Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia: A FRAYED SYMBIOSIS

By Dr Adil Rasheed

Like Siamese twins, Wahhabism and the Saudi state have been together for nearly three centuries. Their combined strength and shared destiny have given them longevity and resilience. However, this seamless compatibility hides an inner restiveness with the two often looking away from each other, even dragging their kin into directions without prior consent. This inherent tension between Wahhabi dogmatism and Saudi political pragmatism bedevils the relationship to this day. This paper seeks to explore the complex past of this religious-political marriage that continues to shape Muslim and world history and charts a highly fraught and unpredictable future ahead.

Before examining the case study, it might be useful to first survey the regions of the Arabian Peninsula, from where the two forces emerged. Najd, which means ‘plateau’, covers the north-central area of present day Saudi Arabia.[1] It is the place of origin for both Wahhabism and the first Saudi state that came into existence in mid-18th century.

Along the peninsula’s west coast lie Hejaz (which nestles the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina) and Asir (bordering Yemen). The Eastern Province (traditionally known as Hasa) extends from Najd to the Persian Gulf, which currently has a substantial Shiite population and is rich in petroleum reserves. The vast Rub al-Khali desert dominates the kingdom’s south-central stretch. Some of these historical areas have now been reconstituted to come under 13 Regions of the Kingdom.[2]

1.     The First Wahhabi-Saudi State of Diriyah (1744-1818)

In the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire exercised a degree of suzerainty over Hejaz and Hasa, but had no formal presence in Najd.[3] As the region did not produce enough agricultural surplus or livestock, it was not an attractive proposition for extending control to Najd either for the Ottomans, the Hejazi Shareefs or the Banu Khalid rulers of Hasa. Therefore, the towns and oases of this region were ruled by their own amirs, who exercised a great degree of independence. In fact, its small merchants travelled to Basra and even India to supplement their meagre resources.

In Najd, a landholding merchant clan of Al-Saud founded the settlement of Diriyah[4], with Muhammad ibn Al-Saud becoming its local ruler in 1727. It is believed that the nascent Saudi leadership did not have a distinguished tribal pedigree, nor did it have great wealth. Some historians attribute this limitation as a reason for its adoption of the warlike Wahhabi movement, associated with the religious reformer Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab (1703-92), as a means for gaining territory and prestige.

Born in a family of famous theologians, Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab belonged to the Banu Tamim tribe and after his religious education in Madina, Basra and Hasa returned to his place of birth, the Najdi village of Uyayna. Here, ibn Abd Al-Wahhab developed his uncompromising stance against Sufism and Shiite Islam. He started preaching against the prevalence of pre-Islamic customs and rites like sorcery, superstition, solarism and idol worship that had returned to Arabia and called on Muslims to revert to the “original” teachings of Islam.

At that time, Islamic scholarship was preoccupied with settling practical matters of the community and thus put great emphasis on the study of ‘Fiqh’ (Islamic jurisprudence). However, Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab concentrated on reviving Muslim adherence to fundamental articles of faith (Aqaid), particularly Tawhid [5](belief in the existence and worship of only one God). His followers called themselves ‘Muwahhidun’ (Unitarians), but his following was popularly known as Wahhabi.

In spite of being welcomed initially, Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab’s religious activism in Unayana soon became unpopular, particularly after his group levelled the grave of Zayd Ibn Al Khattab (a companion of Prophet Muhammad) that was venerated by the people, cut down trees that were held sacred and held the stoning of a woman for committing adultery.[6][7] Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab’s actions antagonized the people of Uyaynah and its chief had to expel him from the village. It is now that Muhammad bin Saud, invited Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab to Diriyah and granted him protection. It is now that a historic pact was sealed between the two sides in 1744. It is reported:

“Muhammad ibn Saud greeted Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab and said, ‘This is your oasis, do not fear your enemies. By the name of God, if all Najd was summoned to throw you out, we will never agree to expel you.’ Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab replied, ‘You are the settlement’s chief and wise man. I want you to grant me an oath that you will perform jihad against the unbelievers. In return you will be imam, leader of the Muslim community and I will be leader in religious matters.’”[8]

This symbiotic pact[9] and power sharing agreement has remained in place for over 270 years[10]. While Wahhabism thrived under the political protection of the Saudi rulers, its emphasis on jihad provided the ideological impetus to launch the conquest of Arabia.[11] In fact the families of Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab have intermarried many times over the years and in today's Saudi Arabia, the minister of Islamic Affairs is always a descendent of Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, popularly known as from Al Ash-Sheikh family.[12]

Following this alliance, Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab issued the decree of jihad against adjoining tribes, whose religious practices of making pilgrimages to tombs he regarded as sacrilegious. The jihadi raids based on the doctrine of ‘Takfir’ became more successful under the reign of Muhammad ibn Saud’s son, Abd Al-Aziz (1765-1803). Thus, under the guise of spreading the message of Wahhabism, Saudi leadership was able to subjugate most of the chieftains in Najd. Thereafter Saudi forces moved eastward into Hasa and terminated the rule of Banu Khalid. The capture of Qatif in 1780 opened the road to the coast of the Persian Gulf and Oman. Qatar accepted the suzernity of the Saudi in 1797 and Bahrain followed suit and paid ‘zakat’ to Diriyah.

Saudi forces then expanded to the west, and in spite of strong resistance from the Sharif of Mecca, Saud ibn Abd Al- Aziz (1803-14) temporarily held sway over Taif in 1802, Mecca in 1803 and Madina in 1804. Their raid of Taif was particularly violent, where they massacred the male population and took the women and children as slaves.[13]

The Wahhabi religious leaders ordered the destruction of the domed tombs of the Prophet and of his companions, in accordance with their belief of not building monuments on graves.[14] Saudis also marched into Asir, where local leaders embraced Wahhabism, but their ingress into Yemen was unsuccessful. But the most brutal of their attacks was on the Shiite holy city of Karbala in 1802.

There, according to a Wahhabi chronicler Uthman bin Abdallah bin Bishr, the marauding forces, “scaled the walls, entered the city ... and killed the majority of its people in the markets and in their homes. They destroyed the dome placed over the grave of Imam Hussein (the revered grandson of the Prophet) whatever they found inside the dome and its surroundings ... including emeralds, rubies, and other jewels ... different types of property, weapons, clothing, carpets, gold, silver, precious copies of the Quran.”[15] The sacking and plundering of Karbala resulted in the revenge killing of Saudi ruler Abd Al-Aziz in 1803 by a Shiite in a mosque in Diriyah.[16]

When the Ottoman Empire responded to the Saudi-Wahhabi challenge by sending troops of the Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali into the Arabian Peninsula in 1811 many tribal confederations switched sides to the foreign troops. After freeing the region of Hejaz, the son of Muhammad Aziz (Ibrahim Pasha) invaded Najd and ravaged the capital city of Diriyah and massacred several Wahhabi religious scholars. The Saudis surrendered on 11 September 1818 and the then Saudi ruler Abdallah was taken prisoner, taken to Istanbul and beheaded. Thus ended the first Saudi-Wahhabi empire run from Diriyah.[17]

Following the obliteration of the first Saudi state, a second and much smaller Saudi state (Emirate of Najd) gradually emerged and lasted from 1819-1891. As it limited itself to the area of Najd, it did not draw subsequent wrath of Ottoman and Egyptian forces and was protected by the region’s remoteness, paucity of natural resources and poor communication and transportation.

