Moderation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

233 Pages·2012·1.33 MB·English

Moderation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:
An Analysis of ‘Pragmatist’ and ‘Puritanical’ Discourses

Submitted by Eid Al Yahya to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Politics in December 2011.

This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material
and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper
acknowledgement.

I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and
that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree
by this or any other University.

Eid Al Yahya
30/11/2011
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ABSTRACT
This dissertation investigates the rise of moderation in the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia. The investigation consists of analysis of two trends of thought which
reformulate the ideas and projects of an earlier generation of dissidence. These trends,
which have adopted a clearly more ‘accommodationist’ discourse towards difference of
opinion, peaceful coexistence, political competition, equality, pluralism, and gender
inclusiveness, have adapted themselves to a new context of social revolution.
This social revolution has resulted from the expansion of links with the outside
world, and this has been deepened through the process of ‘reintellectualisation’. This
term used by scholars of Muslim politics such as Dale Eickelman is used in the
dissertation to contextualise the rise of discourses of moderation. In particular, this
reintellectualisation relates to two processes, which are gradually changing the culture
in the direction of more public debate, participation and acceptance of values of
dialogue and diversity in general. The first is the media revolution which increased the
flow of information and the other is the massification of university education abroad.
These two combined factors contribute to a quasi-cultural shift in Saudi society. This
dynamic is not acknowledged by Orientalist scholarship that treats the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia as incompatible with change.
The key objective of the dissertation is to analyse the discourses of moderation
of two prominent trends of thought, which are called here ‘pragmatists’ (not liberals)
and ‘puritanical’ (not conservative). It is through this investigation that the key values
they both associate with moderation become clear. The investigation uses discourse
analysis of primary data both spoken and written. These two combined sources disclose
a number of preliminary observations. The pragmatist trend is not fully secular and is
still influenced by the politico-religious identity of the Kingdom. Its discourse of
moderation relies on Western values and concepts but these values and concepts are not
in any way anti-Islamic. The puritanical trend puts the politico-religious tradition into
sharper focus, showing attachment to the agenda of da’wa and the normative framework
of Islam’s socio-moral order. However, this trend shows signs of moderation that is no
longer concerned with issues of jihad, and is venturing into areas of political reform
having to do with just government, equal citizenship, and forms of inclusiveness within
the normative system of Islam.
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It is concluded that moderation as pluralism, ideological moderation and respect
of the rules of the political game has the building blocks of maturation in the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia. Its specificity within the Saudi politico-religious context, moderation
for the pragmatists is aided through synthesis whereas for the puritanical trend it is
expressed through reformulation of the existing religious heritage.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................. 4

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... 6

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. 7

Chapter 1: Saudi Arabia post 9/11: A Framework for Exploring the Rise of Moderation
in Public Discourse ........................................................................................................... 8
1.1 The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 Backdrop ...................................... 8
1.2 The Key Questions and Thesis ‘Problematique’ .............................................. 12
1.3 Conceptual Framework I: Anti-Orientalism..................................................... 22
1.4 A Conceptual Framework II: Language and Terminology .............................. 28
1.5 Methodological Framework ............................................................................. 32
1.6 Thesis Outline................................................................................................... 40
1.7 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 42

Chapter 2: The ‘Orientalisation’ of Saudi Arabia: A Critical Reflection on Orientalist
Constructions of the Kingdom ........................................................................................ 43
2.1 Focus ................................................................................................................ 43
2.2 Understanding Orientalism & Occidentalism .................................................. 46
2.3 The ‘Orientalization’ of Saudi Arabia in Existing Scholarship ....................... 55
2.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 70

Chapter 3: The Impact of Wahhabism on Religion and Politics & Politicization in Saudi
Arabia ............................................................................................................................. 71
3.1 Aims of the Analysis ........................................................................................ 71
3.2 A Conceptual Discussion: Wahhabism ............................................................ 73
3.3 Religion and Politics & Ibn Taymiyyah’s Influence on the Wahhabi Doctrine79
3.4 Understanding Saudi Political Culture ............................................................. 84
3.5 Reflection: Specificity of ‘Reform’ in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ............. 95

Chapter 4: Reintellectualisation: A Contextualisation of Discourses and Counter-
Discourses in Saudi Arabia............................................................................................. 99
4.1 Focus ................................................................................................................ 99
4.2 The Dynamics of Media, New Technologies and Education in the Saudi
Context ........................................................................................................... 100
4.3 Explaining ‘Reintellectualisation’ in the Saudi Context ................................ 104
4.4 Reintellectualisation as Increased Politicisation, the 1990s ........................... 114
4.5 Reintellectualisation: Discourses & Counter-Discourses, 1990s Onwards ... 120
4.6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 128

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Chapter 5: Construction of ‘Moderation’ in Saudi Arabia: A Discourse Analysis of the
‘Pragmatic’ Trend ......................................................................................................... 129
5.1 Focus .............................................................................................................. 129
5.2 Acceptance of Pluralism ................................................................................. 136
5.3 Ideological moderation ................................................................................... 150
5.4 Respect of the Rules of the Political Game .................................................... 154
5.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 156

