WAHA'BIS, or WAHA'BITES, a recent Mohammedan sect, now dominant throughout the greater part of Arabia. The movement may be considered a puritanic reform, which seeks to purge away the innovations and corruptions introduced in the course of ages, and to bring the doctrines and observances of Islam to the literal precepts of the Koran and of the Sunna (q.v.), or oral instructions of Mohammed himself. This puri fied faith the Wahabis consider it their duty to impose at the point of the sword—in this, too, following strictly the precepts and practice of Mohammed and the first caliphs. The founder of the sect, Ibn-abd-ul-Wahab, was the son of an Arab sheik, or chief, and was born in Nejed or Nejd (the central highlands of Arabia), about the end of the 17th century. He is said to have visited various schools in the principal cities of the east, and to have lived some years in Damascus; and here he is represented as forming the resolution to restore in its primitive shape the ruined structure of Islam. Nor was the task an easy one. Throughout the Mohammedan world, the precepts of the Koran had fallen into abeyance, more especially among the Turks; and religion was little else than a round of external ceremonies—prayers, ablutions, fastings, the worshiping of the holy sheiks or saints at their tombs, and other superstitious innovations. In central and eastern Arabia where the faith of Mohammed had never taken deep root, matters were even worse. According to Palgrave, "almost every trace of Islam had long since vanished from Nejed, where the worship of the Djann (genii), under the spreading foliage of large trees, or in the cavernous recesses of Djebel To wcylt, along with the invocation of the dead and sacrifices at their tombs, was blended with remnants of old Sabwan supersti tion, not without positive traces of the doctrines of Moseylemah and Kerniut. The Koran was unread, the five daily prayers forgotten, and no one cared where Mecca lay, east or west, north or south; tithes, ablutions, and pilgrimages were things unheard Central Arabia was at that time divided among a multitude of virtually independent chiefs. One of these chiefs, named Sa'u'd (or Saoo'd), a young man of ardent and capa cious mind, who ruled over the small territory around the stronghold of Deraijeli, or Dureeych* (in Nejed), was the first important convert made by Ibn-abd-ul-Wahab after his return home; and the example of the prince was followed by his kindred and retinue.
The Wahabi is said to have promised Sa'ud that if be would draw the sword in the cause of pure Islam, he would make him sole ruler of Nejed, and the first potentate in Arabia. The prophecy was fulfilled, partly in Sa'ud's reign, and fully in that of his son; and the Sa'ud dynasty is at this day the chief power in the peninsula, while the decendants of Ibn-abd-ul-Wahab (who lived till 1787) continue to act as spiritual directors, though without any acknowledged authority. It was about 1746 that Sa'ud began to act as apostle militant of the new, or rather revived Islam. One after another he subdued' his heretical neighbors, offering them the alternative of conversion or extermination. Dying in 1765, he was succeeded by his son, Abd-ul-Aziz, who carried on the same policy with vigor and success. Extending his sway to Hasa (Al-Ahsa, as col. Pelly spells it, and anciently Hair), and other places on the Persian gulf, he was brought in hostile con tact with the Turkish authorities of Bagdad, and from that place an expedition was sent in 1797 against the Wahabis by way of Hasa; but it failed to penetrate into Nejed, and proved fruitless. The Wahabis now grew bolder in their plundering excursions toward the Euphrates, and in 1801, Sa'ud. the son of Abd-ul-Aziz, led an army against the holy city of Meshed Hussein, or Kerbela, took it, massacred the greater part of the inhabit ants, destroyed the tomb of Hussein, the grandson of Mohammed, and carried off the treasure. On this, a second Turkish army was sent from Bagdad against Nejed, but was routed, and the greater part slain. The conquest of Hejaz was next undertaken by the Wahabis. For two or three years, Ghaleb, the ruler of Mecca, had been more and more hemmed in by neighboring chiefs who had joined the Wahabis, and now, in la/S, Sa'ud collected a large army, and defeating Ghaleb in several battles, laid siege to Mecca, which, after a resistance of two or three months, surrendered at discretion. Not the slightest excess was committed, but tire people had to become Wahabis—" that is, they were obliged to pray more punctually than usual, to lay aside and conceal their fine silk dresses, and to desist from smoking in public. Heaps of Persian pipes, collected from all the houses, were burned before Sa'ud's headquarters, and the sale of tobacco for bidden,"—Burekhardt.