However in 1891, the Rashidi rulers of Jabal Shammar successfully ended the second Saudi state in the Battle of Mulayda and forced the House of Saud led by Abd Al-Rahman bin Faysal to Kuwait.

2.     The Wahhabi Doctrine and Opposition Within Islam

The Wahhabi movement, which associates itself with Sunni Islam, was founded by Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab but most of its doctrinal beliefs are derived from the teachings of the controversial theologian Taqiuddin Ibn Taimiyyah (1263-1328). Its primary emphasis is on the Islamic article of faith known as ‘Tawhid’ (the oneness of God) and is strongly opposed to ‘Shirk’ (the veneration or worship of anything other than one God i.e. Allah). Wahhabism is different in some points of theology from other Sunni schools, such as its zealous tendency toward ‘Takfir’ (the practice of excommunication, one Muslim declaring another co-religionist as kafir).

In fact, Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism) believed that Muslims who disagreed with his extreme explanation of monotheism were not only mistaken, but were not Muslims at all. Like Ibn Taimiyyah, he called for an armed jihad and slaughter of Muslims who did not follow his definition of ‘Tawhid’ to the letter and committed sins on account of their hypocritical beliefs. This put his teachings at odds with other Muslim theologians who believed that the profession of faith (‘There is no god but God, Muhammad is his messenger’) would deem a person a Muslim, and that shortcomings in someone’s behavior or in the observance of mandatory rites made them ‘a sinner’, but ‘not an unbeliever’.[18] Thus, the Shiite were considered outside the pale of Islam by Ibn Abd Al- Wahhab because he believed the Shiite belief of the ‘infallibility of the Imams’ constituted ‘Shirk’. In his book ‘Kitab Al-Tawhid’,[19] Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab regarded the Shiite the arch-enemies of Islam and the Jews and Christians (accorded the status of ‘People of the Book’ in Islam) as infidels and devil worshippers.[20]

Wahhabism is also opposed to Sufi schools of mysticism and its practices. Ibn Abd Al- Wahhab opposed ‘Tawassul’ (prayer though intercession as practised by Sufis) on the basis that a plaintiff should call out directly to God in supplication and should not use any intermediary (living or dead saint or a prophet) as that is tantamount to associating partners with the divine, which is shirk (the unpardonable sin of apostasy, punishable by death). In this way, Wahhabism became the mortal enemy of Sufism as well.

In addition, Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab rejected the doctrine of ‘Taqlid’ in Sunni jurisprudence, which means compliance to any of the four juristic schools of Sunni Islam (Hanafi, Shafa’i, Malaki and Hanbali). Instead, he called on his followers to revert to the Quran (Islam’s holy book), Hadith (speeches and conduct of the Prophet) and the actions of the first three generations of Muslims (the Salaf)[21] when using ‘ijtihad’ (independent reasoning).[22] Notwithstanding this claim, Wahhabism remains closely affiliated to the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam in juristic matters.[23]

In theology, Wahhabism is said to be closely linked to the Athari (traditionalist school) of Sunni Islam, as it emphasizes on the zahir (apparent or the literal) meaning of the Islamic texts as opposed to their rational or spiritual interpretation made by the Ashari and Maturidi theology (as exemplified by Hanafi Muslims, including the Deobandis and Barelvis that constitute the majority Sunni community in the Indian subcontinent).

Wahhabism also espouses the radical concept of ‘al wala wal al bara’[24] (which signifies staunch loyalty to everything Islamic and complete dissociation with the un-Islamic). In accordance with this concept, Abd Al-Wahhab made it “imperative for Muslims not to befriend, ally themselves with, or imitate non-Muslims or heretical Muslims”, and that this “enmity and hostility of Muslims toward non-Muslims and heretical had to be visible and unequivocal”[25].

At the time of its emergence, large majority of the Muslim world viewed Wahhabism to be a deviant sect, with beliefs similar to Kharajite puritans who assassinated Caliph Ali. Even the name ‘Wahhabi’ was given by its detractors, to discredit its Islamic credentials and to associate it solely with the ravings of its ‘misguided’ founder. It is for this reason that Wahhabis initially used to call themselves ‘ahl al-tawhid’ and ‘al-muwahiddun’, but are today called ‘Salafis’ with an ultra-conservative outlook.[26] It is ironic that the early critics of Muhammad Ibn Abd Al- Wahhab’s teachings were Abd Al-Wahhab (his father) who was a judge and Salman ibn Abd Al-Wahhab (his own brother), who was an Islamic scholar in his own right and wrote a book censuring his brother’s teachings.[27] Another early criticism came from the renegade Wahhabi scholar Ibn Jarjis, who in his book Sulh Al-Ikhwan (Brethren’s Truce)[28] summarily denounced Wahabbi beliefs.

Over the centuries, Wahhabism has been denounced for its extreme and radical views and for its alleged non-Islamic beliefs. Many Islamic theologians have found its doctrines similar to those of old heretical movements in Islam like the Mujassimah (Anthropomorphism – which is the belief that God has a body and is similar to humans), and the outlawed takfiri sect of the ‘Khawarij’ (that introduced the concept of takfir and thus justified the assassination of Caliph Ali). From Ibn Taimiyyah to Abdal-Aziz Abdallah bin Baz, Wahhabi theologians have been criticized by several Sunni and Shiite scholars for suggesting that Allah has a ‘jism’ (form), has a ‘hadd’ (limit) and ‘harakah’ (movement)[29], that He is not omnipresent but is distant and resides in the highest heaven.[30] Some Muslim scholars have gone to the extent of applying the well-known ‘Hadith of Najd’[31] to the Wahhabis, which they claim was the Prophet’s warning against their emergence.[32]

The Wahhabi style and manner of jihad has often been criticized for violating the principles of Islamic warfare, conducted by them as a typically savage and tribal raid for gaining territory and lucre than for religious cause.[33] Some have doubted the scholarship of Abd Al-Wahhab pointing out the dearth of his written works and commentary.

The harsh treatment of women, their merciless adjudications and punishment, their support for dynastic rule, their support for imperialist West and at the same time their refusal to accept modern enlightenment has come in for a lot of criticism not only from non-Muslims but many Muslim scholars as well. But the greatest criticism levelled against Wahhabism has been the association of most Sunni militant and terrorist groups with this ideology, including Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Al-Shabab, Ansar Dine and Boko Haram.

