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Article: BAHRAIN - How Wahhabism Was Born.
- Article from:
- APS Diplomat Redrawing the Islamic Map
- Article date:
- May 3, 2004
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Wahhabism was founded in the 18th century AD by a Sunni religious sheikh from the Bani Tamim tribe of Arabia (now part of Saudi Arabia) called Muhammad Ibn Abdel Wahhab. It emerged as part of an awakening of Arabian Islamic consciousness after a period of gestation in the Muslim world. But Wahhabism arose in reaction to Western/Christian influences in and a European penetration of the Arab world.
Wahhabism at the time aimed at restoring Islamic piety and ethics to their original purity. It cultivated a sort of idealization of the primitive Islamic social organization, that of the "pious forefathers" - Al Salaf Al Saleh, hence the tendency called Al Salafiya. The ...