Wahábis, a puritanical sect of Moslems, whose political influence, widely felt over the Mohammedan world, centred from the beginning in Nejd (see ARABIA, Vol. I. p. 364). The founder's aim was to restore primitive Mohammedanism. He disapproved the superstitious veneration of Mohammed, denounced magnificence in mosques, ceremonies, or personal attire, the use of spirituous drinks or tobacco, usury, card-playing, &c., and insisted on sexual purity, almsgiving, daily prayer, &c. After the break-up of the Wahábi power by Mehmet Ali and Ibrahim Pasha the survivors fled into the central deserts of Arabia, whence they have occasionally since emerged in threatening force. Thus in 1828 they made war (unsuccessfully) with the Porte, and in 1863 extended their domain again to the Persian Gulf. Now they are confined to the neighbourhood of El Riád. There are a considerable number of Wahábis in India, though they hesitate to describe themselves as such to the authorities, having been always fanatical enemies of British influence, and repeatedly (as in 1863-64) guilty of treasonable intrigues. Patna is their main centre in India. They hold themselves aloof both from Shiites and Sunnites, though in faith they are substantially Sunnites.
See Corancez, Histoire des Wahabys (1810); Burkhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys (1834); the travels in Arabia of Palgrave, Doughty, Pelly, &c.; and Sir W. W. Hunter, Our Indian Musalmans (1871).