U.J. Seetzen's Observations on Wahhabism

Seetzen’s name is not typically included on the list of Europeans who first introduced the West to the religious movement known as Wahhabism and the political developments associated with it in the Middle East. However, an analysis of his diaries and correspondence reveals him to be a keen observer, capable of correcting his preconceived notions while still on his travels through the region. Though he initially subscribed to the hypothesis put forth by Niebuhr and Volney that the Wahhabis were a sect of armed deists, Seetzen eventually became convinced that they were a faction of Muslims hostile to forms of worship that they considered superstitious and attributed to other Muslim groups. Seetzen’s premature death, leading to the loss of his Arabic diaries, has likely deprived us of a wealth of rich first-hand observations that could have easily competed with the accounts of the French consuls Rousseau, Corancez, and Mengin, as well as the Catalan Badía y Leblich, the English Brydges, and especially the Swiss Burckhardt: none of whom, it should be noted, visited Najd firsthand.