Ikhwan

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A militant religious movement drawn from Bedouin tribes in northern and central Arabia.

After Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman Al Saʿud re-conquered Riyadh from the Al Rashid dynasty in 1901, religious authorities began to spread Wahhabism aggressively. One of the main intellectual forces behind the movement was Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Latif, a scholar and religious leader in Riyadh. After about 1906, he over-saw the dispersion of his message among the Bedouin by activist-preachers called mutawwaʿin. The Bedouin converts and their religious mentors developed a variation on Wahhabism that incorporated the military tendencies of tribal society and the extreme literalist zeal sometimes characteristic of new religious converts. Those Bedouin who espoused this version of Wahhabism were known as Ikhwan (brethren, in Arabic). In addition to being called to accept the tenets of Wahhabism, they were encouraged to give up nomadism, obey the amir/imam (Abd al-Aziz), to help other Ikhwan, and to avoid contact with Europeans and other "nonbelievers." Because the movement developed in a society that attempted to retain its tribal prerogatives, the political agenda of its leaders often clashed with those of Abd al-Aziz and his town-oriented allies.

The first Ikhwan settlement, or hijra (plural, hujjar), was established around 1913 mainly by members of the Mutayr tribe led by Faysal al-Dar-wish in al-Artawiyya, north of Riyadh. The use of the term hijra was a conscious attempt to invoke the first Islamic community under the prophet Muhammad. The hujar were located in tribal lands near water sources, and numbered around 120 by 1929.

Abd-al Aziz saw the spread of religion and the sedentarizing imperatives of the Ikhwan movement as a way to "debedouinize" the nomads, to build stronger ties between them and the ruler, and to use their young men as a reliable fighting force. However, from the start, important segments of the Ikhwan movement chafed at the policies of Abd alAziz. For example, because by 1914 a hijra-versus-town mentality had developed, and victims of Ikhwan intolerance and violence had complained to the ruler of Najd, Abd al-Aziz was forced to issue an edict, backed by his ulama allies, that undercut Ikhwan pretensions as arbiters and enforcers of Islamic belief and practice.

Material incentives encouraged some to join the movement. Abd al-Aziz encouraged sedentarization by providing funds, agricultural supplies, and materials to build schools and mosques. In addition, although Abd al-Aziz discouraged intertribal raiding (a major activity of the Bedouin for centuries), he permitted Ikhwan leaders to carry out violent attacks against opponents, which provided a significant source of plunder: animals, tents, weapons, and household items. After World War I, several Ikhwan leaders became strong advocates of military expansion, and beginning around 1919, Ikhwan forces carried out numerous attacks on Muslim populations (some of them Shiʿite) not only in al-Hasa, Najd, and Jabal Shammar, but also in Kuwait, Iraq, and Transjordan.

Among the Ikhwan's most notorious conquests were those in Hijaz, beginning with the sack of alTaʾif in 1924 and the massacre of hundreds of the town's men, women, and children. Despite repeated efforts by Abd al-Aziz to curb such excesses, the Ikhwan continued to perpetrate acts of untrammeled violence and destruction, including the "purification" of Mecca and Medina through the destruction of many historic religious monuments and shrines, and an attack in 1926 against an Egyptian pilgrimage procession, which resulted in the Ikhwan's banishment from Hijaz. These episodes, as well as the bitter disappointment of al-Darwish and other Ikhwan leaders that their military conquests had not been rewarded by expected political appointments over the newly conquered territories, precipitated a revolt against Abd al-Aziz in 1927. The revolt - and the movement itself - eventually was crushed by the forces of Abd al-Aziz in March 1929 at the battle of Sibila.

The ideology and aims of the Ikhwan movement persisted beneath the surface of official Saudi politics and resurfaced during the attack in November 1979 on the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The leader of the siege, Juhayman al-Utaybi, came from the hijra of Sajir, and his followers adopted the dress and violent and doctrinaire methods of the Ikhwan. Like their predecessors, these "neo-Ikhwan" were motivated by a sense that Islam was being perverted, that the Al Saʿud ruling family were corrupt, and that they alone held the key to a pure and true renewal of the Muslim community.

Bibliography

Glubb, John Bagot. War in the Desert. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1960.

Habib, John S. Ibn Saʿud's Warriors of Islam: The Ikhwan of Najd and Their Role in the Creation of the Saʿudi Kingdom, 1910 - 1930. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1978.

Kostiner, Joseph. The Making of Saudi Arabia, 1916 - 1936:From Chieftancy to Monarchial State. New York; Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Rasheed, Madawi al-. A History of Saudi Arabia. New York; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Vassiliev, Alexei. The History of Saudi Arabia. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

— MALCOLM C. PECK
UPDATED BY ANTHONY B. TOTH

For Al-Ikhwān Al-Muslimūn, see Muslim Brotherhood. For the Kashmiri organization, see Ikhwan (Kashmir)

Ikhwan on the move

The Ikhwan (Arabic for brothers) was the Islamic religious militia which formed the main military force of the Arabian ruler Ibn Saud and played a key role in establishing him as ruler of most of the Arabian Peninsula, in his new state of Saudi Arabia. The Ikhwan were made up of Bedouin tribes. According to Wilfred Thesiger, this militant religious brotherhood declared that they were dedicated to the purification and the unification of Islam. This movement had aimed at breaking up the tribes and settling the Bedu around the wells and oases. They felt that the nomadic life was incompatible with strict conformity with Islam. Ibn Saud had risen to power on this movement. Later the Ikhwan rebelled when they accused Ibn Saud or religious laxity when he forbade them to raid into neighbouring states. After the conquest of the Hejaz in 1926 brought all of the current Saudi state under Ibn Saud's control, the monarch found himself in some conflict with elements of the Ikhwan. He crushed their power at the Battle of Sabilla in 1930,^[1] following which the militia was reorganised into the Saudi Arabian National Guard.

Contents 1 Weaponry and Combat Style 2 Remarkable Raids 3 Footnotes 4 See also

Weaponry and Combat Style

The Ikhwan, being irregular tribesmen, relied mainly on traditional weapons such as lances and swords and sometimes old fashioned firearms. Usually, they attacked in the forms of raids which is a style Bedouins had always used in the deserts of Arabia. Those raiders traveled mainly on camels and some horses. Their savage raids on others in and around Najd was merciless.Typically, every male captured was put to death by cutting his throat. ^[2]

Remarkable Raids

In August 1924, the Ikhwan militia traveled 1600 kilometers (1000 miles) from Najd in modern day Saudi Arabia to attack Transjordan; now Jordan which was at that time under British mandate. Just 15 kilometers off Amman, the raiders were spotted by the British RAF (Royal Air Force)which in turn attacked the Ikhwan using airplanes. The Ikhwan army suffered heavy casualities. It is reported that out of the 1500 raiders, only 100 escaped. Without the help of the RAF, The capital, Amman, would most likely have been captured by the Ikhwans.

Other raids include, the Ikhwan raid on Southern Iraq in November 1927, and on Kuwait in January 1928 in which they looted camels and sheep. On both occasions, though they raided brutally, they suffered heavy retaliations from RAF and Kuwaitis.

Footnotes

1. ^ See Wilfred Thesiger's book Arabian Sands, Penguin, 1991, pps 248-249
2. ^ See David Howarth's book The Desert King -- The Life of Ibn Saud, Collins, 1956

See also

• 'Utaybah
• Mutayr
• Al-Ajman
• Ibn Saud
• House of Saud

Wilfred Thesiger

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