By Salim Mohamed Badat
The Old Playbook: Divide, Weaken and Rule
The book presents itself as the confession of a British agent who entered the Muslim world in the eighteenth century with an extraordinary mission: to weaken Islam from within, fracture Muslim unity, undermine the Ottoman Empire and create religious and political divisions that would make the Muslim world easier to dominate.
At the centre of its story stands Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. According to Hempher’s account, the young Abdul Wahhab became an instrument in a much larger strategy.
The strategy was not simply military conquest. It was psychological, political and religious: identify existing differences, deepen them, create new divisions where necessary, and ensure that Muslims become so preoccupied fighting one another that they cease to recognize the larger forces operating around them.
The memoir puts the principle bluntly:“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.” Memoirs of Mr. Hempher.
The words are chilling. But before accepting them as the confession of an actual British spy, we must ask a historian’s question: Who was Hempher?And here the story becomes complicated.
The Man Who May Never Have Existed
The memoir claims to be the testimony of an eighteenth-century British agent. Yet the text itself does not emerge from an eighteenth-century British archive.
The work first appeared in Turkish in 1888, in the five-volume Mirat al-Haramayn of the Ottoman writer Ayyub Sabri Pasha. A remarkable anti-Wahhabi narrative built around the fear that Muslim division can be manipulated by imperial powers.
And then I ask a different question: Even if Hempher’s personal story is not historically authentic, does the larger pattern of imperial manipulation, political fragmentation and exploitation have historical evidence behind it? That question deserves to be asked.
The Strategy of Division
In the memoir, Hempher describes a strategy in which Muslim are prevented from acting collectively. The British plan states: All the Muslim tribes, nations and countries neighbouring one another must be set against one another. All the religious sects, including the extinct ones, must be recovered and set against one another.” Memoirs of Mr. Hempher.
Then comes an even more explicit passage: “A schedule must be concocted to divide the Muslim and Ottoman States into, as small as possible, local states that are always at loggerheads with one another.” And immediately afterwards comes the principle: “Break, and you will dominate,” and “Break, and you will destroy.” Memoirs of Mr. Hempher.
An empire does not always need to defeat a united people militarily. Sometimes it is enough to ensure that the people cannot unite.
Abdul Wahhab Enters the Story
It is here that Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab enters the narrative. The memoir portrays him as a young man whom Hempher encounters and gradually influences. The English editions describe him as: “a gullible, hotheaded young Iraqi in Basra named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab.” Memoirs of Mr. Hempher.
The memoir then claims that Hempher encouraged and manipulated him until he became prepared to establish a distinct religious movement. It goes even further:
“I was sure that this ignorant and morally depraved man was going to establish a new sect.” and claims that Hempher believed he had helped formulate the principles of that sect.
This is the central accusation of the memoir: that Wahhabism was not merely a spontaneous theological reform movement, but part of a deliberate strategy to fragment Islam.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was a real eighteenth century scholar and religious reformer. He was born around 1703 in Najd, studied with scholars in the Hijaz, travelled to Basra, and developed strong criticisms of practices he regarded as religious innovations and forms of shirk.
In 1744 he entered into a political-religious alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud, establishing the foundation of the first Saudi state at Diryya. Those facts do not require Hempher. They come from the historical record.
From Theology to Political Power
The alliance between Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saud gave a religious movement a political and military framework.
A theological programme became connected to political authority. A political authority gained religious legitimacy. And a new state emerged.
Once religion becomes tied to state power, disagreements about theology can become political disagreements. And political disagreements can become conflicts over loyalty, legitimacy and even the boundaries of who is considered a Muslim. This is where the question of takfir becomes particularly serious.
When Religious Difference Becomes Excommunication
Islam has always contained legitimate differences of interpretation. The existence of schools of jurisprudence is evidence of that. But there is a profound difference between saying: “I disagree with you.” and saying: “You are outside Islam.” The second claim changes the nature of the disagreement.
The danger is greatest when political power becomes attached to religious exclusion. A Muslim who believes that another Muslim is mistaken is one thing. A movement that begins defining large portions of the Muslim community as innovators, idolaters, apostates or enemies is something else.
Collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire created a radically different political landscape. The Arab lands were reorganized into new political entities under British and French influence.
The historical literature on Western imperialism in the Middle East examines precisely this process: how former Ottoman provinces became Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Transjordan and how British and French imperial systems operated over them.
British programme includes several elements: Set Muslim peoples against one another. Revive old sectarian divisions. Create new divisions. Break the Ottoman and Muslim territories into smaller political units. Arm competing groups against one another. Encourage each group to regard the others as heretics.
Sunni Against Shia
The memoir even speaks of dividing Sunni and Shii communities into increasingly hostile religious formations.
