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Islamic reform movement
- Wahhābī, any adherent of the Islamic reform movement founded by Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb in the 18th century in Najd, central Arabia, and adopted in 1744 by the Saudi family. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Wahhābism is prevalent in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
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May 23, 2024 · Wahhabi, any adherent of the Muslim reform movement founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the 18th century. They reject acts they view as polytheistic, such as visiting tombs and venerating saints, and advocate a return to the teachings of Islam as articulated in the Qur’an and the Sunnah.
May 30, 2024 · Clear and simple definitions in American English from Britannica's language experts. More usage examples than any other dictionary.
Wahhabism (Arabic: ٱلْوَهَّابِيَّة, romanized: al-Wahhābiyya) is a reformist religious movement within Sunni Islam, based on the teachings of 18th-century Hanbali cleric Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (c. 1703–1792).
- Overview
- Second Saudi state
As the population of the oasis towns of central Arabia such as ʿUyaynah slowly grew from the 16th to the early 18th century, the ʿulamāʾ (religious scholars) residing there increased in number and sophistication. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, the founder of the Wahhābī movement, was born in ʿUyaynah in 1703 to a family of religious judges and scholars and as a young man traveled widely in other regions of the Middle East. It was upon his return to ʿUyaynah that he first began to preach his revolutionary ideas of conservative religious reformation based on a strict moral code. His teaching was influenced by that of the 14th-century Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, who called for the purification of Islam through the expulsion of practices that he saw as innovations, including speculative theology, Sufism, and such popular religious practices as saint worship.
The ruler of ʿUyaynah, ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar, gladly welcomed the returning prodigal and even adhered to his doctrines. But many opposed him, and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s preaching was put to a number of severe tests. The chief of the Al-Hasa region, who was of the influential Banū Khālid tribe, threatened to withhold gifts to ʿUthmān, or even to go to war with him, unless ʿAbd al-Wahhāb was put to death.
ʿUthmān, unable to face this danger but unwilling to kill his guest, decided to dismiss ʿAbd al-Wahhāb from his territory. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb went to Al-Dirʿiyyah, some 40 miles (65 km) away, which had been the seat of the local prince Muhammad ibn Saud since 1727. In 1745 people flocked to the teaching of the reformer. The alliance of theologian and prince, duly sealed by mutual oaths of loyalty, soon began to prosper in terms of military success and expansion.
One by one, the enemies of the new union were conquered. The earliest wars brought ʿUyaynah and portions of Al-Hasa under Wahhābī control, but the oasis town of Riyadh maintained a stubborn resistance for 27 years before succumbing to the steady pressure of the new movement. By 1765, when Muhammad ibn Saud died, only a few parts of central and eastern Arabia had fallen under more or less effective Wahhābī rule.
The dynasty was restored and the second Saudi state begun in 1824 when Turkī (1823–34), a grandson of Muhammad ibn Saud, succeeded in capturing Riyadh and expelling the Egyptian garrison. Thereafter, Riyadh remained the capital of the state. Turkī tried to maintain friendly ties with the Ottoman governors of Iraq, as he accepted nominal Ottoman sovereignty, and with the British. Al-Hasa and Ḥāʾil fell again to the Saudis by 1830 as the town militias of central Arabia, which formed the bases of the Saudi army, overcame the nomadic tribes. Literature, commerce, and agriculture flourished despite the crushing losses to society occasioned by the return of cholera.
In 1834 Turkī was murdered by an ambitious cousin, who then was deposed and executed by Turkī’s son Fayṣal (1834–38; 1843–65). Fayṣal had been carried away into captivity in Egypt in 1818 but had escaped in 1828 to rejoin his father and play a prominent part in reestablishing Wahhābī rule. He refused to pay the Egyptian tribute, and in 1837 an Egyptian expeditionary force entered Riyadh. Fayṣal was captured the following year and returned to Cairo. Khālid, son of Saud and brother of ʿAbd Allāh, was installed as ruler of Najd by the Egyptians on the condition that he recognize Egyptian hegemony.
The subservience of Khālid to his Egyptian and Ottoman masters was increasingly resented by his Wahhābī subjects, and in 1841 his cousin, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Thunayān, raised the standard of revolt. Riyadh was captured by a bold coup; its garrison was expelled; and Khālid, who was in Al-Hasa at the time, fled by ship to Jeddah. ʿAbd Allāh resisted when Fayṣal reappeared in 1843, only to be overpowered and slain. So Fayṣal resumed his reign after an interruption of five years and ruled basically unchallenged, despite occasional tribal uprisings and friction with the townspeople of Al-Qaṣīm, until his death in 1865. The Hejaz remained in Ottoman hands, while northern Arabia (the province of Jabal Shammar) was locally autonomous but acknowledged the supremacy of Riyadh. Fayṣal reestablished Saudi authority for a short time in Bahrain and for a longer time in Al-Buraymī and the Oman hinterland. He extended his influence as far as Hadhramaut and the frontiers of Yemen. Only British intervention stopped the extension of direct Saudi power over the western shore of the gulf.
Administration under Fayṣal was simple and involved few people, mostly members of the royal family and descendants of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. Justice in the provinces was enforced by officials appointed by Riyadh; even the tribes paid taxes; and the writing of poetry and history flourished.
The meaning of WAHHABI is a member of a puritanical Muslim sect founded in Arabia in the 18th century by Muhammad ibn-Abdul Wahhab and revived by ibn-Saud in the 20th century.
The Wahhabi movement was perceived as an endeavour led by the settled populations of the Arabian Peninsula against the nomadic domination of trade-routes, taxes as well as their jahiliyya customs. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab had criticized the nomadic tribes and the Wahhabi chroniclers praised Saudi rulers for taming the Bedouins.
May 16, 2023 · Wahhābism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement. An essential history of Wahhābism from its founding to the Islamic State. Tuesday, May 16, 2023 1 min read By: Cole Bunzel.
