HISTORY OF ISLAMIC REVIVALISM IN SAUDI ARABIA SHAYKH MUHAMMAD BIN ABD. WAHHAB

Abstract

Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab, is the founder of the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi movement is one of the religious movements that seeks to purify Islam from all understandings and practices that have deviated from actual demands. According to him, the basic creeds of the Wahhabism are essentially no different from what was stated by Ibn Taimiyah. The difference is only in how to implement and interpret certain issues. The belief or monotheism of Muslims has been contaminated by various things such as superstition, bid'ah and khufarat which can lead an Muslim to syirik. The revivalist group considered that the monotheism taught by the Prophet Muhammad had been shrouded in khurafat and the ideology of Sufism. Many mosques were abandoned because people tended to decorate themselves with azimat.