[4] DeLong-Bas has expressed the view that there is too much negativity towards Wahhabism in the West, and in her writings has argued that Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was "not the godfather of contemporary terrorist movements", but "a voice of reform, reflecting mainstream eighteenth-century Islamic thought.
"[6] In a 2006 interview published on the London-based Arabic international newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, DeLong-Bas was quoted[7] as stating that she did "...not find any evidence that would make me agree that Osama bin Laden was behind the Attack on the Twin Towers".
[9] Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad has been praised as a "monumental work ... lucid and carefully documented",[10] "often fascinating", and presenting "a nuanced discussion of Wahhab's Quranic interpretation",[8] but also criticized as a "piece of scholarly trash"[11] and of "markedly inferior quality",[12] and guilty of "special pleading".
"[10]), Sara Powell in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs ("...a well-regarded, logically constructed, and considered --if perhaps somewhat sympathetic--analysis of Abd al-Wahhab's beliefs"[14]), History magazine ("a ground-breaking study ... both controversial and informative").
"[11] Michael Sells, professor at the University of Chicago, wrote that DeLong-Bas never challenges the propriety of Abd al-Wahhab's claim to authority to distinguish believers from unbelievers and to impose the most severe sanctions on those he disagrees with.