Political patronage can hollow out an intellectual movement and replace its pragmatism with literalism.
Evidence
Original Salafiyya and its intellectual heritage were not hostile to competing Islamic legal traditions. However, critics argue that as Salafis aligned with Saudi promoted neo-Wahhabism, religious concessions for Saudi political patronage distorted the early thrust of the renaissance movement. The early Salafiyya leaders like Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Shawkani (d. 1835 CE/AH 1250), Ibn al-Amir Al- San’ani (d. 1810 CE/AH 1225), Muhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1935 CE/AH 1354), etc. advocated Ijtihad (independent legal research) of Scriptures to solve the new contemporary demands and problems faced by Muslims living in a modern age through a pragmatic, juristic path faithful to the rich Islamic tradition. However, as other Salafi movements got increasingly sidelined by the Saudibacked neo-Wahhabi Purists; the legal writings that were made easily accessible to the general public became often rigidly literalist and intolerant of the wider Sunni legal tradition, limited to a selective understanding of the Hanbalite works of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim. — Wikipedia contributors, Wahhabism, 42
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes the French colonial pattern where state funding fused a civilizing ideology with fiscal self-interest, distorting the original reformist impulse.
- SEED: An essay angle on how patronage money selects for the most rigid version of any reform movement — the ‘funded fundamentalist’ effect.