The first involved a group of trees that the inhabitants of al-Uyaynah considered sacred and invested with quasi-magical powers. Much to Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's dismay, they would hang various items in the branches of the trees in the hope that they would bring blessings or good luck. For Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, this was a direct violation of the
tawhid principle that blessings could come only from God. He took direct action to stamp out this example of popular religious belief: he and his followers cut down the grove of sacred trees, with Ibn Abd al-Wahhab himself taking the ax to the most venerated tree of all.
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's second well-publicized move in al-Uyaynah took aim not at popular superstition but at an icon of Islam itself: a monument built over the tomb of Zayd ibn al-Khattab, an early associate of the Prophet Muhammad himself. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and his followers destroyed the monument because it violated a central tenet of the
hadith stating that Muhammad had commanded the destruction of such shrines, because they tended to promote worship of human beings rather than the unitary divine. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was worried about the strength of the local population's attachment to the monument and asked ibn Muammar for a guard of six hundred men as he destroyed it.
The third event at al-Uyaynah involved a woman who had confessed to Ibn Abd al-Wahhab that she had committed adultery. After she repeated the act several times, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab ordered that she be stoned to death. In that instance he followed the advice of the local
ulama or Islamic scholars, but in many other instances he came into conflict with these figures,who feared a threat to their own power bases.
These actions gained the attention of Sulaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Ghurayr of the tribe of Bani Khalid, the chief of Al-Hasa and Qatif, who held substantial influence in Najd. Ibn Ghurayr threatened Ibn Mu'ammar with denying him the ability to collect a land tax for some properties that Ibn Mu'ammar owned in Al-Hasa if he did not kill or drive away Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab. Ibn Muammar made the fateful decision to have Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab arrested and brought to the main square. There, Ibn Abd-Al-Wahhab was publicly accused of 'blasphemy' and 'causing offense to those of true faith'. After the charges were read out, Wahhab was quickly beheaded by Ibn Mu'ammar himself, to the widespread praise of the witnessing public. Whatever movement he was trying to found died with him
Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab's head was then sent to Ibn Ghurayr as proof that he had been killed