3.     The Rise of Ibn Saud and the Victory of Najd and Hejaz (1902-1932)

The son of Abd Al- Rahman bin Faysal was Abd Al-Aziz, popularly known in the Western world as Ibn Saud. One night in January 1902, he scaled the walls of Al-Rashidi city of Riyadh with a contingent of 40 men and took control of that city after killing its governor Ajlan in front of his fortress.[34] This intrepid and successful raid made the charismatic Ibn Saud popular overnight, with many of the former supporters of the House of Saud rallying to his call to arms. For the next two years, Ibn Saud and his forces fought and captured large portion od Najd from the Rashidi rulers. Then on 15 June 1904, Ibn Saud and his forces were dealt a humiliating defeat by the combined Ottoman and Rashidi forces.

However, Ibn Saud and his followers were not disheartened. They regrouped, launched a sustained guerrilla campaign, disrupted enemy supply routes and forced them to retreat. In fact, these asymmetric raids were so successful that by 1912, Ibn Saud had gained much of the territory of Najd and the eastern coast of Arabia.

Ibn Saud with Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy in 1945

It was around this time that the Wahhabi scholars of Ibn Saud started preparing a highly radicalized religious militia known as Ikhwan. The Wahhabi clerics would religiously radicalize young nomad raiders into soldiers for the fledgling Saudi state. In 1913, Ibn Saud conquered the Shiite-dominated Al Hasa from the Ottomans with the help of the Ikhwan, as well as Qatif into the Saudi emirate.

It was also around this time that the British developed diplomatic ties with Ibn Saud. In December 1915, the British entered into a treaty with him (The Treaty of Darin), wherein the territories of the latter became a British protectorate and attempted to define its boundaries.[35] For his part, Ibn Saud vowed to wage war against Ibn Rashid, an ally of the Ottomans. However, the British also started supporting Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca and the leader of Hejaz. In the wake of this duplicitous diplomacy, the First Hashemite-Saudi War or the Al-Khurma dispute occurred in 1918-19. It resulted in the defeat of the Hashemite forces, but British intervention forestalled the instantaneous fall of the Hashemites and established a ceasefire that continued until 1924.[36]

This was followed by the Battle of Hail that sounded the death knell of the Rashidi rulers. In November 1921, the Jebel Shammar fell into the hands of the Saudi juggernaut and incorporated into its growing empire. This conquest was followed by a protracted conflict known as the Second Nejd-Hejaz War (1924-25), which ended successfully for Ibn Saud in December 1925 with the fall of Jeddah. In 1926, the entire territory of Nejd and Hejaz was brought under Saudi rule.

4.     Ikhwan Revolt and Founding of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1926 to 1932)

The Ikhwan (which in Arabic means ‘Brethren’) was a fierce religious militia raised by Ibn Saud’s Wahhabi clerics to rid Arabia of perceived apostasy and misrule, and this armed force became one of the major causes for the success of Ibn Saud’s forces against all its enemies, mainly the Rashidis and the Hejazi forces of the Shareef of Mecca.

The plan of the Wahhabi clergy was to break up the tribes of nomadic raiders (Bedu), settle them around wells and oases on the pretext that nomadic life was inconsistent with Islam, radicalize these nomadic fighters with extreme Wahhabi ideology and groom them into ‘fierce defenders of the faith’.[37] The Ikhwan were driven by the ideal of purifying and unifying the world of Islam, which gave them a higher purpose than the defence of a ruler’s territory that motivated their rival armies. However, this religious idealism soon clashed with the political pragmatism displayed by Ibn Saud once he unified Nejad and Hejaz into his kingdom and sought to consolidate his gains. Not surprisingly, like many of their latter-day antecedents, these Wahhabi jihadists felt disillusioned and abandoned once the plan to ‘purge’ the entire politico-religious landscape was put on hold, which led them to openly revolt against their erstwhile Wahhabi mentors and the ruling Saudi elite.

Soon after the Battle of Ha’il, in which the Ikhwan played a major role in defeating Ibn Saud’s arch-enemy the Rashidi rulers, the militia started acting independent of Ibn Saud’s command and raided Transjordan between 1922 and 1924. For a long time, Ibn Saud avoided confronting the Ikhwan but after the conquest of Hejaz in 1924, he forbade their further raiding. The Ikhwan who were trained to believe that all non-Wahhabis were infidels, did not approve of Ibn Saud’s decision as they saw it against their higher purpose of cleansing the region of apostasy. For his part, Ibn Saud was under pressure from the British as all the territories in Transjordan had treaties with London. Again, the Ikhwan supported forced conversion of the Shiite in Al-Hasa, while Ibn Saud wanted to tolerate Shiite presence in his state. The Ikhwan also called for the strict adherence to Wahhabi rule, while Ibn Saud wanted to reassure the Muslim world that his state was not opposed to other Muslim sects and that the “new Wahhabi regime would not disrupt the (Haj) pilgrimage”.[38]

In 1926, Ikhwan leaders met at Al-Artawiya and accused Ibn Saud “for not upholding the sharp separation of belief and infidelity”. They blamed him for sending his two sons to land of polytheists (Faysal to England and Saud to Egypt), accused him of being lenient toward the Shiites and for bringing scientific inventions to the birthplace of Islam (telegraph, cars and telephone).[39] In 1927, the Ikhwan Revolt began raiding neighbouring Iraq and Kuwait.[40] Relations deteriorated into an open feud in 1928. The final decisive battle took place in March 1929 in the Battle of Sabilla. The Ikhwan who fought with traditional swords and spears could not withstand machine gun fire and modern weaponry provided by the British to Ibn Saud’s forces.[41] After a few unremarkable battles, the rebellion was finally suppressed in 1930, when several Ikhwan rebel leaders surrendered to the British.

In the long and tortuous history of Saudi-Wahhabi relationship, the Ikhwan Revolt is the first episode where Wahhabi idealism directly clashed with the political pragmatism of the Saudi state. Here, it is important to note here that a descendant of the Ikhwan survivors, Juhayman Al Otaybi, led the infamous Grand Mosque seizure of 1979. But in both instances, the will of the Saudi state prevailed over the Wahabbi uprising. Eventually on September 23, 1932, the foundation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was formally proclaimed.[42]

5.     Discovery of Oil and King Faisal's Modernizing Backfires (1932-1975)

Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hasa region (Shiite dominated Eastern Province) in 1936 by the US-owned California Arab Standard Oil company (Casco), the predecessor to Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco). Commercial production began in 1938. In spite of close political and economic ties with Great Britain, Ibn Saud signed the agreement for the production of oil with the US company as the “United States had no history of colonialism in the region”.[43] Soon oil provided the fledgling kingdom with much needed economic and political stability and prosperity, along with substantial political leverage internationally.

