they saw as the purity of early Islam gathered strength
in the twentieth and twenty-ɹrst centuries, not only in
Saudi Arabia but also in such movements as the Taliban
in Afghanistan, the Salaɹs in Egypt, and Al Qaida. The
perceived enemy within Islam would become as
dangerous as the enemy without, if not more so. Like the
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated
in 1981, any leader who dared negotiate with an enemy,
let alone make peace, was declared the archenemy, and
headed the list of those to be eliminated.
Among Iraqi Shia today, the word “Wahhabi” still
serves as shorthand for all forms of Sunni extremism, no
matter their countries of origin. The power politics of
the Iraq civil war have been played out against a
millennium and a half of Shia memories of intolerance
and barbarity, all leading back to that scene by the Tigris
of the butchering of a farmer and his pregnant wife, and
to the spectacle of a rightful Caliph in Kufa accused of
betraying the Quran by the men who had insisted that
he lay down his arms in its name.
For Ali, the slaughter under the date palms was
beyond contempt. He sent a message to Wahb
demanding that he surrender the killers. “As the Quran
says, ‘Indeed, this is clear depravity’ ” he wrote. “By God,
if you had killed even a chicken in this manner, its
killing would be a weighty matter with God. How will it
be, then, with a human soul whose killing God has
forbidden?”