Professor Madawi Al Rasheed

Madawi Al-Rasheed

Inaugural lecture

The lecture will take place in the Great Hall, King’s College, London, Strand Campus at 5.30pm on Tuesday 12 February 2008.

Synopsis
Saudi royalty sanctions official Wahhabi discourse for obvious political reasons. This religious discourse is responsible for closing channels of political debate and delaying the emergence of calls for political reform and participation in the country. Together with state repression, this discourse enforces interpretations of religious texts that call upon pious Muslims to consent to political authority and show ultimate obedience to rulers. This discourse also prohibits any public criticism of rulers and criminalises (in a religious and political sense) discussion of their policies. Dominant Saudi religious interpretations create "consenting subjects" rather than free citizens who engage in public affairs. I will demonstrate that official Wahhabi discourse is responsible for mystifying the world under the guise of religion. Official Saudi religious scholars consolidate a specific religious discourse to ensure the emergence of an acquiescent society. This discourse facilitates regime efforts to domesticate and discipline the population without resorting to excessive use of force, a practise that other Arab regimes have mastered under the umbrella of the modern state. The role of religious discourse is often ignored in academic research, in particular political science perspectives, on Saudi Arabia. This research usually privileges the influence of oil revenues within the framework of the rentier state as a mechanism consolidating the tradition of political acquiescence. Yet the sum total of religious interpretations that are propagated by a large religious bureaucracy are equally important as factors contributing to this acquiescence that the population exhibited throughout the twentieth century. There is no doubt that the redistributive state that transforms oil revenues into services and consequently loyalty owes its survival to the intersection of politics and the economy. However, there are subtle ways that veil relations between rulers and ruled and mystify this relationship. Wahhabi religio-political discourse offers a mystifying umbrella.

The establishment of an Allegiance Committee, a closed circle of senior Saudi princes last year and the nomination of its members in December 2007 are desperate attempts to save the House of Saud, not from Jihadi violence, reformers’ pressure or external threats, but from the hazards of demography and natural aging.

Conference

‎ ‎  Kingdom without Borders: Saudi Expansion in the World

     ‎6-8 September 2007‎

     King’s College

    Attendance by invitation only ‎

Kingdom without Borders intends to explore a number of issues related to Saudi ‎political, economic, social, religious, media and cultural expansion in the World.

This expansion has recently become the subject of debate and controversy. The ‎conference aims to highlight the parameter of this expansion and its ‎consequences on the receiving societies, world politics, the intellectual and ‎religious public spheres, local social and cultural developments, and international ‎relations.  ‎

The conference brings together scholars and policy makers from Europe, the ‎USA, Asia and the Middle East. In two days of open discussions among ‎commentators from a variety of perspectives, contemporary trends of Saudi ‎expansion will be examined, exploring their roots as well as likely future ‎development and consequences. ‎

The multiplicity of perspectives and areas of expertise brought to bear on these ‎questions should allow a balanced understanding of the phenomenon. The ‎conference will no doubt re-evaluate and challenge many of the current literature ‎on Saudi expansion and connections with the world. ‎

This first conference will focus on the general aspects of Saudi expansion with ‎the hope that later more focused workshops will follow to map Saudi connections ‎in specific local contexts in the Arab-Muslim worlds and the West. ‎

PART I: SAUDI CONNECTIONS:  GENERAL OVERVIEW

This sections aims to provide a general forum that situates Saudi expansion in its ‎historical context. Relevant questions include

To what extent is Saudi expansion a product of local Saudi concerns for ‎legitimacy?‎

To what extend is Saudi expansion a product of the weakening of other regional ‎Arab powers that had in the past more acumen and intellectual heritage to play a ‎leading role in initiating political, social and religious connections?‎

To what extent is this expansion a product of the weakening of Arab society and ‎civil institutions in general and economic underdevelopment?‎

To what extent is this expansion a product of Western encouragement and ‎promotion of Saudi Arabia as a crucial player in regional, local and world politics?‎

