acceptance of a Muslim’s faith on the basis only of
declaration of the shahada and performance of the
Five Pillars of worship, without regard to other
beliefs and practices.
Many in the Najd did not readily embrace Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab’s condemnation of their dearly
held traditional beliefs and practices, including
many in his own home town, which had expelled
him. Others, however, appear to have been open
to the doctrinal and legal simplicity of his mes-
sage. Without doubt, his reformist agenda bene-
fited greatly from the alliance that he entered with
Muhammad ibn Saud (d. 1765), the head of the
clan of the Al Saud of Diriyya, a settlement located
near the oasis town of Riyadh. The Saudi shaykh
supported the preacher’s campaign to realize his
reformist vision through proselytization (daa wa)
and warfare (Jihad), in exchange for obtaining
the right to collect zakat (alms) and obtain reli-
gious legitimation for Saudi rule throughout the
Najd. The first Saudi state, which was created in
1744 and lasted until 1818, was one governed
both by the Wahhabi understanding of the sharia
and tribal custom. It survived the deaths of both
Muhammads, and the alliance between the reli-
gious and the political was carried on by their
heirs, who extended Saudi-Wahhabi rule to the
Shii region of Hasa in the east (1780) and to the
holy cities of Mecca and Medina (1803–04) in the
west. Their jihad depended on the recruitment
of young warriors who came from settlements
that had accepted Saudi-Wahhabi rule and were
attracted to the cause of Islam and the promise of
booty. Additional raids were conducted into Iraq,
where the Shii holy city of karbala was pillaged
and the shrine of Husayn ibn Ali (d. 680) was
destroyed, and Syria. In 1814 Ottoman authori-
ties retaliated by invading the Najd, destroying
Diriyya, and taking the Saudi leader, Muhammad
ibn Saud’s great grandson Abd Allah, to Istanbul,
where he was executed in 1818.
A second, weakened Saudi state based in
Riyadh subsequently arose and lasted until 1891,
when it was brought down by a rival tribal con-
federacy led by the Rashidis of Hail. The third
Saudi-Wahhabi state was created by Abd al-Aziz
ibn Saud (1880–1953), who used his clan’s alli-
ance with the Wahhabis to establish the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia in 1932 and place it under sacred
law, the sharia. Ibn Saud had relatives among the
Al al-Shaykh, descendants of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
and he had been educated in religious matters by
them. When the Saudis retook Riyadh in 1902,
the Wahhabis swore allegiance to Ibn Saud and
proclaimed him their imam, or community leader.
Among his strongest supporters were the mutaw-
waa, teachers and ritual specialists who had been
propagating Wahhabi doctrines and practices
through madrasas in the oasis settlements of
the Najd since the 18th century. In exchange for
supporting Ibn Saud, they claimed the authority
to enforce the sharia and punish violators. They
stood in the forefront of a revival of the Wahhabi
brand of Islam that swept across the Arabian Pen-
insula under Ibn Saud’s leadership. They had also
indoctrinated a new fighting force known as the
Ikhwan (Brotherhood), recruited from bedoUinAbd al-Aziz’s Wahhabi army (the Ikhwan) on the
march in eastern Arabia, 1911(Courtesy of the Saudi Infor-
mation Office)
Wahhabism 705 J