Tashih Khata Tarikhi Hawl al-Wahhabiyya
- Author died
- 1442 AH
- Editions
- al-Jāmi‘ah al-Islāmīyah bi-al-Madīnah al-Munawwarah
Tashih Khata Tarikhi Hawl al-Wahhabiyya (Correcting a Historical Error Concerning Wahhabism) is a treatise by the Saudi scholar Muhammad ibn Sa'd al-Shuway'ir (d. 1442 AH / 2020 CE) addressing the conflation of the reformist movement of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab with an earlier North African sect bearing the name "al-Wahhabiyya" .
Background and Circumstances of Composition
The impetus for writing the work arose in 1407 AH during the author's travel on an official mission to Mauritania and Senegal, which required a six-day layover in Morocco . While hosted at the library of a university professor—referred to by the author as Dr. Abdullah—in the presence of approximately a dozen scholars, a question was raised criticizing the "Wahhabi madhhab" for causing division among Muslims . The host cited a legal ruling found in the eleventh volume of al-Mi'yar al-Mu'rib, compiled by the Maliki jurist Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Wansharisi, wherein Abu al-Hasan al-Lakhmi declared a group named "al-Wahhabiyya" to be deviant Kharijites and ruled against praying in their mosque .
Restricting his sources entirely to the host's private library, al-Shuway'ir resolved to examine the chronological and historical facts behind the ruling .
Core Thesis and Historical Argument
The treatise demonstrates that the legal rulings issued by early North African and Andalusian scholars concerned a distinct, early Ibadi Kharijite splinter faction known as the Rustamid Wahhabiyya (al-Wahhabiyya al-Rustamiyya) . This group emerged in the second century of the Hijra in North Africa around Tahert, founded by and named after Abd al-Wahhab ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Rustam (d. 197 AH, 205 AH, or 211 AH) .
Al-Shuway'ir highlighted the chronological impossibility of these Maliki rulings referring to the movement of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab:
- Al-Lakhmi died in 478 AH, more than six centuries before the birth of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (b. 1115 AH) .
- Al-Wansharisi died in Fes in 914 AH, more than two centuries prior to Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's birth .
The book argues that opponents of the Najdi reform movement, including Ottoman officials and later Western orientalists, capitalized on the nominal coincidence between the name of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's father and that of the Ibadi leader to misapply early North African condemnations to the Najdi movement and alienate Muslims from it . The author also cites statements and verses in praise of the Najdi movement by diverse figures, including the Moroccan sultan Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Alawi, the Iranian scholar Imran ibn Ridwan of Lengeh, the Yemeni scholars Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-San'ani and Muhammad ibn Ali al-Shawkani, and the Moroccan scholar Muhammad Taqi al-Din al-Hilali .
Publication History
The work is a concise treatise consisting of approximately 110 pages . It was first printed in Tetouan, Morocco, in 1407 AH . A second edition was published by Maktabat al-Ma'arif in Riyadh in 1413 AH / 1993 CE . A third edition was issued by the printing presses of the Islamic University of Madinah in 1419 AH, featuring an introductory preface by its rector, Dr. Salih ibn Abd Allah al-Abbud . An article bearing the same title was also published in the journal al-Ba'th al-Islami in 1404 AH .
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