During World War II, production of Saudi oil expanded and was supplied mainly to Allied powers. By 1953, the kingdom’s oil revenues increased to over $200 million and the Saudi economy was almost entirely dependent on its petroleum production.[44] Despite this wealth, the government indulged in a lot of wasteful expenditure and had huge budget deficits.[45]

In 1953, Ibn Saud died and his eldest surviving son, Saud bin Abdalaziz Al Saud, ascended as the King of Saudi Arabia. But King Saud’s extravagant ways made him unpopular both among members of the royal family and the religious establishment. King Saud was eventually deposed in favour of his half brother Faisal in 1964.

King Faisal developed a reputation of being a transformative and modernizing figure. He ushered in a welcome shift toward steady modernization of a highly conservative society, fiscal responsibility and educational reforms. He set up the Ministry of Justice, launched the country’s five-year plans for economic development and established the country’s present system of administrative regions. Although personally religious, he decreased the power of the Wahhabi scholars and included non-Wahhabis, particularly cosmopolitan Sunni Hejazis from Mecca and Jeddah into his administration. Even as Prince, he issued a decree for the full abolition of slavery in the country in 1961. He also introduced education for women and girls in spite of opposition by the religious conservatives, although their curriculum was written and monitored by the clergy. In 1963, he established the country’s first television station which started telecasting two years later, after he became king.[46]

Although Saudi Arabia joined the Arab League in 1945, it played little role in the Arab wars in 1948 and 1967. However, Saudi Arabia did play an economic role in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 between Arab states (particularly Egypt and Syria) and Israel. As US was a supporter of Israel, King Faisal took the decision that Saudi Arabia will participate in the oil boycott by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) of Western states namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and even Japan.

As oil prices soared, Saudi revenues increased substantially throughout the 1970s. King Faisal, considered to be the main strategist behind using the ‘oil weapon’ became a highly popular leader in the Arab and Muslim world.[47]

On 25 March 1975, King Faisal was shot dead by the son of his half-brother, Faisal bin Musaid, who had recently returned from the United States. It is a generally-held belief in the Arab world that Western powers conspired the assassination of King Faisal in retaliation of his oil embargo. Another theory is that the plot was hatched by disgruntled religious elements as King Faisal’s assassin was the brother of a religious zealot who was killed by security personnel while trying to attack Saudi television headquarters. Clearly, the gradual marginalization of the radical religious elements and the pace of modernization played a role in the end of King Faisal’s reign.

 6.     The 'Ulema' and the Salafi-Wahhabi Extremist Brew (1932 to 1979)

Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries where religious leaders and jurists still enjoy an overt role in government. From succession to the throne to the approval of any new law or decree, the government needs the validation of the elite Wahhabi ‘ulema’ (the religious scholars). From the oil embargo of 1973 or the invitation to US troops to free Kuwait of Iraqi forces in 1990, the religious elite in the country have had their say in formulating and approving government decision-making. In addition to playing a role in the country’s judicial and educational systems, they are the sole arbiters on all matters religious and moral.[48]

Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab’s progeny known as Al Ash-Sheikh are the pre-eminent religious family in Saudi Arabia, and is next in status only to the royal House of Saud. The several hundred individuals of this family dominate key institutions of the state, particularly the Higher Court of Qadi (judges) and the Senior Council of Ulema.

The influence of Al Ash-Sheikh family has diminished in recent decades, a process initiated in 1969 by King Faisal when he scrapped the office of the Grand Mufti. From the time of the Kingdom’s foundation, the House of Saud desired greater respect for the Kingdom in the larger Muslim world and to this end it had to alter the image of Wahhabism that was known as inimical to other theological schools and sects of Islam. Ibn Saud’s acceptance of pluralist religious Hejaz and Shiite dominated Hasa into the kingdom helped in this process of perception management, along with his keenness to develop the fledgling state with modern hospitals, schools and roads. To build and develop these infrastructure facilities the country brought in qualified educators, bureaucrats and engineers from abroad, whose religious views and practices were not alien to that of its less educated populace. Egypt (then a hotbed of Salafism) became a natural source for such qualified professionals, who were also willing to come to Saudi Arabia to escape their repression in the homeland.

Salafism was born out of an Egyptian reform movement led by Jamal al-Din Afghani, Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida at the turn of the 20th century.[49] Enamoured of modern European enlightenment, it originally began as an intellectual and modernist in orientation. It was opposed to the centuries-old mentality of ‘taqlid’ (unquestioning imitation of precedent), superstition and intellectual stagnation and wanted to revive the religious piety and rigor of the early practitioners of Islam (the first three generations) called the ‘Salaf’, after whom the movement was named. They sought to assert the validity of Islam in modern times, prove its compatibility with reason and science and sought reforms in Islamic law, education and Arabic language.

Although Salafism was originally intellectual and rationalist in orientation, it surprisingly found itself having a lot in common with the dogmatic and fundamentalist Wahhabism.[50] Both movements were Islamic revisionists, opposed to the existing orthodox juristic and Sufi traditions upheld by the Ottoman order. They stressed reinstatement of Islamic doctrines to its pristine form, adherence to the Quran and Sunnah and the rejection of the authority of later interpretations. Over a period of time, the Salafis with a modernist outlook caved in to Wahhabi religious scholars of Saudi Arabia and appropriated the Salafi title for themselves, reducing Salafi outlook to dogmatism.[51] Ironically, it was the modernist Salafi leader Rashid Rida who first called Wahhabis Salafi in creed, and Hanbali in law school, or simply ‘Salafi Sunnis’.[52]

Again, Egyptian Salafi scholars like Abdallah al-Qasimi reagrded Ibn Saud the genius of the twentieth century, “the first Superman, and compared him to Hitler and Mussolini, claiming his accomplishments were greater because they occurred in a backward land immersed in chronic warfare”.[53]

The process of Salafi and Wahhabi assimilation was further fostered by Ibn Saud who employed immigrant Egyptian Salafis to the cause of Wahhabism by writing for the Saudi official newspaper Umm Al Qura, under the supervision of Rashid Rida’s close friend Yusuf Yasin.[54] Ibn Saud also set up an ‘Islamic Sciences’ committee to improve schools, compose schoolbooks on theology and law in accordance with the teachings of the ‘Salaf’ (early Islamic generations). Under the supervision of Salafi scholar Muhammad Nasif, the committee connected Saudi Arabia to Salafi scholars and publishers in Arab countries and South Asia from the 1920s to 1970s.[55] In 1971, a leading member of Al Ash-Sheikh claimed that Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab preferred to call themselves ‘Al-Salafiyyun’.[56]

Thus, the process of Wahhabism shedding its old, much vilified appellation and taking on the Salafi tag had begun by the 1970s. Today, Wahhabis call themselves Salafis and their influence on the Salafi ideology has become so pronounced that Ibn Taimiyyah and Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab are now regarded as the real progenitors of Salafi ideals, while the position of the movement’s modernist founders - Jamal Al-Din Afghani and Muhammad Abduh (both Sunni Asharis) has fallen into virtual abeyance. However, modernist Salafism still has its adherents in the Arab world, particularly within the Muslim Brotherhood, which calls itself to be ‘Salafi’ in the ‘About Us’ section of its website.[57]

In the 1950s and 60s, Egyptians President Gamal Al-Nasser cracked down heavily on Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood socio-political movement founded by Hasan Al-Banna. It was a time when many young Egyptians were getting radicalized by the Islamist/jihadist ideology of Syed Qutb and Muhammad Abd Al-Salam Farraj. Many of these young revolutionaries migrated to Saudi Arabia to escape Nasser’s repression.

