A Historical Critique of the Wahhabi-Imperial Alliance

By V.A. Mohamad Ashrof, New Age Islam 24 July 2025 Abstract The historical trajectory of the modern Middle East is rife with paradoxes, none more pronounced than the enduring, century-spanning alliance between the puritanical, iconoclastic Islamic revivalist movement known as Wahhabism and the secular, expansionist forces of British and, later, American imperialism. This relationship, often superficially viewed as an anomaly or a cynical marriage of convenience, was, in fact, a deeply rooted symbiotic supremacy. It was a pragmatic partnership forged in the crucible of geopolitical necessity, where mutual strategic interests consistently overrode profound ideological chasms. A comprehensive historical and hermeneutical critique reveals that this alliance was not merely a matter of fleeting political calculation but one that necessitated a continuous and flexible re-interpretation of core Wahhabi doctrines. By selectively applying, suspending, and re-framing its own rigid theological principles, the Saudi-Wahhabi establishment was able to justify collaboration with non-Muslim powers to secure its own survival, consolidation, and eventual supremacy in the Arabian Peninsula. This process, in turn, profoundly shaped the modern Saudi state, the contours of global energy politics, the ideological battlegrounds of the Cold War, and, in a tragic and ironic twist of fate, the very nature of contemporary militant Islam. This paper argues that the Wahhabi-imperial alliance represents a masterclass in the instrumentalization of religious interpretation for the pursuit of state power. It will trace this complex entanglement chronologically, beginning with the ideological foundations of Wahhabism and its stark, exclusionary worldview. It will then analyse the movement's initial, often adversarial, encounters with the British Empire, exploring how imperial strategy constructed and utilized the idea of a “Phantom Wahhabi” before settling into a pragmatic alliance with the ascendant House of Saud. The analysis will then transition to the American era, where the pact was supercharged by the discovery of oil and cemented by the shared ideological enemy of communism, transforming Wahhabism into a global proselytizing force with the implicit backing of the United States. Finally, the paper will examine the hermeneutical fracture that occurred after the Cold War, demonstrating how the very same theological tools that legitimized the alliance were re-purposed by a new generation of militants to declare war on their former sponsors. Throughout this examination, the central focus will remain on the hermeneutical manoeuvres—the interpretations of Quranic texts and Islamic legal principles—that made this paradoxical symbiosis possible, revealing a persistent tension between professed theological purity and the overriding pragmatism of political survival. The Genesis of a Militant and Exclusionary Interpretation To comprehend the profound compromises at the heart of the Wahhabi-imperial alliance, one must first grasp the uncompromising nature of Wahhabism’s foundational theology. The movement that erupted in the arid hinterlands of 18th-century Najd was an explicitly revivalist and exclusionary project, born from the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792). He advanced a radical and militant hermeneutic of tawhid (the absolute oneness of God), demanding what he perceived as a return to the pristine, unadulterated Islam of the first generation of Muslims, the Salaf al-Salih (pious predecessors). His theology was built upon a stark and unforgiving binary: adherence to his strict, literalist interpretation of monotheism was true Islam, while any deviation constituted shirk (polytheism) and bid'ah (heretical innovation). This was not a minor theological disagreement; for Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, practices common throughout the Muslim world—including the veneration of saints, the visitation of tombs (even that of the Prophet Muhammad), the celebration of the Prophet's birthday (mawlid), and the use of talismans—were not merely misguided but were acts of apostasy that placed their practitioners outside the fold of Islam. The theological engine of this project was a specific, de-contextualized, and literalist reading of the Quran. