Confessions of a British Spy

The founder of Wahhabism (also known as Salafism) is Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab (1703-1792) who lived and preached in Arabia. There is a book Confessions of a British Spy that claims that the actual founder of Wahhabism was British spy Hempher who had an assignment from British intelligence to cause divisions among Muslims in order to weaken Turkish Ottoman empire. As it is stated in this book, Hempher taught Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab his version of Islam though Hempher never was a Muslim. He used Quran to make Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab believe that many commandments of Islam are not necessary (such as prayer, fast, jihad, prohibition of alcohol and extramarital sex). Then, Hempher told Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab that he saw Muhammad (the founder of Islam) in his dream and he gave Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab commission to preach this version of Islam.

There are, actually, some odd things regarding this book. There is no indication who is the author and where he found this information. Also, there is a great difference between what Hempher supposedly taught Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab as written in this book and what Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab wrote in his book Kitab at-Tauhid (The Book of the Unity of God) - his most famous book (there is also an audio version of this book). The main ideas of Kitab at-Tauhid are: purification of Islam and coming back to Quran and Sunnah, worship and prayer requests only to Allah, prohibition of innovations, prohibition of a number of things that can lead to polytheism. However, none of these points is mentioned in Confessions of a British Spy.

It is also interesting that this book was published in Turkey and its authors are obviously anti-Wahhabis. So, this book looks like a counterfeit. However, this absolutely does not mean that I have any intention to defend Wahhabism or its founder.