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On the Origins of Wahhābism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Michael Cook
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Extract

At some time towards the middle of the twelfth/eighteenth century, the young Najdī scholar Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (1115–1206/1703f–92) experienced something like a conversion. From that point on, his understanding of monotheism seems to have been such that he considered most of the professed Muslims of his day to be polytheists who should be fought till they accepted Islam. The first Wahhābī state (1158–1233/1745f–1818) was the product of the fusion of this radical vision with the political fortunes of the Āl Sa'ūd, until then the petty chiefs of the Najdī oasis of Dir'iyya.

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Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 1992 , pp. 191 - 202
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1992

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References

1 A draft of this paper was presented at the Mellon Seminar on “New approaches to the study of pre-modern Islamic history” in Princeton in February 1991, and a summary at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society in Berkeley the following month. I am grateful for the comments I received on both these occasions, and particularly to Nimrod Hurvitz and Khaled Abou El Fadl. I am also indebted to Frank Stewart for reading and commenting on a draft, to Jerome Clinton for philological advice, and to Hedi BenAicha for help in locating a source.

2 I should make it clear that, while generally aware of the purport of the Shaykh's doctrine of shirk, and of the hostility it encountered, I am unable to identify the precise respects in which it differed from the views of his predec essors and contemporaries. I have not found the existing secondary literature helpful on this score, and a thorough study of the relevant sources by someone qualified to undertake it would considerably advance our understanding of early Wahhabism.

3 Ibrāhīm Faṫīhḥ ibn Ṣibghat Allāh al-Ḥaydarī al-Baghdādī, ‘Urnvān al-majd fī bayān aḥwāl Baghdād wa'l-Baṫra wa-Najd (Baghdad, 1962), p. 228. 14.Google Scholar

4 The clearest account is that of Ibn Bishr (d. 1290/1873) (‘Unwān al-majd fī ta'rīkh Najd (Beirut, n.d.), pp. 17f; hence Shukrī al-Ālūsī, Maḥmūd, Ta'r‛kh Najd (Cairo, 1347), pp. 1121).Google Scholar Ibn Ghannam (d. 1225/1810f) states that the Shaykh visited the Ḥijāz and Baāra several times, and went to al-Aḥsa” (Rawḍat al-ajkār (Bombay, 1337), i, p. 31.4;Google Scholar he also refers to a pilgrimage to the Ḥijāz soon after puberty (ibid., p. 30.21)). Ibn Ghannām's account JRAS, Series 3, 2, 2 (1992), pp. 191–202 is the basis of those given by ‘Abd al-Laṭīf ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥasan (d. 1293/1876) (Miṫbāḥ al-ຓalām (Bombay, n.d.), p. 6.19) and Sulaymān ibn Sahmān (d. 1349/1930) in two of his works (al-Diyā' al-shāriq (Cairo, 1344), pp. 5f;Google Scholar Kashf ghayāhib al-ຓalām (Bombay, n.d.), pp. 93–5). For secondary accounts of the Wahhābā itinerary, see Laoust, H., Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Taḳī-d-Dīn Aḥmad b. Taimīya (Cairo, 1939), pp. 507fGoogle Scholar (despite the major contribution made by Laoust to Hanbalite and Wahhābī studies, this account is based on late sources, and is not reliable in detail); The Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition (Leyden and London, 1960-),Google Scholar art. “Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab”, cols. 677bf (H. Laoust; also unreliable in detail); Rentz, G.S., Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al- Wahhâb (1703/04–1792) and the Beginnings of Unitarian Empire in Arabia (University of California, Ph.D. 1948), pp. 24–33.Google Scholar

5 So the Wahhābī chronicle rendered in Mengin, F., Histoire de I'Egypte sous le gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly (Paris, 1823), ii, p. 449Google Scholar (and cf. ibid. i, p. 378): he went to Basra to continue his studies, then decided to visit Medina and Mecca, then returned to his native land. This chronicle is ascribed to a grandson of the Shaykh named “le cheykh Abderrahman el-Oguyeh” (Ibid., i, p. vi); presumably this is ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥasan (d. 1285/1869). Elsewhere the latter states that the Shaykh “travelled to Baṫra, then to al-Aḥsā' and the Ḥaramayn” (so an epistle of his apud Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 264.10). The Shaykh's grandson Sulaymān ibn ‘Abdallāh (d. 1233/1818) states that the Shaykh visited “Basra and the Ḥijāz” (see his al-Tawḍīḥ ‘an tawlnd al-khallāq (Riyāḍ, 1984), p. 25.6;Google Scholar the ascription and date of this work would bear investigation); and a French rendering of an account of Wahhābī history ascribed to him says explicitly that the Shaykh went first to Basra, then to Mecca ([Rousseau, J.B.L.J.], Mé'moire sur les trois plusfameuses sectes du Musulmanisme (Paris, 1818), p. 27).Google Scholar A tarjama of the Shaykh by ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Hasan's son ‘Abd al-Laṭīf mentions visits to Baṫra and the Ḥijā;z (more than once), and to al-Aḥsā' (Majmū' at al-rasā'il wa'l-masā'il at-Najdiyya (Cairo, 1346—1349), iii, p. 380.5;Google Scholar except in the matter of order, his account seems to derive from Ibn Ghannām's). An anonymous, probably Syrian, but pro-Wahhābī source has the Shaykh visit Baṫra, then Medina (Kayfa kāna ຓuhūr shaykh al-lslām Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, ed. ‘al-'Uthaymīn, A.Ṣ. (Riyād, 1983), p. 46.1;Google Scholar on this work see ‘A. Ṣ. al- ‘Uthaymīn, “Kayfa kāna ຓuhᚱr al-Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb”, al-'Arab, XIII (1978)).