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings were saturated with an emphasis on verses proclaiming God’s absolute singularity (e.g., 3:18, 47:19) and those condemning any form of intercession or association of partners with God. This interpretation provided the theological justification for practicing takfir—the act of declaring other Muslims as kuffar (unbelievers). Once a community was declared apostate, its members were no longer protected by Islamic law, making their wealth and lives forfeit in the eyes of the Wahhabi faithful. This aggressive theology found its indispensable political instrument in the historic 1744 pact with Muhammad ibn Saud, the ambitious local ruler of Diriyah. This alliance fused religious fervour with state-building ambition, creating a potent force that would sweep across the Arabian Peninsula. Their military campaigns were framed not as tribal conquests but as a sacred duty, a jihad to purify Islam from the "corruptions" and "idolatry" that they argued had become rampant under the distant and tolerant suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire (Commins, p.32-45). This initial phase established the crucial precedent that would define the movement for centuries: the fusion of Wahhabi ideology, with its inherent demand for submission, with the dynastic and political ambitions of the House of Saud. A core tenet underpinning this exclusionary worldview was the doctrine of Al-Wala' wal-Bara' (Loyalty and Disavowal). Derived from interpretations of verses like 60:4, where the Prophet Abraham is depicted disavowing his polytheistic kinsmen, and 3:28, which cautions believers against taking disbelievers as allies (awliya) instead of fellow believers, this principle demanded unwavering loyalty to those who adhered to the Wahhabi creed and a complete disavowal of all others. This included not only non-Muslims but, critically, the vast majority of Muslims who did not subscribe to their specific interpretation. The practical implication was a mandate for separation and, if necessary, hostility. The Quranic verses exhorting struggle against unbelievers and hypocrites (e.g., 9:5, 9:29, 9:73) were central to their hermeneutical framework, providing a ready-made justification for expansion and conquest. Furthermore, this theological project contributed to a broader suppression of the intellectual and scientific spirit that had characterized earlier eras of Islamic civilization. While the Quran repeatedly extols reflection (tafakkur) (3:191), the pursuit of knowledge (ilm) (20:114), and the use of reason (aql), Wahhabism’s rigid literalism and anti-rationalist stance narrowed the epistemological horizons of Islam. Philosophy, speculative theology (kalam), and mysticism (tasawwuf or Sufism) were summarily rejected as foreign intrusions and heretical innovations. This intellectual paralysis, as critics like Fazlur Rahman have argued, reduced the dynamic faith of Islam to a set of static rituals and prohibitions, stripping it of the critical and adaptive faculties necessary for genuine progress (Rahman, p.241). This narrowing of thought, while aimed at internal purification, would later prove convenient for imperial powers who preferred a pacified Muslim populace diverted from critical inquiry and liberationist theologies. The Quranic motif of the Prophet Moses defying the tyrant Pharaoh (26:10-16) is a powerful call to confront oppression, yet the political theology forged by the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance would eventually sanctify obedience to their own rule and justify alliances with foreign tyrants, a stark hermeneutical reversal of this prophetic spirit. It was from this uncompromising, exclusionary, and militant foundation that the movement would first encounter, and later embrace, the forces of Western imperialism. The British Encounter: Patronage, and the "Phantom Wahhabi" The initial interactions between the nascent Saudi-Wahhabi state and the burgeoning British Empire in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were not born of friendship but of friction and adversarial interest. As the Wahhabi-aligned Qawasim tribal federation extended its influence across the Persian Gulf, it inevitably clashed with the primary objective of British imperial policy in the region: the protection of maritime trade routes to India. British records from the period, far from depicting a budding alliance, frame the Wahhabis as a fanatical threat. They were labelled "pirates" whose actions were motivated by a "fanatical Wahhabism," a characterization that, as historian Robin Plant argues, reflected British imperial imagination more than local reality. These maritime conflicts were rooted in long-standing local power struggles and economic competition, not purely religious zeal (Plant, p.4). The British response was decidedly hostile, supporting rivals like the Sultanate of Oman and launching military campaigns against Wahhabi-allied ports like Ras al-Khaimah in 1809 (Kelly, p.115-119). The fall of the first Saudi state at the hands of an Ottoman-Egyptian force in 1818 was a development that met with British approval, as it appeared to neutralize a destabilizing force and secure their regional hegemony (Al-Fahad, p.488). This early hostility, however, highlights a crucial dynamic: The British construction of a "Phantom Wahhabi." This was a powerful rhetorical and legal tool used to justify imperial intervention and suppress anti-colonial resistance. Across the British Empire, particularly in India, Muslim reform movements and anti-colonial rebels were often summarily labelled "Wahhabis," regardless of their actual doctrinal affiliations. This mischaracterization, rooted in Orientalist stereotypes of the fanatical and irrational Muslim, served to de-legitimize dissent and frame it as religious sedition rather than a legitimate