Al ash-Sheikh
| Current region | Saudi Arabia |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | Najd, Arabia |
| Members | |
| Connected families | House of Saud |
| Distinctions | Saudi Arabia's leading religious family |
| Name origin and meaning | Family of the Sheikh |
The Al ash-Sheikh (Arabic: آل الشيخ, ʾĀl aš-Šayḫ), also transliterated in a number of other ways, including Al ash-Shaykh, Al ash-Shaikh, Al al-Shaykh, or Al-Shaykh is Saudi Arabia's leading religious family. They are the descendants of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th-century founder of the Wahhabi sect of Islam which is today dominant in Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, the family is second in prestige only to the Saudi royal family, the Al Saud, with whom they formed a power-sharing arrangement nearly 300 years ago. The arrangement, which persists to this day, is based on the Al Saud maintaining the Al ash-Sheikh's authority in religious matters and the Al ash-Sheikh supporting the Al Saud's political authority.
Although the Al ash-Sheikh's domination of the religious establishment has diminished in recent decades, they still hold most of the important religious posts in Saudi Arabia, and are closely linked to the Al Saud by a high degree of intermarriage. Because of the Al ash Sheikh's religious-moral authority, the arrangement between the two families remains crucial in maintaining the Saudi royal family's legitimacy to rule the country.
The Arabic name Al ash-Sheikh (آل الشيخ) (which is transliterated in a number of ways) translates into English as family of the Sheikh or House of the Sheikh. The word Al, in conjunction with the name of an ancestor, means family of or House of. The term ash-Sheikh refers to the Islamic religious reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the family's ancestor. He was known as the Sheikh, a term of respect for a noted elder, teacher or religious leader.
The Al ash-Sheikh are the descendants of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th century founder of the Wahhabi sect which is today dominant in Saudi Arabia. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was born in 1703 in the Nejd. He became influenced by the teachings of Ibn Taymiya, a medieval jurist of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence. As a consequence, he began to preach a simple, puritanical form of Islam that warned against what he believed were religious innovations and critical of the moral laxity he claimed to see in his contemporaries. He attracted support, and his followers became known as Muwahhidun (translated in English as unitarians) because of his emphasis on the oneness of God and his belief that all non Wahhabi's (such as Sunnis and Shias) were polytheists. Outside Arabia they became known as Wahhabis.
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