6 Saḥmān, Sulaymān ibn, Tabri'at al-Shaykhayn (Cairo, 1343), p. 162.5.Google Scholar

7 Ibn Ghannām, Rawḍa, i, p. 31.6; Sulaymān ibn ‘Abdallāh, Tawḍīḥ), p. 25.9; Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, pp. 17.14, 85.16. His son Ibrāhīm died in 1189/1775f (Ibn ‘Īsā, Ta'rīkh ba'ḍ al-ḥawādith al-wāqi'a fī Najd, ed. H. al-Jāsir (Riyād, 1966), p. 34.11).

8 Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, pp. 17.18, 85.16. On him see Voll, J., “Muḥammad Ḥayya [sic] al-Sindī and Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb: an analysis of an intellectual group in eighteenth-century Madīna”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, XXXVIII (1975), pp. 32f.Google Scholar

9 Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 17.16.

10 lnna hā'ulā'i mutabbamn mā hum fīhi wa-bāṭilun mā kānū ya'malūn (Q7: 139) (Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 17.20). In the text of the British Library manuscript of the work, it is the Shaykh who delivers himself of this judgement (Or. 7,718, f. 6a.6).

11 Other scholars with whom the Shaykh is said to have had contact in the Ḥijāz are Shaykh ‘Alī Afandī al-Dāghisṭānī (Sulaymān ibn ‘Abdallāh, Tawḍīḥ, p. 25.6, noted in ‘A. S. al- ‘Uthaymīn, Ta'rīkh al-mamlaka al- ‘Arabiyya al-Su'ūdiyya (n.p., 1984), p. 64, note 1), and Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Kurdī al-Shāfi'ī (Aḥmad ibn Zaynī Daḥlān, al-Durar al-saniyya fī ‘l-radd ‘alā ‘l-Wahhābiyya (Cairo, n.d.), p. 147.7; cf. Margoliouth, D.S. in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, first edition (Leyden and London, 1913–38),Google Scholar art. “Wahhābīya”, col. 1086a). ‘Alī al-Ṭāghistānī (born c. 1125/1713, d. 1199/1785) was in fact younger than the Shaykh; his stay in the Hijāz was prior to his settlement in Damascus in 1150 (Murādī, , Silk al-durar (Būlāq, 1301), iii, p. 215.5).Google Scholar Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Kurdī was younger still: he died in 1194/1780 at the age of 67 ibid., iv, p. 112.8), which implies a date of birth of 1126–7/1714–15.

12 Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 18.5 (and cf. ibid., p. 85.17, where he vaguely refers to him as ṫāḥib al-Baḥra). Ibn Bishr explains that Majmū'a is a village of Baṫra, and adds a report on the authority of a scholar whose pupil he had been on the high standing enjoyed by this Muḥammad's descendants in their locality (ibid., p. 18.8). Ibn Ghannām states that the Shaykh studied with a large number of scholars in Basra, but does not name any of them; he adds that it was in Basra that he stayed longest to study (Rawḍa, i, p. 32.23).

13 Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, pp. 18.6, 18.11. Ibn Ghannām tells us of the Shaykh's propaganda for monotheism (tawḥīd), of the reproofs he administered in his circle, and of the attempts of local polytheists to confute him (Rawḍa, i, p. 33.1); but he says nothing of the circumstances in which the Shaykh left town.

14 Haydarī, who ought to know, only repeats Ibn Bishr's account (Haydarī, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 229.9).

15 Buckingham, who visited Baṫra in 1817, describes the “Bab-el-Meejmooah” as one of the five gates of the city, facing south-south-east (Buckingham, J.S., Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia (London, 1830), ii, p. 130).Google Scholar The mosque of Majmū'a is listed in an Ottoman provincial gazetteer (Baṫra vilayeti sālnāmesi (Basra, 1308), p. 79.3).Google Scholar

16 Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 18.16.

17 Viz. ‘AbdallSh ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Shīfi'ī al-Aḥsā'ī (Ibid., p. 18.19). The Shaykh subsequently recalls their meeting in a polemical epistle addressed to him (Ibn Ghannām, Rawḍa, i, p. 61.3). Sulaymān ibn ‘Abdallāh speaks of ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Aīsā'ī al-‘Afāliqī and Muḥammad al-'Afāliqī al-Aḥsā'ī (Tawḍīh, p. 25.10).

18 On this source see Cook, M., “The provenance of the Lam' al-shihāb fī sīrat Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb”, Journal of Turkish Studies, X (1986).Google Scholar

19 Anon, ., Lam' al-shihāb fī sīrat Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, ed. Ḥākima, A.M.Abū (Beirut, 1967), pp. 15–22.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., p. 15.11. This was after 23 years of study with two Najdī teachers, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad of Burayda and Shaykh Ḥassān al-Tamīmī of the Qaṫīm. Here and below, I am unable to identify most of the persons mentioned in this narrative.

21 Ibn Ghannām, Rawḍa, i, p. 30.2; Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 416.5. Since the Shaykh died in 1206/1792, any birthdate much earlier than 1115 is implausible.

