In the mass of popular commentary that considers the putative links between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Islamic militancy, one thing conspicuously absent is a sense of history or, more to the point, an accurate sense of history. The emotions of 9/11 dominate the historical understanding rather than the reverse, a situation that does little to restrain a reflexive leap towards accusatory phobia. As a result, much of the writing errs fundamentally in positing an identity between the understanding of the Faith that the Kingdom's government promotes as the nation's defining construct of moral principles and religious beliefs and a violent, politicized Islam. In insisting on this false identity, one obscures the deep complexity that is religious dissent in the contemporary Kingdom.

Although the phenomenon of Islamic fervor is rooted in the very origins of the Kingdom, it arose as a direct challenge to the then-existing establishment rather than anything akin to an ethos that directed the policies of its founder, Ibn Saud; and the very success of Ibn Saud's political vision was contingent on the defeat of such zeal.

Islamic militancy again today challenges the government, and though its genesis differs from that manifested at the Kingdom's creation, it remains the ideological expression of groups in conflict with a political vision originally enunciated by Ibn Saud. And, as in the past, eliminating militancy and indeed the organized manifestations of any form of armed radicalism is central to the future viability of the Kingdom.

Looking Back…

During the establishment of the Kingdom under Ibn Saud, the greatest threat to the coherence of the emerging order did not arise from other competing centers of political power in the Peninsula built around prominent families in control of strategic urban sites.  Examples included the House of Rashid based at Ha'il in north central Arabia, and the House of Hashim which controlled the principal cities of the Hijaz, the sacred sites of Mecca and Medina, and the port city of Jeddah. Rather and with no little irony, it came from a number of exceptionally powerful and independent Central Arabian tribes, so-called noble ('asil) tribes including the 'Ujman, 'Utaiba, Harb and Mutair, that had important roles in the extension of Ibn Saud's political dominion.

The weight of these tribes in Peninsular politics necessitated a substantial effort by Ibn Saud to envelop them in his order, an effort that embraced both 'social engineering' (settlement in agricultural communes - hujar) and ideological (sectarian proselytization) components. Although these programs did work to ally tribal interests with those of Ibn Saud - those who granted allegiance to Ibn Saud collectively became know as the Ikhwan (the Brotherhood) - there was at the root of this relationship a dynamic balance of tension¹.

The 'asil tribes imagined a political order in which the House of Saud did not dominate the emerging system but served as the first among equals. In broader terms, the tribal leadership resisted any form of unification that would undermine a defining aspect of Peninsular life - the balance of power between the nomadic and settled populations, the badu and the hadhar. However, Ibn Saud's determined pursuit to centralize power in his hands demanded that the political power of the tribes be marginalized.

The Ikhwan, in its efforts to attain the status of an elite within the emergent order, defiantly and defensively expressed a zealot's commitment to the Islamic ideology that infused politics. In a sense, the movement - and, in particular, the religious ardor that characterized it - may be considered an ideological expression of these tribes' drive to retain their political significance. The movement was a manifestation of the tribes' objection to their marginalization by Ibn Saud rather than an avid reflection of their service to him or, indeed, an accurate expression of the kind of order Ibn Saud hoped to foster. They deftly challenged Ibn Saud by adopting a 'holier than thou attitude' that questioned his support of and dedication to the Faith, precisely the grounds he sought to employ to legitimize his own political domination. Their fevered calls that chastised Ibn Saud for his supposed insufficient level of commitment to the 'true' Islam mirrored their desire to preserve what they considered to be the authentic social order.

Ibn Saud emerged victorious, a result directly dependent on his success in retaining the allegiance of central Arabian 'ulama for his  political program against the militant expression  of the Faith espoused by the Ikhwan.

Tactically, they sought through their ideological challenge to limit Ibn Saud's involvement with external powers, notably Great Britain, by denouncing them as unbelievers (kuffar) and prohibit his access to foreign technologies by condemning these as an example of illicit innovation (bid'a). The Ikhwan understood that it was precisely such relationships and such technologies (e.g., the wireless and the automobile) that provided Ibn Saud invaluable political, financial and material support. Their militant adherence to Islam sought to curtail the opening to the outside world that would contribute, ultimately, the upending of the prevailing homeostasis between settled and nomadic communities. This tension culminated in a rebellion in the late 1920s out of which Ibn Saud emerged victorious, a result directly dependent on his success in retaining the allegiance of central Arabian 'ulama for his political program against the militant expression of the Faith espoused by the Ikhwan.

