page_title: Al ash-Sheikh
section_title: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab
hierarchical_section_title: Al ash-Sheikh / Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the First Saudi State, Emirate of Diriyah. 1744 – 1786 1786 – 1808 1808 – 1816
context_page_description: The Al ash-Sheikh, also transliterated in a number of other ways, including Al ash-Shaykh, Al ash-Shaikh, Al al-Shaykh, or Al-Shaykh, is Saudi Arabia's leading religious family. They are the descendants of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th-century founder of the Wahhabi sect of Islam which is today dominant in Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, the family is second in prestige only to the Saudi royal family, the Al Saud, with whom they formed a power-sharing arrangement nearly 300 years ago. The arrangement, which persists to this day, is based on the Al Saud maintaining the Al ash-Sheikh's authority in religious matters and the Al ash-Sheikh supporting the Al Saud's political authority.
  Although the Al ash-Sheikh's domination of the religious establishment has diminished in recent decades, they still hold most of the important religious posts in Saudi Arabia, and are closely linked to the Al Saud by a high degree of intermarriage. Because of the Al ash Sheikh's religious-moral authority, the arrangement between the two families remains crucial in maintaining the Saudi royal family's legitimacy to rule the country.
context_section_description: The Al ash-Sheikh are the descendants of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th century founder of the Wahhabi sect which is today dominant in Saudi Arabia. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was born in 1703 in the Nejd. He became influenced by the teachings of Ibn Taymiya, a medieval jurist of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence. As a consequence, he began to preach a simple, puritanical form of Islam that warned against what he believed were religious innovations and critical of the moral laxity he claimed to see in his contemporaries. He attracted support, and his followers became known as Muwahhidun (translated in English as unitarians) because of his emphasis on the oneness of God. Outside Arabia they became known as Wahhabis.
  In the 1740s, he moved to Diriyah in Nejd, where Muhammad ibn Saud, founder of the Al Saud dynasty, was the local ruler. Muhammad ibn Saud decided to support Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's cause, and the combination of the religious zeal inspired by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's teachings and the Al Saud's military and political leadership initiated a period of conquest and expansion. Most of central Arabia and the Hejaz was brought under the Al Saud's rule in what became known as the "First Saudi State". The religious establishment, led by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and his family, benefitted from the expansion in an unprecedented manner, enjoying prestige and influence and sharing the treasury with the Al Saud. After his death in 1791, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's legacy was carried on by his many descendants, who continued to hold positions of religious authority.
caption: The First Saudi State: the product of the alliance between the Al Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab
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