WAHABITES. A reforming sect in Islam, named after its founder, Mohammed ibn Abd al Wahhab (1091-1787). Ile was born in Aarad, a district west of Nejd. the central province of Arabia. Be traveled as a student of law as far as Basra, and perhaps Damascus, and brought back home With him from his observa tions the conviction of the necessity of reforma tion in his faith. lie was past forty years of age when he began preaching his doctrine, which consisted chiefly in the following points: (1) Establishment of the Koran as sole and literal authority, to the rejection of Sunnite or orthodox tradition; (2) rejection of all ecclesi astical and legal authority subsequent to the first four Caliphs, whose successors he disowned; (3) enforcement of the strict discipline of Islam in the matter of prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage; (4) Puritan simplicity of life, which extended to prohibition of liquor, tobacco, gambling, luxury of dress and life, and the use of tombstones: (5) rejection of the superstitious accretions, some of which, such as devotion at the tombs of saints, imperiled the central of Islam. Upon this doctrine Abd al-Wahhab laid his greatest theo logical stress, giving his sect the name of 31 u 'rah huidan, i.e. Unitarians. But the rigor of these doctrines was not at first welcome to the free Arabians, and the refo•mme• had to suffer perse cution and exile. His political opportunity came with the conversion of Mohammed ibn Saud, Emir of Derayeh. the capital of Aarad (1742).
With Abd al-W ahhah as his spiritual counselor, Ilin Saud beearne the head of the sect, and claimed to be the head of Islam, The Provinee of Aarad and the greater part of Nejd were con quered before 1 lin baud's death. Ile was sue cceded by his son Abd al-Aziz, who called him self Imam and Sultan, thus defying the ruler of the Ottoman Empire. lie carried his kingdom north toward Mesopotamia as far as Basra, and worsted the Turkish troops. lfe was assassinated
by a Shiite, and the murder was revenged by the destruction of the Shiite town of Kerbela, near Bagdad, by the third of the hue, Saud (1800). Advance was now 111Ilde into the inde pendent kingdom of Oman (1803), and it quarrel with the Sherif of Aleeca brought that holy city and Medina under Wahabite control, and all central Arabia submitted. By 1810 the State reached to the neighborhood of Bagdad, and Damascus was 11(1(1 for Pa11,0111 in 1811, while the territory east of the Jordan paid tribute for many years. In 1810 the IICW power went to the extreme its iconoclastic principles by despoiling Mohammed's tomb at Medina, and by interfering with the pilgrimages to the holy cities, This endangered the Turkish Sultan's claim as protector of those sanetuaries. Ile placed the suppression of the rebellion in the hands of the ambitions _Mehemet Ali, Viceroy of Egypt (q.v.), who pursued tiresome and bloody campaigns from 1811 to ISIS before the general ship of Ibrahim Pasha enabled loin to attain his end. In 1823 another member of the Saud dy nasty, one Turki, reiIstablished the Wahabite power over Central Arabia and the whole eastern coast under the suzerainty of Egypt. In 1838 the Turks again intervened. but the Emir Feysul (1842-(i5) filially established the independence of the Wahabite State, regaining a great part of its original domain. Since that time there have ensued civil wars and interference of the Turkish Empire, and the political \Vahabite State is now a minor factor in Central Arabia. Its centre is Iliad, in Aarad. The Wahabite in fluence is still strong. however, throughout Arabia. although it is said to be less militant and more liberal than of old. From Arabia the reform spread into Africa, where it produced im portant fruits in the Brotherhood of al-Senussi