Madkhalism
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Madkhalism is a strain of quietist thought within the larger
Salafi The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a fundamentalist revival movement within Sunni Islam, originating in the late 19th century and influential in the Islamic world to this day. The name "''Salafiyya''" is a self-designation, claiming a retu ...
movement characterised by
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and loyalty to secular and authoritarian governments in the
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,ICG Middle East Report N°31
Saudi Arabia Backgrounder: Who Are the Islamists?
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, 21 September 2004.
based on the writings of Sheikh Rabee al-Madkhali. Originating in
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
, the movement lost its support base in the country and has mostly been relegated to other countries,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 and Joas Wagemakers, pg. 382.
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, 2011.
with most Saudi Arabians not taking the edicts of Madkhalists seriously.Mohammad Pervez Bilgrami, . World Bulletin, Sunday, September 21, 2014. from the original on 2014-10-22. Political scientist Omar Ashour has described the movement as resembling a cult, Omar Ashour
Libyan Islamists Unpacked
: Rise, Transformation and Future. Brookings Doha Center, 2012.
and English-language media has referred to the group as such. Madkhalism today is mostly popular in Western English-speaking countries and
Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...
In addition to Arab regimes, U.S. policymakers and senior advisors to the U.S. Department of State have also reportedly advised the U.S. government to fund al-Madkhali and his strain of thought.


History

The movement has, in essence, been a reaction against the
Muslim Brotherhood The Society of the Muslim Brothers ('' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar, Imam and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings s ...
, rival Sahwa movement as well as the Qutbi movement;
Sayyid Qutb Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Qutb (9 October 190629 August 1966) was an Egyptian political theorist and revolutionary who was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood. As the author of 24 books, with around 30 books unpublished for differe ...
, that movement's figurehead, is considered to be an apostate by Madkhali and his movement. It is strongly backed by the United Arab Emirates. Rabee al-Madkhali was incredibly influential, most of it through Saudi support, in the early 1990s, during and after the time period the
Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...
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 supported the regime. Senior US policy makers Will McCants and Jarret Brachman have also advised the US to discreetly 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.
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, March 2005.
During this time, a number of radical Jihadists converted to Madkhalism, especially in the Salafist stronghold of
Buraidah Buraydah or Buraidah (Arabic: بريدة) is the capital and largest city of Al-Qassim Province in north-central Saudi Arabia. Renowned as the agricultural capital of Saudi Arabia and often referred to as the food basket of the Kingdom, the cit ...
. 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
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, May 7, 2014.
After high-ranking members of Saudi Arabia's religious establishment denounced the movement in general, and Saudi
Grand Mufti A Grand Mufti (also called Chief Mufti, State Mufti and Supreme Mufti) is a title for the leading Faqīh, Islamic jurist of a country, typically Sunni, who may oversee other muftis. Not all countries with large Sunni Muslim populations have Gra ...
and Permanent Committee head Abdulaziz Al Sheikh's criticism of Rabee al-Madkhali specifically, the movement lost its support base within the wider
Arab world The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...
. 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,Jarret M. Brachman, ''Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice'', pg. 29. London: Routledge, 2008. and although Madkhalists are outnumbered by followers of Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage 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 landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
, where the
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views them and other Islamists with suspicion.Almaz Rysaliev
"West Kazakhstan Under Growing Islamic Influence."
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. 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
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. On Friday, 24 August 2012, Islamists loyal to Muhammad al-Madkhali, demolished Sufi shrines in Zliten in
Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...
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
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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. Another break between Madkhalists and the mainstream of purist Salafism has been the reaction to the
Arab Spring The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...
. While most purist Salafists initially opposed both the Libyan Civil War 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 and Assad 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 Khalifa Haftar (; born 7 November 1943) is a Libyan-American politician, military officer, and the commander of the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army (LNA). In 2015, he was appointed commander of the armed forces loyal to the 2014 Libyan parliam ...
, who has been described as "Libya's most potent warlord", during the
Second Libyan Civil War The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...
. 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.


Tenets

Madkhalism is often compared to
Wahhabism Wahhabism is an exonym for a Salafi revivalist movement within Sunni Islam named after the 18th-century Hanbali scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It was initially established in the central Arabian region of Najd and later spread to oth ...
, 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; 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. 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 An-Nisa, which translates as:
“O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. ”
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
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to join the armed
Maluku sectarian conflict The Maluku sectarian conflict (Indonesian language, Indonesian: ''Konflik Sektarian Kepulauan Maluku'') was a period of ethno-political conflict along religious lines that occurred in the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, with particularly serious ...
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 ''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...
by then Indonesian President
Abdurrahman Wahid Abdurrahman Wahid ( ; né ad-Dakhil, 7 September 1940 – 30 December 2009), more colloquially known as Gus Dur (), was an Indonesian politician and Islam in Indonesia, Islamic Kyai, religious leader who served as the fourth president of Indone ...
, himself an internationally recognized Islamic scholar, as being contrary to
sharia Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...
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. 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 (; ) 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 is contrary to one's previous religious beliefs. One who ...
. 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 various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...
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 is an exonym that refers to the Sunni Islamist beliefs and ideology of Sayyid Qutb, a leading Islamist revolutionary of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed by the Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1966. Influenced by t ...
. 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.Meijer, "Politicizing," pg. 381.


Citations

{{Islamism Islam-related controversies Islamic fundamentalism Islamism Sunni Islamist groups Islamic new religious movements Political neologisms Salafi movement Monarchism