The alleged Wahhabi conspiracy was a British phantom conflating disparate Muslim movements.

Evidence

British belief in Indian-based Wahhabis originated in the 1820s, as Saiyid Ahmad Barelwi and his followers moved to the northwest territories to launch a jihad against the Sikhs who ruled there. Their Tariqah-i Muhammadi may have shared a notion of jihad with Arabia’s Wahhabis, but its efforts at reform drew much more from Sufi traditions. … This phantasmal conspiracy thus ranged across a great swath of territory over a long period of time. Britons erroneously conflated a wide range of Muslim political endeavors with “Wahhibism,” such as Bengal’s Faraizi movement, a coup attempt by the Nizam of Hyderabad’s brother, and the assassinations of a viceroy and chief justice. In fact, no such unity existed among Islamist groups, and a puny proportion of Muslims evinced interest in any of them. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 76

Categorization

• XREF: Analogous to the later FBI ‘manufactured plot’ and ‘phantasmal conspiracy’ dynamic — a state-institutional construal that collapsed distinct actors into one interchangeable enemy, echoing how ‘all Muslims are the same’ operates. — connects to: British conflated diverse Indian Muslim movements into an imagined Wahhabi conspiracy — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 76; The Wahhabi threat was a category Britain could not stop thinking even beyond evidence. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 76; The modern period also brought about a new ‘fundamentalist’ movement, which came with a reinterpretation of Islam and its own stance on jihad. The fundamentalists tended to focus less on legal arguments and more on the moral justifications and the underlying ethical values of the rules of jihad. Unlike modernist scholars, fundamentalists do not believe that jihad can be divided into ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ jihad. In their view, jihad is universal revolutionary struggle and that the modernists’ search for moral justifications for jihad is senseless because jihad is prescribed by the Qur’an. At the same time, fundamentalists say that there are offensive and defensive aspects of jihad. According to fundamentalists, the offensive aspect is to resist all states and governments that govern according to principles contradictory to those of Islam, especially if the principles on which they govern are founded on the sovereignty of people. Fundamentalists define the defensive aspect of jihad as: first, the importance of protecting Islamic-owned territory with the intent of expansion and second, the fact that Islam protects people from anything that hinders their freedom and emancipation. Many contemporary fundamentalists were influenced by Ibn Taymiyya and Sayyid Qutb’s perspectives on jihad. This is evident in the Wahhabi movement, founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the 18th century, who was greatly influenced by Ibn Taymiyya. The Wahhabi movement accepted Ibn Taymiyya’s doctrines regarding jihad, such as labeling anyone not adhering to one’s (i.e., the Wahhabis’) particular interpretation of Islam an unbeliever. Ibn Taymiyya’s doctrines about jihad are also accepted by ISIS, who strongly believe in the armed struggle aspect of jihad against non-Muslims and even Muslims who do not adhere to their interpretation of Islam.
• QUESTION: Interesting that the author gives the same psychological label ‘phantasmal’ as in the monster-archive ch’s imaginary Muslims — is the surveillance-category construct continuous with the medieval monster?
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Related

• British conflated diverse Indian Muslim movements into an imagined Wahhabi conspiracy (similarity 0.88)
• A feared Muslim conspiracy can dwarf the actual threat it purports to describe. (similarity 0.83)
• The Wahhabi threat was a category Britain could not stop thinking even beyond evidence. (similarity 0.83)
• Reifying Islam as a unified agent underwrote conspiracy theories of a pan-Indian jihad (similarity 0.80)
• Essentializing Islam as singular enabled belief in pan-Indian conspiracies. (similarity 0.79)
• British fear of Wahhabis vastly exceeded the real threat they posed (similarity 0.78)
• The modern period also brought about a new ‘fundamentalist’ movement, which came with a reinterpretation of Islam and its own stance on jihad. The fundamentalists tended to focus less on legal… (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• British conflated diverse Indian Muslim movements into an imagined Wahhabi conspiracy #responds-to (0.95) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 76
• The Wahhabi threat was a category Britain could not stop thinking even beyond evidence. #expands (0.92) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 76
• The modern period also brought about a new ‘fundamentalist’ movement, which came with a reinterpretation of Islam and its own stance on jihad. The fundamentalists tended to focus less on legal… #qualifies (0.72)