Earlier this December Saudi Arabia Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah al ash-Sheikh… also known as the eye of Sauron in certain circles, sat before his cheerleaders in fanaticism to casually redact one of Islam’s most sacred tenets, and in one smooth sweep justified genocide.

While religious pluralism and tolerance should always sit a cornerstone to any theological debate, Wahhabism’s systematic erosion of Islam, Islamic History, and Islam’s traditions are much too grave for anyone to stand for them any longer. There is interpretation and then there is desecration.

Wahhabism quite clearly sits in the latter category.

Understand here that I am not in any way, shape or form attacking Sunni Islam. For far too long Wahhabism has hidden behind the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad claiming sanctity against those who follow al-Muhammad. It stops now!

Wahhabism sits outside both Sunni and Shia Islam. Its theological existence is in fact so far removed from Islam’s school of thoughts that it lives on an island of itself, lost in a furious sea of monsters.

Don’t take my word for it. It was al-Azhar, one of the most authoritative Sunni institutions, in September 2016 that publicly rejected Wahhabism and cast its school of thought far from ahle Sunna.

Yes I will admit to a great degree of bias when it comes to Wahhabism. Let me be clear I feel entitled to my bias. Not only do I feel entitled but I consider it my religious obligation to hold Wahhabism an ideological abomination. How many religious communities will have to burn under its fanaticism before we master enough courage to denounce its clerics for the monstrosity they are?

Too much blood has flowed for any of us to pretend that Wahhabism deserves a place at the world religious table.

In between the calls for mass genocide, the rampaging, looting, raiding, warring and grand apocalyptic declarations, Wahhabism has already positioned itself a devolution of dizzying magnitude …. Daesh, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Nusra, the Taliban, AQAP … how many more acronyms before we learn to look at Riyadh as the very seat of religious annihilation?

Wahhabism breathes religious cleansing. Its very existence, the basis of its tenets and the nefarious wind in its sails are furious blades against all those who dare speak another faith, and pray a different fashion.

One has only to look upon the ruins of Najran in the Hijaz (now known as Saudi Arabia) where Arabia’s thriving Christian communities once stood, or Yemen’s disappeared Jewish heritage, or Iraq’s Yezidis’ massacre to appreciate the sheer insanity of the Wahhabi doctrine. And still many capitals insist on calling the kingdom a friend, a tactical partner, an ally even in the fight against terror.

But Wahhabism is Terror. Wahhabism is the embodiment of Terror. Wahhabism towers a tyrannical oppression onto humanity … it says so itself.

In its grand arrogance, Wahhabism’s high priest stepped out into the light to bare his venom on his sleeve and attack the one house, the one legacy he should have learnt he owes his allegiance to if Islam was in fact on his lips: al-Muhammad.

The Grand Mufti said in an interview:

“The Bay’at of Yazid is Shariah [legitimate/righteous], and Hussain [Imam Hussain ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad] went against the Shariah by going against the Khalifah.

Yazid’s father took Bay’at for Yazid before he died, and this is binding to all Muslims, and therefore anyone who goes against him (Yazid), is subject to …Hussain was wrong, went against people who advised him not to go.”

What is left to say when an “Islamic” cleric cannot find it in his heart to mourn the tragedy of Karbala and recognise in the stand of Imam Hussain the majesty of an infallible pushing against the tyranny of a despot?

If ever there was an event in Islamic history which united all people, beyond faiths, ethnicities and all manners of division that is the Tragedy of Karbala. If ever there has been a cataclysm which has echoed across the centuries in absolute Righteous Resistance, it is the martyrdom of Imam Hussain!

There was never legitimacy in Yazid’s leadership … only darkness and absolute hatred for al-Muhammad.

Is it not written in al-Bukhari, Sunni Islam most revered scholar:

I went along with Husain bin Sabrah and ‘Amr bin Muslim to Zaid bin Arqam (May Allah be pleased with them) and, as we sat by his side, Husain said to him: “O Zaid, you acquired great merits that you saw Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), listened to his talk, fought by his side in (different) battles, and offered Salat behind him. You have in fact earned great merits, Zaid! Could you then tell us what you heard from the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ)?” He said: “O my cousin! By Allah! I have grown old and have almost spent up my age and I have forgotten some of the things which I remembered in connection with Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), so accept what I narrate to you, and what I fail to narrate, do not compel me to narrate that.” He then said: “One day Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) stood up to deliver a Khutbah at a watering place known as Khumm between Makkah and Al-Madinah. He praised Allah, extolled Him and delivered the Khutbah and exhorted (us) and said, ‘Amma Ba’du (now then)! O people, certainly I am a human being. I am about to receive a messenger (the angel of death) from my Rubb and I, in response to Allah’s Call, but I am leaving among you two weighty things: the Book of Allah in which there is right guidance and light, so hold fast to the Book of Allah and adhere to it.’ He exhorted (us) (to hold fast) to the Book of Allah and then said, ‘The second are the members of my household, I remind you (of your duties) to the members of my family.”‘

Can there be still any question as to whose legitimacy was asserted, never for communities to go astray?

Is it that Wahhabism those days sits atop the Quran and the Hadiths as to redact those words the Prophet Muhammad uttered?

There are offenses which are too unpalatable for us to suffer.

We have stood in silence as you murdered our imams, our scholars, our sons and our daugthers … We have stood in silence as you ransacked our History and in darkness plunged al-Muhammad.

We have stood in silence as you exploded and redacted our truth, speaking over us misconceptions and lies. In quiet resistance we have stood for centuries.

But never will we allow for Imam Hussain’s stand to be desecrated, perverted or altogether denied.

THAT banner you will never take from us. THOSE names of ours … all 12 of them you shall never remove from our chest for they are embedded in our declaration of faith.

And since it is Mordor’s language you speak I say onto you: “You shall not pass!”