It is noteworthy that several important proponents of Qutbism, including Abdullah Azzam, Umar Abd Al-Rahman and Muhammad Qutb, served as educators in the kingdom. In fact, the brother of Syed Qutb is said to have played a major role in writing several texts on ‘Tawhid’ for the Saudi school curriculum.

The failure of Nasser’s pan-Arabism following defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, also known as the Six-Day War, gave opportunity to Saudi Arabia to emerge as the pre-eminent Arab power. Thus, King Faisal sought to replace failed secular pan-Arabism of Nasser with a Salafi-Wahhabi brand of pan-Islamism. In 1962, Saudi Arabia had established the World Muslim Organization in Mecca, which was given great impetus in King Faisal’s reign.[58]

7.     The Grand Mosque Seizure and Reversion to Conservatism (1979-2001)

However, the Saudi administration was not aware that the simmering discontent of religious factions was also opposed to the Kingdom itself. Within Saudi society, the descendants and supporters of the former Ikhwan movement, as well as the new generation of radicalized Salafi neophytes, were apprehensive about the rapid pace of modernization in society triggered by oil boom. “They opposed the growing number of girls attending school, the mushrooming number of television sets, temporal courts, and a banking system that did not adhere to the Islamic legal prohibition against charging interest. The personal extravagance of some young Saudi princes added insult to injury. The authoritarian nature of the Saudi system allowed little outlet for their discontent.”[59] 

The discontent manifested in 1979, when a group of young Salafi insurgents took control of the Grand Mosque of the Kaaba (from November 20 to December 4, 1979) in the city of Mecca, during the annual Haj pilgrimage. The insurgents - led by a charismatic 43 year old militant Juhayman Al Otaybi - claimed that one of their leaders was the mythical Mahdi himself (an end-time Muslim world conqueror in Islamic eschatology), a person by the name of Muhammad Abd Al-lah Al-Qahtani. It took two weeks for Saudi forces to end the siege, which was followed by the execution of Otaybi and his cohorts. The seizure of Islam’s holiest site, the taking of hostages from among the pilgrims, the shooting in the holy precincts, shocked the Muslim world. Some experts call it a seminal event in the evolution of Islamic terrorism.[60]

The seizure of the Grand Mosque challenged the religious legitimacy of the Saudi rule and raised questions about the conservative society’s acceptance of its modernization drive. At that time the Saudi government was headed by King Khaled, but its affairs were run by Crown Prince Fahd, who found that the religious elite sympathized with many of Juhayman’s grievances against the government, such as women’s education, mushrooming of television sets and close relations with the West.

As a consequence, Fahd had to cave in to the demands of the ‘ulema’ on many issues even though they went against the liberalization drive of the government and had to give up most of the reform programmes and measures initiated since the time of King Faisal. To begin with, photographs of women in newspapers were banned, followed by appearance of women on television. Cinemas and music shops were closed. School curriculum was changed to provide even more religious education. Classes on subjects like non-Islamic history were removed from syllabi. Gender segregation was extended in public life, ‘down to the humblest coffee shop’.[61] The power of the dreaded vice squad ‘the mutawween’ to check the religious violations of the citizenry was increased. “In effect, the seizure of the Grand Mosque sent Saudi Arabia into a 30-year time warp that cut it off from the social development trajectory it had been on”. Saudi Arabia became one of the worst police states in the world.

Earlier that year, Saudi Arabia was shaken by a major destabilizing event in the region with the Iranian Revolution that chased the Shah and brought in the rule of the Shiite clerics, under Ayatollah Khomeini. Suddenly, Saudi Arabia was contending with a rival Islamic revolutionary movement, which was against dynastic rule and which had emboldened the repressed Shiite population in the Arab world. An unprecedented civil unrest ensued in the country’s Qatif and Al-Hasa regions (Eastern Province) that year, which has a majority Shiite population.[62]

Therefore, the time had come for Saudi Arabia to unleash its Wahhabi revolutionary juggernaut to counter the growing Iranian ideological and political threat in the Arab world and beyond. The third highly significant event of the year 1979 was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The embattled Saudi government immediately got the opportunity to refurbish its religious credentials and to find a legitimate theatre for releasing the Wahhabi virulence simmering within. Thus, “the struggle for Afghanistan gave young, religious Saudis—graduates of the kingdom's new religious universities—an opportunity to defend Islam. A few hundred travelled to Afghanistan to join Muslim guerrilla fighters, the mujahideen. The United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan assisted them financially and logistically”[63].

In Afghanistan, many Saudi mujahideen like the young Osama bin Laden (founder of the dreaded Al-Qaeda) became followers of Abd Al-lah Azzam. A Palestinian who fled to Jordan after the Six-Day war, Azzam obtained an Islamic law degree from Cairo’s famous Al-Azhar University, was member of Muslim Brotherhood, and in 1981 joined the faculty of King Abd al-Aziz University in Jeddah. He later travelled to the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier to organize the anti-Soviet jihad.

Often referred to as the ‘father of Global Jihad’, Azzam contended that it was the personal duty (fard al-‘ayn) of Muslims to defend Islamic lands against the penetration of the infidels. Several Saudi ulema endorsed his ideas. He also claimed to have the endorsement of the highly respected Sheikh ‘Abd Al-Aziz bin Baz, head of the Council for Senior Ulema, the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia. It is curious that Juhayman Al-Otaybi, who led the seizure of the grand Mosque of 1979, was also a student of bin Baz. Azzam died in a 1989 explosion in Peshawar, along with his two sons, the year of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.[64] The Saudi ‘mujahideen’, including Osama bin Laden, returned home after being successful in their decade-long Afghanistan campaign.

But in August 1990, they were confronted with a bigger internal battle. On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and Riyadh invited the US military to protect the kingdom from Saddam’s advancing forces. The disaffected conservatives, who had always resented Western cultural influence on Saudi society and were apprehensive of it being a precursor to Western military re-conquest of the Middle East, were alarmed by the Saudi government’s decision. At the instance of King Fahd, the Council of Senior Ulema issued an edict legitimizing the presence of American troops in the country.

