Wahhabism

Wahhabism (Arabic: ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, romanized: al-Wahhābiyya) is a reformist Islamic religious movement within Sunni Islam, based on the teachings of 18th century Hanbali cleric Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (c. 1703–1792). The term "Wahhabism" is primarily an exonym (name used by outsiders); 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 (Arabic: الموحدون, lit. '"Unitarians"') derived from the term Tawhid (Oneness). The term "Wahhabi" has also been deployed by various outsiders as a sectarian and Islamophobic slur.

The reform movement was established in central Arabia and later in southwestern 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. In 1744, Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab formed a pact with a local leader, Muhammad bin Saud, a politico-religious alliance that continued for the next 150 years, culminating politically with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. His movement would eventually arise as one of the most influential 18th century anti-colonial reform trends that spread across the Islamic World; advocating a return to pristine Islamic values based on the Qur’an and Sunnah for re-generating the social and political prowess of Muslims; and its revolutionary themes influenced numerous Islamic revivalists, scholars, pan-Islamist ideologues and anti-colonial activists as far as West Africa.

For more than two centuries through to the present, Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab's teachings were championed as the official form of Islam and the dominant creed in three Saudi states. As of 2017, changes to Saudi religious policy by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have led to widespread crackdown on Islamists in Saudi Arabia and rest of the Arab world. In 2018 Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman denied that anyone "can define this Wahhabism" or even that it exists. By 2021, the waning power of the religious clerics brought forth by the social, religious, economic, political changes, and a new educational policy asserting a "Saudi national identity" that emphasize non-Islamic components have led to what has been described as the "post-Wahhabi era" of Saudi Arabia. The decision to celebrate the "Saudi Founding Day" annually on 22 February since 2022, to commemorate the 1727 establishment of Emirate of Dir'iyah by Muhammad ibn Saud, rather than the past historical convention that traced the beginning to the 1744 pact of Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, have led to the official "uncoupling" of the religious clergy by the Saudi state.