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Poetry, Magic, and the Formation of Wahhabism

In: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
Author:
Nadav Samin Department of History, The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. USA

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Abstract

The Sunni revivalist Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (d. 1792) has been subjected to rigorous scrutiny by a number of scholars. Much remains unknown about Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s life and work, however, not least the rationale behind his idiosyncratic style of authorship. Examining the scholar’s theological writings from the vantage point of Arabia’s oral vernacular and popular religious traditions casts new light on the particularities of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s appeal. That appeal, this paper argues, is rooted in phenomena that were seemingly peripheral or even anathema to his puritanical religious mission, namely, poetry and magic.

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