The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century called for a return to Christianity based on scripture and the understanding of the early church.
Protestants attacked existing religious teachings as new additions and faulted them for often encouraging polytheism.
Protestants were particularly concerned with ritual interactions involving saints, dead persons, and relics.
Protestants pronounced all other Christians heretics and disbelievers.
They held that fighting other Christians was more important than Christian cooperation against non-Christians.
The Protestant reformation succeeded in:
– breaking apart Christian Europe along sectarian lines
– turning all Christian countries against one another
– sparking Wars of Religion which lasted from the 16th to 18th century, and resulted in 10-20 million deaths.
– leading Europe to reject religion altogether as a violent dangerous social force, and adopt Enlightenment secularism instead.
RELATED: The Parallels between Wahhabism and Calvinist Protestantism
The Wahhabi movement of the 18th century seeks to carry out a Protestant Reformation in Islam.
For this reason, Wahhabis attack existing religious teachings as new additions (bid’as), which often lead to polytheism (shirk).
Wahhabis are particularly concerned with ritual interactions involving saints, dead persons, and relics.
Wahhabis pronounce all other Muslims heretics and disbelievers.
Wahhabis hold that fighting other Muslims is more important than Muslim cooperation against non-Muslims.
Prior to the early twentieth century, Wahhabism was viewed by the entire Muslim world as a heretical Kharijite cult (resembling ISIS) – so its effects were limited to the central Najd region of the Arabian Peninsula.
However, over the twentieth century, it has spread across the Muslim world, often with the aid of the UK, US, and Israel.
Spreading Wahhabism in any Muslim country or community is like detonating a nuclear weapon.
It immediately gives rise to a type of Protestant reformation which then sparks unending war between conservative Muslims.
It divides Sunni Muslims into Salafi, Traditionalist Sufi, and Ikhwani camps which then fight to destroy one another. It also greatly amplifies antagonism between Sunnis and Shia.
This leads to the fracturing and internal destruction of conservative Muslim groups.
Meanwhile none of this affects secular and liberal groups in the Muslim world.
The problem that conservative Muslims face is that they not only have to face the imperial forces of Western colonialism and Zionism, they also have to face a type of Wahhabi Protestant reformation – which is selectively detonated by imperialists, Zionists, and their collaborators in order to weaken conservative Islam and conservative Muslim groups.
As conservative Muslim groups tear one another apart, the path is paved for eventual Enlightenment secularism – just as happened earlier in the case of Europe.
Does this mean that Wahhabis are wrong in all of their criticisms of religious practices and beliefs?
Certainly not.
The danger of Wahhabism is not that it is entirely wrong. It is that it packages a mixture of truth and falsehood into an explosive Protestant-like formula that generates Protestant-like social and civilizational effects.
Wahhabis do not even recognize this themselves, as they are completely ignorant of global history and cannot see the deep parallels between their movement (and its effects) and the Protestant Reformation (and its effects).
Wow! What an interesting parallel the author has drawn. Once an Islamophobic told me that Islam by default is a violent religion and Islam like Christianity needed its own reformation. Well, the reformation they so eagerly await has alreafy taken place LOL.
Finally truth revealed