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Christopher Anzalone, Wahhābism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement By Cole M. Bunzel, Journal of Islamic Studies, Volume 36, Issue 2, May 2025, Pages 321–324, https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etae050
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Extract
Salafism, a theological and methodological subcurrent within Sunni Islam and manifested through a variety of sub-groups and trends, has attracted significant scholarly, policy-oriented, and polemical attention since the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda. This attention has most often focused on ‘Wahhabism’, the version of Salafism that originated in the central region of Najd (Saudi Arabia) in the eighteenth century. Its founder Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1792) saw himself as a reformer attempting to purify Islam from popular religious practices that he viewed as polytheistic. He secured his legacy by forging an alliance with the ruler of a local city-state, Dirʿiyya, who was seeking to expand his fiefdom, Muḥammad ibn Suʿūd (Saud; d. 1765). This alliance between the two families has continued to the present day: the current Saudi grand muftī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl al-Shaykh, is a direct descendant of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb.
The book’s first three chapters situate Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and his religious thought and movement in historical and geographical context, and present the social and political environment of the Arabian Peninsula during and just before his lifetime. Chapter 1 traces the development of his thought through his own writings as well as the writings of his critics. Chapter 2 compares and contrasts Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s views with those of the medieval Syrian Ḥanbalī jurist and polymath Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and his student, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350), whose ideas had a major impact on Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s own, particularly regarding their opposition to supplications addressed to saints (p. 125).
