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A Break With The Past: Sidelining the Al al-Shaykh?

battle lines formed?

A traditional interpretation of Islamic law has been a crucial element in the Saudi worldview ever since an itinerant preacher named Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792) formed an alliance with the Amir of Dir'iyah, Muhammad bin Saud, in the middle of the 18th century. Abd al-Wahhab adhered to an extreme version of the Hanbali school, railing against the idol worship and pagan rituals that were a feature of life in the Arabian desert at the time. Having failed to build a following, however, he eventually found himself under bin Saud's protection in the little Najd town, where the Amir was likewise having no success in his ambition to expand his humble realm. The two struck a bargain - the family of Abd al-Wahhab (the Al al-Shaykh) would thereafter guarantee religious legitimacy to the amirate.

In his TV interview, MbS painted a picture of a modern society, dragged into religious fundamentalism by the convulsive events of the 1970s. "We are returning to what we were before, a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world," he said. In this view, the Kingdom's turn towards ultraconservatism came with the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the shock of that year's Grand Mosque seizure in Makkah. Indeed, the response to the crisis was to roll back the modernization initiatives of King Faisal and empower the clerical establishment, now emboldened with immense authority to enforce a strict religious code with the dreaded Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (hay'ah). But this makes light of the extent to which the original pact with the so-called "Wahhabi" preachers has given rise to a parallel state, at times (notably after 1979) seeming to wield as much power as the secular rulers.

Decades of Saudi-financed religious proselytizing are still felt throughout the world. King Fahd's reign saw more than $75 billion go towards efforts to spread the Wahhabi version of Islam, with 200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques, and 2,000 schools being funded. It therefore comes as a shock to hear MbS say, "when we commit ourselves to follow a certain school or scholar, this means we are deifying human beings, closing their minds to interpretation and jurisprudence." This is a stunning shift, an admission that moderation is lacking in the interpretation of Islam that the Saudi state has followed. He quotes a hadith - "beware of exaggeration (extremism) in religion, for those who came before you were ruined by exaggeration in religion." This is a frontal assault on the primacy of the original pact with the Al al-Shaykh, one that hits directly at the foundations.

The extent of the al-Shaykh family's power had already been gradually and cautiously limited, such as when the late King Abdallah issued a decree in 2010 that only state-vetted scholars were allowed to issue fatwas. Later, more drastic measures were taken, as when in April 2016, the hay'ah was stripped of arresting powers which curbed its policing functions. In December 2016, King Salman appointed more moderate clerics to the Council of Senior Scholars, the highest religious body in the country. As a sign of the changing times, MbS told CBS in 2018 that women would no longer compelled by law to wear the hijab or niqab ("the decision is entirely left for women to decide what type of decent and respectful attire she chooses to wear") and the Riyadh High Court in 2018 waived the requirement for women to wear full veil. Little by little the clerics have seen their power chipped away.

In order to break with what MbS calls "excessive religion", the authority of the clerical establishment must be curtailed. MbS has charged headlong into battle, knowing this will tear apart the pact made 250 years ago in the Dar'iyah village. Will this rupture allow for the transition to modernity the Kingdom so desperately needs, or will discontent simmer below the surface, and a new threat emerge?

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