22 Lam‘ al-shihāb, pp. 15–17. The account mentions the names of two successive governors, ‘Umar Āqā and Jirjis Āqā, and two successive qāḍīs, Shihāb al-Dīn and Ḥusayn al-Islāmbūlī, together with a prominent scholar, Shaykh Anas. The latter might be the Shaykh Anas Bāsh A‘yān al-Baṣra who in 1140/1727f reconstructed the dome over the tomb of the Shādhilī Shaykh Muḥammad Amīn al-Kawwāz (d. 953/1546f) (see ‘Bāsh A‘yān al-‘Abbāsī, A., al-Baṣra fī adwārihā al-ta'rīkhiyya (Baghdad, 1961), p. 81Google Scholar); but this hardly seems appropriate company for the Shaykh, who makes hostile references to this tomb cult in his epistles (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i, pp. 139.3,Google Scholar 208.8).

23 Lam‘ al-shihāb, pp. I7f. Mention is made of a Shāfi‘ite scholar, Shaykh ‘Abd al-Raḥīm al-Kurdī.

24 Ibid., p. 18.17.

25 Ibid., pp. 19–21.

26 Ibid., p. 19.7.

27 His teacher was Mīrzā Jān al-Iṣfahānī, commentator on the Sharḥ al-Tajrīd (the reference is to the Tajrīd of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī) (ibid., p. 19.7). Our author is thinking of the tenth/sixteenth-century scholar Ḥabīb Allāh Mīrzājān al-Shīrāzī (cf. the editor's footnote; Brockelmann, C., Geschichte der Arabischeti Litteratur, supplementary volumes (Leyden, 1937–1942), i, p. 926,Google Scholar ii, p. 594; Ziriklī, K., A‘lām (Beirut, 1979), ii,Google Scholar col. 167a).

28 At this point he is accompanied by a Baghdādī disciple named ‘Alī al-Qazzāz.

29 Lam‘ al-shihāb, p. 21. Here he is taken to the city of “Abū Libās”, which I am unable to identify; his presence there leads many to convert from Ḥanafism to Ḥanbalism.

30 Ibid., pp. 21f. He studied at the Azhar with Shaykh Muḥammad Zayn al-Dīn Abū ‘Abdallāh al-Maghribī.

31 Ibid., p. 22. In Mecca he met the muftī Shaykh ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Shāfi‘ī.

32 Daḥlān, , Khulāṣat al-kalām fī bayān umarā’ al-balad al-ḥarām (Cairo, 1305), pp. 207.23,Google Scholar 224.25.

33 Nor could it be any earlier than ten years after 1148/1736—which takes us at least to the birth of the first Saudi state! Note also that our source indicates the Shaykh to have spent at least 24 years on his travels, which would imply a return no earlier than 1176/1762f.

34 Note how he changes his name at every stage (Lam‘ al-shihāb, p. 19.3), and oscillates between revealing and concealing what he was about (ibid., p. 21.21).

35 The relevant passage is at col. 1086a.

36 For example, it was quoted (without reference to its source) by Aḥmad Amīn as literal truth (Amīn, A., Zu‘amā’ al-iṣlāḥ fī ’l-‘aṣr al-ḥadīth (Cairo, 1948), p. 10;Google Scholar I owe this reference to Michael Bonner). See also ‘Abd al-Raḥīm, A.‘A., al-Dawla al-Su‘ūdiyya al-ūlā, second edition ([Cairo], 1975), p. 34Google Scholar and note 1. (‘Abd al-Raḥīm categorically rejects the account for four reasons, of which the first (the lack of any indication that the Shaykh knew Persian) and the second (the absence of any trace in his writings of the ideas he might have assimilated on such travels) carry some weight, while the third and fourth are based on faulty premises.)

37 See particularly Rentz, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb, p. 32, note 1. Rentz rejects the account on grounds of chronology, and considers it “excessively romantic” and “utterly at variance with what is known of the Shaikh's character”.

38 Lam‘ al-shihāb, pp. is. 4, 18.5, 19.15, 22.4. The author professes that he is bound to relate only what he has heard and verified (ibid., p. 18.18).

39 For these works, see Mudarrisī Ṭabāṭabāī, Ḥ.M., “Ravābiṭ-i Īrān bā ḥukūmat-i mustaqill-i Najd (1208–1233 hijrī qamarī)”, Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī, XI, no. 4 (1976),Google Scholar pp. 79f; ‘Faqīhī, A.A., Wahhābiyān (Tehran, 1364 [sh.]), pp. 144–6,Google Scholar 262–79. Mudarrisī pronounces in favour of the historicity of the Shaykh's journey to Iran on the grounds that the Persian sources confirm the testimony of the Lam‘ al-shihāb. These studies supersede that of al-Shahrastānī, Ṣ, “Hal talaqqā mubdi‘ al-Wahhābiyya durūsahu fī Iṣfahān?”, al-‘lrfān, LVII (1969).Google Scholar Shahrastānī's article also appeared in an Arabic magazine published in Tehran (al-Ikhā’, X, no. 162 (1 01 1970), p. 18Google Scholar), under the title “al-Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb wa-dirāsatuhu fī Iṣfahān”; this was brought to the attention of Ḥamad al-Jāsir, who energetically rebutted it in his “Jawānib min ḥayāt al-Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb”, al-‘;Arab, IV (1970),Google Scholar especially pp. 939–44 (where the account of the Lam’ al-shihāb is also discussed).

