Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab Born

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was born in the town of Uyayna in Najd, in central Arabia, around 1703 CE (1115 AH). He studied religious sciences in Arabia and in other cities such as Basra and Medina. He called for a return to what he saw as the purer practice of Islam, and he opposed practices such as shrine visits that he considered idolatrous. The movement that formed around him became known as Wahhabism, a term its followers did not use.