Chapter 6: Construction of ‘Moderation’ in Saudi Arabia: A Discourse Analysis of the
‘Puritanical’ Trend ........................................................................................................ 158
6.1 Focus .............................................................................................................. 158
6.2 Introduction .................................................................................................... 158
6.3 A Discourse Analysis of ‘Moderation’ in the Discourse of the ‘Puritanical’
Trend .............................................................................................................. 165
6.4 Ideological moderation ................................................................................... 179
6.5 Respect of the Rules of the Political Game .................................................... 183
6.6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 187

Chapter 7: The Problematic of ‘Moderation’ in Saudi Arabia: A Reflection .............. 189
7.1 Focus .............................................................................................................. 189
7.2 The Problematic of Moderation & Reform .................................................... 189
7.3 Reflection I: The Language of the Pragmatist &Puritanical Discourses ........ 194
7.4 Reflection II: The Content of the Pragmatist & Puritanical Discourses ........ 201
7.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 207

Chapter 8: Conclusion: ‘Moderating’ Saudi Arabia ..................................................... 210
8.1 Researching ‘Moderation’: Gains and Limitations ........................................ 212
8.2 Knowledge and Agency ................................................................................. 213
8.3 Moderation as a Site of Contestation ............................................................. 214
8.4 Wahhabi Tradition and the Trend of Renewal ............................................... 216

GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................. 220

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 222

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Key Islamists’ Understandings of ‘Fundamentalism’/Islamic Movements ...... 24
Table 2 Map of Discourse Analysis of ‘Moderation’ ..................................................... 36
Table 3 Summary of Language of Pluralism: Meaning & Source ............................... 149
Table 4 Summary of Language of Ideological Moderation: Meaning & Source ......... 154
Table 5 Puritanical Trend’s Language: Meaning & Source ......................................... 200
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Praise be to God who granted me the strength, the health and the commitment to
complete this work.
My thanks are due to the University of Exeter, its politics department where I
have been a PhD student since 2004. I had to interrupt several times due to my brother’s
and mother’s illness. All along these personal low points, the politics department
supported me and granted me permission to interrupt my research on several occasions.
I am grateful to my supervisor, Dr Larbi Sadiki, who believed in me, pushed me
to do better, and always surprised me with his knowledge and modesty as an academic,
and with his warmth as a person. He gave me guidance and at the same time gave me
space to think for myself.
Dr Mick Dumper, my second supervisor, gave useful feedback, which helped
me through my progression. I thank him for his support over the years. My thanks are
extended to Dr Andy Schaap who was very supportive throughout.
I will always have but respect and gratitude for the University of Exeter’s superb
librarian Paul Auchterlonie.
I owe a huge debt to His Royal Highness Prince Turki Al Faisal whose moral
and financial support made it possible for me to complete this PhD. He stood by me and
my project from beginning to end. I owe a similar debt to Faisal Abdulrahman Ibn
Mu’ammar who granted me a long sabbatical from work a few times over the past seven
years to free myself completely to my thesis. The same goes for Dr Yahya in the Faisal
Islamic Studies Centre, Riyad.
I must thank my French friends: Madame Martine Brisset, her mum Jacqueline
Brisset, and Professor Maryvonne Dubois. They were generous and allowed me to use
their home when preparing the final draft.
Finally I owe a special debt of gratitude to my family, my wife, my son Faisal,
and my new baby daughter Effat who put up with my absence from their lives when
conducting research far away from home. I dedicate this PhD to my parents whose
support and love was inspiring and vital, and to my brother whose illness forced me to
abandon my PhD in order to look after him and stand by him several times when he
came close to death. Praise be to God he is still alive for me to share with him the joy of
completing this work.
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CHAPTER 1
SAUDI ARABIA POST 9/11: A FRAMEWORK FOR EXPLORING THE RISE OF
MODERATION IN PUBLIC DISCOURSE

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet
Till Earth and Sky stand presently as God’s great judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border nor breed nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the end
of the earth!1

1.1 The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 Backdrop
In the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, no Arab
and Muslim country drew as much security, media and academic attention as did the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The exception was the Taliban’s Afghanistan, which shared
the spotlight with the Saudi Monarchy. The fact that most of the hijackers who crashed
the planes on the Twin Towers and on the Pentagon were Saudi nationals came as a
surprise not only to ‘Saudi-ologists’, but also to the Saudis themselves. The tragic
events refocused attention on this important oil-rich Arab Gulf country, forcing
rethinking along a number of lines of inquiry. These tragic events produced more
questions than answers about the nature of politics, religion, society, and culture in
Saudi Arabia. The nature of the religious establishment and discourse was frequently
confused with extremism, and religious education was blamed for 9/11. The whole
question of polity and the legitimacy of the state and its institutions came under close
scrutiny. At the same time one most academic question had to do with whether the
ruling Saudi House would have survived the September 11 attacks had they been
directed at Riyadh instead of New York or Washington. Hypothetical questions do not
lend themselves to easy answers. But what is certain is that, like the US and with the
benefit of historical hindsight of what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Royal
House would not have spared any firepower at its disposal to safeguard the position of
its institutions, people, and the ruling elite of the Saudi Kingdom. Events like 9/11 serve
to refresh our memory that the society of states tends from time to time to take recourse
to violence in order to defend state survival and interest. And it is quite plausible that
neither the US nor its Western and Middle Eastern allies would have hesitated to fight

