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Chapter 1 discusses the meaning of the word “Salafi” since the medieval period and how it started to change in the early twentieth century. It also explains the Orientalist construction of “modernist Salafism” in the 1920s.

This chapter looks at the Hanbali-Wahhabism in the nineteenth century. It shows that Hanbali-Wahhabi ulama succeeded in extending the tradition's domination over almost all of Central Arabia after a number of attempts to eliminate the Sufi-inflected current of Hanbalism by enforcing the tradition on most of the region's sedentary population. The Hanbali-Wahhabi religious establishment rejected the House of Muhammad Rashid Rida's pretensions to legitimate domination.

This chapter looks at the beginning of the new kingdom and the rebirth of a tradition. It shows that Hanbali-Wahhabism was changed from a counterreligion to a religion, a process which which was encouraged by King Abd al-Aziz. The Hanbali-Wahhabi tradition was preserved by deploying an ethic of responsibility.

This chapter reveals three broad categories of ulama, namely the self-made men, the children of midlevel religious personnel, and the heirs of the houses of ulama. It also shows the Al al-Shaykh as the levites of Hanbali-Wahhabism. The behavior of the members of the Committee of Grand Ulama adapted the logic of the Saudi politico-religious space. In agreement with the three O's, the Hanbali-Wahhabi ulama managed the official market for salvational goods and supported the political authorities.

Ibn Taymiyya is often hailed as a vanguard of Islamic traditionalism. He argues that anyone who receives the divine message and turns away from it will be held accountable on Judgment Day. Nevertheless, even the wicked will one day be spared of chastisement and even redeemed. This chapter examines Ibn Taymiyya’s arguments for universalism, a refutation by Taqi al-Din al-Subki (d. 1355), and a re-articulation of Ibn Taymiyya’s arguments by his student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350). This chapter also looks at a somewhat similar modern debate between Muhammad ‘Ali (d. 1951) of Lahore and the Western academic James Robson (d. 1981).Ibn Taymiyya (or: Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Taymiyah, Ibn Taymiya, Ibn Taimiyyah, Ibn Taimiyya, Ibn Taimiyah).

This chapter presents an introduction of the ulama. The ulama maximizes the possibilities for salvation. This book explores the corporation of the ulama. The ulama is believed to symbolize the temporal and spiritual heritage of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), who is a product of the Hanbali juridico-theological school. The book also addresses the role played by the Hanbali-Wahhabi ulama in several phases of the history of the Saudi political entity. Some interpretive hypotheses of the Saudi ulama are then presented.

This chapter discusses the beginning of the Hanbali tradition. It reveals how the position of Ahmad ibn Hanbal in the Islamic community became one of the most specifically constitutive elements of Muslim culture. It also describes the most important traits of corporation under the Abbasid Caliphate. It then explores how the tradition adapted to its new sociohistoric environment and how its representatives once again gave voice to an ethic of responsibility. The representatives of ideological authority have acted in a pragmatic manner as a result of the ethics of responsibility.

This chapter discusses the institutionalization and routinization of the Hanbali-Wahhabi tradition. It reveals that the West hoped that Pan-Arabism would destroy Islam and split Muslims. Turning to an ethic of responsibility, the ulama defied the adopted reformist ideas and secularized the Pan-Arabist threat. The chapter also presents three examples that illustrate how Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al al-Shaykh and his associates used the notion of the ethic of responsibility to save the Hanbali-Wahhabi corporation's influence and role.

This chapter describes the creation of the Committee of Grand Ulama, which was the most significant Hanbali-Wahhabi organization that existed. In addition to the committee, the High Council of the Magistracy, and the Ministry of Justice were established by King Emir Faysal. The committee became the headquarters of ideological authority in contemporary Saudi Arabia. This chapter also explores the codification of legal norms deduced from sharia (tadwin al-rajih min aqwal al-fuqaha', commonly known as taqnin al-shari'a). It reveals that the Committee of Grand Ulama had a significant role in the religious and political areas of the Saudi monarchy.

This chapter examines how the ulama responded to three important episodes in contemporary Saudi Arabian history: the seizure of the Grand Mosque of Mecca in 1979, the Islamist protest movement of the early 1990s, and the Jihadist threat following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks. It explores how they tailored their response with a view to defending the symbiotic relationship they had with political power (the guarantor of their discursive hegemony) and implementing the principles of the corporation (the foundation of their ideological authority). The ulama were forced to redefine al-wala' wa al-bara' to meet the Jihadist challenge and adapt the Hanbali-Wahhabi tradition to its status as the official religion of a regional power that enjoyed influence throughout the Islamic world.

A new politico-religious order, namely the Saudi Emirate and the Hanbali-Wahhabi tradition, has emerged through the action and work of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. A true policy of homogenization has been introduced by the ulama, illustrating its legitimacy from the Islamic duty to prevent vice and promote virtue. A rebirth of the Hanbali-Wahhabi tradition accompanied the birth of the modern Saudi Kingdom in the twentieth century. Opportunities for expansion to the Najdi tradition emerged with the birth of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The work of doctrinal reframing continues to be accompanied by action on the ground, such as the purge of school textbooks, intrareligious and interreligious dialogue, a monopoly on the promulgation of fatawa, and the institutionalization of the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice.

This study of the four major Sunnī legal schools in the pre-colonial period illustrates the range of legal opinions about the application of Q. 4:34, as well the connections and overlap between the genres of Qur’ān commentaries (tafsīr) and Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). Whereas Qur’anic exegesis offered cosmological justification for the prescription to hit wives in Q. 4:34, Islamic jurisprudence institutionalized this imperative in multiple ways. Despite the disparate motivations and concerns of the four legal schools, their stances on the right of husbands physically to discipline wives shared essential similarities. They agreed that husbands had a right to hit their wives if the latter committed nushūz, and that the beating ought to be ‘non-extreme,’ i.e. not break bones or cause open wounds. However, the difference between non-extreme and extreme hitting was legally ambiguous and in the case of extreme hitting, jurists were reluctant to hold husbands liable for excessive violence.