On the Self

Charles Allen, eminently compelling historian of the British Raj, now turns to Wahhabism, researching the origins of the theology that is said to still propel fundamentalism. In God8217;s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad, as so often happens with Allen and the subjects of his books, an ancestor is touched by one of the narrative8217;s main events. Writes Allen in the London Times: 8220;The Wahhabis set up what the British called the 8216;fanatic camp8217; deep in the mountains of the North-West Frontier, the borderland between Afghanistan and what is today Pakistan. From there they repeatedly brought out the local tribes the Pathans in a series of uprisings, as well as dispatching the 19th-century equivalent of suicide bombers. My great-grandfather was actually standing beside their most notable victim, the Viceroy Lord Mayo, when he was stabbed to death by a Wahhabi assassin in 1872.8221;