Wahhabism is attributed to Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab who, through his alliance with Muhammad bin Saud, formed the first Saudi state in 1744 AD. Even though Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (and I have read all his writings) was a “da'ia” (absolute missionary) and not a jurist, he made the Hanbali jurisprudence (Ahmad bin Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziya) the basic reference in what is known today as Saudi Arabia.
When it is said that reliance on judgments in the future will be on al-ahadith-al-motawatera (less than 100) and not on akhbar-al-a’ahad (tens of thousands), it is as if the Kingdom has turned its back on Hanbali jurisprudence, which is undeniably a prime source of Radical Islam. Without the thousands of Akhbar-al-a’ahad, many of the reasons for the antithesis to modernity will be removed. This step, if it is to continue and become a practical reality, would be one of the most important political and cultural steps in the modern history of Sunni Muslim-majority societies.
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