated, which necessarily came to anend when Ibrahim Pasha left for the Hijaz in August 1816. Nevertheless, as wehave already seen, Burckhardt’s account even seemed even to gain in authorityprecisely because of the time lag between the writing and the publication ofthe Notes. The intervening events seemed in fact to corroborate the author’sopinions. Although the Wahhabis were not wiped out, the fall of al-Dirʿiyya ledto the belief that their concrete aspirations would for years be limited to re-establishing authority over Najd. On the opposite front, the increased ambi-tions of the victor, Muhammad ʿAli, made it evident that he was far fromsatisfied 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 3ered Arabia and Syria as belonging to his own personal sphere of influence,free of an already weakened Ottoman control. The public must consequentlyhave found the outdated works of Corancez and Rousseau less convincingwhen compared to the Notes and the two French consuls were eclipsed byBurckhardt. Yet the specific historical detail they provided was by no meansvalueless, albeit still partly inspired by a residual Deistic sentiment and theidea that, owing to the Wahhabis, Islam and the whole of Asia were movingtowards a cataclysm. What stood out above all else in Burckhardt was his own claim to be themost credible interpreter of Wahhabi teachings related to the main doctrineand ritual elements of Islam. His reflections in the Notes on the national andgeopolitical aspects of the Arab conflict, although lucid and interesting, restedon previous even more relevant conclusions concerning its religious implica-tions. 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 IndifferenceIt had required considerable effort to achieve this result. Until his stay in theHijaz Burckhardt too had evidently believed the rumours of an imminentdownfall of the Porte in the wake of the Wahhabi occupation of the Holy Plac-es. The obstacles encountered by the Syrian caravans, the subsequent decisionof the pasha of Damascus not to attempt the pilgrimage again, and Turkishdissatisfaction over the financial damage caused by this break with traditionhad 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 cor-rupt court in Istanbul, a court so secularised as now hardly to recognise thespiritual value of the rites at Mecca, or the fact that the dire prophesies wereattributable to popular Muslim fanaticism frustrated by the impossibility ofvisiting the Holy City, Burckhardt’s letters before 1813 conveyed the idea of acatastrophe.8888 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 impor- tance 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 heheld out no hope of renovation to mitigate such forecasts. Unlike Seetzen, hisimmediate precursor in Arabia and so similar to him in many biographical re-spects – the same enthusiasm inspired by Blumenbach in Göttingen, the sameexpedition planned from Egypt to the Gulf of Guinea, the same metamorpho-sis into a brilliant explorer of the Middle East, the same controversial adher-ence to Islam – Burckhardt did not survey the recent religious developments ofhumanity, either in the East or in the West, with any philosophical optimism.89His initial impression of general Ottoman decadence, his perception of a wardeclared in Egypt in the spirit of a crusade for the redemption of Mecca, andfinally Muhammad ʿAli’s being hailed as the saviour of Muslim orthodoxy andvicar of the sultan in the Hijaz, all conspired to produce in him a strong senseof disgust at the political abuse of religions which were otherwise more or lessneglected. This applied to Islam within the confines of the Turkish Empire per-haps 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 con- firmed 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 partici- pation 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 3At the basis of his polemical attitude was the distance that had developed be-tween him and the ideal of a religion founded simply on reason or naturalsentiment, typical of the Enlightenment. Niebuhr’s and Volney’s appreciationof very simple forms of religious observance was alien to him. Although hisintellect and experience of exotic lands had made it impossible for him to be-lieve in any particular historic revelation, Burckhardt was convinced that aninstitutional religion followed by the people, “false” though it might be, was inany case preferable to “infidel indifference”. The Islamic rites he followed, noone could know with what conviction, seemed to confirm this opinion.91 In hiseyes the natural religion of the Deists was merely the first germ of spirituality,or alternatively the residue of an ancient faith now impoverished and unableto offer any organised social intercourse. Certain populations seemed never tohave truly raised themselves above such rudimentary ideas; others had per-haps reverted to them. This could be seen all over Europe, but it also “pervadedall Arabia and a great part of Turkey”, in this case not only among the unedu-cated nomadic tribes, but also among the inhabitants of the cities where cor-ruption 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 deemedtotally insufficient to “instruct a nation so wild and ungovernable in the prac-tice of morality and justice”. Credit should be accorded to the Wahhabis not forthe 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 occupi- ers 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 consider- ing 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” 171Niebuhr, Volney and those who came after them, but rather for imposing onthe nomads the strict observance of the precepts of a positive religion, in thiscase Islam. According to the author it was of little importance whether the re-ligion was tempered with more or less Koranic orthodoxy. 