political grievance (Said, p.45). As Qeyamuddin Ahmed documents in his study of the "Wahhabi Movement" in India, the term became a catch-all for any form of Muslim resistance, allowing the colonial administration to invoke extraordinary legal measures and portray its actions as a defence of order against religious extremism (Ahmed, p.60). In what became known as the “Great Wahhabi Case,” the British conflated diverse reformist groups with the Arabian movement to criminalize anti-colonial activities, making the word "Wahabi synonymous with 'traitor' and 'rebel'". This imperial hermeneutic, which interpreted any sign of Islamic revival as a potential political threat, was less about theological accuracy and more about maintaining control. It was a strategy of divide and rule, exploiting and amplifying sectarian differences to fragment potential anti-colonial unity (Metcalf, p.143). The shift from adversary to ally occurred in the early 20th century with the rise of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud (1875-1953), the ambitious and politically astute leader striving to establish the third Saudi state. As the Ottoman Empire crumbled during World War I, the strategic landscape of the Middle East was redrawn. Britain, seeking to secure its interests against the Ottomans, found a willing, if unlikely, partner in Ibn Saud. While the British famously supported the Hashemite-led Arab Revolt under Sharif Hussein of Mecca, they simultaneously viewed Ibn Saud as a more stable and less territorially ambitious force in central Arabia. This dual policy culminated in the decisive 1915 Treaty of Darin, wherein Ibn Saud agreed to become a British protectorate. In exchange for weapons, a monthly stipend, and recognition of his rule, he pledged not to attack British interests or other British-allied territories (Al-Rasheed, p.45-47). As British officer Harry St. John Philby later noted, Ibn Saud’s movement was seen as a useful instrument to advance British geopolitical goals, particularly in countering Ottoman power (Philby, p.45). From a strictly Wahhabi doctrinal standpoint, this formal alliance with a Christian imperial power was deeply problematic, if not outright heretical. The ideology’s foundational texts and historical practice were predicated on the principle of al-wala' wal-bara', demanding separation from and struggle against kuffar (unbelievers) and their perceived Muslim collaborators. The very verses that formed the bedrock of their creed—cautioning against taking non-Muslims as allies (3:28, 4:144, 5:51) and commanding disavowal (60:4)—were now in direct contradiction with the political reality of the nascent state. To resolve this profound theological crisis, the Saudi leadership performed a crucial interpretational manoeuvre. The principle of al-wala' wal-bara' was pragmatically suspended, though never officially repudiated. The alliance was justified not through a direct refutation of these verses, but through the application of the Islamic legal concepts of maslaha (public interest) and darura (necessity). The greater goal—the establishment, consolidation, and survival of a state that would enforce "true" tawhid and liberate the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from the "polytheistic" Hashemites—was deemed important enough to permit a temporary and tactical alliance with a non-Muslim power. This hermeneutic of necessity was made more palatable by the fact that the primary enemies were other Muslims—the Ottomans and the Hashemites—whom the Wahhabi clerics had already theologically delegitimized as practitioners of shirk and bid'ah. Thus, in a masterful stroke of ideological framing, the British were not patrons of an infidel cause but were re-cast as unwitting facilitators of an authentic Islamic one. The conquest of the Hejaz, framed as a religious duty to purify the holy sites (invoking the spirit of verses on fighting to end oppression, like Quran 2:190-193), provided a powerful religious justification that overshadowed the glaring theological contradiction of relying on Christian imperial support (Habib, p.102-105). As historian Hamid Algar acidly notes, this alliance demonstrated that "the allegedly uncompromising hostility of Wahhabism to all that is non-Wahhabi could be conveniently suspended for the sake of political gain" (Algar, p.53). This episode cemented the core dynamic of the symbiotic relationship: the subordination of theological rigor to the political pragmatism of state power, a pattern that would be repeated and amplified under American patronage. The American Hegemony: Oil, God, and the Cold War The mid-20th century witnessed the eclipse of British influence in the Middle East and the rise of the United States as the new imperial hegemon. This transition deepened the Saudi-Western alliance, re-centring it on a commodity of immense global importance: oil. The 1933 oil concession granted to Standard Oil of California (SoCal), which would later become the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), was the economic beachhead for American influence. This economic partnership was