Madkhalism is a strain of
Islamist thought within the larger
Salafist movement based on the writings of Sheikh
Rabee al-Madkhali
Rabīʿ bin Hādī ʿUmayr al Madkhalī ( ar, ربيع بن هادي عمير المدخلي), is a former head of the Sunnah Studies Department at the Islamic University of Madinah. He is a Salafi Muslim scholar and the founder of Madkhalism ...
.
[ICG Middle East Report N°31]
Saudi Arabia Backgrounder: Who Are the Islamists?
Amman/Riyadh
Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of th ...
/Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
: International Crisis Group, 21 September 2004. Arab states have generally favored Madkhalism due to its support for secular forms of government as opposed to other strains of Salafism,
[Jarret M. Brachman, ''Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice'', pg. 29. London: Routledge, 2008. ] and Madkhalism's decline in Saudi Arabia has been connected with a decline in support for secular forms of government in the Muslim world.
Though originating in
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
, the movement lost its support base in the country and has mostly been relegated to the Muslim
community in Europe,
[Roel Meijer, "Politicizing ''al-jarh wa-l-ta'dil'': Rabi b. Hadi al-Madkhali and the transnational battle for religious authority." Taken from ''The Transmission and Dynamics of the Textual Sources of Islam: Essays in Honour of Harald Motzki'', eds. Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort, ]Kees Versteegh
Cornelis Henricus Maria "Kees" Versteegh (; born 1947) is a Dutch academic linguist. He served as a professor of Islamic studies and the Arabic language at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands until April 2011.
Versteegh graduated from R ...
and Joas Wagemakers, pg. 382. Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wi ...
: Brill Publishers, 2011. with most Saudi Arabians not taking the edicts of Madkhalists seriously.
[Mohammad Pervez Bilgrami]
Arab Counter-revolution on Threshold of Plummeting
World Bulletin, Sunday, September 21, 2014. Political scientist
Omar Ashour
Omar Ashour is a British-Canadian security and military studies academic and a former martial arts champion.
Academic career
Ashour is the author o(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021) an''The Deradicalization of Jihadists: Transforming A ...
has described the movement as resembling a cult,
Omar Ashour
Omar Ashour is a British-Canadian security and military studies academic and a former martial arts champion.
Academic career
Ashour is the author o(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021) an''The Deradicalization of Jihadists: Transforming A ...
Libyan Islamists Unpacked
: Rise, Transformation and Future. Brookings Doha Center, 2012. and English-language media has referred to the group as such.
[
In addition to Arab regimes, US policy makers and senior advisors to the U.S. State Department have also advised the US government to fund al-Madkhali and his strain of thought.
Madkhalis, in contrast to members of other groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State, have been described as very simple men who do not have the same level of intellectual depth and knowledge. As such, they are viewed as less of a threat by their opponents.
]
History
The movement has, in essence, been a reaction against the Muslim Brotherhood, rival Sahwa movement as well as the Qutbi movement; Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid 'Ibrāhīm Ḥusayn Quṭb ( or ; , ; ar, سيد قطب إبراهيم حسين ''Sayyid Quṭb''; 9 October 1906 – 29 August 1966), known popularly as Sayyid Qutb ( ar, سيد قطب), was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamic ...
, that movement's figurehead, is considered to be an apostate by Madkhali and his movement.[
Rabee al-Madkhali was incredibly influential, most of it through Saudi support, in the early 90's, during and after the time period the ]Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
was taking place. The Saudi regime attracted great ire from the Sahwa movement, due to their collusion with the US government and the Saudi's allowing US military bases to be set up in the Arabian peninsula. In response, the Saudi government imprisoned the leaders of the movement and strongly promoted al-Madkhali, who was politically quietest, supported the regime and was good at siphoning off potential opponents to the US and Saudi regime. Senior US policy makers Will McCants
Will McCants (born 1975), also known as William Faizi McCants, is a scholar of militant Islamism. He is a fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy and director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution ...
and Jarret Brachman
Jarret Brachman is an American terrorism expert, the author of ''Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice'' and a consultant to several government agencies about terrorism.
Education and career
Brachman graduated from Augustana College (BA, 2000) ...
have also advised the US to discretely fund figures like al-Madkhali to siphon off support for jihadis who advocate for violence against the US military.
At the Madkhalist movement's inception in the early 1990s, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt promoted the group as a counterbalance to more extreme elements of the wider Islamist movement.[Sherifa Zuhur, ''Saudi Arabia: Islamic Threat, Political reform, and the Global War on Terror'', pg. 26. Strategic Studies Institute, March 2005.] During this time, a number of radical Jihadists
Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Wes ...
converted to Madkhalism, especially in the Salafist stronghold of Buraidah
Buraidah ( ar, بريدة ') is the capital and largest city of Al-Qassim Region in north-central Saudi Arabia in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula. Buraydah lies equidistant from the Red Sea to the west and Persian Gulf to the east. Its known fo ...
