A History of Wahabi Desecrations in the Holy Land of al-Hijaz
Makkah
• Jannat ul-Ma'la is as bleak and unprepossessing as a Saudi graveyard can be. Its whitewashed mausoleums were
reduced to
rubble in 1925. Her contribution to Islam, however, is difficult to ignore.
• Khadijah's house was situated in Sagah Street, which is where the jewelry shops can be found today. The Prophet's
noble
children, Umm Kulthum, Ruqqayah, Fatimah, Zainab, Qasim and 'Abdullah , were all born there. Scandalously, the
Wahhabis
demolished this genteel house and built, of all things, a public toilet on the site.
• Cannons were fired [by the Wahabi soldiers] at the Ka'bah and its covering cloth, the kiswa, caught alight. Jannat ul-
Ma'la, the
cemetery housing Khadijah and the Prophet's family, was flattened and the house where he was born was demolished.
Just some of the many burial sites and historical places destroyed were the grave of Hawwa or Eve in Jeddah, the grave of
the
Prophet's father in Madinah, the house of the scholar Ja'far as-Sadiq , the house where Imam Hasan and Imam Hussain
were
raised, the house where the Prophet was born and the house of Hamzah
•last year the authorities demolished the historic Ottoman fort in Makkah.
Madinah
•
The Wahhabi armies vandalised it in 1804 and in 1925 ibn Sa'ud's Ikhwan completely laid waste to the ornately decorated
tombs,
only being prevented at the last minute by the citizens of Madinah from destroying the Dome of the Holy Prophet's burial
chamber.
The well-known Andalusian traveller, ibn Jubair, arrived in Madinah in 1183 and reports in his Rihla that Jannat ul-Baqi’
was
situated to the east of Madinah. He mentions that there were white domes over the auspicious graves. He adds that Hasan,
the son
of ‘Ali had a raised tomb, its walls “panelled with yellow plates and studded with beautiful star-shaped nails”.
He mentions that behind the grave of ‘Abbas ibn Muttalib was a house attributed to Fatimah [ra], daughter of the Prophet
[SAW].
Called Bait ul-Ahdhan it was where she used to go to grieve the death of her father. Ibn Battuta, who arrived in the radiant
city 150
years after ibn Jubair, gave the same description of al-Baqi’.
• I was told that the Salafi-Wahhabis had been so intent in erasing Aminah [Mother of the Prophet ra] from the landscape
when
they invaded Madinah they had poured gasoline on her grave.The well-known Makkan scholar, Shaikh Sayyid
Muhammad al-Maliki
who, in spite of his busy schedule had graciously granted me an appointment, gave me the underlying reason for this vitriol.
On the
wall of his Zawiyyah I had seen the picture of a humble grave marked by a pile of stones.
•Ali Hafiz, in his Chapters from the History of Madinah, the well of 'Uthman is covered with big black stones and has
been leased
to the Saudi Ministry of Agriculture and Water.
•probably the most famous well in Madinah: al-Ghars. now...a neglected ruin cum rubbish dump. Located about a
kilometre east of
Quba, al-Ghars is a well from which the Prophet drank and made ablution.
According to Hadith, the Prophet also spat in the well and poured in some honey. Having done this, he told his
Companions that al-
Ghars was a fountain of Paradise. Ibn Majah quotes 'Ali as saying that the Prophet [SAW] then ordered his Companions
to
ceremoniously wash him with seven waterskins from this well after his death.
•Another important well in Madinah is as-Suqya, from which the Prophet used to drink. It was buried when al-Anbariyyah
Street
was constructed and, according to 'Ali Hafiz, located to the southeast of the railway station 100 metres from al-Anbariyyah
square.
•The now deserted and unused well of Yasira was utilised by the Prophet for drinking and ablution. According to Hadith,
he
enquired about its name and was told it was called 'Asira (difficult, or hard). He replied that its name was not 'Asira but
Yasira
(easy or soft) and, having spat in it, prayed for its blessing.