40 See Storey, C.A., Persian Literature (London, 1927-), i, pp. 152–4,Google Scholar no. 191).

41 Taqī Sipihr, Muhammad, Nāsikh al-tavārīkh: salātīn-i Qājāriyya (Tehran, 1344 sh. and 1385), i, p. 118. 14.Google Scholar Cf. also Ridā-Qulī Khān Hidāyat (d. 1288/1871), Tārīkh-i rawdat al-safā-yi Nāsirī, printed with Mīrkhwānd, Tārīkh-i rawdat al-safā (Qumm, 1338–1339 sh.), ix, p. 380.18.Google Scholar

42 al-Razzāq, ‘Abd Dunbulī, Maftūn, Ma'āthir-i sultāniyya (Tehran, 1351 sh.), p. 82.11.Google Scholar For this author see Storey, Persian Literature, i, pp. 334f, no. 426; the work is a history of Fath-‘Alī Shāh to 1229/1814.

43 For his life and works, see Mudarrisī Tabātabāī, H.M., “Panj nāma az Fath-‘Alī Shāh-i Qājār ba-Mīrzāyi Qummī”, Barrasīhā-yi Tārīkhī, X, no. 4 (1975), pp. 254–8.Google Scholar

44 His date of birth is given as 1151/I738f (al-Tihrānī, Āghā Buzurg, Tabaqāt a‘lām al-shīa (Mashhad, 1404), ii, part 1, p. 52.8Google Scholar); and he is known to have arrived in Najaf in 1174/176 of (Mudarrisī Tatātabā‘ī, “Panj nāma”, p. 255, note 37).

45 I know the contents of this letter only from the citation in Faqīhī, Wahhābiyān, pp. 267f. With regard to the Shaykh's visit to Iran, he says: zāhir īn-ast ki ba-‘lrāq-i ‘Ajam ham āmada būd (Ibid., p. 267.8). Note that this is the only one of these Iranian sources in which the Shaykh's name is given correctly.

46 For this work and its appendix, see Storey, , Persian Literature, i,Google Scholar pp. 1123f, no. 1561.

47 al-Latīf Shūshtarī, ‘Abd, Tuhfat al-‘ālam, ed. Muvahhid, S. (Tehran, 1363 [sh.]), p. 477.13.Google Scholar The Shaykh's background is presented as Hanafī. (Mīrzā-yi Qummī, by contrast, knows that the Wahhābīs are Hanbalites.)

48 Storey, , Persian Literature, i, pp. 144–6,Google Scholar no. 173.

49 Abū Tālib, Mīrzā Isfahānī, Khān, Masīr-i Tālibī, ed. Khadivjam, H. (Tehran, 1352 sh.), p. 409.20Google Scholar(Stewart, =C. (trans.), Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan (London, 1814), iii, pp. 168fGoogle Scholar). The date of composition is given as 1218/ 1803f by the author (Persian text, p. 4.23; English translation, i, p. 3).

50 Niebuhr, C., Beschreibung von Arabien (Copenhagen, 1772), p. 346.Google Scholar (The English translation (Travels through Arabia and Other Countries in the East (Edinburgh, 1792), ii, p. 131,Google Scholar doubtless from the French translation, Description de I'Arabie (Copenhagen, 1773), p. 298)Google Scholar speaks of “ several journeys to Bagdad, and through Persia”; but the German original says only that he “reisete auch nach Bagdad und Persien”.) Burckhardt, by contrast, says merely that he “ had visited various schools of the principal cities in the East” (Burckhardt, J.L., Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys (London, 1830), p. 274)Google Scholar.

51 As indicated by al-‘Uthaymīn, ‘A.S. (“Nībūr wa-da‘wat al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb”, Majallat Kulliyyat al-‘ulūm al-ijtimā‘iyya (Riyād), ii (1978), p. 178).Google Scholar

52 Kataba li-ahl al-Washm yastahzi’u bi’l-tawhīd wa-yaz‘umu annahu bid‘a wa-annahu kharaja min Khurāsān (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawda, i, p. 148.14).Google Scholar In another epistle to ‘Abdallāh ibn Suhaym, the Shaykh again states that his enemies maintain that his doctrine comes from Khurāsān (za‘amtum annahu lā yakhruju iliā min Khurāsān, Ibid., p. 129.10, and cf p. 129.24). For the background to these polemics, see Cook, M., “The expansion of the first Saudi state: the case of Washm”, in Bosworth, C.E. et al. (ed.), The Islamic World from Classical to Modern Times: Essays in Honor of Bernard Lewis (Princeton, N.J., 1989), pp. 673–5.Google Scholar

53 Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 42.22 (and cf. Ibn ‘Īsā, Ta’rīkh, p. 111.5).

54 There are also sources which know only his studies in Medina: [y Leyblich, D. Badia], Travels of AH Bey (London, 1816), ii, p. 128;Google Scholar Siddīq Hasan Khān al-Qannawjī (d. 1307/1890), Abjad al-‘ulūm (Damascus, 1978, and Beirut, 1395), iii, p. 194.9Google Scholar(this work was first published in Bhopal in 1295–6; in that edition the text of the tarjama of the Shaykh (pp. 871–7), though less legible, is also less corrupt).

