~ 1 ~ WAHHABISM INTRODUCTION This essay is about Wahhabism. I will explain what Wahhabism is and history of Wahhabism. On the other hand, when I explain Wehhabism, I have to talk about Slafism. Because as a rule, all Wahhabis are Salafists, but not all Salafists are Wahhabis. While Wahhabism and Salafism share some same theological and ideological doctrines, they are very different. Wahhabism is puritanical form of Sunni Islam and is practiced in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, although it is much less rigidly enforced in the latter. The word “Wahhabi” comes from name of Muslim scholar, Mohammed Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who lived in the Arabian Peninsula during the eighteenth century. Today, the term “Wahhabism” is broadly applied outside of the Arabian Peninsula 1 . On the other hand Salafism is a very diversified and complicated ideologically and religiously motivated trend and is thus not constructed by one unified discourse or group or authority. 1 For more on Islam, see CRS Report RS21432, Islam: A Primer