This book is both informative and well written. I don't think it hurts to learn that not all Islam consists of bin Laden and similar types. It is written (logically enough) from an Islamic perspective, and I don't agree with everything in it, but I'm glad I read it.

This book is both informative and well written. I don't think it hurts to learn that not all Islam consists of bin Laden and similar types. It is written (logically enough) from an Islamic perspective, and I don't agree with everything in it, but I'm glad I read it.

Hamid Algar does not like Wahhabism. He says so forthrightly in this essay.

His complaints are:

1. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was a poor scholar of Islamic jurisprudence, and his writings are few and unoriginal. This is apparently true.

2. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab turned his back on centuries of Islamic jurisprudence and tradition. This is most definitely true.

3. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was prone to declaring Muslims who disagreed with him to be heretics who were no longer truly Muslims (takfir) and therefore fair game to be killed for betraying the true faith. So far, he is three for three.

4. The Saudi regime, which early on offered protection and family alliance through marriage to Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab has -- for all the above reasons as well as a general predisposition to nastiness -- been pretty hard on other Muslims, particularly Sufi and Shi'a. Well, the predisposition to nastiness thing may be a little much coming as it does from Prof. Algar (see below), but the Saudi's are certainly not much on supporting diversity and tolerance either within or without Islam.

5. The Saudi's have gotten away with this by recruiting the support of the infidel powers the UK and the USA. Well, this is an emotional issue and maybe we can understand if Algar drops his standards of evidence and exposition here.

6. The Saudis/Wahhabis are iconoclasts. Wherever they go, they tear down memorials and shrines to great Muslim leaders (including Muhammad himself) and lean very hard on people who worship at them or who pray to those leaders for intercession with Allah. They are fanatical about tawhid (the unity and indivisibility of Allah and the idea that no created thing or person is to be worshipped or venerated). With this one, Algar has hit the nail right on the head!

Finally, Algar -- like many of the rest of us -- has a problem with the enormous oil wealth of the Saudi family and with the amount of influence this buys them through schools, mosques, and other less obvious organizations like the Muslim Student Association in the United States to foster specifically the Wahhabi ideology.

Algar is, in fact, a meticulous scholar and a prolific translator of important Islamic works. What I can learn of him says that he is a British subject who converted to Islam and that he is a "passionate Sufi."

He is also a HUGE fan of the Imam Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution.

And before you decide that he is obviously a nice man who is outraged at the brutality and intolerance of the Wahhabis, be aware that he called for attacks on the United States BEFORE 9/11 and that as far back as 1998 he actually spat on a group of Armenian students, called them pigs, expressed his extreme dissatisfaction that the Armenian genocide of 1913 (and thereabouts) had been unsuccessful, and told them that they deserved to be exterminated. Sounds like the Prof. can get a little severe himself when the spirit moves him! One is tempted to conclude that he and the Wahhabis are in full agreement that slaughtering non-Muslims is pretty much OK; it's just that Algar doesn't like the Wahhabi definition of "unbeliever" -- a definition which, unfortunately, appears to include Prof. Algar and others like him.

This book is a decent first-hand glimpse into the partisan warfare (not too strong a term) within Islam. Kind of like a discussion between a Holy Roller and a really ardent Domenican ... except that it has been several centuries now since those two were OK with expressing their disagreements through mass slaughter.

Hamid Algar does not like Wahhabism. He says so forthrightly in this essay.

His complaints are:

1. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was a poor scholar of Islamic jurisprudence, and his writings are few and unoriginal. This is apparently true.

2. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab turned his back on centuries of Islamic jurisprudence and tradition. This is most definitely true.

3. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was prone to declaring Muslims who disagreed with him to be heretics who were no longer truly Muslims (takfir) and therefore fair game to be killed for betraying the true faith. So far, he is three for three.

4. The Saudi regime, which early on offered protection and family alliance through marriage to Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab has -- for all the above reasons as well as a general predisposition to nastiness -- been pretty hard on other Muslims, particularly Sufi and Shi'a. Well, the predisposition to nastiness thing may be a little much coming as it does from Prof. Algar (see below), but the Saudi's are certainly not much on supporting diversity and tolerance either within or without Islam.