55 M. S. Khattāb, “al-Imām Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb fī madīnat al-Mawsil”, in Jāmi‘at al-Imām Muhammad ibn Sa‘ūd al-Islāmi, al-buhūth, Markaz, Buhūth usbū‘ al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (Riyād, 1983), i, p. 75.Google Scholar

56 lbn Khayr, Yāsīn al-‘Umarī, Allāh, Gharā‘ib al-athar (Mosul, 1359), p. 34Google Scholar(under the year 1208/17931) (not seen). For ‘Umarī's hostility towards the Wahhābīs, doubtless underplayed by Khattāb in deference to his Saudi hosts, see Kemp, P., Territoires d'lslam: le monde vu de Mossoul au XVIlIe siècle (Paris, 1982), pp. 79–84.Google Scholar The passage translated here from the same page of the chronicle makes no mention of Mosul, and refers to a journey to the Yemen (Ibid., p. 79).

57 Khattāb, “al-Imām Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb fi madīnat al-Mawsil”, pp. 82–4; and cf. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition, art. “Djirdjīs” (B. Carra de Vaux).

58 India Office, G/29/25, fF. 438b–439a; for the date, see Ibid., f. 438a. This report has been published from another copy in Khan, M.A., “A diplomat's report on Wahhabism of Arabia”, Islamic Studies, VII (1968), pp. 41–4.Google Scholar The Shaykh's itinerary is given here as Basra, Baghdad, Damascus, and Mosul, after which he returned home; he had likewise been obliged to flee from Damascus for his dangerous opinions.

59 Waring, E.S., A Tour to Sheeraz (London, 1807), p. 119.Google Scholar In Mosul the Shaykh “publicly supported the purity, excellence, and orthodoxy of his tenets”, a phrasing which may indicate that Jones and Waring are not fully independent sources. Waring’s tour took place in A.D. 1802 (i.e. 1216f).

60 As noted, both are included by Jones, as also by Waring (who has the Shaykh flee from the alarmed “priests” of Damascus). In a later work Jones names only Damascus among the “various schools, and colleges of the East” visited by the Shaykh (Brydges, Sir Harford Jones. An Account of the Transactions of His Majesty's Mission to the Court of Persia, in the Years 1807–11 (London, 1834), ii, p. 7;Google Scholar this work was drawn to m y attention by Malcolm Yapp). As we have seen, both Damascus and Baghdad figure in the account of the Lam‘ al-shihāb.

61 See al-Ḥibshī, ‘A.M., “Ta' rīkh al-da'wa al-Wahhābiyya min makhṭūṭ Yamanī”, al-'Arab, VII (1972),Google Scholar p. 35. 16.

62 [Rousseau, J.B.L.J.], Description du Pachalik de Bagdad (Paris, 1809), p. 131Google Scholar (and cf. his Mémoire sur les trots plus fameuses sectes du Musulmanisme, p. 2); Corancez, L.A., Histoire des Wahabis (Paris, 1810), p. 9Google Scholar (I owe my knowledge of this work to R. M. Burrell).

63 Khālid al-Nāṣirī, Aḥmad ibn, al-lstiqṣā li-akhbār duwal al-Maghrib al-aqṣā (Casablanca, 1954–1956), viii,Google Scholar p. 119. 18.

64 Philby in his earlier works stated or suggested that the Shaykh had studied in Baghdad and Damascus (see the references given in Rentz, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb, p. 32, note I); but he later substituted a canonical account of the travels of the Shaykh (see Philby, H.S., Sa'udi Arabia (London, 1955)Google Scholar, pp. 35f). Lapidus has the Shaykh study in Damascus (Lapidus, I.M., A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge, 1988), p. 673Google Scholar). A statement that Ibn ‘ Abd al-Wahhāb visited Syria appears in a tarjama interpolated by the editors into the biographical dictionary of Kamāl al-Dīn al-Ghazzī (al-Na't al-akmal li-aṣḥāb al-imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, ed. al-Ḥāfiຓ, M.M. and Abāຓa, N. (Damascus, 1982),Google Scholar p. 336.3).

65 Ḥaydarī, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 236.18. Baghdad is also included by Jones, Waring, and Philby in his earlier works.

66 Possibly the anti-Wahhābī tract of the Baṣran Qabbānī may have something to contribute on the Shaykh's visit to Baṣra. For this tract, of which there is a manuscript in Hyderabad, see Brockelmann, Geschichte, supplementary volumes, ii, p. 532, no. 7; and cf. Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 209.9, referring to “the volume (mujallad) composed by Qabbānī”. Brockelmann states, without the authority of the Hyderabad catalogue, that the work was written in 1157/1744; according to ‘Azzāwī, the date was 1155/1742 (see al-‘Azzāwī, ‘A., Ta'rīkh al-‘lrāq bayn iḥtilālayn (Baghdad, 1935–1956), vi, p. 336Google Scholar).

67 Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, pp. 16.6, 17.8.

68 This is no more than a first approach. As will become clear, there is a dissertation to be written by a student who is prepared to take the time to become thoroughly familiar with the relevant works of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, and to read the Shaykh's works and the rest of the early polemical literature against that background. Incidentally, a good many of the Shaykh's citations from earlier scholars might then be shown to have reached him only through their works.

