The Origin And Role Of Banu Saud

Zafar Bangash

Dhu al-Qa'dah 03, 1446 2025-05-01

News & Analysis

by Zafar Bangash (News & Analysis, Crescent International Vol. 55, No. 3, Dhu al-Qa'dah, 1446)

Who are the Banu Saud and what role are they playing against the interests of Islam and Muslims? Most Muslims are blissfully unaware of their true nature and the destructive role they have played throughout history. It continues to this day with disastrous consequences for the Ummah.

Muslims that may be slightly better informed have been co-opted by Saudi largesse and lured into silence with money. This in itself is a sordid tale of corruption and dishonesty. Several Saudi front organizations doled out more than $100 billion between 1975 and 2008 to buy people’s silence. This is especially true of mosques and Islamic organizations worldwide that would otherwise speak out against the Banu Saud’s nefarious agenda and criminal acts.

These Saudi front organizations will be identified later but first let us trace the origin and the dirty role the Banu Saud have played in dividing the heartland of Islam. If Muslims feel frustrated by the lack of response of the Arabian regimes to the US-zionist genocide in Gaza and Palestine, they are justified.

These regimes, however, were created by British colonialists and are now propped-up in power by the imperialists and zionists specifically for the purpose of serving their interests. The policies the Banu Saud have pursued provide ample evidence of their treacherous role.

There are two phases to Banu Saud’s eruption from their traditional base in Nejd. Their first eruption was preceded by an unholy alliance between a lay preacher Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab and the Banu Saud clan chief Muhammad ibn Saud in 1744. The alliance was struck in Dar‘iyah, where the Banu Saud resided. Ibn Abdul Wahhab had sought refuge there after being driven out of Uyaynah, his birth place, because his distorted views of Islam were not only rejected but condemned by the local ulama.

There was a division of labour. Ibn Abdul Wahhab and his descendants were given responsibility for religious matters taking on the title of ‘Al-Shaykh’, while the Banu Saud exercised temporal power. This served both parties well.

Ibn Abdul Wahhab got acceptance for his distorted views and the support of a thuggish clan leader while the Ibn Saud got a “religious preacher”, however distorted his understanding of Islam, to endorse their power. This was important because inter-clan rivalry was rampant and clans constantly looked for alliances to enhance their power.

Ibn Abdul Wahhab had first left Uyayanah and gone east to Basrah to dabble in Sufism. Unable to make much headway, he took a 180-degree turn and started denouncing all practices that he did not agree with as bid‘ah or even shirk.

He produced a leaflet comprising 15 to 18 pages titled Kitab al-Tawhid that contained his sophomoric ideas. In Wahhabism: A Critical Essay, Professor Hamid Algar writes: “All of his [Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s] works are extremely slight, both in terms of content and bulk.” Today, Kitab al-Tawhid has grown to more than 100 pages, thanks to the padding of its content by such scholars as Professor Ismail al-Faruqi.

The late Palestinian professor was a eurudite scholar. He was professor of Islamic Studies at Temple Univeristy in Philadelphia. It is sad to note that he agreed to such an undertaking when he was fully aware of the distorted views of Ibn Abdul Wahhab and its disastrous impact on the Ummah.

Ibn Adbul Wahhab insisted that all earlier Islamic scholars were “deviant” and were not to be followed. Only his primitive ideas represented true Islam. For 1300 years, nobody had understood Islam properly, he insisted. He decreed that the Banu Saud must be obeyed in all matters. How he arrived at such a conclusion remains a mystery.

Both his father and his brother Sulayman ibn Abdul Wahhab denounced the distorted views of Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. In fact, Sulayman wrote a book, titled Sawa’iq al-Ilahiyyah fi al-radd ‘ala al-Wahhabiyah methodically refuting his younger brother’s distorted views. It is interesting to note that the Saudi regime buys all copies of these books the moment they appear in the market. The regime does not want Muslims to learn about the criticism against Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s distorted views!

The most vicious and destructive of his pronouncements was that all Muslims are in fact “mushriks”. The only true Muslims are Arabs but even among them only those who followed his distorted interpretations. He ordered the rest to be killed. If the Muslim world is beset by barbaric head choppers and organ eaters like the takfiris and ISIS, their origins can be traced directly to Ibn Abdul Wahhab’s distorted ideas.

He ordered the wholesale destruction of graves and other Islamic monuments. Jannatul Baqi‘ in Madinah was his special target. The Wahhabi zealots, as they came to be called, demolished the graves of the Prophet’s companions as well as his Ahl al-Bayt. They called it the “purification” of Islam, accusing Muslims who visited the Baqi‘ cemetery of worshipping graves!

Like other clans in the Arabian Peninsula, the Banu Saud’s major means of income was attacking and plundering caravans. Their favourite targets were pilgrims’ caravans because they were vulnerable and defenceless. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were no cars, much less planes to transport people for Hajj or Umrah. Pilgrims joined caravans to go for Hajj.

What did the lay preacher Ibn Abdul Wahhab had to say about such robberies? There is no evidence that he ever denounced such criminal acts. His wrath was reserved for other Muslims that he denounced as “mushriks” and, therefore, legitimate targets for killing. There is absolutely no evidence for such conduct in the Qur’an or the Prophetic hadith. For Ibn Abdul Wahhab, since the pilgrims going for Hajj or Umrah were non-Arabs, they were to be eliminated.

The Banu Saud’s first incursion into the Hijaz (Makkah and al-Madinah) occurred in 1802. They made rapid advances subduing any clans opposing them. Upon arrival in Makkah, they launched a series of attacks on other Muslims. They vandalized the cemetery at Jannatul Mu’ala where the Prophet’s first wife, Khadijah (ra) is buried.

Their destructive impulse took an even more vicious turn when they arrived in al-Madinah. They went straight for Jannatul Baqi‘ and started demolishing the monuments erected over the graves of the illustrious forebears of Islam—the Sahabah, the Ahl al-Bayt and the Tabi‘een.

The Banu Saud hordes even tried to destroy the Green Dome over the Prophet’s resting place. They were unsuccessful because the pillars on which the dome rests were reinforced with steel. Undeterred, the Wahhabi hordes stole all the gold and emeralds that had adorned the pillars.

The Arabian Peninsula was a wilayat of the Turkish empire at the time. When news of Banu Saud’s vandalism reached the Sultan in Istanbul, he ordered his representive in Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha to deal with the uncouth Bedouins from Nejd.

By 1813, the Banu Saud had been pushed out of the Hijaz but not completely subdued. It took another six years before Muhammad Ali’s son, Ibrahim Pasha was able to crush their revolt and as punishment, demolished Dar‘iyah. The Banu Saud went to settle in Riyadh that would become the future capital of the Saudi kingdom a century later.

(Next: Banu Saud’s second eruption in the service of colonialism, imperialism and zionism).