5. The Saudi's have gotten away with this by recruiting the support of the infidel powers the UK and the USA. Well, this is an emotional issue and maybe we can understand if Algar drops his standards of evidence and exposition here.

6. The Saudis/Wahhabis are iconoclasts. Wherever they go, they tear down memorials and shrines to great Muslim leaders (including Muhammad himself) and lean very hard on people who worship at them or who pray to those leaders for intercession with Allah. They are fanatical about tawhid (the unity and indivisibility of Allah and the idea that no created thing or person is to be worshipped or venerated). With this one, Algar has hit the nail right on the head!

Finally, Algar -- like many of the rest of us -- has a problem with the enormous oil wealth of the Saudi family and with the amount of influence this buys them through schools, mosques, and other less obvious organizations like the Muslim Student Association in the United States to foster specifically the Wahhabi ideology.

Algar is, in fact, a meticulous scholar and a prolific translator of important Islamic works. What I can learn of him says that he is a British subject who converted to Islam and that he is a "passionate Sufi."

He is also a HUGE fan of the Imam Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution.

And before you decide that he is obviously a nice man who is outraged at the brutality and intolerance of the Wahhabis, be aware that he called for attacks on the United States BEFORE 9/11 and that as far back as 1998 he actually spat on a group of Armenian students, called them pigs, expressed his extreme dissatisfaction that the Armenian genocide of 1913 (and thereabouts) had been unsuccessful, and told them that they deserved to be exterminated. Sounds like the Prof. can get a little severe himself when the spirit moves him! One is tempted to conclude that he and the Wahhabis are in full agreement that slaughtering non-Muslims is pretty much OK; it's just that Algar doesn't like the Wahhabi definition of "unbeliever" -- a definition which, unfortunately, appears to include Prof. Algar and others like him.

This book is a decent first-hand glimpse into the partisan warfare (not too strong a term) within Islam. Kind of like a discussion between a Holy Roller and a really ardent Domenican ... except that it has been several centuries now since those two were OK with expressing their disagreements through mass slaughter.

Algar gives a good overview of Wahabism's rise and why it hurts us today. Some of it is very detailed such as the beginning which is almost unreadable behind all the dates and names. I got it for a research paper and it worked out great.

A good short read for understanging the difference between the Wahhabist sect and the rest of the Islamic world. All the Arabic words and names slow the reader down quite a bit if you don't speak at least some Arabic, but this is unavoidable.

The subtitle ("A Critical Essay") is misleading. It should be "An Insulting Essay". The author is a Muslim who hates the Wahhabis. His bias is obvious, but just in case you're dense, he admits to not liking them in the last few pages. So it's an honest essay.

According to Algar, Wahhabism is an insufferably self-righteous, intellectually impoversihed, and violence-prone sect that came out of the Arabian wastelands without pedigree or promise. It could never have made an impact on its own (it has nothing of value to offer) and would've died in infancy if it weren't for its alliance with the Saud family and their Western connections (money and weapons first from the British, then the Americans).

Algar hates the Wahhabis for killing Shi'ites, questioning/denying the faith of other Muslims, destroying important architecture, and generally being jerks. The book's main use lies in highlighting points of disagreement among Muslims. In other words, it points to the internal diversity, complexity and richness of Islam. (Or, if you want to put a negative spin on it, you can read it as evidence that Islam has just as bad a history of factional violence and mean-spirited discourse as Christianity does).

It's a quick and relatively easy read. However, there are some 15-20 recurring terms that the ordinary reader might not be familiar with. I knew some (hadith, ulama) from various college courses and other reading, and had to figure others (shirk, tauhid) out as I went along. The book should really have had a glossary. A single page is all it would've taken to make the essay more accessible.

The small size of this book fools the prospective readers into thinking that it is going to cover a very small patch of ground, when in reality it whisks one from the origins of the Wahhabi movement all the way to present day Saudi Arabia. This is considered a must in understanding the Wahhabi perspective, as well as a quick fact book that moves at a very fast clip, largely due to the writer's subject-matter expertise.

The small size of this book fools the prospective readers into thinking that it is going to cover a very small patch of ground, when in reality it whisks one from the origins of the Wahhabi movement all the way to present day Saudi Arabia. This is considered a must in understanding the Wahhabi perspective, as well as a quick fact book that moves at a very fast clip, largely due to the writer's subject-matter expertise.