Many in the West are aware that the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser degree, the small adjoining state of Qatar are closely associated in some way with a “puritanical” sect of Islam often called “Wahhabism.” (Most adherents of the movement actually dislike that designation, preferring instead “Salafiyya,” which indicates their claim to follow the original beliefs and practices of the very earliest Muslims, the “salaf.”)
The term “Wahhabi” stems from Muhammad ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792), a scholar who, with his family and most in his region, belonged to the strict Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence. That school had a long history of political opposition. Its founder, Ahmad ibn Hanbal (A.D. 780-855), for example, had been imprisoned, tortured and banished at various points in his career for his opposition to government policies. Centuries later, the fiery Hanbali thinker and reformer Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) was in and out of prison several times (and finally died under arrest) because of his vocal denunciations of saint veneration, pious visits to the shrines of saints, and almost every other popular religious practice of his time.
In 1740, from his base in central Arabia, Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab launched a call for the radical purification of the Muslim religious practices of his day, demanding most fundamentally a return to absolute monotheism (“tawhid” or “tawheed”). In his view, anybody who showed devotion to anyone or anything other than God was an idolater, a polytheist and therefore, by definition, a non-Muslim.
Not surprisingly, he discerned idolatry and apostasy virtually everywhere. Shi‘ite Muslims and those influenced by Sufi mysticism prayed at the tombs of saints and martyrs and venerated relics. To him, this represented a return to the pagan days of pre-Islamic Arabia —effectively, to polytheism. Accordingly, all true Muslims were duty-bound to oppose such practices, and he didn’t hesitate to advocate actual war (“jihad”) against them.
In this regard, Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab has had enormous influence on subsequent Islamist extremism. “Takfir,” or “takfeer” — pronouncing a fellow Muslim a “kafir” or “unbeliever,” which is effectively “excommunication” — is a common tactic among radical Islamists. For all the publicity attending Islamist attacks on Middle Eastern Christians, Israeli interests and the West, most victims of Islamic extremism have, in fact, been Muslims.
At first, Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab gained only a few followers. Sometime in 1744 or 1745, however, he persuaded the local ruler of the large central Arabian province of Najd, Muhammad ibn Sa’ud (d. 1765) to join his cause. Or, perhaps more accurately, they worked out a mutually beneficial arrangement, under which Ibn Sa’ud supported Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings and Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab supported Ibn Sa‘ud’s political ambitions, providing justification for them. Together, by means of both preaching and the sword, they spread his message. This was the beginning of the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance that we know still today.
In 1803, more than a decade after Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab’s death and long after Ibn Sa’ud’s, their “muwahhidun” (roughly “defenders of the oneness of God,” another of their preferred self-designations) conquered Mecca, the holiest of all Islamic cities. Although they soon lost it, they regained it in 1806 and, this time, their stay was more consequential: They demolished the birthplaces of the Prophet Muhammad, his first wife, Khadija, and the caliphs Abu Bakr and ’Ali. They destroyed tombs, refused entry into the city to Syrian and Egyptian pilgrims, burned “objectionable” books, and abolished special honors bestowed upon descendants of the prophet.
Such measures, which seemed anti-Islamic to many other Muslims — Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab’s own father and brother had considered him an ignorant extremist — but which flowed directly from Wahhabi understandings of the faith, provoked the wrath of Muhammad ’Ali, the Ottoman governor (and future independent ruler) of Egypt. Leading an army into the Arabian Peninsula, he retook Mecca in 1813 and, five years later, destroyed the power base of the Sa’udi clan in central Arabia.
This was, however, not the end. Later in the 19th century, a second Saudi state arose and then, after a series of conquests under ’Abd al-Aziz ibn ’Abd al-Rahman Al Sa’ud, who reigned from 1902 to 1953, modern Saudi Arabia was established upon a strong foundation of Wahhabi ideological support. Still today, while the royal family of Al Sa’ud holds political power in Saudi Arabia, the descendants of Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab dominate the nation’s powerful religious institutions. Not surprisingly, Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, is located in Najd, where Ibn ’Abd al-Wahhab launched his movement.
Daniel Peterson teaches Arabic studies, founded BYU’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, directs MormonScholarsTestify.org, chairs interpreterfoundation.org, blogs daily at patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson, and speaks only for himself.