Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab
1703 CE–1792 CE · Medina
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (born c. 1703 CE / 1115 AH in Uyayna, in the Najd region of central Arabia; died 1792 CE / 1206 AH in Dir'iyya) was a scholar of the Hanbali school — one of the four classical Sunni schools of law (madhhab) — from the Banu Tamim tribe. He came from a family of judges and jurists and studied first with his father, then in Medina. Biographers report further study in Basra (southern Iraq); reports of longer journeys to Baghdad, Iran, Damascus, and Egypt are uncertain, as the earliest sources do not confirm them.
He is best known for an uncompromising emphasis on tawhid (the absolute oneness of God) and a campaign against practices he condemned as shirk (associating others with God) or bid'a (unsanctioned innovation) — among them veneration at tombs and sacred trees. After composing his central work, Kitab al-Tawhid ("The Book of God's Oneness"), and a contested attempt at reform in Uyayna, he moved to nearby Dir'iyya. There, in 1744, he and the amir Muhammad ibn Saud made a pact binding the scholar's mission to the ruler's growing power — the root of the alliance between the Al Saud and his descendants (the Al al-Shaykh).
His movement, called "Wahhabism" chiefly by outsiders, has been embraced by some Muslims as a return to pure monotheism and sharply criticized by others — including, in his lifetime, his own brother Sulayman — as harshly exclusionary. This site reports those as positions held, not as settled judgments.
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Medina
What they did here
Studied in Medina, where biographers name teachers including Abdullah ibn Ibrahim al-Sayf and the hadith scholar Muhammad Hayat al-Sindi; later tradition links this period to his rejection of shrine veneration and uncritical legal imitation (taqlid). Exact dates are not preserved (Britannica; Wikipedia cross-check).
About Medina
Medina (al-Madina, formerly Yathrib), in the Hejaz of western Saudi Arabia, is the city to which the Prophet Muhammad emigrated in 622 (the hijra), establishing the first Muslim community; it contains his tomb and is Islam's second-holiest city. As the cradle of early Islamic law and hadith scholarship it remained a major centre of learning that drew the scholars connected here.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Islamic world
- Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi· 1641 CE–1731 CE
- Shah Wali Allah al-Dihlawi· 1703 CE–1762 CE
- al-Murtada al-Zabidi· 1732 CE–1791 CE
- Ahmad al-Tijani· 1737 CE–1815 CE
- Ahmad ibn Idris· 1749 CE–1837 CE
- Usman dan Fodio· 1754 CE–1817 CE
- al-Shawkani· 1759 CE–1834 CE
- Ibn Abidin· 1784 CE–1836 CE
- Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi· 1787 CE–1859 CE
Christian world
Scientists
Jewish world
Luminaries & Explorers world
Rulers world
- Maria Theresa· 1717 CE–1780 CE
- Frederick the Great· 1712 CE–1786 CE
- Mustafa III· 1717 CE–1774 CE
- Peter III· 1728 CE–1762 CE
- Hyder Ali· 1720 CE–1782 CE
- Charles III of Spain· 1716 CE–1788 CE
- Ivan VI· 1740 CE–1764 CE
- Karim Khan Zand· 1705 CE–1779 CE
- Pontiac (Obwandiyag)· 1714 CE–1769 CE
- Qianlong Emperor· 1711 CE–1799 CE
- Abdulhamid I· 1725 CE–1789 CE
- Elizabeth (Elizabeth Petrovna)· 1709 CE–1762 CE
- Yeongjo of Joseon· 1694 CE–1776 CE
- Catherine the Great· 1729 CE–1796 CE
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.