69 As he puts it in an epistle to a Syrian beduin chief: “I tell those who oppose me that what people have to do is to follow what the Prophet enjoined upon his community. I say to them: ‘You have the books; consult them, and take nothing from what I say; but when you learn from your books what the Prophet said, follow it even if most people go against it” (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 196.17). Elsewhere he states that he does not call men to the way of any Ṣūfī, legist, or theologian; rather he calls them to God and the sunna of His Prophet (ibid., p. 62.7).

70 Laoust states in his article “Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb” in the second edition of The Encyclopaedia of Islam (col. 679a) that the Shaykh's doctrine is most closely linked to early Ḥanbalite formulations; this is misleading.

71 There are, of course, the occasional references to Ibn Ḥanbal that might be expected of a Ḥanbalite scholar (see, for example, Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i, pp. 68.10, 156.10, 226.22).Google Scholar

72 There is one passage (ibid., i, pp. 123–7) in which the Shaykh refers repeatedly to the substantive doctrine of Ibn Ḥanbal. But this is in response to allegations of his enemy Ibn al-Muways in the domain of what he calls ‘ilm al-asmā’ wa'l-ṣifāt (ibid., p. 123.3) – a domain as central to early Ḥanbalism as it was peripheral to Wahhābism.

73 For examples, see Abī Ya'lā, Ibn, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila, ed. al-Fiqī, M.Ḥ. (Cairo, 1952), i,Google Scholar pp. 382.15, 382.17, 388.2; ii, pp. 63.17, 234.13, 241.9. Contrast the ḥawqala and other expressions of editorial outrage in Fiqī's footnotes to these passages.

74 Cf. the table of contents of al-Jawzī, Ibn, Talbīs Iblīs (Beirut, n.d.).Google Scholar

75 Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, ii,Google Scholar p. 36.25, in a long epistle of 1167/1753f to the people of 'Uyayna (ibid., pp. 24–52) which is particularly rich in citations. Ibn ‘Aqīl is also cited prominently, alongside Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim, in an epistle to Muḥammad ibn ‘Īd (d. 1180/17661) (ibid., i, p. 140.19; for this epistle, see Cook, “Expansion”, pp. 673f). Characteristically, the Shaykh knows Ibn ‘Aqīl's condemnation of tomb-cults only through a citation by Ibn al-Qayyim (as noted by the editor to the printing of the epistle in Mu'allafāt al-Shaykh al-imām Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, ed. al-Rūmī, ‘A.Z. et al. (Riyad, 1398),Google Scholar qism I, p. 302, note 1; the passage is found at al-Jawziyya, Ibn Qayyim, Ighāthat al-lahfān, ed. al-Fiqī, M.Ḥ. (Cairo, 1939), i,Google Scholar p. 195.3).

76 For this episode, see Makdisi, G., “Nouveaux détails sur I'affaire d'lbn ‘Aqīl”, in Mélanges Louis Massignon (Damascus, 1957), iii,Google Scholar pp. 91ff.

77 See, for example, Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar pp. 122.6, 128.16, 150.1, 151.5, 1579, 1922, 202.15, 203.10, 214.3, 218.5, 223.16. An epistle addressed to Sulaymān ibn Suḥaym (ibid., pp. 178–88) contains no less than ten references to this text. Many of the references are to Ḥujāwī's discussion of apostasy (Iqnā', ed. al-Subī, ‘A.M.M. (Cairo, 1351), iv, pp. 297–308Google Scholar); that at Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 157.9, is to a passage in which Ḥujāwī prescribes the destruction of domes built over graves (Iqnaā, i,Google Scholar p. 233.8; this is in fact a quotation from Ibn al-Qayyim). References to other Ḥanbalite lawbooks are rare (for a couple of instances, see Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar pp. 67.3, 218.6). (I am not, of course, concerned with the Shaykh's references to Ḥanbalite lawbooks in more narrowly legal contexts.)

78 Ibid., i, p. 199.25 (in an epistle to the Iraqi scholar Ibn al-Suwaydī (d. 1200/1786)); compare Mu' allafāt, qism 5, p. 144.14 (in an epistle to Muhammad ibn Sulṭān). A law-school is clearly envisaged here as being at the same time a theological community.

79 Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, ii,Google Scholar pp. 38.7, 38.25, 39.4 (in the epistle of 1167/1753f to the people of ‘Uyayna). For similar surveys, see ibid., i, pp. 151.14–154.4 (in a letter to ‘Abdallāh ibn Suḥaym); Mu' allafāt, qism 5, pp. 177.3–180.2 (in an open letter to the scholars of Islam). The scholars adduced include the Ḥanafīs Bazzāzī (d. 827/1424), Ibn Quṭlūbughā (d. 879/1474), and the younger Ibn Nujaym (d. 1005/1596); the Mālikīs Ṭurṭūshī (d. 520/1126) and Qāḍi ‘Iyāḍ (d. 544/1149); and the Shāfi'ites Abū Shāma (d. 665/1267) and Ibn Ḥajar (d. 852/1449). I am indebted to Hossein Modarressi for assistance with the identification of the Ḥanafī authors cited by the Shaykh.

80 Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar pp. 62.8, 67.14 (in an epistle to ‘Abdallāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Aḥsā'ī); ibid., p. 227.2 (in a letter to ‘Abd al-Wahhāb ibn ‘Abdallāh ibn ‘īsa). In the first of these epistles (ibid., pp. 60–73) the Shaykh makes extensive reference to Shāfi'ite (and other) authorities, while at the same time seeking to subvert the very idea of adherence to scholarly authority.