. In Kuwait, the Madkhali movement was nurtured around individuals who would separate from "mainstream" Salafism in 1981 due to many amongst them entering into the political arena.[Zoltan Pall]
Kuwaiti Salafism and Its Growing Influence in the Levant
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 7, 2014.
After high-ranking members of Saudi Arabia's religious establishment denounced the movement in general, and Saudi Grand Mufti
The Grand Mufti (also called Chief Mufti, State Mufti and Supreme Mufti) is the head of regional muftis, Islamic jurisconsults, of a state. The office originated in the early modern era in the Ottoman empire and has been later adopted in a num ...
and Permanent Committee head Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh's criticism of Rabee al-Madkhali specifically, the movement lost its support base within the wider Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
.[ The remaining followers of Madkhali within Saudi Arabia tend to be foreign workers of Western origins, Saudis from Rabee al-Madkhali's hometown, and Kuwaitis and Yemenis.][Jarret M. Brachman, ''Global Jihadism'', pg. 30.] Madkhali also retains a national network of disciples to promote his work and monitor the activities of competitor clerics,[ and although Madkhalists are outnumbered by followers of ]Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage The Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage () (RIHS) is a Kuwait-based NGO with branches in a number of countries.
Spain
According to the Spanish intelligence agency CNI, Kuwait provided funding and aid to Islamic associations and congregation ...
in Kuwait, they retain an extensive international network in the Middle East, Europe and Southeast Asia.[ Despite losing its audience in its country of origin, the movement had branched outward by the early 2010s, with Madkhalists gaining followers in western ]Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
, where the Government of Kazakhstan views them and other Islamists with suspicion.[Almaz Rysaliev]
"West Kazakhstan Under Growing Islamic Influence."
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) is an independent nonprofit organization that claims to train and provide publishing opportunities for professional and citizen journalists.
History
IWPR was founded in 1991 under the name Yugofax. ...
. RCA Issue 653, 21 July 2011. Accessed 29 January 2013. Regardless of these gains, Western analysts have still described the movement as now being relegated to a primarily European phenomenon.[ Analysts have estimated that Madkhalists and their allies comprise just over half of the Salafist movement in the ]Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
.
On Friday, 24 August 2012, Islamists loyal to Muhammad al-Madkhali, one of the movement's figureheads and Rabee al-Madkhali's brother, demolished Sufi shrines in Zliten
Zliten ( ar, زليتن, Zlīten) is a city in Murqub District of Libya. It is located 160 km to the east of Tripoli.
Location
The name Zliten is given to both the city and the whole area. As a city, Zliten is situated east of the capita ...
in Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
with construction equipment and bulldozers. The act was condemned by twenty-two NGOs, in addition to the post-war Libyan government's top religious official and UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
General Director Irina Bokova. The post-war Libyan government filed a complaint with the Saudi government regarding Muhammad al-Madkhali, who is a professor at the Islamic University of Madinah
The Islamic University of Madinah ( ar, الجامعة الإسلامية بالمدينة المنورة) was founded by the government of Saudi Arabia by a royal decree in 1961 in the Islamic holy city of Medina. Many have associated the uni ...
.
Another break between Madkhalists and the mainstream of purist Salafism has been the reaction to the Arab Spring
The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and econo ...
. While most purist Salafists initially opposed both the Libyan Civil War
Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ...
and the Syrian Civil War, eventually they threw their support behind the opposition in both cases due to the extreme violence on the part of the Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...
and Assad
Asad ( ar, أسد), sometimes written as Assad, is an Arabic male given name literally meaning " lion". It is used in nicknames such as ''Asad Allāh'', one of the by-names for Ali ibn Abi Talib.
People
Among prominent people named ''Asad'', ...
regimes; the Madkhalists attacked the mainstream purists for these stances.[
As of early 2019, Madkhalists continue to be supported by the Saudi government] and have found common cause with Libyan
Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar
Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar ( ar, خليفة بلقاسم حفتر, Ḵalīfa Bilqāsim Ḥaftar; born 7 November 1943) is a Libyan-American politician, military officer, and the commander of the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army (LN ...
, who has been described as "Libya's most potent warlord", during the Second Libyan Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Second Libyan Civil War
, partof = the Arab Winter, Libyan Crisis, Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, War on terror, and Qatar–Saudi Arabia diplomatic conflict
, image ...
.
Madkhalis have often found themselves supporting opposing political factions in Libya. This is due to the apparently contradictory fatwas issued by Rabee al-Madkhali, Muhammad bin Hadi al-Madkhali and other Salafi scholars. One explanation for these different fatawa is that the Madkhalis will ally with whatever political faction which gains more authority due to the Salafi principle of obeying the highest Muslim authority.
Tenets
Madkhalism is often compared to Wahhabism
Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...
, sharing a number of tenets with the wider movement.[ Media analysts have warned against generalizing such Islamists movements despite their differences, however.][ Madkhali has borrowed heavily from elder Salafist scholar ]Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani
Muhammad b. al-Haj Nuh b. Nijati b. Adam al-Ishqudri al-Albani al-Arnauti ( ar, مُحَمَّد نَاصِر ٱلدِّيْن ٱلْأَلْبَانِي الأرنؤوط), better known simply as Al-Albani (August 16, 1914 – October 2, 1999), ...
