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Wahhabism

One of the antecedents of the contemporary Salafi movement is Wahhabism, an 18th-century reform movement from the Arabia founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, gave his bay'ah (pledge of allegiance to a ruler/commander), to the House of Saud, the rulers of Saudi Arabia, and so have almost all Wahhabi since, (small numbers have become Salafi Jihadist or other dissidents). Obedience to a ruler precluding any political activism (short of an advisor whispering advice to the ruler), there are few Wahhabi Islamists, at least in Saudi Arabia.

Wahhabism and Salafism more or less merged by the 1960s in Saudi Arabia, and together they benefited from $100s of billions in state-sponsored worldwide propagation of conservative Islam financed by Saudi petroleum exports, (a phenomenon often dubbed as Petro-Islam). (This financing has contributed indirectly to the upsurge of Salafi Jihadism.)