Memoirs of Mr. Hempher, The British Spy to the Middle East
Author | Ayyub Sabri Pasha(?) |
---|---|
Country | Wahhabi |
Genre | Propaganda |
Publisher | Waqf Ikhlas Publications |
Publication date | 1868 |
Published in English | 2001 |
Memoirs of Mr. Hempher, The British Spy to the Middle East or Confessions of a British Spy is a document purporting to be the account by an 18th-century British agent, Hempher, of his instrumental role in founding the conservative Islamic reform movement of Wahhabism, as part of a conspiracy to corrupt Islam. It first appeared in 1888, in Turkish, in the five-volume Mir'at al-Haramayn of Ayyub Sabri Pasha (who is thought to be the actual author by at least one scholar).[1] It has been described as "apocryphal",[2] a "forgery", "utter nonsense",[3] and "an Anglophobic variation on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".[2] It has been widely translated and disseminated, is available on the internet,[3][4][5][6] and still enjoys some currency among some individuals in the Middle East and beyond. In 2002, an Iraqi military officer recapitulated the book in a "top secret document".[1][7]
Content
In the book, a British
Hempher intends ultimately to weaken Muslim morals by promoting "
Researcher Philippe Bourmaud, however, believes that Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab made sure that the state prohibition of alcohol is implemented.
By implication, the logic goes, Wahhabism calls for a particularly cautionary, strict and extensive understanding of Islamic condemnation of kḫamr drinking. In the eighteenth century, Abd al-Wahhab, religious reformer strongly influenced by Hanbalism, reiterated the strong condemnation of alcohol. By the early 1870s, it was the turn of Wahhabi scholar Sheikh Abd al-Latif b. Abd al-Rahman to give a reminder of the prohibition.
— Philippe Bourmaud
Analysis
Impact
An example of a contemporary reference to the book or at least to the theory that Wahhabism is a British conspiracy, is Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri's 1987 denunciation of Wahhabis as "a bunch of British agents from Najd."[11]
See also
- The Will of Peter the Great
- War against Islam
- Fitnat al-Wahhabiyya
- Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam
References
- ^ a b c Anti-Wahhabism: a footnote Archived 28 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Middle East Strategy at Harvard, Bernard Haykel, 27 March 2008
- ^ a b Caught in the Crossfire Archived 20 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine by George Packer, The New Yorker, 17 May 2004
- ^ a b c The Saga of "Hempher," Purported British Spy Archived 28 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine by Daniel Pipes, January 1996
- ^ a b c CONFESSIONS of A BRITISH SPY and British Enmity Against Islam Archived 9 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine 8th edition, HAKIKAT KITABEVI, WAQF IKHLÂS
- ^ "Confessions of a British spy and British enmity against Islam, (part1-4)". sunna.info. Archived from the original on 15 August 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
- ^ "Continuation of the Memoirs of Mr. Hempher, The British Spy to the Middle East (part 5-7)". sunna.info. Archived from the original on 14 December 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
- ^ "Correspondence dated 24 Sep 2002, within the General Military Intelligence Directorate (GMID), regarding a research study titled, "The Emergence of AI-Wahhabiyyah Movement and its Historical Roots", by Col Al-'Amiri, Sa'id Mahmud Najm, Iraqi General Military Intelligence Directorate. Captured by USA, May 2003, and translated into English" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 May 2015. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
- ^ khayyam (29 April 2018). "Birth of a prohibitionnist regime : Saudi Arabia, 1952". L'alcool et ses interdits au Moyen-Orient (in French). Retrieved 8 July 2022.
- from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 26 September 2014.
Confessions of a British Spy reads like an Anglophobic variation on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; it is probably the labor of a Sunni Muslim author whose intent is to present Muslims as both too holy and too weak to organize anything as destructive as Wahhabism [...].
- ^ » The Beginning and Spread of Wahhabism Archived 26 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine www.sufi.it
- ^ Martin S. Kramer, "Islam's Enduring Feud" in Itamar Rabinovich and Hai Shaken, eds., Middle East Contemporary Survey: 1987 (Boulder Westview Press, 1989) 174