All inhabitants of Arabia, both sedentary and nomads, believe in one, personal, invisible and omnipresent Allah. Among nomads, and camel keepers in particular, this belief is reminiscent in terms of its rituals of the religion of the Old Testament Patriarchs. They have no holy sites, objects or mediators between man and Allah, neither do they have fixed prayers. They are Muslims only by name; in fact, they pay little attention to Islamic prescriptions. Meanwhile, the sedentary people, who dwell in various settlements, do have their own holy places, such as holy trees, rocks and springs, at which they perform prayers. They venerate the dead as their patrons and build gravestones for them, of varying size. The sedentary people are all reliant on the good will of the Nomads, because only with their permission can they leave their settlements to make trade journeys or other trips from one oasis to another, or to populated regions. No wonder that it seems to many a thoughtful town dweller that the Nomads’ one Allah is more powerful than all the sedentary peoples’ patrons put together, and that the Nomads’ rituals are more effective. This reasoning usually results in an effort to erase the religious extremes thriving in the oasis, and to make religious life simpler and more profound, in the manner of the Nomads. There has hardly been a single century, in which such a tendency did not appear.

The practice of Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhaab was truly completely consistent with the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad … however averse the people may be to that fact. One can say with certainty that neither the Prophet … nor any of his Companions ever built a mosque, mausoleum, tomb or structure over any grave.