81 For example, he cites Suyūṭī's Awā'il in an epistle to Sulaymān ibn Suḥaym (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 186.9).

82 Cf. Laoust's formulation in his article “I bn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb” in the second edition of The Encyclopaedia of Islam (col. 679a). In his analysis of the relationship between Ibn Taymiyya and Wahhābism in his monograph on Ibn Taymiyya (Essai, pp. 506–40), Laoust emphasises the strength of the links with regard to the intercession of the Prophet (ibid., p. 519), jihād against the perpetrators of shirk (ibid., p. 529), and the distinction between ulūhiyya and rubūbiyya (ibid., p. 531); but he also suggests that the Shaykh and his followers were quicker to declare people infidels (ibid., p. 525), more violent in their attacks on shirk (ibid., p. 529), and in particular more zealous in their fanaticism against domed tombs (ibid., p. 530).

83 References to other Ḥanbalite scholars of this milieu are rare. The Shaykh refers to Ibn Rajab (d. 795/1393) as one of the most outstanding of the “later scholars” (muta'akhkhirūn) (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar pp. 62.19, 226.25, and cf. p. 67.14). Ibn ‘Abd al-Hādī (d. 744/1343) is mentioned for his life of Ibn Taymiyya (ibid., p. 211.13).

84 ibid., i, pp. 62.19, 63.17, 226.25, and cf. p. 62.8.

85 For reference to Ibn Taymiyya, see, for example, ibid., i, pp. 130.8, 140.21, 148.23, 150.3, 150.9, 150.18, 181.10, 211.24, 225.3, 227.4. An epistle to Aḥmad ibn ‘Abd al-Karīm of al-Aḥsā” (ibid., pp. 214–21) contains several references to Ibn Taymiyya (ibid., pp. 214.22, 218.10, etc.). The Shaykh's epistle of 1167/1735f to the people of ‘Uyayna contains numerous references to Ibn Taymiyya (ibid., ii, pp. 27.6, 30.9, 35.3, etc.). Several works of Ibn Taymiyya are explicitly mentioned in these epistles, including the Iqliḍā' and his refutation of the mutakallimūn.

86 See, for example, Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar pp. 64.8, 67.10, 127.16, 141.4, 154.15, 187.6, 201.1, 211.4, 217.23, 224.10, 227.3. The epistle of 1167/1735f to the people of ‘Uyayna likewise contains references to Ibn al-Qayyim (as ibid., ii, pp. 32.2, 38.3, 49.1). Among the works of Ibn al-Qayyim named are the I'lām al-muwaqqi'īn, the Ighāthat al-lahfān, and al-Ṭuruq al-Ḥukmiyya.

87 An obscure passage in one of the Shaykh's epistles suggests that this theme may also be found in Qabbānī's polemic. According to the Shaykh, Qabbānī had stated that he opposed only Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim and ten others, of whom the Shaykh was the last (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 209.12).

88 Ibn ‘Afāliq, Risāla, MS. Berlin 2,158, ff. 56a–73b (for this text, see Ahlwardt, W., Verzeichniss der arabischen Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin, 1887–1899),ii, p. 477Google Scholar; I arn indebted to the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz for supplying me with a microfilm). The epistle can be dated not later than 1163/1750 since Ibn Mu'ammar was assassinated in that year (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, ii,Google Scholar p. 16.7; Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 30.5).

89 See, for example, Ibn ‘Afāliq, Risāla, ff. 60b.9, 68a.I (Ibn Taymiyya); ibid., ff. 56b.19, 57a.9 (Ibn al-Qayyim). Compare the Shaykh's epistle to Aḥmad ibn ‘Abd al-Karīm (also of al-Aḥsā') responding to the doubts the latter had formed regarding the Shaykh's doctrine as a result of reading Ibn Taymiyya (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 214.14); Ibn ‘Abd al-Karīm had also mentioned a passage by Ibn al-Qayyim (ibid., p. 215.3).

90 Ibn ‘Afāliq, Risāla, f. 64b.8. He explains that Ibn al-Qayyim had not declared the community at large to be unbelievers. He had, however, firmly condemned the views of a number of pseudo-Muslim groups (such as antinomian Ṣūfīs and believers in incarnation) who are generally agreed to be infidels when they affirm their beliefs; the Wahhābīs had mistaken this for a declaration of the infidelity of the community.

91 In an epistle to Muḥammad ibn ‘Abbād (d. 1175/17611), a cleric (muṭawwa') of Tharmadā', the Shaykh refers to a letter in which Ibn ‘Afāliq had maintained that tawḥīd (sc. the Shaykh's doctrine) was the religion (dīm) of Ibn Taymiyya, and that when the latter proclaimed it in a fatwā, the scholars of the day declared him an infidel and all hell broke loose against him (qāmal ‘alayhi ‘1-qiyāma) (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 135.15; for this epistle, see Cook, “Expansion”, p. 673).

92 For accounts of his life and works, see Shawkānī, , al-Badr al-ṭāli' (Cairo, 1348), ii, pp. 133–9Google Scholar, no. 417; al-Ḥibshī, ‘A.M., “Mu'allafāt Muḥammad ibn Ismā'īl al-Amīr al-Ṣan'ānī”, al-'Arab, VII (1973).Google Scholar

93 Khān, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan, Abjad al-'ulūm, iii,Google Scholar p. 197.12. This critique of the Shaykh appears elsewhere in t he mouth of a certain ‘Abdallāh Afandī al-Rāwī al-Baghdādī, writing at the instance of Sulaymān Pasha, w h o ruled Baghdad from 1194/1780 to 1217/1802 (see Sulaymān ibn ‘Abdallāh, Tawḍīḥ, pp. 14.13, 24.7, 38.14, 52.2).

