Wahabi Movement, also known as the ‘Walliullah Movement,’ was a Muslim socio-religious reform movement which began in response to western influences and was inspired by the teachings of Shah Walliullah, considered the first Indian Muslim leader. The Wahabi Movement in India was founded by Sayyid Ahmad (1786-1831) of Rae Bareli. The entire movement revolved around Islam’s legacy — “Quran and Hadis.” The Wahabi movement sought to purify Islam and return to the simplicity of religion.
Wahabi Movement – Background
- The Wahabi Movement in India was founded by Sayyid Ahmad (1786-1831) of Rae Bareli.
- Sayyid Ahmad’s writings demonstrate an awareness of the growing British presence in the country, and he viewed British India as a daru’l harb (abode of war).
- In 1826, he migrated to the North Western Frontier area and established an operational base in the independent tribal belt.
- After his death in the battle of Balakot, the Movement slowed for a while, but his followers, particularly Wilayet Ali and Enayat Ali of Patna, revitalized the work and broadened its scope.
- The Ambala War (1863), in which the English army suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Wahhabis, marked the culmination of the Movement.
- As a result, the government took harsh measures to suppress the Movement.
- Investigations were launched, the leaders were apprehended and sentenced to long-term incarceration, and their properties were confiscated.
- The Movement’s back was broken, but it remained a potential source of trouble for the government.
Wahabi Movement
- The teachings of Abdul Wahab of Arabia and the sermons of Shah Walliullah (1702–63) inspired this essentially revivalist reaction to Western influences and the degeneration that had set in among Indian Muslims, calling for a return to the true spirit of Islam.
- He was the first Indian Muslim leader of the 18th century to organize Muslims around the two-fold ideals of this movement:
- the desire for harmony among the four schools of Muslim jurisprudence than had divided Indian Muslims (he sought to integrate the best elements of the four schools); and
- recognition of the role of individual conscience in religion in situations where conflicting interpretations of the Quran and the Hadis were derived.
- Walliullah’s teachings were popularised further by Shah Abdul Aziz and Syed Ahmad Barelvi, who also gave them a political context.
- Un-Islamic practices that had infiltrated Muslim society were intended to eliminate.
- Syed Ahmad advocated for a return to pure Islam and the type of society that existed in Arabia during the Prophet’s time.
- Dar-ul-Harb (the land of the kafirs) was considered India, and it needed to be converted to Dar-ul-Islam (land of Islam).
- Initially, the movement was aimed at the Sikhs of Punjab, but following the British annexation of Punjab (1849), the movement shifted its focus to the British.
- During the 1857 Revolt, the Wahabi’s played a significant role in instilling anti-British sentiment.
- The Wahabi Movement faded away in the face of British military might in the 1870s.
Suppression of Wahabi Movement
- During the 1857 Revolt, the Wahabi’s played a significant role in spreading anti-British sentiments.
- The British rulers of India saw the potential danger of the Wahabi’s base of operations from Sithana in the context of a possible war between the United Kingdom and Afghanistan or Russia.
- In the 1860s, the government launched a multi-pronged attack on the Wahabi base of operations in Sithana by organizing a series of military operations, while a number of court cases for sedition were filed against Wahabis in India.
- General Bakht Khan, the leader of the mutineers in Delhi during the 1857 revolt, was also a Wahabi.
- In the 1870s, the British military superiority crushed the movement.
- Between 1863 and 1865, there were a series of trials in which all of the main leaders of the Wahabi movement were arrested.
- The Ambala trial in 1864 and the Patna trial in 1865 were inextricably linked.
- Though the Wahabi fanatics continued to assist the frontier hill tribes in their encounters with the English in the 1880s and 1890s, the movement lost its vitality.
Conclusion
- The Wahabi movement was a movement of the Muslims, by Muslims, and for Muslims, with the goal of establishing Dar-ul-Islam in India. It never took on the characteristics of a nationalist movement. Instead, it left a legacy of isolationist and separatist tendencies among Indian Muslims.
- In the nineteenth century, there was a vigorous movement for socio-religious reforms in Indo-Islamic society, with strong political undercurrents. Following the 1857 revolt, it devolved into an armed struggle against the British, prompting them to launch extensive military operations against the movement’s adherents. By 1870, the movement had been completely crushed.
