Madinah=Wahhabism?

Bloghopped to this blog (www.walid-jumblatt.blogspot.com) and stumbled upon this entry..

Wahabbism. What does it mean actually? To be honest, i'm not quite sure myself, because the so-called "Wahabbis" don't call themselves that. Well I'm not here to give the history of the origin of that word, because I didn't take the 'History of Saudi Arabia' module. And, despite my title, that isn't what I want to discuss.

What is more pertinent here is the issue of Madinah students: why are they really hated/condemned by certain parts of our community? Well the easy answer would be ignorance, or sometimes, just blatant disrespect.

Usually, these people would (as always) justify their hatred of Madinah/Saudi people by quoting the authentic hadith, whereby Nabi s.a.w refused to recite doa for the people of Najd despite being asked by his companions, adding that Najd will be the place where the "2 horns of syaitan will appear." But is Najd really Saudi Arabia, as the anti-"wahabbis" claim?

Well, if we do not know, we should ask the experts in that particular field, and in the field of hadith, there are not many more expert than Ibnu Hajar Asqolani, a prominent scholar of hadith in the Syafii madzhab. According to him, in his book Fathul Bahri, Nabi saw was in Madinah while saying that line, and he pointed to the East while saying that; Ibnu Hajar came to the conclusion that Najd is actually Iraq. In fact, he quoted numerous scholars in that book, and none of them said that Najd is Saudi.

How then did the Najd=Saudi theory came up? Wallahu a'lam. I don't know whether it was done in spite or it was a genuine mistake or whether that is indeed the case.

Since there's so much ambiguity in that interpretation, let's turn to other sources of evidence that are less ambiguous.

Firstly, in kitab sohih Bukhari, there is a whole chapter on the superiority of Madinah: there is not 1 on Mecca, Yemen, Syria, Jordan: nope, there's none. Only Madinah. Surely, to the intelligent person, that means something.

Allow me to quote just 1 hadith from that chapter: Nabi saw said:

"Yemen will be conquered and some people will migrate (from Medina) and will urge their families, and those who will obey them to migrate (to Yemen)although Medina will be better for them; if they but knew.

Sham (Syria, Palestine etc) will be conquered and some people will migrate (from Medina) and will urge their families, and those who will obey them to migrate (to Yemen)although Medina will be better for them; if they but knew.

Iraq will be conquered and some people will migrate (from Medina) and will urge their families, and those who will obey them to migrate (to Yemen)although Medina will be better for them; if they but knew".-(aukama qal)

This hadith cannot get any clearer, yet people like to condemn Madinah and its people. Its one of the 2: either they did not come across this hadith, or they do NOT want to find it.

Well for those who's seen this hadith, please, don't hide the truth. And even if you haven't seen this hadith before, or you have some other interpretation to it, there is absolutely no reason for us to slander other people, just because our opinions differ from them, or just because they are from Madinah. Ultimately,our differences in opinion should not stand in our way of our unity.

After all, we're are but 1 ummah, not 2 ummahs.