Also 9 Wuhabee, Wahaby, -hebbi. [a. Ar. Wahhābī, f. Wahhāb (see below).] A follower of Abd-el-Wahhab, a Mohammedan reformer (1691–1787) whose sect flourishes in central Arabia.
1807. E. S. Waring, Tour to Sheeraz, 119. One or other of these persons was the founder of the religion of the Wuhabees, and the name inclines me to believe Ubdool Wuhab.
1810. Naval Chron., XXIV. 374. The Wahebbis, as we shall, consequently, style the Nedjedis.
a. 1817. Burckhardt, Trav. Arabia (1829), I. 25. During the predominance of the Wahabis, Djidda has been in a declining state. Ibid., 354. The Wahabys.
1817. C. Mills, Hist. Muhammedanism, vii. 375. The tenets of the Wahabees became established all over the peninsula of Arabia.
1865. W. G. Palgrave, Journ. Arabia, II. 3. Himself a bitter Wahhabee, and a model of all the orthodox vices of his sect.
1881. W. S. Blunt, in Lady A. Blunt’s Pilgr. to Nejd, II. 257. Abdallah … was acknowledged, without opposition, chief of the Wahhabis.
b. attrib. and adj.
1807. E. S. Waring, Tour to Sheeraz, 119. I have formerly taken notice of the Wuhabee Arabs.
1865. W. G. Palgrave, Journ. Arabia, I. 445. These differences give Wahhabee worship a peculiar type.
1881. W. S. Blunt, in Lady A. Blunt’s Pilgr. to Nejd, II. 254. Southern Nejd alone seems to have been fanatically Wahhabi.
Hence Wahabiism, -beeism, -bism, Wahabite [see -ISM, -ITE].
1810. Naval Chron., XXIV. 298. The attempts of the Wahebites to reduce their theory to practice. Ibid., 376. The Wahebite clan.
1826. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), III. 383. Wahabeeism is Arabia marshalled against Turkish domination.
1865. W. G. Palgrave, Journ. Arabia, I. 194. If ordinary Islam proved too strait-laced for Arabia, Wahhabeeism is of necessity even more so.
1881. W. S. Blunt, in Lady A. Blunt’s Pilgr. to Nejd, II. 251. The rise and decline of Wahhabism in Arabia.
1884. Encycl. Brit., XVII. 773/2. The rise of the Wahhábite power. Ibid. ‘Oneiza sided with the Wahhábites.
1901. Skrine, Sir W. W. Hunter, xi. 198. In the darkest days of Wahabiism.
