The Life of Imam Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab: Between Truth and Distortion

Question:
I would like to clarify some observations for your eminence regarding the biography of the Shaykh, the Islamic reformer and renewer, Shaykh Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (may Allah have mercy on him). First, we all read in historical books and all school curricula that the Shaykh did not leave the Arabian Peninsula except once, when he went to Basra and Zubair and then returned. However, we were surprised when we read the literature book for the third year of secondary school, pages 33 to 34, which states that the Shaykh went to Baghdad and spent three years as the imam of one of its mosques. After that, he went to the land of Khorasan and spent a year there teaching and learning. Then he went to Aleppo and spent six months studying there. After that, he went to Damascus and spent a year there. Then he went to Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) and spent two months there. Then he went to Cairo and spent two years at al-Azhar Mosque. After that, he returned to the Arabian Peninsula. What is the purpose of this? It is fabrication. It is a lie about the biography of this reformer, who has been dead for only about two hundred years. If this statement were true, why was it not applied in all curricula? And if the statement is not true, where did they get this book or this information from?

Answer:
It should be examined. It is well known that he (may Allah have mercy on him) did not leave except for Iraq only. He wanted to go to the Levant, but it did not work out for him, and he ran out of funds, so he returned to his country. As for the claim that he reached Baghdad, Egypt, the Levant, or Aleppo, this is not known to the scholars of knowledge or to his family who knew him well. He only left for Iraq, specifically Basra, where he studied from some of its scholars, called people to Allah there, and spread tawhid (the oneness of Allah) there. He was persecuted, so he returned.