92 According to Burckhardt the proclaimed Wahhabi innovation, sustained forso long and in so many different quarters, was actually the political and socialadvance 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 doc- trine 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 impor- tant 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 moral- ity 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 popula- tion, 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 3logical controversy proper in the background. In contrast to the Bedouin hab-its of feuding and robbery, immunity from taxation and the ancient custom ofthe right of criminals to asylum (dakhīl, “protected”), the new movement tend-ed to establish a consecrated law and collective responsibility.93 As to the reac-tion of traditional Muslim religious institutions to such precepts, only thematerial interests of influential enemies such as Sharif Ghalib or the Ottomanpashas on the borders could explain the discredit the Wahhabis suffered asheretical innovators, not to say “infidels”.94 The destruction of the veneratedtombs of Muslim saints and to a greater degree the disapproval of customaryforms of pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina had been exploited outside Najd inthe first place both to ignite popular resentment against the followers of theobscure 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 acknowledge- ment 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 cus- tom 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 conse- quently 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 repre- sented 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 represen- tations as the pashas of Baghdad had made statements of a similar nature.”

Muslim “Puritans” 173ing ancient authorities, and in the second place to cover the expansionist aimsof Muhammad ʿAli. In answer to such accusations Burckhardt emphasised the superstitiouscharacter of the cult of the saints, similar to the Catholic cult, and the indubi-table scandal provoked by the sumptuous caravans of armed Syrian pilgrims.Supposed miracles were attributed to simple men. Oaths sworn on the tombsof figures such as Abu Talib were considered more sacred than oaths in thename of God himself. The entire procedure of the visit to the Holy Places waspeppered with reprehensible cultural practices.95 Never, the writer empha-sised, had the Wahhabis objected to the pilgrimage as such. Indeed, followingtheir leaders, they had always gone on it themselves, and had always admittedother dignified pilgrims such as those from the Maghreb. So it had been fromthe time of the Saʿudi conquest of Mecca and so it still was towards the end of1815, during the truce with Tusun Pasha. Nor, once it was clear that the onlyobjective was the visit to the mosque, but not the tomb, of Muhammad, hadthe traditional visit to Medina ever been forbidden. The tomb had indeed beenrobbed, but only following the precedent of past robberies by previous custo-dians. The prohibitions concerning the tomb existed merely to prevent actsimplicating 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 inter- cede with him; and that it was, consequently, sinful to invoke departed saints, and to hon- our 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 3self, thereby degrading such perpetrators to “infidels”.96 The divine messenger,whom the new devotees were accused of honouring insufficiently, was respect-ed by them as a great legislator inspired by heaven, albeit still human. The96 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 stand- ing 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” 175value of his mission was unimpaired. Only the abnormal manifestations of thecult were abolished, those practised among Muslims, in particular Turks, whodid not even believe in his death, or preferred to pray to him for the remissionof 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 ofwidespread sinful actions, such as the consumption of alcohol, adultery, ped-erasty, corruption of the judiciary, omission of legal alms, and so on, as also fortheir severity towards non-observant co-religionists who were cast as “here-tics” and exhorted to redemption by concrete death threats. Although he per-sonally gathered some opinions contrary to the new movement, for exampleconcerning the virtually indiscriminate massacre of the male population ofKerbela, he nonetheless felt no obligation to credit the variegated views on theWahhabis 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 onthe authority supplied by Muhammad’s early successors.9897 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, danc- ing, 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 belligerentapostles of an ancient, forgotten faith, new only in so far as so-called Muslimshad been unaware of it, as was the case of the Najd Bedouin who had only re-cently reverted to the true cult. The return to the simple letter of the Koranunderstood as “divine revelation” free from interpolation – in this sense itseems correct to reinterpret Corancez’s mention of a “particular” version of theHoly Book – respect for “the best commentators of the Koran (…), although notimplicitly followed”; adherence to the prescriptions and traditions in the sun-na considered to be equally fundamental, all completed the basic structure ofthe “purified” Muslim religion99. Only plebeian neophytes inclined to “fanati-cism”, 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 inhab- itants.” 