•The well of Budha'a inspired the Prophet to give a ruling on the purity of water if foreign matter was introduced into it.
This
occurred after the Companion Sahl ibn Sa'd took the water in his hands to the Prophet to drink. I was told that Bir
Budha'a had
been lovingly preserved by a family that lives near to it.
•Another watering point with Prophetic significance is Busah, which belonged to Abu Sa’id al-Khudri. At this well the
Prophet
washed his head and, having done so, poured the water with a few hairs back into it. Today this well (which is on the road
to the
villages of Quba and Qirban) apparently has water in it, but is in need of redigging and renovation.
•Bir Ha, a well from which the Prophet used to drink, can no longer be found. Shaikh Yusuf Rifa’i in his famous treatise,
Advice to
our Brothers the Scholars of Najd, writes that the Salafi-Wahhabis buried it forever when they extended the Madinah
haram
[sanctuary]. This well had watered the famous garden of Abu Talha who had given it to the Prophet after hearing a Qur’
anic verse
concerning personal sacrifice1.
•outside the great Persian Companion Salman al Farsi's garden, my heart sank. A well next to the road was in a terrible
condition
and looked like it had caved-in through a neglect that indicated more than just oversight.
the authorities had not approved of pilgrims taking ceremonial ablution, or wudu, from this well and performing salah at the
site of
Salman al Farsi's garden, a grove of palm trees planted by the Prophet himself. The now barren area was fenced off and
his 1,400-
year-old dwelling stood in ruins.This was insanity! But worse was to follow: all evidence of these 300 date palms originally
planted
by the Prophet on the site had disappeared. In the middle of what was once a sacred piece of Madinah was a modern
school.I was
horrified. The noble Prophet had expressly forbidden the wanton destruction of fruit trees in the two Holy Sanctuaries.
Furthermore, next to water, the date palm was the most important symbol of life in the desert. Fresh dates had been the
food of
Maryam, the mother of Jesus, and Imam Bukhari had once stated that Madinah’s famous ‘ajwat2 dates were a great cure
for
sickness.I recalled a passage from Ahmad Thompson's The Way Back3, a diarised account of his Hajj in 1977, when he
was given
three dates from the last two surviving palms planted by the Prophet :
We were joined by a tall smiling man from the Sudan who was one of the fuqara of Shaikh ul-Bukhari. He greeted us
warmly and
then produced three small wrinkled dates from one of the pockets of his voluminous white robe and handed them to me
with a
quiet,“Bismillah!”These are some of the last dates to be harvested from the last two surviving date palms planted by the
Prophet ,"
explained 'Abd ul-Jalil. "They were recently cut down by the Wahhabis because, they said, some people were idolising
them.
the Prophet planted all but one of the 300 palms with his own hands [as a ransom for his enslaved Companion Salman al-
Farsi].
Some of the trees he inserted into the earth seemed dead, but soon sprouted after he had pressed the soil around their
roots.
•there had been a mosque ... commemorating the place where the great collector of Prophetic traditions, Imam Bukhari ,
had once
stayed. Unfortunately, it had been demolished thirty years [ago].
•A place where the Prophet rested on the way to Uhud is marked by masjid ul-Mustarah. Mustafa told us that a rock the
Prophet
actually sat on had been removed in an attempt to dissuade pilgrims from visiting it. Traditions say that the Prophet used to
frequent the mosque on Thursdays.
At this stage we were not surprised to see that visits to this site were aggressively discouraged. A chain and a padlock on
its green
gate ensured that no pilgrims entered to pay their respects. Through the bars of the gate I could see that the small mosque
on the
site was now a pile of rubble.
•[recently] the tomb of Sayyid ‘Ali al-Uraidhi ibn Ja’fr as-Sadiq was flattened in Madinah. A well-known scholar and Saint
ninth in
line from the Prophet , al-Uraidhi was one of the forefathers of the Ba ‘Alawi Sayyids of Hadraumat.