formally consecrated as a strategic alliance in the landmark February 1945 meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud aboard the USS Quincy. This meeting cemented the unwritten but inviolable pact that would define US-Saudi relations for the next seventy years: a guaranteed flow of Saudi oil to the United States and its allies in exchange for an American military and security guarantee for the House of Saud and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. King Abd al-Aziz aptly described this new client relationship as a fusion of “our faith and your iron” (Philby, p.48; Vassiliev, p.288). This "oil-for-security" doctrine created a new set of hermeneutical challenges. The presence of thousands of American oil workers, technicians, and eventually military advisors on Saudi soil represented a far more intimate and permanent form of engagement with a non-Muslim power than the earlier British protectorate. It required the Wahhabi religious establishment to continuously justify a relationship that brought Western culture, technology, and secular values into the heart of the land they deemed most sacred. Once again, the principles of maslaha and darura were invoked. The wealth and security provided by the American alliance were framed as essential for the strength and stability of the one state on Earth governed by "pure" Islamic principles. Leading Wahhabi scholars issued fatwas (legal rulings) that justified cooperation with American companies and officials, often relying on interpretations of Quranic verses like 2:286, which states that God does not burden a soul beyond its capacity, to argue for the necessity of such worldly arrangements (Commins, p.189). With the onset of the Cold War, the alliance acquired a powerful new ideological dimension that would allow for an unprecedented global symbiosis. The United States, locked in a worldwide struggle against the Soviet Union, saw in Saudi Arabia’s staunchly anti-atheist Wahhabism a potent ideological tool against Soviet-backed secular Arab nationalism, epitomized by Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. The Saudi regime, in turn, viewed Nasserism and other socialist, pan-Arabist movements as a dangerous, revolutionary threat to its monarchical rule and its claim to leadership of the Islamic world. This shared enemy allowed the US and Saudi Arabia to frame their alliance in moral and ideological terms, transcending the mere transactional nature of oil for security. This period represents the zenith of the hermeneutical utility of the Wahhabi-imperial alliance. The Saudi clerical establishment, with the full backing of the state, provided the religious justification for aligning with the capitalist, secular West against the "godless" communists. A significant, state-sponsored hermeneutical re-framing took place. Quranic injunctions to fight against unbelief (kufr), such as 9:73, were conveniently and powerfully aimed eastward at the ultimate atheistic kufr of Moscow, while the alliance with Washington was cast as a necessary defence of the dar al-Islam (lands of Islam). The concept of al-wala' wal-bara' was effectively globalized and inverted: loyalty was implicitly demanded for the "Free World" led by the United States against the existential threat of the Communist bloc, despite the US being a non-Muslim, secular power. Verses like Quran 4:139, which criticize those who take disbelievers as allies for the sake of honour, were side-lined in favour of a narrative that depicted the alliance as a sacred duty to protect the faith itself. This was not a passive alliance. Awash with petrodollars following the 1970s oil boom, and with active encouragement from Washington, Saudi Arabia embarked on a massive global campaign to export its specific brand of Wahhabi-Salafi Islam. This was a direct counterweight to revolutionary ideologies, both communist and pan-Arabist. The United States supported the Saudi founding of the Muslim World League in 1962 and other international organizations designed to propagate a conservative, quietist, and pro-Western interpretation of Islam (Mamdani, p.120-128). Billions of dollars were funnelled into a worldwide network of mosques, schools (madrasas), universities, and charities, all disseminating Wahhabi texts, ideologies, and its anti-communist, anti-socialist worldview. Quranic verses encouraging spending in the cause of God (e.g., 2:195, 2:261, 8:60) were harnessed to support this US-backed religious expansionism. The hermeneutical critique here is profound: core Islamic concepts of proselytization (da'wa) and enjoining good and forbidding evil (3:104) were systematically instrumentalised to serve a Cold War geopolitical agenda largely dictated by American interests. The most dramatic and consequential manifestation of this symbiotic collaboration was the Afghan War (1979-1989). Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID) jointly orchestrated one of the largest covert operations in history. They funnelled billions of dollars and sophisticated weaponry to the Afghan Mujahideen fighting the Red Army (Coll, p.81-83). But the Saudi contribution was not merely financial; it was ideological. The Saudi state encouraged thousands of young Muslim men from across the globe, including a charismatic and wealthy young Saudi named Osama bin Laden, to join the fight in Afghanistan. This mobilization was given religious sanction by senior Wahhabi clerics, who issued fatwas framing the conflict as a quintessential jihad—a holy war against an infidel invader occupying a Muslim land. The entire ideological and financial apparatus that had been built up during the Cold War was now focused on a single, glorious battle, perfectly aligning the geopolitical goals of the United States with the militant theological framework of Wahhabism. This symbiotic supremacy had reached its peak, but in doing so, it had forged a generation of transnational holy warriors and unleashed a powerful, volatile ideology that would soon spin out of its creators' control. The Blowback and Hermeneutical Fracture The ultimate irony and tragic legacy of the Wahhabi-imperial alliance is that the very ideology the United States helped to globalize, and the very warriors it helped to train, eventually turned violently against it. The end of the Cold War in 1989 removed the common enemy that had served as the ideological glue for the US-Saudi partnership. The hermeneutics of convenience, which had for decades allowed for a tactical alliance with the "far enemy" (the US and the West) to defeat the "near enemy" (the Soviets, Nasserists, and other regional rivals), contained the seeds of its own reversal. The generation of transnational fighters forged in the crucible of the Afghan War, steeped in a Wahhabi-inspired ideology of militant jihad and absolutist principles, did not simply disband and return home after the Soviet withdrawal. They now constituted a global network of veterans, confident in their divinely-ordained victory and searching for a new cause. The catalyst for the great hermeneutical fracture was the 1990-91 Gulf War. When Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia perceived a direct and existential threat. In a decision that would irrevocably alter the landscape of political Islam, the Saudi monarchy invited hundreds of thousands of American and coalition troops to be stationed on its soil—the very land containing Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina. For hard-line adherents to Wahhabi doctrine, this was the ultimate betrayal, an act of sacrilege that dwarfed all previous compromises. The presence of "Crusader" armies in the sacred land of the Two Holy Mosques (Haramayn) was seen as a blatant defilement and a shocking violation of the core principle of al-wala' wal-bara'. This single event ignited a fierce internal debate and exposed the deep hermeneutical chasm that had been papered over for decades. On one side stood the official state religious establishment. Faced with a direct order from the monarchy, the senior Ulema dutifully issued fatwas justifying the presence of non-Muslim troops. They again invoked the well-worn principles of darura (necessity) and maslaha (public interest), arguing that the defence of the kingdom from an aggressive Muslim neighbour (Saddam) was the overriding concern. They drew heavily on interpretations of verses like 4:59, "O you who have believed, obey God and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you," to demand loyalty to the King's decision and condemn any opposition as sedition (fitna) (Hegghammer, p.54-56). On the other side stood a new and vocal generation of dissidents, including figures like Osama bin Laden and a cadre of radical clerics. For them, the Saudi regime's decision was not a matter of necessity but of apostasy. They wielded the foundational texts of Wahhabism with the same literalist and absolutist rigor that the state had long promoted, but they turned this weapon against the state itself. The hermeneutical lens shifted with devastating clarity. The United States was no longer a justifiable ally of convenience against communism but had become the primary "near enemy," an occupying infidel power defiling the heartland of Islam. The very verses that the state Ulema had conveniently ignored or re-interpreted for decades were now redeployed with explosive force. Injunctions against taking Jews and Christians as allies or protectors (e.g., 5:51, 3:28, 4:144) were presented not as flexible guidelines but as immutable divine commands. The Quranic prohibition on polytheists approaching the Sacred Mosque (9:28) was interpreted as a blanket ban on any non-Muslim military presence in the entire Arabian Peninsula. The ahistorical and de-contextualized reading of scripture, a hallmark of Wahhabi hermeneutics, had proven to be a double-edged sword (Lacquer, p.220-225). This schism produced two competing hermeneutical paths. The state-aligned Ulema continued to develop a quietist, ruler-centric theology that prioritized regime survival and stability, condemning all unauthorized jihad as a dangerous innovation. Meanwhile, the dissident current, which would evolve into al-Qaeda and later ISIS, developed a revolutionary