The dominance of Ḥanbalism in Najd goes some way in explaining the rise of Wahhābism in the eighteenth century, given that the Ḥanbalī tradition preserved the ideas and writings of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim. However, many of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s early opponents, as will be seen, were themselves devout Ḥanbalīs, and they contested his use of these fourteenth-century Ḥanbalī authorities.