1 Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of East and West, 1889
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on behalf of the Saudi Kingdom. The Kuwaiti precedent is sufficiently illustrative of the
point made here. So is a more relevant precedent: the 1979 take-over of the Grand
Mosque by Saudi extremists, which was defused both violently and legally (with the
approval of the juridical and religious establishment in Saudi Arabia). Another
intriguing aspect of the largely Saudi nationals-led 9/11 attacks is the extent to which
this brand of hideously violent militancy was a statement by Saudis against both their
rulers and their rulers’ protectors. It is not out of place to assume that the perpetrators of
the violence visited upon New York and Washington on September 11 were motivated
by local concerns (e.g. Saudi first, and Arab/Muslim second). This is in spite of the fact
that their attacks seemed to signal a new wave of ‘global terrorism’ – in this case led by
al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, a Saudi who was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in
1994 for his extremism at the turn of the third millennium.
In order to lend credence to the study and inquiry in this thesis, the whole
question of politico-religious culture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia legitimacy must
be placed under close scrutiny. If the September 11 events are to be read as an
oppositional political behaviour, deploying a very bloody strategy, then questions must
be asked about how politics and religion and the discourse of the political and religious
elites are implicated in the production, legitimisation and application of extremism or
moderation. This type of questioning relates to leads to the specificity of politics and
religion in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It must be noted from the outset that
secularism (understood as privatisation of religion, which leads to separation of religion
and politics in the running of state affairs) has not in any shape or form featured as a
political value that is either represented or contested in the Kingdom’s top-down or
bottom-up, official or unofficial discourses of religion and politics. Secularism is simply
not an arena of contention in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia -- as it has been in other
Middle Eastern states (e.g. Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq or Syria). No reference will
therefore be made to it in the ensuing analysis.
It must be pointed out that religion in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia intertwines
with all aspects of statecraft, social affairs, laws, education and social custom. A central
hypothesis in the ensuing analysis within my thesis is that religion informs both
reformist and conservative forces in Saudi Arabia. One observation must be made here:
Whilst Sunni Islam is the dominant sect in Saudi Arabia, the Shi‘a form the main other
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sect, present largely in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom.2 This thesis focuses on
discourses within Sunni Islam. It is from within Islam and through the interpreting and
reference to the Holy Qur’an, the Hadith (the Tradition of the Prophet Muhammad
Peace upon Him), and the legal traditions of Islam’s supreme learned scholars and
doctors that the advocates and opponents of reform derive and develop their their public
discourses. The type of debate today in Saudi Arabia is not about the validity or utility
of religion. Rather, the debates competing for influence, public ascendance, and
political acceptance are about which Islamic arguments are to be used to justify or deny
reform. It is within this moment of debate and counter-debate that an emerging culture
of ‘moderation’ is being created in Saudi Arabia. This is the key position that I propose
to develop and examine in my analysis.
The specificity of the Saudi case and religion and politics within it cannot be
stressed enough. The following observations explain this specificity. The first
observation regards the nature or the brand of Islam adopted in Saudi Arabia and how it
relates generally to the state and the practice of politics. It is the association of the two
that gave birth to the Saudi state King Abd Al-Aziz created in 1932. Dissolving this
association is neither is nor would it be without consequences for the state’s very raison
d’être and historical identity and even legitimacy. However, despite the historical
confusion of religion and politics in the Saudi Kingdom, Islam is increasingly becoming
diverse. Voices of challenge or opposition from below to ‘official’ Islam are emerging.
The sources of these voices will be identified and explained throughout the thesis,
highlighting how the state has sought to control or influence Islamic responses from
below. In the main, however, the dynamics of the relationship between Islam and the
Saudi State generally remains intact. Hanbali (very often referred to by scholars as
Wahhabi) Islam is bound up with the Kingdom’s raison d’être and even raison d’Etat.
But some adjustments have been made to shore up the House of Saud’s political
legitimacy, namely, by creating the long-awaited Majlis al-Shurah (Consultative
Council in the early 1990s. Whether the Consultative Council and the emerging voices
of Islam from below bode well for religious and political freedoms is not clear at the
moment. This may become clearer in the future after one generation or two go through

2For more on the Shi‘a in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, see Jacob Goldberg, “The Shii minority
in Saudi Arabia,” in Juan Cole and Nikki Keddie (eds.), Shi’ism and Social Protest (New
Haven: Yale Univesrity Press, 1986); Josh Teitelbaum, “The Shiites of Saudi Arabia,” Current
Trends in Islamist Ideology, Vol. 10 (August 2010).
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