Description
By (author) Bunzel, Cole M.
An essential history of Wahhābism from its founding to the Islamic State
In the mid-eighteenth century, a controversial Islamic movement arose in the central Arabian region of Najd that forever changed the political landscape of the Arabian Peninsula and the history of Islamic thought. Its founder, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, taught that most professed Muslims were polytheists due to their veneration of Islamic saints at tombs and gravesites. He preached that true Muslims, those who worship God alone, must show hatred and enmity toward these polytheists and fight them in jihād. Cole Bunzel tells the story of Wahhābism from its emergence in the 1740s to its taming and coopting by the modern Saudi state in the 1920s, and shows how its legacy endures in the ideologies of al-Qāʿida and the Islamic State.
Drawing on a wealth of primary source materials, Bunzel traces the origins of Wahhābī doctrine to the religious thought of medieval theologian Ibn Taymiyya and examines its development through several generations of Wahhābī scholars. While widely seen as heretical and schismatic, the movement nonetheless flourished in central Arabia, spreading across the peninsula under the political authority of the Āl Suʿūd dynasty until the invading Egyptian army crushed it in 1818. The militant Wahhābī ethos, however, persisted well into the early twentieth century, when the Saudi kingdom used Wahhābism to bolster its legitimacy.
This incisive history is the definitive account of a militant Islamic movement founded on enmity toward non-Wahhābī Muslims and that is still with us today in the violent doctrines of Sunni jihādīs.
Review quote
“The single most significant event in the publication history of the scholarship on Wahhābism—period. There’s no book that rivals it . . . in scope, erudition, and breadth. . . . It”s one of these books that will set the agenda for future scholarship.”
—Omar Anchassi, Islamicate Book Review
Review quote
“The amount of primary sources and manuscripts referenced in Cole Bunzel”s new book is dizzying in the best way possible. The new standard for literature on Wahhabism! . . . A must read book.”
—Aaron Y. Zelin, Brandeis University
Biographical note
Cole M. Bunzel is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Endorsement
“Here for the first time we have an analysis of the origins and development of Wahhābī militancy that is philologically grounded, historically sophisticated, and comprehensive in its coverage of a mass of material, much of it new to the field. The result is a quantum leap in our knowledge and understanding.”
—Michael Cook, Princeton University
“Superb. Bunzel’s book will stand as the authoritative account of Wahhābism’s first two centuries and will be the essential reference for scholars in Islamic studies and the history of Saudi Arabia.”
—David Commins, author of The Mission and the Kingdom: Wahhabi Power behind the Saudi Throne
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