One could even argue that the most important division shaping Arab politics is not between Sunnis and Shias but between the Wahhabis and the Brotherhood. Before delving into current issues, however, it is first necessary to define differences between Wahhabism and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Wahhabism stems from the theological teachings of Muhammad ibn abd al-Wahhab, the eighteenth century reformer. Abd al-Wahhab was one of several “revivalist” thinkers to emerge from that century. The mission of these revivalists was to purify and thereby revitalize Islam. They carried the banner of reform but unlike modern reformers, they wanted to transform Islam on traditionally Islamic grounds. They did not attempt to adapt it to other systems of thought, politics, or culture. Their goals did not include modernizing Islam to meet the demands of a changing world. In this sense they were pre-modern.
Wahhabism is thus, at its heart, a pre-modern theological movement and Wahhabists continue to make mostly theological arguments about the oneness of God and proper forms of worship. Their historical mission has been a call to reform Islam according to a strict and narrowly defined theology. There are, of course, political implications to this understanding of Islam, but Wahhabism is still best understood as a theological reform movement.
The Muslim Brotherhood, on the other hand, is a political organization originating in Egypt’s cosmopolitan cities during the twentieth century. The Brotherhood’s Islamism is one of several political ideologies to emerge out of Egypt in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Like Pan-Arabism, nationalism, and socialism, which also emerged in Egypt at that time, the Brotherhood’s Islamism is at its heart a political identity.
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5:15 AM
Moderate Islamist here
