ABD AL-WAHHAB, MUHAMMAD

ABD AL-WAHHAB, MUHAMMAD
IBN (1703–1792)
Muhammad Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab was a religious scholar and
conservative reformer whose teachings were elaborated by
his followers into the doctrines of Wahhabism. Ibn
Abd al-
Wahhab was born in the small town of
Uyayna located in the
Najd territory of north central Arabia. He came from a family
of Hanbali scholars and received his early education from his
father, who served as judge (qadi) and taught hadith and law at
the local mosque schools. Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab left
Uyayna
at an early age, and probably journeyed first to Mecca for the
pilgrimage and then continued to Medina, where he remained
for a longer period. Here he was influenced by the
lectures of Shaykh
Abdallah b. Ibrahim al-Najdi on the neo-
Hanbali doctrines of Ibn Taymiyya.
From Medina, Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab traveled to Basra,
where he apparently remained for some time, and then to
Isfahan. In Basra he was introduced directly to an array of
mystical (Sufi) practices and to Shi
ite beliefs and rituals. This
encounter undoubtedly reinforced his earlier beliefs that
Islam had been corrupted by the infusion of extraneous and
heretical influences. The beginning of his reformist activism
may be traced to the time when he left Basra around 1739 to
return to the Najd.
Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab rejoined his family in Huraymila,
where his father had recently relocated. Here he composed
the small treatise entitled Kitab al-tawhid (Book of unity), in
which he most clearly outlines his religio-political mission.
He castigates not only the doctrines and practices of Sufism
and Shi
ism, but also more widespread popular customs
common to Sunnis as well, such as performing pilgrimages to
the graves of pious personages and beseeching the deceased
for intercession with God. More generally, following a line of
argument developed much earlier by Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn
Abd
al-Wahhab challenged the authority of the religious scholars
(ulema), not only of his own time, but also the majority of
those in preceding generations. These scholars had injected
unlawful innovations (bid
a) into Islam, he argued. In order to
restore the strict monotheism (tawhid) of true Islam, it was
necessary to strip the pristine Islam of human additions and
speculations and implement the laws contained in the Quran
as interpreted by the Prophet and his immediate companions.
Thus, Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab called for the reopening of ijtihad
(independent legal judgment) by qualified persons to reform
Islam, but the end to which his ijtihad led was a conservative,
literal reading of certain parts of the Quran.
Aspects of Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings, including
asceticism, simplicity of faith, and emphasis on an egalitarian
community, quickly drew followers to his cause. But his
condemnation of the alleged moral laxity of society, his
challenge to the ulema, and to the political authority that
supported them estranged him from his townspeople and,
some claim, even from his own family. In 1740, he returned to
his native village of
Uyayna, where the local ruler (amir)

Uthman b. Bishr adopted his teachings and began to act on
some of them, such as destroying tombs in the area. When
this activity caused a popular backlash, Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab
moved on to Dir
iyya, a small town in the Najd near presentday
Riyadh. Here he forged an alliance with the amir Muhammad
b. Sa
ud (d. 1765), who pledged military support on
behalf of Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab’s religious vocation. Ibn
Abd
al-Wahhab spent the remainder of his life in Dir
iyya, teaching
in the local mosque, counseling first Muhammad b. Sa
ud
and then his son
Abd al-
Aziz (d. 1801), and spreading his
teachings through followers in the Najd and Iraq.
See also Wahhabiyya.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Philby, Harry St. John Bridger. Arabia. New York:
Scribners, 1930.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Islam in Modern History. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957.
Sohail H. Hashmi