The Wahhābī Legacy in Southeastern Arabia

The Wahhābī movement, which arose in central Arabia in the mid-eighteenth century, upended the religious, political, and social order in the Peninsula with consequences reaching to the present day. The Wahhābīs redefined Islam on the axis of exclusive worship of Allāh (monolatry), privileged this consideration over 'monotheism' as a propositional attitude, and on this basis launched a war on the popular cult of saints, declaring its practitioners non-Muslims to be treated as enemies.

The Wahhābī legacy beyond the movement's heartland in Najd has received comparatively little attention and existing studies focus more on Saudi political influence than on ground-level conversion and religious life. This study will examine a particularly neglected topic: the extent and nature of Wahhābī adherence in southeastern Arabia, outside the scope of direct Saudi rule, with a particular focus on Sharjah, Ras al Khaimah, and Jaʿlān (Oman) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Preliminary evidence indicates a pattern of Wahhābī adherence and practice in certain communities, and some influence in the wider region, that remained relatively independent of Saudi political fortunes.

Wahhābism in southeastern Arabia is unusual in that it fell outside the scope of direct Saudi rule, whereas early Wahhābīs tended to conflate religious faith and allegiance to the Āl Saʿūd and frowned upon residence in non-Saudi domains. Initial evidence suggests that Wahhābism in the region tended to be comparatively accommodationist, a development in orientation and doctrine that took root in the Wahhābī heartland only at a later date. The research aims to clarify the nature of Wahhābī faith and practice in the region under study, to identify unique regional characteristics, and to examine how they are related to discrete sociohistorical factors such as the multiconfessional landscape in southeastern Arabia and cosmopolitan influence on coastal trading communities.

The study intends to enrich our understanding of Wahhābī history on the whole as part of an emerging trend in the field that complements the earlier focus on Saudi and Wahhābī leadership in the movement's heartland with attention to regional variation, additional actors, and the intersection of religious orientation, tribal affiliation, and political and economic context. In addition, the study is expected to shed light on aspects of the history of the United Arab Emirates, and the emirates of Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah in particular.