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 com- pared 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 “fundamental- ism”. Scholars thus attempt to project onto religious phenomena of the past totally uncon- nected 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 refer- ence to the Reformation and sketches a comparison, in his view less flattering, with con- temporary 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” 177theological concerns and the strict equality he re-established among the faith-ful, 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 ofthe “catechism” spread by Saʿud in Mecca, as well as the authoritative opinionexpressed by the Cairo ʿulamāʾ in 1815.101 Had a reader of the Notes gone back tothe 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. WhileNiebuhr was content to give this opinion beside a second deviant one attrib-uted to a camel-selling sheikh, the two presented as of equal value, Burckhardtnow reached his own conclusion, acknowledging the basic Sunni orthodoxy ofthe Wahhabis only after careful thought and rectifying Muslim and Europeanprejudices. The question of the sect’s religious intolerance remained open. Special be-nevolence shown to Christians and Jews, imagined in the past, was to be ex-cluded. They might perhaps be accepted, but only on submission and thepayment of tribute, without any illusions as to kindlier sentiments on the partof the devotees.102 The treatment of other Muslims, however, was more contro-versial, because of both the justifications provided and the violence exerted. It100 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 imme- diately recognised in Arabia”.101 “Knowledge of God” based on prohibition of any “association” with other divinities; “sub- mission to the Almighty”, consisting in the profession of the oneness of God and the pro- phetic 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, con- tained 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 3was only with considerable difficulty that such behaviour could in principle beattributed to the early successors of Muhammad. The systematic murder of“their enemies found in arms” (supra, note 84) could no longer be excusedwhen applied to men who also believed in the Prophet, since the murderershad ceased to act in the name of the need to propagate the faith among hostilepopulations 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 Notestypical episodes illustrated the phenomenon without mitigating Wahhabi cru-elty. It was, however, clear to Burckhardt that any opinion on the subject had toaccount for the fact that the violence was mutual and thrived on the inevitablereciprocal accusations exchanged between opposing theological groups.103 Iffanaticism horrified Burckhardt no less than it did his predecessors, it was, hebelieved, equally propagated by both contending sides and was counterbal-anced in his mind by his similarly strong contempt for hypocrisy where faithwas concerned, current among common Muslims and the upper classes.Burckhardt despised the indifference of governments to religion, includingthose 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 imper- fectly 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 opin- ions, 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” 179tarian spirit of sincere zealots – especially if they were able to defy politicalinterests.104 Hence his ill-disguised sympathy for the Wahhabis. Nonetheless, it could not be said that there was a solution to every questionthat Wahhabi doctrine raised for foreign observers, since Burckhardt himselfadmitted that he was “not qualified by a sufficient knowledge of the contro-versy” to supply “full details”. His opinion wavered in particular when consider-ing the Wahhabi attitude to the traditions concerning Muhammad, which had,according to Corancez and Rousseau, been expunged from the “canon” of thereformed Muslim faith. On the one hand Burckhardt admitted that ḥadīthwere not permitted (supra, note 98). On the other he affirmed that the sectconsidered “the traditions of Muhammad” or sunna as fundamental to thepoint of being read and interpreted together with the Koran in the presence ofSaʿud, “according to the commentaries of the best writers”. The same was saidof the “laws” (supra, note 99).105 A Wahhabi envoy in Cairo was also known tohave ably defended the theological principles of his faith by referring to such“traditions”, which he knew by heart (supra, note 81). The only real restrictionon their use apparently lay elsewhere, in the fact that the opinions of the great-est commentators, although studied, were not always applied “implicitly”.However, it was still unclear what exactly this meant: whether and how far theWahhabis respected the main collections of ḥadīth, the authority of those whowrote them down (starting with the Prophet’s companions), and certain linesof transmission, or whether they preferred to assess individual traditions onthe basis of their conformity to the Koran or their historical context. Nor was itcompletely 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 ofMuslims 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 more104 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 author- ities 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 enlighten- ment, 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 tradi- tions of Mohammed.”

