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Wahhabism

King Fahd of Saudia Arabia (AP PHOTO)

This fundamentalist form of Islam was founded in Saudi Arabia in the 18th century by Mohammad Ibn Abdul-Wahhab and the ruling Saudi dynasty, which felt that the local practice of Islam needed to return to its original purity. An offshoot of the Sunni Hanbali legal school, it is based on a literal translation of the Koran and rejects mysticism in any form.

	Understanding Islam
• Sunni Islam • Wahhabism • Deobandism • Shi'ite Islam • What is jihad? • What is a fatwa? • Related sites • Introduction

Saudi Arabia today remains the heartland of Wahhabi Islam. Its adherents include the current Saudi royal family. The Saudi religious establishment requires strict segregation of the sexes and bans women from driving.

Osama bin Laden represents a militant extremist form of Wahhabism. A native of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden first went to Afghanistan as a young man to help in the fight against the Soviet invasion.