Page 41 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

CHAPTER III

‘It was by instigating the Quwaism(Joasmi) tribe
of Arabs to acts of piracy in the Persian Gulf that
the Wahabis first attracted the attention of the
British Government.’
Treaties and Engagements and Sennads. Vol. XI.
Edited by C. U. Aitchcson. Revised 1933

r HOWARDS the end of the 18th century, the Wahabi
movement became an important factor in the affairs of the
, Persian Gulf. The founder of the sect, Mohammed bin
Abdul Wahab, the son of a Kadhi, was born in about 1703 at
Ayaina in Ncjd. He is said to have learned the Koran by heart
at the age of ten, and lie was married when he was twelve. He
travelled in Iraq, the Hejaz and Syria, becoming an authority on
religious matters, it seems that much of his religious thinking was
based on the precepts of Ibn Taymiya, a religious reformer who
died in the 14th century. In 1744, he returned to his home town
where he started a religious campaign, his adherents becoming
known as Wahabis.
He preached a doctrine of pure monotheism, a return to the
fundamental tenets of Islam as laid down in the Koran. He de­
nounced the heresies and superstitions which had crept into the
religion, such as intercessions to the Prophet Mohammed rather
than to the Deity, the worship of saints, pilgrimages to mosques
and places of burial, and the building of domes and monuments.
He sternly condemned the laxity and depravity of the Arabs and
admonished men for wearing silk and gold, and for smoking
tobacco. He told his followers that it was their religious duty to
convert their fellow men with fire and sword, and to plunder and
destroy all those who professed to be Moslems but did not accept
Wahabism. It was the prospect of authorised plunder which
attracted the desert Bedouin and the pirates of the coast to align
themselves under the green standard of the Wahabis.
At first, Abdul Wahab gained some support, and made con­
verts in Ayaina, where he was accepted as a religious leader; then
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