Memoirs Of Mr. Hempher, The British Spy To The Middle East

Confessions of a British Spy and British Enmity Against Islam
Author(s)	M. Sıddık Gümüş
Language	English
Publisher	Hakikat Kitabevi
Publication date	2001
Pages	122 pages

Memoirs Of Mr. Hempher, The British Spy To The Middle East or Confessions of a British Spy is a document purporting to be the account by an 18th century British agent, Hempher, of his instrumental role in founding the conservative Islamic reform movement of Wahhabism.

The book has been denounced by Wahhabi Muslims and called an "imaginary fictional narrative, coined deliberately to discredit" Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab "and his followers by the British."^[1] In the West it is considered a forgery and has been described as "an Anglophobic variation on `The Protocols of the Elders of Zion`”^[2]

Contents

In the book's story, a British spy named Hempher, working in the early 1700s, disguises himself as a Muslim and infiltrates the Ottoman Empire with the goal of weakening it. He tells his readers: "when the unity of Muslims is broken and the common sympathy among them is impaired, their forces will be dissolved and thus we shall easily destroy them... We, the English people, have to make mischief and arouse schism in all our colonies in order that we may live in welfare and luxury."^[3]

Hempher intends ultimately to weaken Muslim morals by promoting "alcohol and fornication," but his first step is to promote innovation and disorder in Islam by creating Wahhabism, which is to gain credibility by being on the surface morally strict. For this purpose, he enlists "a gullible, hotheaded young Iraqi in Basra named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab".^[4] Hempher corrupts and flatters Wahhab until the man is willing to found his own sect.

In the story, Hempher is one of 5,000 British agents with the assignment of weakening Muslims, which the British government plans to increase to 100,000 by the end of the 18th century. Hempher writes, "when we reach this number we shall have brought all Muslims under our sway" and Islam will be rendered "into a miserable state from which it will never recover again."^[3]

Controversy

In the West the "Memoirs" have been described as "probably the labor of a Sunni Muslim author whose intent is to present Muslims as both too holy and too weak to organize anything as destructive as Wahhabism."^[2] Bernard Haykel of Harvard's Olin Institute describes the document as an anti-Wahhabi forgery, "probably fabricated by one Ayyub Sabri Pasha".^[5] Sabri Pasha was an Ottoman writer who studied a the naval academy, and earned the rank of naval officer, serving for a time in the Hijaz and Yemen. He wrote historical works on the Saudi dynasty.^[6] In "The Beginning and Spread of Wahhabism", he recounts the story of Abdul Wahhab's association with Hempher the British Spy, and their plot to create a new religion.^[7]

A debunking by a Muslim author (Abul Haarith) points out that no evidence of Hempher can be found in computer database searches of libraries and rare books, and that facts and incidents related in the book do not make sense. The "Memoirs" claim Hempher travelled to Basra in 1712 and there met Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, a student who spoke Turkish, Persian and Arabic. In fact, ibn Abdul Wahhab would have been a 9-year living in his native region of Najd at that time, since he was born in 1703, and did not leave Najd (except for hajj) to "travel to seek knowledge until 1722".^[1] Abul Haarith also notes that the book has Hempher boasting that the British Empire "was so vast it was said that the sun did not set within its boundaries," when in fact this claim was not, and could not, have been made until about a century later.^[1]

See also

• War against Islam#Confessions of a British Spy

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Who is Hampher (hempher)? scroll down to "Humphrey’s ‘Memoirs’" by Abul Haarith
2. ^ ^{a b} Caught in the Crossfire by George Packer, May 17, 2004
3. ^ ^{a b} HizmetBooks
4. ^ The Saga of "Hempher," Purported British Spy, an extract from The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy, pp. 211-12. Daniel Pipes, December 1996
5. ^ » Anti-Wahhabism: a footnote Middle East Strategy at Harvard
6. ^ » Viquipèdia - Ayyub Sabri Pasha
7. ^ » The Beginning and Spread of Wahhabism

External links

• ASIN B000BZGWD8