.Analogies between the European Reformation and contemporary Islamism are much closer than many Protestants would like to admit.
Noyes compares Calvin closely to Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabi movement that so often features, unflatteringly, in our headlines. Al-Wahhab (1703-92) was also a near-exact contemporary of John Wesley (1703-91), a fact that cries out for a comparative dual biography!
Like Calvinism, Wahhabi Islam urged the destruction of everything that could be seen as a later accretion to the core of the religion, as well as all manifestations of paganism or idolatry. Since the 1920s, this version of the faith has been the official creed of Saudi Arabia, and variants of it are found among Islam’s violent and extreme movements....
