Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab ibn Sulayman al-Tamimi was a Sunni Muslim scholar, theologian, preacher, activist, religious leader, jurist, and reformer from Najd in central Arabia, considered as the eponymous founder of the so-called Wahhabi movement. His prominent students included his sons Ḥusayn, Abdullāh, ʿAlī, and Ibrāhīm, his grandson ʿAbdur-Raḥman ibn Ḥasan, his son-in-law ʿAbdul-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd, Ḥamād ibn Nāṣir ibn Muʿammar, and Ḥusayn āl-Ghannām.
Wahhabism is a reformist Islamic religious movement within Sunni Islam, based on the teachings of 18th century Hanbali cleric Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab. The term "Wahhabism" is primarily an exonym ; it was not used by Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab himself or adherents to the movement, who typically prefer to be called "Salafi". The movement's early followers referred to themselves as Muwahhidun derived from the term Tawhid. The term "Wahhabi" has also been deployed by various outsiders as a sectarian and Islamophobic slur.
The national flag of Saudi Arabia, also known as the al-Alam, is a green background with Arabic inscription and a sword in white. The inscription is the Islamic creed, or shahada: "There is no deity but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God". The current design has been used by the government of Saudi Arabia since 15 March 1973.
The Salafi movement or Salafism is a revival movement within Sunni Islam, which was formed as a socio-religious resistance to European imperialism during the late 19th century and has remained influential in the Islamic World for over a century. The name "Salafiyya" refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors", the first three generations of Muslims, who are believed to exemplify the pure form of Islam. In practice, Salafis maintain that Muslims ought to rely on the Qur'an, the Sunnah and the Ijma (consensus) of the salaf, giving these writings precedence over later religious interpretations. The Salafi movement aimed to achieve a renewal of Muslim life and had a major influence on many Muslim thinkers and movements across the Islamic world.
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear is a BBC television documentary series by Adam Curtis. It mainly consists of archive footage, with Curtis narrating. The series was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom in 2004. It has subsequently been aired in multiple countries and shown at various film festivals, including the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
Adam Curtis is an English documentary filmmaker.
Sunni Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is called the "home of Islam"; it was the birthplace of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who united and ruled the Arabian Peninsula. It is the location of the cities of Mecca and Medina, where Prophet Muhammad lived and died, and are now the two holiest cities of Islam. The kingdom attracts millions of Muslim Hajj pilgrims annually, and thousands of clerics and students who come from across the Muslim world to study. The official title of the King of Saudi Arabia is "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques"—the two being Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina—which are considered the holiest in Islam.
Sheikh Abd al Aziz ibn Abdullah ibn Baz was a Saudi Arabian Islamic scholar who served as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia from 1993 until his death in 1999. According to French political scientist Gilles Kepel, ibn Baz was a "figurehead" whose "immense religious erudition and his reputation for intransigence" gave him prestige among the population of Saudi Arabia. He "could reinforce the Saud family's policies through his influence with the masses of believers". His death left the government without a comparable figure from amongst Salafi scholars to "fill his shoes". He was a leading proponent of the Salafi school of thought.
The Kajaki Dam is "an earth and rockfill embankment type dam" located on the Helmand River in the Kajaki District of Helmand Province in Afghanistan, about 161 km (100 mi) northwest of Kandahar. It has a hydroelectric power station, which is operated by the Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority through the Ministry of Energy and Water.
Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist, dissident, author, columnist for Middle East Eye and The Washington Post, and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel who was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Islamic extremism, Islamist extremism or radical Islam refers a set of extremist beliefs, behaviors and ideology within Islam. These terms remain contentious, encompassing a spectrum of definitions, ranging from academic interpretations to the notion that all ideologies other than Islam have failed and are inferior. Furthermore, these terms may extend to encompass other sects of Islam that do not share such extremist views.
Madrassas of Pakistan are Islamic seminaries in Pakistan, known in Urdu as Madaris-e-Deeniya . Most madrassas teach mostly Islamic subjects such as tafseer, hadith, fiqh and Arabic ; but include some non-Islamic subjects, which enable students to understand the religious ones. The number of madrassas grew dramatically during and since the rule of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. They are especially popular among Pakistan's poorest families, in part because they feed and house their students. Estimates of the number of madrasas vary between 12,000 and 40,000. In some areas of Pakistan they outnumber the underfunded public schools.
Osama bin Laden took ideological guidance from prominent militant Islamist scholars and ideologues from the classical to contemporary eras, such as Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Sayyid Qutb, Nizamuddin Shamzai and Abdullah Azzam. During his middle and high school years, bin Laden was educated in Al-Thager Model School, a public school in Jeddah run by Islamist exiles of the Muslim Brotherhood; during which he was immensely influenced by pan-Islamist ideals and displayed strict religious commitment. As a teenager, bin Laden attended and led Muslim Brotherhood-run "Awakening" camps held on desert outskirts that intended to raise the youth in religious values, instil martial spirit and sought spiritual seclusion from "the corruptions" of modernity and rapidly urbanising society of the 1970s in Saudi Arabia.
The Turquoise Mountain Foundation is a non-governmental organization legally established in Scotland. It takes its name from Turquoise Mountain and initially focused on the enhancement of the Afghanistan craft industry. The organization subsequently expanded its work to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Myanmar (Burma).
Since the classical era, two major scholarly movements have been influential within Islamic societies: Sufi-Ash'arism represented by Ghazzali (1058-1111) and Salafism represented by Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328). The dispute between these two schools of thought dominated the Sunni world, splitting their influence across religious communities and cultures, with each school competing for scholarly authority via official and unofficial religious institutions. The relationship between Salafism and Sufism – two movements of Islam with different interpretations of Islam – is historically diverse and reflects some of the changes and conflicts in the Muslim world today.
Anti-Sunnism is hatred of, prejudice against, discrimination against, persecution of, and violence against Sunni Muslims.
Starting in the mid-1970s and 1980s, Salafism and Wahhabism — along with other Sunni interpretations of Islam favored by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies — achieved a "preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam."
Following the embargo by Arab oil exporters during the Israeli-Arab October 1973 War and the vast increase in petroleum export revenue that followed, the international propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism within Sunni Islam favored by the conservative oil-exporting Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies achieved a "preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam." The Saudi interpretation of Islam not only includes Salafiyya but also Islamist/revivalist Islam, and a "hybrid" of the two interpretations.
The Wahhabi movement started as a revivalist and reform movement in the Arabian Peninsula during the early 18th century, whose adherents described themselves as "Muwahhidun" (Unitarians). A young Hanbali cleric named Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, the leader of the Muwahhidun and eponym of the Wahhabi movement, called upon his disciples to denounce certain beliefs and practices associated with cult of saints as idolatrous impurities and innovations in Islam (bid'ah). His movement emphasized adherence to the Quran and hadith, and advocated the use of ijtihad. Eventually, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab formed a pact with a local leader, Muhammad bin Saud, offering political obedience and promising that protection and propagation of the Wahhabi movement meant "power and glory" and rule of "lands and men".
Terence S. Ward is an Irish-American writer and film producer.
