of Hearts by Declaring the Construction over Graves Unlawful. Both treatises have been printed and are readily available.
In that pitch-black climate Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb arose, bearing sound creed and a straight-forward call. Some scholars of Najd who lived in his time described the state of affairs before his mission appeared. They wrote:
“From Muḥammad ibn Ghayhab and Muḥammad ibn ʿĪdān to ʿAbd Allāh al-Muwaiys: The purpose of this letter is to inform you of our religion before this Shaykh of this century1 began calling the people to Allah, advising them, commanding and forbidding them. Through him Allah caused the suns of revelation to rise, manifested the religion, and scattered the people of falsehood—chieftains, soothsayers, and bribe-takers. He stands as a stranger among the scholars of this age: he is concerned with one affair while they are busy with another.
Allah raised for him the banner of jihad, so he hastened to it. He commanded and forbade, summoned to Allah, and gave sincere counsel. He kept the covenant when they had broken it, rolled up his sleeves in earnest when they had let them hang loose, and clung to the revealed Book when they had cast it aside; so they branded him an innovator and declared him an unbeliever.
Our religion, before this renewing Shaykh, had been reduced to nothing but a claim and a name, and we fell into shirk (polytheism): we slaughtered animals for the devils, invoked the righteous, visited fortune-tellers, and made no distinction between the allies of the Most Merciful and the allies of Satan; nor between the monotheism of lordship, which the pagan Arabs themselves affirmed, and the monotheism of worship to which the messengers called. We did not distinguish sunnah from innovation: we would gather on the night of mid-Shaʿbān for its baseless prayer that has no authority from Allah, while neglecting the obligatory prayer. Before the middle prayer—the ʿasr prayer—we would busy ourselves with idle chatter until its preferred time had passed and only the time of necessity remained. This, and countless other innovations, our scholars never forbade us; rather, they approved of them and practiced them with us.”