Wahabi islam

What is a Wahhabi?


Because Wahhabis claim to be true Sunnis,‌ it is difficult for one who is unfamiliar with Wahhabism to distinguish it from orthodox Sunni Islam. If a Wahhabi is asked if he/she is Sunni, he/she will always reply in the affirmative. When asked if they are Wahhabis, they reply with an emphatic no as they consider it an insult to what they believe and stand for:Purity of worship and reverence to God alone. The authentic carriers of Islam from the time of the Prophet (s)[1] until now.â€‌ Calling them Wahhabis implies that they learned ideas from a man – Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab – instead of the Qur’an and Sunnah – the two great sources of Islam. Irrespective of what they think, they are not following the Islamic sources authentically, but the wrong interpretations of the founder of the Wahhabi movement who appeared in the 1700s. Sunnis and other Wahhabi detractors have labeled them as Wahhabis to differentiate them from orthodox Sunnis.

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab never declared enmity to the Sunnis, in fact, he studied under them from the time he was quite young, and it is from them that he got his ideas. After he finished his studies in Makkah and Madinah under Sunni scholars, he returned to his homelsnd of Najd where he encountered great disbelief and shunning of the Shari'aah. He only countered the people of Najd who had enjoined shirk. Some of these were Sunnis, other Shi'as, and some were flat out Mushrikun (polytheists).


Wahhabis differentiate themselves from orthodox Sunnis by labeling themselves Salafis, which refers to the word salaf – the time period in which the early Muslims lived in the first 300 years after the Hijra, or emigration, of Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622. The Companions (Sahaba), those who followed the Companions (Tabi’een), and those who followed those who followed the Companions (Taba al-Tabi’een) who lived in the time period of the Salaf are exemplars par excellence of what Muslims should be, as Prophet Muhammad (s) had praised these Muslims as being the best of Muslims. Therefore, it has been the aim of every Muslim since the time of Prophet Muhammad (s) to adhere to and to follow the footsteps of the adherents of the salaf. This means that when a Wahhabi calls himself a Salafi, he claims to be a genuine follower of pristine Islam. This, however, is far from the truth.

Anyone can be a Salafi, regardless of which scholars they follow. Most Sunnis today are divided into Sufi and Salafi, the latter is a strict observance of Tawheed as defined in the Qur'an al-Kareem. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab mostly based off his points on the Quran and Sunnaah.