This incensed religious Saudi youth and a movement led by ‘Al-Sahwa Al-Islamiyya’ or simply the ‘Sahwa’ (which means the Awakening) against the government decision spread in mosques and college campuses. Inspired by the ideals of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Sahwa is a peaceful political reform movement in Saudi Arabia, which was led at that time by two academicians, viz. Salman Al-Awda and Safar Al-Hawali.

In the wake of these protests, a few teachers at King Saud university in Riyadh set up a human rights committee (the Committee for the Defense of the Legitimate Rights, CDLR). All of them were fired and some of them fled to exile in London where they launched a campaign to overthrow the House of Saud. Osama Bin Laden identified with Hawali and Awda's ideas that opposed the deployment of US troops in Saudi Arabia. In April 1994, after Bin Laden had associated himself with the CDLR, the Saudi Interior Ministry stripped him of his citizenship. Then in 1996, the Sudanese government under pressure from Riyadh expelled him from the country, where he was staying in exile. Bin Laden now found shelter in Afghanistan, protected by the Taliban, from where he built up his global terror network – Al-Qaeda.

In June that year, he claimed responsibility for conducting explosions in Dhahran, which killed 19 US servicemen, justifying them as a response to the Saudi alliance with the Zionist crusade.[65] On account of his violent, global jihad, Bin Laden was soon banished from even mainstream Saudi opposition. Shortly after the September 11 attacks, both Hawali and Awda denounced Bin Laden and called on Saudi youngsters not to follow his path.[66]

8.     The House of Saud and new opposition groups (2001-16)

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. The Quran and the ‘Sunnah’ (the speeches and actions of the Prophet) are declared to be the country’s constitution. There are no political parties and national elections are not permitted. The ruling family, the House of Saud or Al-Saud, has thousands of members. The most influential member of this family is the King of Saudi Arabia, who is currently King Salman bin Abd Al-Aiz Al Saud. The House of Saud is composed of the members of Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the emirate of Diriya and his brothers. However, the ruling faction of the family is primarily led by the descendants of Ibn Saud, the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the third Saudi state. By some estimates, the House of Saud has 15,000 members and are now too deeply entrenched for any coup to depose them. They are said to have taken control of various key institutions of the kingdom. However, a more reasonable estimate suggests that the majority of power and wealth is in the hands of only about 2,000 members of the family.[67]\

Although political parties do not exist in the Kingdom, several Islamist groups, separatist Shiite organizations, constitutional reform advocates, liberal academicians and radical terrorist groups operate as opposition forces in the country. The predominant Sunni Islamist movement in the Kingdom is constituted by the Sahwa.[68] The Sahwa movement began in the 1970s when the ideology of Muslim Brotherhood inspired many Saudi youth. “The Sahwa also encompassed several semi-clandestine organized groups, known as jama‘at. The two main ones were known as the Sururis (al-sururiyyun), named after the alleged inspirer of the group, the Syrian Sheikh Muhammad Surur Zayn al-‘Abidin, and the Saudi Muslim Brotherhood (al-ikhwan al-muslimun al-sa‘udiyyun) – although the latter group was never, it seems, formally affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide”.[69]

 As mentioned earlier, Sahwa members were believers in conducting peaceful political protests. They became the mainstay of the strong protest movement against the royal family (known as the Sahwa intifada) over its decision to invite US forces during the Gulf War of 1991. The regime cracked down on protesters in 1994-95, arresting hundreds of Sahwa members including Salman Al-Awda, Safar Al-Hawali and Nasir Al-Umar. However, most of these leaders were released by 1999. Thereafter, some Sahwa members kept a low profile, while others closely associated with the regime.

 But Sahwa’s political activism was rekindled after the Arab Spring of 2011. Most of its leaders did not accept the narrative of the regime and official religious establishment that the demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt were ‘planned and organized by the enemies of the Umma (Muslim world)’ in order to ‘strike the Umma and destroy its religion, values and morals’.[70] Its leaders enthusiastically responded to the call of greater political freedom and democracy, particularly Salman Al Awda whose television show on MBC ‘Life is a Word’ (al-haya al-kalima) was consequently scrapped. The movement was more revved up about supporting the Syrian uprising, but the momentum ebbed once global jihadi groups, like Jabhatul Nusra and the Islamic State or Daesh entered the fray, whose ideology is incompatible with Sahwa’s. However, the Sahwa leaders denounced the 2011 uprising in Bahrain and supported the brutal suppression of the protests by Saudi-Arabia led GCC forces. International experts have attributed this double standard of the Saudi Sahwa leaders to their deeply entrenched sectarian hatred of the Shiite community.

 In recent years, the rise of a constitutional reform movement in Saudi Arabia has brought together individuals of Islamist and liberal orientation on a common platform. The best example of this is the kingdom’s first fully independent human rights NGO called the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (SCPRA), which was established by 11 political activists. A prominent Saudi human rights activist is Walid Abu Al-Khayr, who founded his own Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia in December 2008.[71] He is also recipient of the 2012 Olof Palme Prize for Human Rights.[72]

 The godfather of this Constitutional Reformist Movement is said to be Abdallah al-Hamid who has written several books that provide religious justification for a democratic state. In recent years, Muhammad Al Ahmari has become another important Saudi activist who has written about the compatibility of Islam and democracy.

 Since mid-2000s, a new group of radical Islamic youth has also emerged in Saudi Arabia. They are known as the ‘muhtasibun’, or proponents of the principle of ‘hisba’. In 1926, Ibn Saud had set up a ‘committee for commanding right and forbidding wrong’ that is now known as the Saudi religious police. But this new group seems to have appropriated the Salafi duty of hisba[73] (commanding right and forbidding wrong) unto themselves. Some experts link them to Al-Jama‘a al-Salafiyya al-Muhtasiba, the group that stormed the Grand Mosque of Mecca in 1979.

Interestingly, there is also a small but growing presence of liberals in the Kingdom, with leaders like Turki Al-Hamad and Abdallah Hamid Al-Din coming into prominence during the infamous Hamza Kashgari controversy (young Saudi poet jailed without trial for two years for posting allegedly blasphemous remarks on Twitter).[74] The roughly 20 million Shiite natives, 10-15 percent of the population, are mainly centred in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom. Their noteworthy political groups that claim to be resisting longstanding Wahhabi oppression are Munazzamat Al Thawra Al-Islamiya and Hezbollah Al-Hejaz[75]. There is also about 100,000 Ismaili Shiite population living in southern Najran region bordering Yemen.

9.     Vision 2030: A Departure from Wahhabism?

The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings that fanned the fires of popular unrest against authoritarian states across the Middle East in 2011 left behind a bevy of weak, failing and failed states and whipped up a perfect storm of radical religious extremism and sectarian tensions in the region. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states feel vulnerable as their wider Arab neighbourhood descends into greater political chaos and confusion. After Saudi Arabia’s key security provider, the United States entered into an agreement with the Shiite theocratic regime of Iran to limit its nuclear program in lieu of ending economic sanctions, the Kingdom feels betrayed over not being consulted by the US during the course of the negotiations. It is also upset with the Obama administration for not putting enough pressure on Iran to reduce its destabilizing activities in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, the GCC states and other conflict zones in the area.[76] The threat posed by the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and even non-jihadi revolutionary elements like the Muslim Brotherhood to the security and stability of Saudi Arabia is also on the increase and has made the Kingdom highly restive and desperate in finding effective solutions to an escalating crisis.