The Sunni-Shia divide is not a British invention. It predates British imperialism by more than a millennium. Its origins lie in the earliest history of the Muslim community and subsequent political, theological and legal developments. To say otherwise would be historically irresponsible.
But another proposition is entirely reasonable: A pre-existing division can be exploited by later political powers. That is a very different claim. A wound does not have to be created by the person who chooses to keep reopening it.
The Sunni and Shia traditions contain enormous internal diversity, and millions of Muslims have lived together across these boundaries for centuries. The danger begins when political actors transform theological differences into permanent political hostility.
Then sect becomes identity. Identity becomes fear. Fear becomes hatred. Hatred becomes violence. And violence becomes the justification for further political control. That is the cycle we must break.
Divide and Control
The phrase “divide and rule” has become almost a cliche because it describes a recurring imperial technique.
But there is something deeper than the phrase itself. Division does not have to be invented. It only has to be amplified. If two Muslims disagree, make them hate one another. If Sunnis and Shias disagree, make them fear one another.
If Arabs and Turks disagree, make them forget the centuries in which they lived within the same political civilization. If tribes compete, turn competition into permanent warfare.
If ethnic groups coexist, transform ethnicity into political weaponry. If religious scholars disagree, turn scholarly disagreement into accusations of apostasy.
And once the people are divided, the external power can present itself as the necessary arbiter. This is the old playbook.
Divide. Weaken. Intervene. Control. Extract.
The Quran’s Warning About Sectarianism
The Quran gives an even more direct warning: “Indeed, those who have divided their religion and become sects,you, [O Muhammad], are not associated with them in anything.” Quran 6:159
It warns against turning religion into competing factions. And another verse states: “And obey Allah and His Messenger, and do not dispute and thus lose courage and your strength would depart.” Quran 8:46
The lesson is unmistakable. Dispute does not merely produce theological disagreement. It can produce weakness. And weakness invites domination.
The Enemy Within the Mirror
There is, however, another lesson we must learn. We cannot blame every Muslim division on Britain. We cannot blame every civil war on America. We cannot blame every sectarian conflict on Israel. We cannot blame every political failure on colonialism.
Muslims themselves have agency. Muslim rulers have made mistakes. Muslim scholars have made mistakes. Muslim movements have made mistakes. Muslims have fought Muslims. Muslims have persecuted Muslims. Muslims have sometimes allowed power, wealth, ethnicity and sect to become more important than justice.
Colonial powers could exploit those weaknesses precisely because those weaknesses existed. Therefore the real question is not merely: “Who divided us?”The deeper question is: “Why were we so easy to divide?”
The Real Tragedy
The greatest tragedy is not that outsiders attempted to divide Muslims. Empires have always sought advantage. The tragedy is that Muslims sometimes helped them do it.
We inherited disagreements and turned them into hatred. We inherited schools of thought and turned them into identities of superiority. We inherited jurisprudential differences and transformed them into accusations of unbelief. We inherited political differences and turned them into bloodshed. And then we wonder why others find it so easy to manipulate us.
Unity Does Not Mean Uniformity
Islamic unity does not mean that every Muslim must think identically. It does not mean Sunni Muslims must abandon their Sunni tradition. It does not mean Shia Muslims must abandon their Shia tradition. It does not mean that differences of jurisprudence, theology or interpretation suddenly disappear.
Unity means something more fundamental. We recognize the humanity, dignity and faith of the Muslim who stands beside us. We disagree without hatred. We debate without dehumanization. We criticize without automatically declaring apostasy. We distinguish scholarship from political propaganda.
And we refuse to allow external powers or our own rulers, to transform our differences into permanent warfare.
The Question Hempher Leaves Us
Perhaps the most useful way to read The Memoirs of Mr. Hempher is to ask: “What does this document force us to think about?”
It forces us to think about the vulnerability of divided societies. It forces us to examine the political consequences of sectarianism. It forces us to examine the relationship between religious movements and political power. It forces us to study the rise of the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance. It forces us to investigate British imperialism rather than merely imagining it. It forces us to examine the fragmentation of the Ottoman world. It forces us to examine colonialism in India, Egypt and the wider Muslim world. And above all, it forces us to return to the Quran.
The Quranic Prescription
Allah does not tell us to turn every disagreement into hatred. He reminds us that the believers are brothers. And He warns us about those who divide religion into factions: “Indeed, those who have divided their religion and become sects.”Quran 6:159
The prescription is therefore not complicated. Return to Allah. Return to justice. Return to knowledge. Return to intellectual honesty. Return to mercy. Return to brotherhood. And refuse to become instruments in the hands of those who profit from our division.
A Muslim community that puts justice above sectarian pride becomes harder to control. And a Muslim community that remembers the Quranic command “Hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided” has already discovered the antidote to the oldest weapon of empire. The weapon is division. The antidote is not uniformity. It is unity with justice.
Salim Mohamed Badat
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