From the time of Muhammad bin Saud, Ibn Saud's family had followed the pure form of Islam first promulgated by Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab. The religious laws were the province of the Ulema, the religious authorities, who exerted a powerful influence throughout Ibn Saud's domain, but the nomadic life style of the bedouin often made it difficult for the Ulema to ensure the provision of religious instruction and the enforcement of religious precepts.
The first Ikhwan settlement was founded at Artawiya. Artawiya, 160 miles north west of Riyadh and within the land of the Mutair tribe, was the site of wells used by caravans travelling between the Nejd and Kuwait. Ibn Saud provided the money to build a mosque and to improve irrigation to the surrounding pasture land. The bedouin did not always find the change from a nomadic existence to farming an easy one but, within ten years, sixty other Ikhwan settlements had been founded, and Ibn Saud had a powerbase that could furnish him, at a moment's notice, with an army to meet any contingency.
By establishing Ikhwan settlements, Ibn Saud fulfilled a number of objectives. First, these settlements provided a real opportunity for the Ulema to teach and enforce their puritanical form of Islam. Secondly, they gave the settlers a vested interest in a strong, central government which could guarantee the protection of their communities and their farms. Thirdly, with the revival of the form of Islam which the House of Saud had always championed, it provided a ready and stable source of manpower on which Ibn Saud could draw for his army.
The founding of the Ikhwan settlements was a key to Ibn Saud's success in unifying Arabia.