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Saudi Arabia
THE SAUD FAMILY AND WAHHABI ISLAM, 1500-1850
The Al Saud originated in Ad Diriyah, in the center of Najd,
close to the modern capital of Riyadh. Around 1500 ancestors of
Saud ibn Muhammad took over some date groves, one of the few forms
of agriculture the region could support, and settled there. Over
time the area developed into a small town, and the clan that would
become the Al Saud came to be recognized as its leaders.
The rise of Al Saud is closely linked with Muhammad ibn Abd al
Wahhab (died 1792), a Muslim scholar whose ideas form the basis
of the Wahhabi movement. He grew up in Uyaynah, an oasis in southern
Najd, where he studied with his grandfather Hanbali Islamic law,
one of the strictest Muslim legal schools. While still a young
man, he left Uyaynah to study with other teachers, the usual way
to pursue higher education in the Islamic world. He studied in
Medina and then went to Iraq and to Iran.
To understand the significance of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab's
ideas, they must be considered in the context of Islamic practice.
There was a difference between the established rituals clearly
defined in religious texts that all Muslims perform and popular
Islam. The latter refers to local practice that is not universal.
The Shia practice of visiting shrines is an example of a popular
practice. The Shia continued to revere the Imams even after their
death and so visited their graves to ask favors of the Imams buried
there. Over time, Shia scholars rationalized the practice and
it became established.
Some of the Arabian tribes came to attribute the same sort of
power that the Shia recognized in the tomb of an Imam to natural
objects such as trees and rocks. Such beliefs were particularly
disturbing to Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab. In the late 1730s he
returned to the Najdi town of Huraymila and began to write and
preach against both Shia and local popular practices. He focused
on the Muslim principle that there is only one God, and that God
does not share his power with anyone--not Imams, and certainly
not trees or rocks. From this unitarian principle, his students
began to refer to themselves as muwahhidun (unitarians).
Their detractors referred to them as "Wahhabis"--or "followers
of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab," which had a pejorative connotation.
The idea of a unitary god was not new. Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab,
however, attached political importance to it. He directed his
attack against the Shia. He also sought out local leaders, trying
to convince them that this was an Islamic issue. He expanded his
message to include strict adherence to the principles of Islamic
law. He referred to himself as a "reformer" and looked for a political
figure who might give his ideas a wider audience.
Lacking political support in Huraymila, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab
returned to Uyaynah where he won over some local leaders. Uyaynah,
however, was close to Al Hufuf, one of the Twelver Shia centers
in eastern Arabia, and its leaders were understandably alarmed
at the anti-Shia tone of the Wahhabi message. Partly as a result
of their influence, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab was obliged to
leave Uyaynah, and headed for Ad Diriyah. He had earlier made
contact with Muhammad ibn Saud, the leader in Ad Diriyah at the
time, and two of Muhammad's brothers had accompanied him when
he destroyed tomb shrines around Uyaynah.
Accordingly, when Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab arrived in Ad Diriyah,
the Al Saud was ready to support him. In 1744 Muhammad ibn Saud
and Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab swore a traditional Muslim oath
in which they promised to work together to establish a state run
according to Islamic principles. Until that time the Al Saud had
been accepted as conventional tribal leaders whose rule was based
on longstanding but vaguely defined authority.
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab offered the Al Saud a clearly defined
religious mission to which to contribute their leadership and
upon which they might base their political authority. This sense
of religious purpose remained evident in the political ideology
of Saudi Arabia in the 1990s.
Muhammad ibn Saud began by leading armies into Najdi towns and
villages to eradicate various popular and Shia practices. The
movement helped to rally the towns and tribes of Najd to the Al
Saud-Wahhabi standard. By 1765 Muhammad ibn Saud's forces had
established Wahhabism--and with it the Al Saud political authority--over
most of Najd.
After Muhammad ibn Saud died in 1765, his son, Abd al Aziz, continued
the Wahhabi advance. In 1801 the Al Saud-Wahhabi armies attacked
and sacked Karbala, the Shia shrine in eastern Iraq that commemorates
the death of Husayn. In 1803 they moved to take control of Sunni
towns in the Hijaz. Although the Wahhabis spared Mecca and Medina
the destruction they visited upon Karbala, they destroyed monuments
and grave markers that were being used for prayer to Muslim saints
and for votive rituals, which the Wahhabis consider acts of polytheism
(see Wahhabi Theology , ch. 2). In destroying the objects that
were the focus of these rituals, the Wahhabis sought to imitate
Muhammad's destruction of pagan idols when he reentered Mecca
in 628.
If the Al Saud had remained in Najd, the world would have paid
them scant attention. But capturing the Hijaz brought the Al Saud
empire into conflict with the rest of the Islamic world. The popular
and Shia practices to which the Wahhabis objected were important
to other Muslims, the majority of whom were alarmed that shrines
were destroyed and access to the holy cities restricted.
Moreover, rule over the Hijaz was an important symbol. The Ottoman
Turks, the most important political force in the Islamic world
at the time, refused to concede rule over the Hijaz to local leaders.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Ottomans were
not in a position to recover the Hijaz, because the empire had
been in decline for more than two centuries, and its forces were
weak and overextended. Accordingly, the Ottomans delegated the
recapture of the Hijaz to their most ambitious client, Muhammad
Ali, the semi-independent commander of their garrison in Egypt.
Muhammad Ali, in turn, handed the job to his son Tursun, who led
a force to the Hijaz in 1816; Muhammad Ali later joined his son
to command the force in person.
Meanwhile, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab had died in 1792, and Abd
al Aziz died shortly before the capture of Mecca. The movement
had continued, however, to recognize the leadership of the Al
Saud and so followed Abd al Aziz's son, Saud, until 1814; after
Saud died in 1814, his son, Abd Allah, ruled. Accordingly, it
was Abd Allah ibn Saud ibn Abd al Aziz who faced the invading
Egyptian army.
Tursun's forces took Mecca and Medina almost immediately. Abd
Allah chose this time to retreat to the family's strongholds in
Najd. Muhammad Ali decided to pursue him there, sending out another
army under the command of his other son, Ibrahim. The Wahhabis
made their stand at the traditional Al Saud capital of Ad Diriyah,
where they managed to hold out for two years against superior
Egyptian forces and weaponry. In the end, however, the Wahhabis
proved no match for a modern army, and Ad Diriyah--and Abd Allah
with it--fell in 1818.
Data as of December 1992
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