Khasais al-Tafkir al-Fiqhi inda al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (Matbu within Buhuth Nadwat Dawat al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, al-Juz al-Awwal)
- Author died
- 1444 AH
- Editions
- ‘Imādat al-Baḥth al-‘Ilmī bi-Jāmi‘at al-Imām Muḥammad ibn Sa‘ūd al-Islāmiyyah
Khasāʾis al-Tafkīr al-Fiqhī ʿinda al-Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (Characteristics of Jurisprudential Thinking in Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab) is an academic research study authored by the Saudi jurist and scholar Abd al-Wahhab Abu Sulayman (1356–1444 AH / 1937–2023 CE), published within the first volume of the collected papers of the Symposium on the Call of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (Buḥūth Nadwat Daʿwat al-Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb) .
Purpose and Scope
The author notes that while scholarly literature on Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab has predominantly concentrated on his theological and creedal (ʿaqadī) reform, relatively little attention has been devoted to examining his jurisprudential methodology and reformist legal thought . The study aims to fill this gap by exploring the intellectual features of his legal trajectory and clarifying the nature of his legal and legislative reform .
Method and Structure
The work relies on an inductive and deductive analysis of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's surviving legal writings, focusing on broader characteristics and major themes rather than minor subsidiary rulings, except where necessary to illustrate core ideas .
The study is organized around three central subjects:
- The jurisprudential climate in the Muslim world and Najd: A survey of the prevailing intellectual and legal stagnation in late Islamic history, characterized by the dominance of concise manuals, commentaries, and marginal glosses, as well as the de facto closure of independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) . It highlights that legal learning in Najd was almost entirely confined to the Hanbali school and its late pedagogical texts within hereditary judicial lineages .
- Intellectual formative influences: An examination of how Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab transcended the conventional restrictions of his local environment, identifying his early immersion in the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, as well as his travels to Mecca and Medina, as pivotal factors that nurtured his independent legal orientation .
- Distinctive jurisprudential characteristics: An analysis of his approach across his legal treatises and abridgments—such as Mukhtaṣar al-Inṣāf wa-al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr and Kitāb al-Ṭahārah—highlighting his balance between adherence to the Hanbali framework, citing textual evidences, presenting differing opinions, noting Ibn Taymiyyah's selections, and encouraging guided, evidence-based reasoning rather than rigid conformism (taqlīd) .
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