180 Chapter 3problematic. Since he was guided by the same positive conclusions on Wah-habi orthodoxy as its adepts themselves, he also applied to their enemies thesame disparaging categories that they did.106The close followers of ʿAbd al-Wah-hab no longer appeared in the Notes as “heretics” or “infidels”, nor was a cleardistinction 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 de-fined thus, and with them the great mass of “indifferent” Arabs, or those guiltyof religious practices that the Protestant, rationalistic traveller could not helpconsidering superstitious and contrary to direct communion with the god-head. Burckhardt in fact felt no repugnance for concrete individual commonMuslims subject to such harsh reprobation on the part of the Wahhabis. Hecould not, however, accept popular veneration of the saints, belief in their in-tercession 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 lessfavourable than that which had induced Niebuhr and Volney, albeit with quitedifferent motives, to speculate on the supposed Deism of those same Arabs.Burckhardt’s sympathy for Islam in general was significant, but his wish to dojustice to a combative religious minority hated by the powerful and the corruptwas even stronger. Whatever his personal religious convictions, whether Chris-tian, Muslim or syncretic, the Calvinist environment of his childhood and hisyouthful 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 in-vader Muhammad ʿAli, encountered in Cairo and al-Taʾ⁠ if, who seemed to em-body the worst defects of the usurper Napoleon and whose behaviour appearedto legitimise the most deep-rooted prejudices against Ottoman customs (cru-elty, avidity, lasciviousness, hypocrisy, irreligion), Burckhardt ended up by ad-miring the Wahhabis as the devoted and austere champions of a purerreligiosity and the national Arab cause. Their “fanatical zeal” to which he testi-fied, by pure chance escaping the massacre of a small caravan between Mecca106 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 circumci- sion, Id., Travels in Arabia, cit., pp. 128, 144; Id., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, cit., p. 293.

Muslim “Puritans” 181and 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 anunscrupulous enemy.108 Readers of the Notes, having learned in the meantime ofthe Wahhabis’ struggle for survival after 1818, were inclined to revise their pastnotion of the danger the sect represented, which was now apparently contra-dicted by the facts. They tended, rather, to accept this new interpretation as themore credible one. The main attraction of Burckhardt’s work was the analogy with certain as-pects of Puritanism: the severity of its customs, social equality also practisedamong the Arabian sectarians, and a similarly direct reference to their sacredtexts. Possibly having learnt from the over-hasty inferences of some of his pre-decessors, Burckhardt seemed to be aware of the pitfalls inherent in applyingEuropean categories to Arab phenomena. Thorny theological questions suchas the individual inspiration necessary for the interpretation of the revealedbook, or the redemptive values respectively of grace and freedom, or faith andcharitable 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 alsoleft unexplored. How far, in other words, did their religion allow them the rightto resistance or insurrection, actions which had led the Puritans to commitregicide, a still much debated event? Thus the question of whether and to whatdegree the new preaching admitted, or perhaps even demanded, the violentoverthrow of a corrupt political power, although proclaiming itself Muslim,received an unsatisfactory answer in the Notes which could be inferred onlyindirectly from evidence of the not always uniform behaviour of the warriorsin Najd, at times extremely belligerent towards the established authorities (the108 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-hun- dred 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 con- scripted 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 con- firmed 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 3sharif of Mecca, the pasha of Egypt, the sultan of Oman), at others conciliatoryto the point of declaring their willingness to accept at least the temporal powerof the Porte. It was equally unclear who in the Wahhabi camp had a legitimatespiritual authority since, after the founder ʿAbd al-Wahhab, only members ofthe 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, Saʿudended up by appearing in the Notes almost as a prince of theology, with a great-er resemblance to James I of England than to Oliver Cromwell.109 Burckhardt’s personal experience, consisting of his visit to the Holy Placesof Islam only after they had passed under the dominion of Muhammad ʿAli,was sufficient to explain why questions concerning the legitimacy of Wahhabiclaims to the government of the Hijaz and the religious investiture of the Saʿudimonarch were no longer of interest to the inhabitants of Mecca. It was natural,therefore, that the benevolent reference to Puritanism in the Notes shouldhave appeared primarily as antithetical to the liberticide essence of a dreadedMachiavellian