94 Khān, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan, Abjad al-'ulūm, iii,Google Scholar p. 198.1.

95 Ghannām, Ibn in his life of the Shaykh (Rawḍa, i, pp. 56–9Google Scholar) and Ibn Bishr in his tarjama of Ibn al-Amīr (‘Unwān al-majd, pp. 50–3) quote the poem which the latter wrote in support of the Shaykh's cause. This was in 1163/1749f. Neither mentions the second poem, composed in 1170/1756f and accompanied by a commentary, in which Ibn al-Amīr retracted his support. For the story of these poems, see al-Jāsir, Ḥ., “al-Ṣilāt bayn Ṣan‘ā’ wa'1-Dir'iyya”, al-'Arab, XXII (1987), pp. 433–5;Google Scholar Khān, Ṣiddīq ḥasan, Abjad al-'ulūm, iii,Google Scholar pp. 197f. A further contribution to the poetry of the early Wahhābī controversy was made by the Basran sayyid Yāsīn ibn Ibrāhīm in 1168/1755; his work is a refutation of Ibn al-Amīr's first poem (British Library, Or. 3,112, ff. 1a-5a (for the date, see f. 5a. 11); and see Rieu, C., Supplement to the Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1894), p. 118,Google Scholar no. 194).

96 The Shaykh quotes a verse from “the Yemeni'” poem in his epistle of 1167/1753f to the people of ‘Uyayna (Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, ii,Google Scholar p. 42.9 (cf. ibid., i, p. 57.1, and Ibn Bishr, ‘Unwān al-majd, p. 52.1); for the dating of the epistle, see Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 24.2).

97 al-Amīr, Ibn, Taṭhīr al-i'tiqād ‘an adrān al-ilḥad (Cairo 1954);Google Scholar cf. Ḥibshī, “Mu'allafāt”, p. 687, no. 32. The work is noted by Ibn Bishr in his tarjama of Ibn al-Amīr (‘Unwān al-majd, p. 50.5). Its leitmotiv is polemic against the qubūriyyūn (Taṭthīr, pp. 34.11, 36.16, 37.19, etc.).

98 Ibn al-Amīr at one point quotes four verses from his poem in honour of the Shaykh (ibid., p. 33.1). Note also his inclusion of Najd among the regions in which he had seen or heard of polytheism (ibid., p. 19.14). That he makes no reference to his second thoughts on the Shaykh perhaps suggests a date of composition not later than 1170/1756f.

99 In one passage the hypothetical interlocutor observes that, if the offenders are mushrikūn, it is obligatory to wage jihād against them. Ibn al-Amīr replies that this is indeed the view of some authorities (tā'ifa min a'immat al-'ilm), and proceeds to spell out t he escalation which, on this view, would lead to war (ibid., p. 35.13). The absence of any statement of a contrary view, and the tone of the passage as a whole, suggest that this is also his own view; and an incidental statement in another passage supports this (ibid., p. 28.16). But an element of ambiguity remains, and it gains significance in the light of Ibn al-Amīr's explanation of his incipient doubts regarding his support of the Shaykh: he had heard of the killing and plundering which the Shaykh practised against his opponents, and of his view that the Muslims at large (al-umma al-Muḥammadiyya) in all lands were infidels (see the citations in Khān, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan, Abjad al-'ulūm, iii,Google Scholar p. 197.9, and Ibn Saḥmān, Tabri'at al-Shaykhayn, p. 83.11; and cf. ibid., pp. 94.13, 174.9). (Ibn Saḥmān wrote his work to prove that Ibn al-Amīr could not have written the offending poem, cf. Jāsir, “Ṣilāt”, p. 435.)

100 See Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 38.20. This Ibn Suḥaym was a prominent enemy of the Shaykh (ibid., p. 37.17).

101 Laoust's statement in his article “Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb” in the second edition of The Encyclopaedia of Islam that “there exists a dissertation by his father against the cult of saints” (col. 678a) is erroneous (see Cook, “Expansion”, p. 695, note 157).

102 Ghannām, Ibn, Rawḍa, i,Google Scholar p. 143.17. He adds that all the people of the ‘Āriḍ witnessed this oath.

103 Ibn Ghannām states that the epistle was written while the Shaykh was still in ‘Uyayna (ibid., i, p. 188.15).

104 ibid., i, p. 189.12. The qāḍī of Dir'iyya, ‘Abdallāh ibn ‘Īsā ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān, appends an endorsement to this letter in which the same theme is stressed (cf. ibid., p. 189.19): he says that the greater part of his life had passed without his knowing what he now knew of the various forms (anwā') of shirk (ibid., p. 194.9), and that it had only now become apparent to him that jihād is mandatory against the followers of the infidel mystics Ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240) and Ibn al-Fāriḍ(d. 632/1235) (ibid., p. 195.1, quoting Q22:78). Elsewhere the Shaykh quotes Q6: 161: “As for me, my Lord has guided me to a straight path …” (ibid., p. 62.6).