hermeneutic that used the core tenets of Wahhabism to legitimize global insurgency against both the "near enemy" (the "apostate" Muslim regimes like Saudi Arabia) and the "far enemy" (the United States and the West). The September 11, 2001 attacks, carried out predominantly by Saudi nationals steeped in this radicalized Wahhabi worldview, were the catastrophic culmination of this process. They forced a painful crisis in the US-Saudi relationship and laid bare the dangerous contradictions of the decades-long symbiotic alliance. While the Saudi state, again prioritizing its own survival, officially condemned the attacks and cooperated with the US "War on Terror," the ideological Pandora's box could not be closed. The United States was forced to confront the reality that the very ideology it had nurtured as a Cold War asset had metastasized into its most formidable foe (Wright 289). The symbiotic supremacy, built on a foundation of shared interests and hermeneutical flexibility, had ultimately produced a globalized militant movement that, by applying the same rigid logic of its progenitors, would declare holy war on its former imperial sponsors, demonstrating the profound and often perilous entanglement of religious interpretation and global power politics. The Harvest of Blowback The long and complex relationship between the Wahhabi-Saudi state and Anglo-American imperialism is a story of pragmatism consistently triumphing over professed principle. It was a symbiotic supremacy, an alliance of mutual benefit where the puritanical zeal of a religious revivalist movement was strategically harnessed by imperial powers, and where the House of Saud leveraged imperial patronage to build a kingdom. This paradox was sustained not by shared values, but by shared interests and, most critically, by a remarkably flexible and state-controlled religious hermeneutic. The journey from the uncompromising doctrines of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab to the oil-fuelled, American-backed global propagation of his teachings is a testament to the profound capacity of religious interpretation to bend to the imperatives of state power and geopolitical reality. The hermeneutical mechanics of this alliance were consistent across time. Core theological tenets, most notably al-wala' wal-bara' (Loyalty and Disavowal), were effectively suspended or re-interpreted through the legal principles of darura (necessity) and maslaha (public interest) whenever an alliance with a non-Muslim power was deemed essential for survival or expansion. Quranic verses commanding separation from and enmity towards non-believers (3:28, 5:51, 60:4) were set aside to accommodate protectorate treaties with the British and security pacts with the Americans. Conversely, verses justifying struggle (jihad) (9:5, 9:29), spending in God's cause (2:195, 8:60), and commanding good and forbidding evil (3:104, 3:110) were selectively mobilized to support state-building, conquer Muslim rivals, and, most consequentially, wage a global ideological war against communism on behalf of the United States. The critique lies in this profound and persistent inconsistency. A movement founded on a claim to absolute theological purity and a return to an unadulterated, pristine Islam repeatedly and fundamentally compromised those principles when faced with the realities of power politics and the allure of imperial patronage. This instrumentalization of the Quranic text and Islamic legal tradition reveals the subordination of religious doctrine to the machinations of the state. The resulting contradictions—condemning "infidels" while depending on them for security, preaching religious absolutism while thriving within a secular global order, and denouncing Western culture while benefiting from its technology and military might—created deep and unstable fissures within the ideology itself. While this symbiotic alliance undeniably succeeded for decades in securing the dynastic rule of the House of Saud and guaranteeing American energy and strategic interests, it came at a monumental cost. It unleashed a powerful, simplified, and volatile ideology onto the world stage, an ideology detached from the rich intellectual traditions of Islamic jurisprudence and ethics. The tragic legacy of this alliance is the very blowback it created. The hermeneutical tools of takfir and absolutist jihad, once honed with Western support against shared enemies, were inevitably turned against their former masters, giving rise to transnational militant movements that continue to plague the globe. The story of the Wahhabi-imperial alliance thus serves as a grim and enduring cautionary tale about the perilous and unpredictable consequences that arise from the entanglement of sacred text, statecraft, and empire. It demonstrates, with devastating clarity, how interpretations of the divine can be wielded in the service of worldly power, and how the seeds of ideological conflict, once planted, can grow in the most unexpected and destructive ways. Bibliography Abou El Fadl, Khaled. 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