ethos such as had taken root in Europe, capable of masking itsown temporal designs under the cloak of any religion whatsoever and appear-ing in the Muslim East disguised as the liberation of the Holy City, the restora-tion of pilgrimages, and the rebuilding of desecrated places of worship asproclaimed in Turkish and Egyptian propaganda. Suspicion and treachery asestablished systems of government, intimidation and ferocious punishmentand revenge merely to conceal cowardice and disorganisation – in brief, thesad spectacle of the reprehensible methods Burckhardt observed first in thepashadom of Damascus and then in Egypt and Arabia under Muhammad ʿAli– must have provoked in him a more favourable estimation of the Saʿudi king-dom where he had never set foot, but which various clues led him to supposepaid greater heed to the public good and was rooted in a common spiritualheritage.110109 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 contro- versy 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 com- pared 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 re-birth of the Wahhabis in Arabia appeared to some as a desirable remedyagainst Muhammad ʿAli’s ill-concealed sympathy for a still unsettled France. In1834 Brydges, a careful reader of the Notes, did not hesitate to carry this idea toits extreme consequences. All who knew Asia well found preferable “fanati-cism to atheism; the operations of the most imperfect laws, to the operationsof anarchy”. Indeed, “imagination cannot figure to itself a more despicable, amore dangerous, a more cruel being to society, than an atheist Turk”.111 Thechoice thus expressed, which at the time conformed to a counterrevolutionaryspirit 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 longtime hence, even if it would be applied to other countries in the Islamic world.Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation is a case in point.112111 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 enthu- siasm, 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 despi- cable, 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 ConclusionConclusion 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 theWahhabis had come to an end. It had been a period in which contact was es-tablished with an unknown religious movement in Arabia without any directrelation to powers outside the region.1 Most observers were by now aware thatthey were faced with a spiritual phenomenon within Islam which could bedescribed as a variously shaded “reform” of doctrine and customs. It was equal-ly evident that the religious conflict centred on the decision of who the au-thentic Muslims actually were had become caught up in national and politicalfactors. The conviction that the renewed faith could survive even the Saʿudikingdom’s military setbacks eventually became a certainty.21 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 geschla- gen, 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.© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004293281_006

Conclusion 185 Although conditions resulting from the Egyptian presence in Arabia fa-voured a close encounter with the sect, they were too unstable to promote con-fidence in a smooth advance of knowledge or a rapid assessment of the mostrecent information acquired. Ten years after the publication of Burckhardt’sNotes the complete withdrawal of Muhammad ʿAli from the Arabian Peninsulawas, if not an insurmountable obstacle, certainly a complication where furtherrelations with Europe were concerned. In 1838 the Egyptian invaders reachedthe Persian Gulf for the second time and installed a puppet ruler at al-Riyad inNajd, his name Khalid ibn Saʿud, a younger brother of the unfortunate ʿAbdAllah. As a result of the different education he had received as a hostage inCairo, Khalid had grown up with little feeling for the Wahhabis. Success, how-ever, was short-lived, and the London conference in July 1840 found Francealigned with England, Russia and Turkey in the wish to check Muhammad ʿAliand to put an end to the danger he had presented to the political and religiousindependence of the whole of Arabia for over twenty years.3 In 1843 the re-vived 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 thetheological controversy or to preach widely and take up arms. Only in 1925 didMecca and Medina, until then under Ottoman tutelage and the lordship of thesharif, return to the Saʿudi dynasty by which they had been governed amidsuch outrage between 1806 and 1813. Thanks, however, to religious fervour thekingdom that had escaped destruction managed to encapsulate Najd in anaura of suspicion strong enough to discourage all but a handful of explorersand ambassadors from setting foot in the region during the entire nineteenthcentury – these included a Finn, Georg Wallin, and two Englishmen, WilliamPalgrave and Lewis Pelly.43 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 exc­ ursions des voyageurs? Le fanatisme des Wahabis, le caractère intraitable des