The contrast between the imagined Kingdoms of Ibn Saud and the Ikhwan was made explicit during the Hijaz campaign. The Ikhwan reportedly acted like marauding Bedouin with a willful destructiveness justified by their purposeful militancy. But the imposition of a regime marked by an intolerant version of Islam would not have been acceptable to Ibn Saud, neither in the Hijaz nor anywhere else. Among other things, it would have disrupted pilgrim flows to the sacred cities, an important source of revenues, and undercut his government's acceptance by the wider Muslim world, jeopardizing the international legitimacy that formed a vital component to his state-building program. Equally, the Islamic militancy practiced by the Ikhwan would have jeopardized Ibn Saud's objective of unifying quite diverse regions within a single state structure.

The victory over the Ikhwan confirmed the nature of Ibn Saud's governance. Drawing on the support of 'ulama who rejected political turmoil (fitna'), Ibn Saud instituted an eminently pragmatic blending of religion and politics: a non-militant and moderate (at least by the standards of central Arabia) understanding of the Faith, enabling him to legitimate his regime while carefully engaging with the West - initially Britain but by the end of WWII predominately the United States - selectively absorbing technological expertise and materials, and establishing productive relations with external governments and organizations. That Ibn Saud was able to 'square the circle' was due to a complex mix of factors that included his own political prowess, acuity and breadth of vision; a prevailing outlook on the part of the Najdi 'ulama to disavow a destabilizing and destructive militancy; and the fact that the principal institutionalized form of technological and Western intrusion into the society during Ibn Saud's lifetime, and for quite some time thereafter, was the oil company. This latter type of organization presented a very minimal 'socio-cultural' footprint yet yielded substantial gains to the political order, not least in the form of a source of direct revenues and eminently useful technologies that supported infrastructure development.

…Towards the Future

The political order worked to forestall a reemergence of a militant form of Islam for a period of two decades after the death of Ibn Saud. However, the first harbinger of a reawakened militancy occurred, in a seemingly paradoxical manner, in 1979, the very decade whose outset was marked by a development - the quite extraordinary leap in oil income - that would have been expected to only strengthen the political order and preclude political opposition. The event was the violent occupation of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site. One commentator² with a fair amount of creative license termed the event 'the return of the Ikhwan.' That it certainly was not; the ability, indeed desire, of the 'asil tribes of central Arabia to act as a powerful oppositional force had been curtailed by the House of Saud years before.  However, what the appellation captures is that the perpetrators represented a religiously legitimized, unequivocal and violent challenge to the rule of the House of Saud. The militants' religious zeal may have looked back to the rebellious tribes, but the roots of their militancy looked forward, an early reflection of a deep aversion to the nature of social change in the modern Kingdom.

This example of a contemporary militancy reinforces two basic points made earlier. First, militancy in the Kingdom is a profound and at times violent resistance to government policy; it is not, as some commentators insist, a phenomenon that evidences the ruling family's support for militancy to enhance a tenuous claim to power. (One does not feed a fire to contain it, one must isolate it.) Second, the Kingdom's interdependency of Faith and Realm remains problematic, with the simultaneous need to express fealty to the Faith while meeting the requirements of the Realm generating an inevitable source of tension.

Two other points should be made as well. First, militancy today does not appear to be grounded in traditional social structures. Rather, it is a reflection of the breaking down of those structures and, as such, can be likened to a symptom of modernity. Second, militant violence remains a rarity in the Kingdom - evidence that it is an event that occurs at the political margins and lacks general appeal - while a vocal political opposition appears to be growing. While both militancy and opposition are generally cast in religious terms, they need to be seen as quite distinct forms of dissent and requiring different responses. To lump them together and respond to both in a unitary fashion is likely to force all opposition towards a militant expression.

Change and Challenge

While the roots of today's religious dissent are undeniably complex, they reflect at a minimum two dominant aspects of the Kingdom's current social reality.  On one hand, they reflect the overwhelming sense of the presence of the external world in the domestic affairs of the Kingdom (perhaps the most visible and enduring aspect of which is the substantial number of expatriates engaged in the economy). On the other, they reflect a society that is increasingly urbanized. 

Both of these are consequences of a key government objective, economic development, and each tends to amplify the social effects of the other. Economic development increases the encounter with the outside world just as it promotes urbanization; and with an increasingly urbanized society, Saudi society's encounter with the outside is intensified. As a result, economic development, rather than enhancing traditional mores and relationships, tends towards the opposite effect. Complicating efforts to contend with this trend is the need to effectively instill in an extremely large youth population an attachment and commitment to the Kingdom's socio-cultural mores; just as the society is challenged in its ability to retain a fealty to tradition, the magnitude of the problem grows.

Equally important, the dominant method of enculturation raises difficulties just as