Some Reflections on the Wahhâbiya and the Sanûsiya Movements

Abstract

The Muslim World witnessed the appearance of several intellectual and religious movements emanated from different Islamic territories in the 18th and 19th centuries. A number of social, political and religious causes motivated the occurrence of these multifaceted movements. Decline of the Ottoman Empire and diminishing authority of the Caliph, growing political and cultural influence of Western powers throughout the Muslim World, moral laxity and supersitious accretions prevalent among believers for long, rising wave of nationalist trends to establish regional and nation-states, all of these aforementioned factors and some others inspired new ideas and orientations that occurred in the Muslim World. Among them the Wahhâbiya is of considerable importance as it has long-lasting influence on the other revivalist and puritanist movements.