Saudi government officials have been speaking of building new security architecture for the GCC states and the country has suddenly started flexing its military muscle in the region like never before. The kingdom led an international intervention in Yemen to put down the Houthi insurrection that deposed the elected government in the country in 2015. Saudi Arabia has accused of financially and militarily supporting the Houthi rebel forces, as they belong to the Zaydi-Shiite sect. The Saudi-led intervention has not succeeded in eliminating the Houthi threat and reinstating the deposed government yet.[77]

On 15 December 2015, Saudi Arabia’s young deputy crown prince and defense minister Mohammed bin Salman, announced the creation of the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT), which is a coalition of 34 states meant to face-off the festering sore of the so-called Islamic State.[78] Most experts believe that this Sunni front is directed to face off the Iranian military threat as much as its stated aim of warding off the advance of the Islamic State’s forces on the northern front. Saudi Arabia has increased its sectarian diatribe against Iran in recent times. On 2 January 2016, the Kingdom executed renowned Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr for sedition that escalated sectarian hostilities across the region. Later, Saudi Arabia severed ties with Iran and expelled its diplomats from the kingdom. In the summer of 2017, the country imposed a diplomatic and trade boycott of fellow Wahhabi-ruled state of Qatar along with three other Arab states - the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt- over charges of promoting Islamist terrorism.

Amidst this pervasive sense of insecurity, the 30-year young deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman has unveiled an economic plan to cure the Kingdom’s dependence on oil revenue by 2030. According to this bold and new Vision 2030 are measures like the floating of a small stake in Aramco, now the world’s biggest oil company; the creation of the world’s largest sovereign-wealth fund to invest in a diverse range of assets; more jobs for women and more vibrant non-oil industries, ranging from mining to military hardware. Critics of this plan for a post-oil future complain that it is too ambitious to come true given the fact that the country is still heavily reliant on oil as over 90 percent of its revenues come from this non-renewable resource and as the country’s budget deficit is expected to soar to 13.5 percent of GDP this year, given the slump in oil prices.[80]

In order to bring about a major economic turnaround, Saudi Arabia is today rapidly distancing itself from its Wahhabi origins. In an interview to the US publication The Atlantic, the Crown Prince even denied the kingdom's Wahhabi roots by claiming that the state respects the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence that Wahhabi ideologues do not recognize. Meanwhile, women have at long last been allowed to drive in the kingdom, cinema halls are opening and many Western pop concerts are being hosted. This departure from Wahhabi ideals is an attempt to bring in trade, investment, foreign visitors for a post-oil Saudi economy . The age-old resistance by the religious establishment to Westernization of society that has always impeded the social, economic and political progress of the state has so far tolerated the decisions - but for how long?

In the end, the inherent dichotomy between the rabid fundamentalism of Wahhabi ideology and the pragmatic demands of modern governance faced by the Saudi Kingdom is likely to surface. Although there appears no apparent sign or likelihood of a major upheaval in the near future, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on heightened alert both against the groundswell of internal public disaffection as much as from the external threats (of Salafi-Wahhabi Islamic State and Shiite Iran) in the immediate neighbourhood, like never before. The 270-odd years of Wahhabi-Saudi love-hate relationship is clearly fraying at the edges and may suddenly burst at the seams.

This essay is published in the IDSA-DPG book 'West Asia in Transition Vol II' (Edited by Amb. Sanjay Singh), 2018, Pentagon Press, and is available on Amazon.

[1] Wynbrandt, James( 2010). A Brief History of Saudi Arabia, Checkmark Books

[2] Ibid

[3] Al-Rasheed, Madawi (2002) A History of Saudi Arabia, Cambridge University Press

[4] Fattah, Hala (1997). The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf, 1745-1900, Albany

[5] Muhammad Ibn Abdal Wahhab, Kitab Al-Tawhid, Darussalam Publishers and Distributors, Saudi Arabia

[6] Lacy, Robert. The Kingdom: Arabia & the House of Sa`ud ?.

[7] DeLong-Bas 2004: 24

[8] Abu Hakima, 1967, Al Rasheed Madawi ‘A History of Saudi Arabia’

[9] Parker T. Hart, 1998, Saudi Arabia and the United States: Birth of a Security Partnership, Indiana University Press, Page 7

[10] Commins, David (2009). The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia. I.B.Tauris. p. 18. In 1744, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab arrived in al-Dir'iyya .... This was the origin of the pact between religious mission and political power that has endured for more than two and half centuries, a pact that has survived traumatic defeats and episodes of complete collapse.

[11] Sebastian Maisel; John A. Shoup (February 2009). Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab States Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Arab States. Greenwood 

[12] Ibrahim, Youssef Michel (August 11, 2002). "The Mideast Threat That's Hard to Define". cfr.org (The Washington Post). Retrieved 21 August 2014.

[13] Commins, David (2009). The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia. I.B.Tauris

[14] Al Rasheed Madawi ‘A History of Saudi Arabia’

[15] Khatab, Sayed. Understanding Islamic Fundamentalism: The Theological and Ideological Basis of Al-Qa'ida's Political Tactics. Oxford University Press.

[16] Al-Rasheed, Madawi (2010). A History of Saudi Arabia

[17] Bowen, Wayne H. (2007). The History of Saudi Arabia. ISBN 978-0-313-34012-3.

 

[18] Commins, David (2009). The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia. I.B.Tauris.

[19] Algar, Hamid (2002). Wahhabism: A Critical Essay. Oneonta, NY: Islamic Publications International

[20] Jan-Erik Lane; Hamadi Redissi; Riyā? ?aydāwī (2009). Religion and Politics: Islam and Muslim Civilization (illustrated ed.). Ashgate Publishing

[21] DeLong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam, 2004

[22] Mortimer, Edward, Faith and Power: The Politics of Islam, Vintage Books, 1982

[23] Glasse, Cyril, The New Encyclopedia of Islam Altamira, 2001

[24] Saeed al-Qahtani, Muhammad. Al-Wala’ Wa’l-Bara’ According to the ‘Aqeedah of the Salaf, Part 2 (PDF).

[25] Abou El Fadl, Khaled (2005). The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists. Harper San Francisco.

[26] Commins, David (2015). ‘From Wahhabi to Salafi’, In Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change, edited by Bernard Haykel, Thomas Hegghammer, and Stéphane Lacroix, 151-66. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

[27] Kingdom without borders: Saudi political, religious and media frontiers. Retrieved 2012-09-17.

