Fedor Y. Matveev

The article focuses on the main features of the socio-political life of the Emirate of Diriyah in the period preceding the emergence of the First Saudi State. The basis of the study is formed by a number of recently published Najdi chronicles of the 17th and 18th centuries. The new scientific material made it possible to reconstruct the mentioned historical period and analyze it comprehensively. The results of the study show that by the time the First Saudi State was founded in 1744, Diriyah was only a small agricultural settlement in Southern Najd. Its political and economic influence was undermined both by difficult natural conditions and constant political upheavals.

The article focuses on the main features of the spiritual life of Central Arabia in the first half of the 18th century including non-Islamic cults widely spread in Najd during the period before the rise of the first Wahhabi state. The study is based on works of the founder of Wahhabism Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) including his personal correspondence and public messages as well as the historical works of early Wahhabi scholars. Its study became the basis for the reconstruction of the religious situation in this part of the Arabian Peninsula and its comprehensive analysis allows to conclude that pagan cults represented by different variations of fetishism were one of the main components of the spiritual life of these agricultural regions. In addition to that its significance was comparable to the traditional and deviant forms of Islam.

The article focuses on the analysis of the impact of the Wahhabi movement on the emergence of the First Saudi State in the 1740s. Special attention is paid to the investigation of the distinctive features of the Wahhabi doctrine and the socio-political transformation of the Emirate of Diriyah under its direct influence. The study is based on the chronicles of the early Wahhabi theologians and historians — Hussein ibn Ghannam (d. 1811) and Usman ibn Bishr (d. 1871/72), as well as the anonymous work “The Shine of the Meteor in the Life of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab”. The treatises of the founder of Wahhabism Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) serve as a source of information about the early ideology of the movement. A comprehensive study of the listed sources makes it possible to reconstruct the social and political processes in Najd of the mentioned period, and also to draw a conclusion about the leading role of the Wahhabi doctrine in the emergence of Saudi statehood and the absence of other socio-political factors in this process.