It should be clear from the start that this is not a book about Wahhabism. It is about how Western scholars and intellectuals since 9/11 have constructed representations of Wahhabism, and done so while remaining profoundly influenced by their own ideological, religious and political concerns. There is nothing in it to be learned about the ideas of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and those who, since the nineteenth century, have claimed to work in his tradition. There is a great deal about the sociology of knowledge, the influence of intellectuals, in particular two groupings (the Liberals and the Neo-conservatives) and their relationships with government and society.

The book begins by reviewing some of the scholarship on Wahhabism, addresses problems of translation, and the way in which the author considers scholars have constructed ‘Imagined communities’ and ‘Imagined geographies’. He goes on to explore the role of intellectuals in society, the claims they make in representing Wahhabism and “the key role prejudice plays in in influencing how we make sense of the social world”. Then, after setting out the main theories which have influenced him in making sense of liberal and neo-conservative representations of Wahhabism, he analyses, first, the representations of Wahhabism by liberal intellectuals and the metaphors and themes that have influenced them, and, second, goes through the same process for the neo-conservative intellectuals. He concludes by considering the significance of his findings for those involved in policy-making in general and the development of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict in particular.

The book is based for the most part on US scholarship and the public pronouncements of US intellectuals. For the author's particular purpose this may be enough. But the problem he is tackling is not entirely new. From the beginning of the nineteenth century the British in India and their subjects were engaged in constructing ideas of Wahhabis and Wahhabism. Indeed, Wahhabi was a term which the British came to use rather sloppily to describe a ‘puritan’ and activist Muslim reformer. Indians also use the term in a similar loose fashion. Altaf Husain Hali described the religious views of Saiyid Ahmad Khan before the Mutiny Uprising as being those of a ‘Wahhabi’. This said, lengthening the chronological span of the study would, in all probability, have undermined its tightly organised argument.

The scholarship is not entirely secure. Davis unfairly depicts the work of Natana DeLong-Bas saying that “she fails to understand that Wahhabism in the twenty-first century is not an exact replica of how is appeared in eighteenth-century Arabia” (p. 42). But DeLong-Bas attempts no such thing. Her work Wahhabi Islam (2004) concentrates on how different the ideas of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab were from those who interpreted him after his death. In his text Davis refers to Abd al-Wahhab (pp. 8, 9) when he means ibn Abd al-Wahhab. We are informed (p. 132) that the Protestant Reformation in Europe took place in the eighteenth century.