The Wahhābī view The Wahhabi sect maintains that repairing graves, constructing buildings and domes on them, and plastering them is prohibited. They also label such acts, polytheism and blasphemy. Moreover they hold that, destroying the graves, the domes on top of graves and buildings situated around them, is obligatory. The following are examples of their rulings: 1. San’ānī states: “The hall of audience (haram) is the same as an idol. This is because the quburīyun[1] carry out the same acts that the people during the Age of Ignorance (Jahilliyah period) carried out for their idols. They (quburīyun) carry out these acts for places they have named grave or the mashhad[2] of a walī[3]. In any case they are the same acts that the people of the Age of Ignorance used to carry out but with a different name. However, it does not stop becoming an idol if the term changes!”[4] 2. Ibn Qayyim (Ibn Taymiyyah’s student) asserts: “Buildings on graves are taken to be idols and are worshipped. Destroying them is obligatory. In addition, if one has the power to destroy them, then allowing them to stay in the same form - for even one day - is not permissible. ...

Visiting the Prophet’s (s) grave In the book, al-Jawhar al-Munddam, Qastalānī[1] and Ibn Hajar state that: “Ibn Taymiyyah forbids visiting the Prophet’s (s) grave, and further declares that whether one is travelling or not, Zīyārah (visiting) of the Messenger’s grave is prohibited.” Thus, if visiting the Prophet’s (s) grave is prohibited, then, a fortiori, so is visiting any other grave. Ibn Taymiyyah assumes that the prohibition of travelling for the sole reason of visiting the Prophet’s (s) grave is unanimously prohibited and prayers are not shortened on such a trip. Rejection of Ibn Taymiyyah’s views Zīyārah is lawful due to four reasons: The Qur’ān: God, glory be to His Greatness, states the following in the holy Qur’ān: “…And if, when they had wronged themselves, they had but come unto thee and asked forgiveness of Allah, and asked forgiveness of the messenger, they would have found Allah Forgiving, Merciful.”[2] Whether one’s aim is to ask for forgiveness or any other reason, Zīyārah is a way of being present beside the deceased. When the excellence of such an act is proven during the life of the Prophet (s) then it is also established after his passing. This is because the holy Messenger (s) lives in barzakh and can hear the Salams of his visitor and is aware of his acts. ...

Anas M. Alahmed argues that the Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia created in 2016 was meant to introduce a “new Saudi” to the Western outsider audience and that the “new Saudi” state is on a mission to transform the country from a traditional and conservative kingdom to a new state dedicated to social modernization and openness. Alahmed contends that globalization and the neoliberalism capitalist mode of politics have reinforced the transformation of cultural production into global entertainment production. Therefore, the author shows how the entertainment sector relies heavily on reproducing the Western culture of entertainment production and depends on Western businesses to bring entertainment into the country instead of investing in local entertainment businesses, which forces the state to adopt neoliberal capitalism. The author provides evidence on how the new modernity of Saudi Arabia has become a political tool through which neoliberal capitalists can create positive relationships with Western capitals as part of the postcolonial struggle of neoliberalism in the Global South. Alahmed argues that there is a connection between the role of geopolitical power in globalization and postcolonial studies that explains the struggles of indigenous cultures related to providing their own production to society.

Before 9/11, few Westerners had heard of Wahhabism. Today, it is a household word. Frequently mentioned in association with Osama bin Laden, Wahhabism is portrayed by the media and public officials as an intolerant, puritanical, militant interpretation of Islam that calls for the wholesale destruction of the West in a jihad of global proportions. In the first study ever undertaken of the writings of Wahhabism's founder, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1702-1791), Natana DeLong-Bas shatters these stereotypes and misconceptions. Her reading of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's works produces a revisionist thesis: Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was not the godfather of contemporary terrorist movements. Rather, he was a voice of reform, reflecting mainstream 18th-century Islamic thought. His vision of Islamic society was based upon a monotheism in which Muslims, Christians and Jews were to enjoy peaceful co-existence and cooperative commercial and treaty relations. Eschewing medieval interpretations of the Quran and hadith (sayings and deeds of the prophet Muhammad), Ibn Abd al-Wahhab called for direct, historically contextualized interpretation of scripture by both women and men. His understanding of theology and Islamic law was rooted in Quranic values, rather than literal interpretations. A strong proponent of women's rights, he called for a balance of rights between women and men both within marriage and in access to education and public space. In the most comprehensive study of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's interpretation of jihad ever written, DeLong-Bas details a vision in which jihad is strictly limited to the self-defense of the Muslim community against military aggression. Contemporary extremists like Osama bin Laden do not have their origins in Wahhabism, she shows. The hallmark jihadi focus on a cult of martyrdom, the strict division of the world into two necessarily opposing spheres, the wholescale destruction of both civilian life and property, and the call for global jihad are entirely absent from Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's writings. Instead, the militant stance of contemporary jihadism lies in adherence to the writings of the medieval scholar, Ibn Taymiyya, and the 20th century Egyptian radical, Sayyid Qutb. This pathbreaking book fills an enormous gap in the literature about Wahhabism by returning to the original writings of its founder. Bound to be controversial, it will be impossible to ignore.

Some Islamic scholars hold that Salafism is an innovative and rationalist effort at Islamic reform that emerged in the late nineteenth century but gradually disappeared in the mid twentieth. Others argue Salafism is an anti-innovative and antirationalist movement of Islamic purism that dates back to the medieval period yet persists today. Though they contradict each other, both narratives are considered authoritative, making it hard for outsiders to grasp the history of the ideology and its core beliefs. Introducing a third, empirically based genealogy, The Making of Salafism understands the concept as a recent phenomenon projected back onto the past, and it sees its purist evolution as a direct result of decolonization. Henri Lauzière builds his history on the transnational networks of Taqi al-Din al-Hilali (1894–1987), a Moroccan Salafi who, with his associates, participated in the development of Salafism as both a term and a movement. Traveling from Rabat to Mecca, from Calcutta to Berlin, al-Hilali interacted with high-profile Salafi scholars and activists who eventually abandoned Islamic modernism in favor of a more purist approach to Islam. Today, Salafis tend to claim a monopoly on religious truth and freely confront other Muslims on theological and legal issues. Lauzière's pathbreaking history recognizes the social forces behind this purist turn, uncovering the popular origins of what has become a global phenomenon.