186 Conclusion Owing in part to these complications, Burckhardt would for some time havea profound and decisive influence on historiography and on the opinions ofsubsequent travellers. The historian Andrew Crichton, parts of whose Historyof Arabia (1833) were closely based on Burckhardt’s Notes, learned from hisSwiss predecessor that “the gross and primitive superstitions of the Koran”were in any case preferable to widespread “infidel indifference”, and he ob-served with satisfaction that the principal merit of the Wahhabis was not thatof preaching a “purer religion” as an alternative to Islam, but to have reinstatedKoranic precepts without which improved political conditions and the mitiga-tion of “wild passions” could never have reached those regions.5 The ArabistEdward Lane, having stayed in Cairo on several occasions, confirmed both theMuslim orthodoxy of the new devotees and the idiosyncrasies in the practiceof 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 estab- lished 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 prac- tices, 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 in-directly repudiated his own past opinions in that he acknowledged the deci-sive merit of the Swiss writer in his conclusive discovery that all suspicion ofWahhabi heresy was the result of nothing but malevolence due to the personalinterests of the sharif of Mecca and the Ottoman potentates.7 The opinion ofsuch an authoritative scholar caused even liberal historians finally to hail theNotes 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 thetask of completing and updating Reybaud’s Histoire scientifique et militaire del’expédition française en Égypte, thus reached the conclusion that Muhammadibn 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 heannounced that, at the heart of their revision, lay a sort of “pure Deism” in thesense 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 lux- ury, 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 wayinto contemporary literature. Thomas Hope, a mediocre imitator of Byron, hadthe protagonist of his long-winded novel Anastasius (1819) even go so far as tovisit al-Dirʿiyya, still described as the capital of a sect unconnected to SunniIslam, under the long-lived king ʿAbd al-ʿAziz.9 In 1835 Lamartine, then stillonly known as a poet and traveller in the East, which he had visited three yearsearlier, embellished his own oriental memoirs with an incredible account of aconversation supposed to have taken place in the capital of Najd between anunidentified Wahhabi monarch and a Christian Arab, Fathallah al-Sayegh, whowas said to have extinguished his haughty interlocutor’s prejudice against theGospel.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 judgem­ ent 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 aus- tere 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 reli- gion 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, unpub- lished 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 lead- er’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 afirm place in European culture, although, as we have seen, not all interestedscholars had recognised their importance at the time. Nor were the most en-during and important misunderstandings completely dispelled, even amongenthusiasts of things oriental. It was no accident that during this period pos-sibly the two most ambitious, but also very different, essays in the field of thephilosophy of religion, by Benjamin Constant on the one hand and Hegel onthe other, did not mention the new movement in Arabia. They chose instead toshare the conviction, prevalent during the age of the Restoration, that, in theOttoman territories, Islam was wholly decadent and, rationally speaking, infe-rior to Christianity.11 At the same time a widespread obsession with sinisterconspiracies 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 transla- tion 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 Conclusionimprobable rumours in the East concerning the European origin of the reli-gious 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 dissentbetween Sunni Islam and the new movement in Arabia still occasionally raisedits head even among authors above suspicion. The Sinologist Pierre-Abel Ré-musat, Silvestre de Sacy’s successor as secretary of the Société Asiatique, actu-ally maintained that there was a distinction between Wahhabis and Muslimsanalogous to the one between Christians and Jews or between Buddhists andHindus.13 Baron d’Eckstein, a dilettante orientalist and a curious example ofthe romantic Catholic intellectual strongly drawn to esoteric wisdom, fannedhis 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 fatalto orthodox Muslims.14 And even in the midst of the storm over Das Leben Jesuby David Friedrich Strauss there were those who, in sympathy with the greaterspirituality of Sufism and aiming to establish a deprecatory parallel betweenrationalistic Christian and Muslim heresies, pointed to the Wahhabis as expo-nents of an intellectualistic doctrine, purely moral at heart, indifferent to the12 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, voya- geurs 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 obser- ved: “Il en serait à-peu-près ainsi de celui qui confondrait les Wahabites avec les musul- mans 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.”