Exactly the same in reverse applies to the writings of Qeyamuddin Ahmad, Balkhi Fasihuddin, Burhanuddin Qasmi, Taufiq Ahmad Nizami and other historians in post-Independence India and Pakistan writing in English, who have portrayed the Wahhabis in India either as nationalist freedom fighters or as jihadis and martyrs. Of the above, the research work of Professor Qeyamuddin Ahmad, late Professor of History at Patna University and author of The Wahhabi Movement in India, stands in a class of its own and I have drawn heavily on the material he has uncovered, particularly relating to letters and reports contained in Government files in Patna and Allahabad. An important source for the early life and teachings of Syed Ahmad is Shah Ismail Shaheed’s Taqwiyat-ul-Iman (Strengthening of the Faith), recently published by Dar-us-Salaam Publications with a preface by Ghulam Rasool Mehr.
Among more modern and more objective authorities consulted were Francis Robinson and John Voll, writing on Muslim history in South Asia; Barbara Metcalf, on the Deobandi movement in India; Natana J. DeLong-Bas, on the origins of Wahhabi theology; and Yoginder Sikand, Aziz Ahmad, Akbar S. Ahmed and Tariq Rahman, on Islam in South Asia. I have also drawn on the essayists edited by Ali Rahnema and published under the title Pioneers of Islamic Revival.
As to recent history, I have listed only a handful of titles which I have found especially useful, most particularly Ahmed Rashid’s authoritative study of the Taliban movement. The world wide web has also provided a rich source of ideas, if often of dubious provenance. Even the most cursory surf will show how widespread and fierce is the debate within the Muslim umma over such issues as Wahhabism, jihad, and the responsibilities of the good Muslim. Faced with a multiplicity of conflicting interpretations, the best a modern historian can do is to be aware of where his sources are coming from, and of his own prejudices and preconceptions. The reader should be aware that my deficiencies in Arabic, Persian and Urdu have meant that a number of important original sources remain unexamined.
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J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, 1829
—— Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, 1830
Sir Richard Burton, A Pilgrimage to Al Medina and Mecca, 1893
Louis Alexandre Olivier de Corancez, Histoire des Wahabis depuis leur origine jusqu’à la fin de 1809, 1810, republished as History of the Wahabis, trans. R. M. Burrell, 1994
Giovanni Finati, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Giovanni Finati who under the assumed name of Mahomet made the campaigns against the Wahabees for the recovery of Mecca and Medina, edited by W. J. Bankes, 1830
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—— Chronological table of events connected with… the Wahabee tribe 1795–1844, Punjab Index 689, c. 1854
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—— Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1927
—— Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1927
—— Revolt in the Desert, 1927
—— The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, 1938
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C. C. R. Murphy, Soldiers of the Prophet, 1921
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Harry St John Philby, Operations of the Nejd Mission Oct.–Nov. 1917, 1918
—— Report of a Trip to Southern Nejd and Dawasir, 1918
—— The Heart of Arabia, 1922
—— ‘The Triumph of the Wahhabis’, in Journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, Vol. XIII (iv), 1926
—— Arabia of the Wahhabis, 1928
—— Arabian Days, 1948
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Middle East Media Research Institute, Special Despatch Series No. 526: Saudi Arabia, 20 June 2003
Elizabeth Monroe, Philby of Arabia, 1978, reprinted 1998
Fergus Nicoll, The Sword of the Prophet: the Mahdi of Sudan and the death of General Gordon, 2004
John Sabini, Armies in the Sand: the Struggle for Mecca and Medina, 1981
U. M. Salih, The Political Thought of Ibn Taymiyya, 1990
Robert Spencer, ‘The People of Saudi Arabia: Allies against Terrorism?’, in FrontPageMagazine.com, 15/7/03
Ted Thornton, History of the Middle East Database, www.nmhschool.org/thornton/mehistory/database
Charles Tripp, ‘Sayyid Qutb: The Political Vision’, in Ali Rehnema, Pioneers of Islamic Revival, 1994