The Wahabi doctrine on the Prophet Companions

1. As indicated earlier, the Wahabi effectively charged most of the Prophet Companions with idolatry and heresy because they continued, after the Prophet's death, to allow asking for his intercession and visiting his tomb. They also included in this category all those who condoned this practice or knew about it and did not brand it as an idolatry and heresy which is punishable by death and loss of possessions.

This is their true doctrine which contradicts their claim of holding the Prophet's Companions in the highest position.

2. The Wahabi went further than this by directly attacking the Companions who followed the Prophet. Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab, the founder of the Wahabi sect, asserted that:

... a group of Companions who fought with the Prophet, prayed, paid alms, fasted and made pilgrimage with him were, in fact, heretics and distant from Islam. 7

3. It is unsurprising, therefore, for the Wahabi writers and scholars to go to an extreme in defending Yazid ibn Muawiya* whose deeds altest to his animosity to the Companions. It was Yazid's army who sacked al-Medina at al-Hara battle in which countless Companions were murdered and their women raped. It is reported that in the aftermath of this one thousand unwed girls became pregnant.

Before that, Yazid's soldiers had committed the atrocious crime of murdering eighteen members of the Prophet Household at Kerbala including his grandson, al-Hussain, a number of his brothers, and their sons including children and newborn infants.

During the reign of Yazid also, Mecca was sacked and Al-Kaba set on fire. In spite of these, the Wahabi applaud Yazid in their writings which can only mean that they condone his deeds. They also blatantly ignore the documented accounts confirming that Yazid did not perform obligatory prayers and drank alcohol. For these transgressions alone, they should have declared him a heretic in accordance with Imam Ahmed's teachings which they claim to follow. Instead of this they praise Yazid and condemn all those who ask for the Prophet's intercession including the Companions as heretics.

* He is the second Umayyid Caliph appointed by his father Muawiya as his successor.

Notes:

7. Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab, Al-Ra'sal al-A'mlia al-Tisa', p. 120.