Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad

non-fiction by Natana DeLong-Bas

Blurb

Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad, is a book by academic Natana J. DeLong-Bas, published in 2004 by Oxford University Press. It is based "on a close study of the 14 volumes" of collected works of Wahhabism's founder, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and has been called "the first extensive explication of the theology" of Wahhabism. The book "reveals", "a more moderate, sophisticated, and nuanced" interpretation of Islam than the "standard image" of Wahhabism.
It is divided into sections: a brief religious biography and history of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, theology, Islamic law, women and Wahhabism, jihad and the evolution of Wahhabism.
The work has been praised as a “monumental work ... lucid and carefully documented", "often fascinating", and presenting "a nuanced discussion of Wahhab's Quranic interpretation", but also criticized as a "piece of scholarly trash" and of “markedly inferior quality", and guilty of "special pleading".

First Published

2004

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