ABSTRACT
Wahhabism as the name of a modern Islamic reform movement in Arabia is shunned by the participants in the movement, who consider it a term coined by their enemies to suggest that they are a new sect outside the pale of orthodox Islam. They hold that their movement is al-dacwah ila al tauhid (‘the call to the doctrine of the Oneness of God’), a return to the original principles of Islam and a repudiation of all innovations contrary to the practices of the Prophet Muhammad and the early generations of pious Muslims. The name Wahhabism is, however, so common in the West that it is used here for the sake of convenience without any implica tion of heresy. The Wahhabite state did not officially adopt the name Saudi Arabia
until 1932, but, as this paper will show, a state that was both Wahhabite and Saudi existed, with brief interruptions, from 1744 on.