[28] Al-Fahad H. Abd Al-aziz (2004): From Exclusivism to Accommodation: Doctrinal and Legal Evolution of Wahhabism, New York University Law Review, Volume 79 (Number 2) https://www.nyulawreview.org/sites/default/files/pdf/NYULawReview-79-2-Al-Fahad.pdf

[29] Keller, Nun Ma Mim (1994), Keller, Nuh. “Who or what is a Salafi? Is their approach valid?” https://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/nuh/salafi.htm

[30] Ekinci, Ekram Burga, Wahhabism: Pure Islam or Extremism, Daily Sabah, February 13, 2015 , https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2015/02/13/wahhabism-pure-islam-or-extremism

[31] Sahih al-Bukhari 7094, Book 92 Afflictions and the End of the World, Hadith 45: The Prophet (?) said, "O Allah! Bestow Your blessings on our Sham! O Allah! Bestow Your blessings on our Yemen." The People said, "And also on our Najd." He said, "O Allah! Bestow Your blessings on our Sham (north)! O Allah! Bestow Your blessings on our Yemen." The people said, "O Allah's Apostle! And also on our Najd." I think the third time the Prophet (?) said, "There (in Najd) is the place of earthquakes and afflictions and from there comes out the side of the horn of Satan."

[32] Valentine, Simon Ross (2014), Force and Fanaticism: Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and Beyond, Oxford University Press

[33] Kepel, Gilles (2004). The War for Muslim Minds. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

[34] Ochsenwald, William (2004). The Middle East: A History. McGraw Hill. p. 697. ISBN 0-07-244233-6

[35] Wilkinson, John C. (1993). Arabia's Frontiers: the Story of Britain's Boundary Drawing in the Desert.

[36] Mikaberidze, Alexander (ed.). (2011). Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-336-1.

[37] Commins, David (2009). The Mission and Saudi Arabia. I.B.Tauris

[38] Ibid

[39] Ibid

[40] Ikhwan Revolt, Polynational War Memorial, https://www.war-memorial.net/Ikhwan-Revolt-3.295

[41] Great Britain, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia: The Revolt of the Ikhwan, 1927-1930, Daniel Silverfarb, The International History Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 (May, 1982)

[42] Ibid

[43] A Brief History of Saudi Arabia

[44] Ochsenwald, William (2004). The Middle East, A History. McGraw Hill. p. 700.ISBN 0-07-244233-6.

[45] Al-Rasheed, Madawi (2002) A History of Saudi Arabia, Cambridge University Press

[46] Bruce Riedel (2011). "Brezhnev in the Hejaz" (PDF). The National Interest.

[47] Hertog, Steffen (2010). Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia. Ithaca: Cornell UP

[48] Fouad Farsy (1992). Modernity and Tradition: the Saudi Equation. p. 29.ISBN 978-1-874132-03-5.

[49] Oxford Islamic Studies Online, https://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2072

[50] Commins, David (2015). ‘From Wahhabi to Salafi’, In Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change, edited by Bernard Haykel, Thomas Hegghammer, and Stéphane Lacroix, 151-66. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015

[51] Algar, Hamid (2002). Wahhabism: A Critical Essay. Oneonta, NY: Islamic Publications International

[52] Commins, David (2015). ‘From Wahhabi to Salafi’

[53] Ibid

[54] Joseph Kostiner (1993), The Making of Saudi Arabia, 1916-1936, New York: Oxford University Press.

[55] Commins, David (2015). ‘From Wahhabi to Salafi’

[56] Hasan ibn 'Abdallah Al al-Shaikh, "al-Wahhabiyya wa zaimuha al-Imam Muhammad ibn

'Abd al-Wahhab," al- 'Arabi (Kuwait) no. 147 (Feb. 1971), 26, 29.

[57] ikhwanonline.net Archived 29 November 2014 at theWayback Machine

[58] Al-Rasheed, Madawi (2002) A History of Saudi Arabia, Cambridge University Press

[59] Shavit, Uriya (Fall 2006). Al-Qaeda’s Saudi Origins, The Middle East Quarterly https://www.meforum.org/999/al-qaedas-saudi-origins

[60] Pierre, Tristam. 1979 Seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca: The Attack and the Siege That Inspired Osama bin Laden, Terrorism: Myths and Reality, Middle East Issues about.com https://middleeast.about.com/od/terrorism/a/me081120b.htm

 

[61] Burgess, John. What effect did the Grand Mosque seizure have on Saudi Arabia, Quora.com, https://www.quora.com/What-effect-did-the-Grand-Mosque-seizure-have-on-Saudi-Arabia

[62] Jones, Toby Craig (2006). "Rebellion on the Saudi Periphery: Modernity, Marginalization, and the Shia Uprising of 1979". International Journal of Middle East Studies(Cambridge University Press)

[63] Shavit, Uriya (Fall 2006). Al-Qaeda’s Saudi Origins, The Middle East Quarterly https://www.meforum.org/999/al-qaedas-saudi-origins

[64] Ibid

[65] Teitelbaum, Joshua (2000) . Holier than Thou: Saudi Arabia's Islamic Opposition, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

[66] Ibid

[67] Cahal, Milmo (3 January 2012). "The Acton princess leading the fight for Saudi freedom". The Independent.

[68] Lacroix, Stephane (May 2014). Saudi Islamists and the Arab Spring, Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States, Number 36

[69] ibid

[70] Mufti al-mamlaka: al-muzaharat khitat li-tafkik al-umma, alwatan.com

https://www.alwatan.com.sa/local/news_detail.aspx?articleid=40472&categoryid=5

[71] Lacroix, Stephane (May 2014). Saudi Islamists and the Arab Spring, Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States, Number 36

[72] Ibid

[73] Cook, M., 2001. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

[74] "Death penalty fear for Tweeter facing forcible return to Saudi Arabia from Malaysia". Amnesty International. 2012-02-10

[75] Jones, Toby (3 June 2009). "Embattled in Arabia. Shi‘is and the Politics of Confrontation in Saudi Arabia" (PDF). Combating Terrorism Center at West Point

[76] Hess, Bill (20 April 2016). “Will Iran and Saudi Arabia Ever Get Along?”. Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/2016/04/20/will-saudi-arabia-and-iran-ever-get-along/

[77] Law, Bill (17 March 2016). "Yemen war rapidly becoming as messy and complicated as the conflict in Syria". The Independent. 

[78] Payne, Ed. and Abdelaziz, Salma (Dec.22, 2015). Muslim Nations form Coalition to Fight Terror, Call Islamic Extremism ‘Disease’, CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/14/middleeast/islamic-coalition-isis-saudi-arabia/index.html

[79] Pollock, David (2014). ISIS has Almost no Popular Support in Egypt, The Washington Institute

[80] Saudi Arabia’s post-oil future (30 April 2016), The Economist. https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21697673-bold-promises-bold-young-prince-they-will-be-hard-keep-saudi-arabias

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