; Madkhali adopted more extreme positions than Albani in his teaching according to Qutbi clerics, however, and Madkhalists were dismayed when Albani praised clerics Safar Al-Hawali and Salman al-Ouda
Salman bin Fahd bin Abdullah al-Ouda ( ar, سلمان بن فهد بن عبد الله العودة) or Salman al-Ouda ( ar, سلمان العودة), ''Salman al-Oadah'', ''Salman al-Audah'', or ''Salman al-Awdah'' ( ar, سلمان بن فه ...
.[
A cornerstone of Madkhalist discourse is unquestioning loyalty to governments in public, even those that use extreme and unjustified violence against their subjects.][ Unlike other Islamist groups which often oppose totalitarian, mostly secular governments in the Middle East, the Madkhalist movement is openly supportive of such regimes.][Richard Gauvain, ''Salafi Ritual Purity: In the Presence of God'', pg. 41. New York: Routledge, 2013.] Madkhalists argue that the governments of Arab countries are not to be revolted even if they are oppressive. They hold that God has given the highest Muslim authority this right due to the 59th quranic verse in Surah of the Women translated
“Oh those who believe, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those who have authority amongst you.”
And also due to some other prophetic traditions; anyone who rejects their view is labeled as a member of the Khawarij
The Kharijites (, singular ), also called al-Shurat (), were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the ...
, a Muslim sect.[
Relations with governments of countries which are Muslim but not Arab have not always been as smooth. Both Madkhali brothers actively encouraged Muslims inside and outside of ]Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
to join the armed Maluku sectarian conflict
The Maluku Islands sectarian conflict was a period of ethno-political conflict along religious lines, which spanned the Indonesian islands that compose the Maluku archipelago, with particularly serious disturbances in Ambon and Halmahera islan ...
which continued from the late 1990s until the early 2000s. In the year 2000, Muhammad al-Madkhali went so far as to declare the prohibition of jihad by then Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid
Abdurrahman Wahid ( ; born Abdurrahman ad-Dakhil; 7 September 1940 – 30 December 2009), though more colloquially known as Gus Dur (), was an Indonesian politician and Islamic religious leader who served as the 4th president of Indonesia, fr ...
, himself an internationally recognized Islamic scholar, as being contrary to sharia law.
Though often lumped together with all other Salafists and Islamists, the Madkhalists have been noted for their opposition to and mutual rivalry with Salafist jihadism
Salafi jihadism or jihadist-Salafism is a transnational, hybrid religious-political ideology based on the Sunni sect of Islamism, seeking to establish a global caliphate, characterized by the advocacy for "physical" (military) jihadist and Sa ...
.[ The Madkhalist movement has been described as politically quietist, eschewing the organized political efforts of the mainstream of Salafism and even going as far as to declare religious clerics who participate in modern political system to be heretics or even ]apostates
Apostasy (; grc-gre, ἀποστασία , 'a defection or revolt') is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that ...
. Such politically active Salafists are often described by followers of Madkhalism as part of an international conspiracy against "true Salafism." On the other hand, Western intelligence agencies have identified Madkhalists as a group which can be supported and funded discreetly by the US, in comparison to the rest of the groups seen under the wider Salafi movement.
Interaction with non-Muslim societies, where most Madkhalists reside, also distinguishes the movement. While most Salafi Muslims in the Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. are noted for adjusting their religious lifestyles for pragmatic participation in the wider society, Madkhalists in particular are noted for minimizing contact with non-Muslims. Also unlike the wider Islamist movement, Madkhalists don't seem to focus on converting Western societies to Islam due to giving most concern in persuading Muslims to adopt a more orthodox Muslim lifestyle and preferring to simply accept and defend their rights as a minority community.
The polemics of the Madkhalists are markedly different from other Salafist groups as well. A noted feature of Madkhalism during Muslim dogmatic exchanges is clarifying the opponent sect instead of only discourse regarding the topic of discussion.[ The person of the movement's leader, Rabee al-Madkhali, also carries a heavy focus uncharacteristic of rival movements such as ]Qutbism
Qutbism ( ar, ٱلْقُطْبِيَّةِ, al-Quṭbīyah) is an Islamist ideology which was developed by Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966. It has been described as adv ...
. Madkhalists have been described as obsessed with defense of the movement's leader by the Muslim brotherhood who accuse them of often dramatising or exaggerating praise given by Salafist scholars and attempting to stifle or intimidate Salafists with opposing views to those of Madkhali and Madkhalists. A common mantra promoted by Madkhali is that questioning the movement's clerics is forbidden as a general rule, and only allowed in cases of necessity.[Roel Meijer, "The Problem of the Political in Islamist Movements." Taken from ''Whatever Happened to the Islamists?: Salafis, Heavy Metal Muslims and the Lure of Consumerist Islam'', pg. 49. Eds. Amel Boubekeur and Olivier Roy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. ]
Citations
{{Islamism
Islam-related controversies
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamism
Islamist groups
New religious movements
Political neologisms
Salafi movement