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Concept
Wahhabism
Summary
Wahhabism (ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ) is a reformist movement within Sunni Islam, based on the teachings of 18th century Hanbali cleric Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) The term "Wahhabism" is primarily an exonym; it was not used by Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab himself or adherents to the movement, who typically prefer to be called "Salafi" (a term also used by followers of other Islamic reform movements). The movement's early followers referred to themselves as Muwahhidun (الموحدون) derived from the term Tawhid (the oneness of God). The term "Wahhabism" has also been used as a sectarian and Islamophobic slur.
The reform movement was established in central Arabia and later in South Western Arabia, and is followed primarily in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It opposed rituals related to the veneration of Muslim saints and pilgrimages to their tombs and shrines, which were widespread amongst the people of Najd. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and his followers were highly inspired by the influential thirteenth-century Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328 C.E/ 661 – 728 A.H) who called for a return to the purity of the first three generations (Salaf) to rid Muslims of inauthentic outgrowths (bidʻah), and regarded his works as core scholarly references in theology. While being influenced by their Hanbali doctrines, the movement repudiated Taqlid to legal authorities, including oft-cited scholars such as Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim (d. 1350 C.E/ 751 A.H).
Wahhabism has been variously described as "orthodox", "puritan(ical)", "revolutionary", and as an Islamic "reform movement" to restore "pure monotheistic worship" by devotees. Socio-politically, the movement represented the first major Arab-led protest against the Turkish, Persian and foreign empires that dominated the Islamic World since the Mongol invasions and the fall of Abbasid Caliphate in the 13th century; and would later serve as a revolutionary impetus for 19th-century pan-Arabism.
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