The session focuses on the historical and structural factors both in Saudi Arabia ‎and the Arab, Muslim and Western worlds that paved the way for this unexpected ‎Saudi expansion. Furthermore, it assesses the receptiveness of constituencies ‎and the open door policies, allowing Saudi expansion unprecedented presence in ‎very distant locations. This sheds light on both old and new mediators (Western, ‎Arab, Saudi) through whom Saudi expansion is enforced in distant lands, for ‎example cultural brokers, economic and political entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and ‎other agencies.  ‎

  Saudi royalty sanctions official Wahhabi discourse for obvious political reasons.[1] This religious discourse is responsible for closing channels of political debate and delaying the emergence of calls for political reform and participation in the country. Together with state repression, this discourse enforces interpretations of religious texts that call upon pious Muslims to consent to political authority and show ultimate obedience to rulers. This discourse also prohibits any public criticism of rulers and criminalises (in a religious and political sense) discussion of their policies. Dominant Saudi religious interpretations create “consenting subjects” rather than free citizens who engage in public affairs. I will demonstrate that official Wahhabi discourse is responsible for mystifying the world under the guise of religion. Official Saudi religious scholars consolidate a specific  religious discourse to ensure the emergence of an acquiescent  society. This discourse facilitates regime efforts to domesticate and discipline the population without resorting to excessive use of force, a practise that other Arab regimes have mastered under the umbrella of the modern state. The role of religious discourse  is often ignored in academic research, in particular political science perspectives,  on Saudi Arabia. This research usually privileges the influence of oil revenues within the framework of the rentier state[2] as a mechanism consolidating the  tradition of political acquiescence. Yet the sum total of religious interpretations that are propagated by a large religious bureaucracy are equally important as factors contributing to this acquiescence that the population exhibited throughout the twentieth century. There is no doubt that the redistributive state that transforms oil revenues into services and consequently loyalty owes its survival to the intersection of politics and the economy. However, there are subtle ways that veil relations between rulers and ruled and mystify this relationship. Wahhabi religio-political discourse offers a mystifying umbrella.  

By Madawi Al-Rasheed

Fear may induce acquiescence. But Saudis still surprise many observers. While their participation in Jihadi adventurism at home and abroad has now become notorious, there is a small minority that does not get enough sound bites, simply because it consists of peaceful political activists who dream about a better future. While they live in the most closed political systems in the Arab world, they are not intimidated by real violence exerted on them by state agencies nor fear of imminent terrorist attacks, by which these agents hope to deter activism and silence daring voices. .

Narrating Saudi Arabia has two dimensions: one targets the local constituency and one targets outsiders. The first aims at generating consent among obedient subjects; the second aims at achieving legitimacy beyond borders.

One thing is certain. When a Saudi security consultant makes policy recommendations, he is anything other than an independent voice.

Such recommendations are often described by unnamed Saudi officials as only representing the views of the people who express them. This is exactly what happened after Nawaf Obaid’s recent reflections on the Iraqi crisis.

Obaid’s article in the Washington Post (29 November 2006) addresses an American audience that is increasingly sceptical about its own military adventure in Iraq and which is beginning to search for exit strategies (the latest being the report of the Iraq Study Group, published on 6 December).

By Madawi Al-Rasheed

Globalisation refers to structured flows from above, which are led by government agencies, large corporations, and other powerful state and non-state actors.

Saudi Arabia was both an importer and an exporter of global flows, whose economic, religious and cultural flows are a product of oil wealth. Since the discovery of oil in 1933, Saudi Arabia has been integrated into the world capitalist economy. Oil drew Saudi Arabia into global flows which were mainly under the control of global actors, specifically states, oil companies, financial services groups, and other conglomerates.

Contesting the Saudi State Islamic Voices from a New Generation Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, November 2006A prince is always compelled to injure those who have made him the new ruler, subjecting them to the troops and imposing the endless other hardships which his new conquest entails Niccolo Machiavelli The Prince

Outsiders often refer to Saudis as Wahhabis or Salafis. In the twenty-first century Saudis themselves do not agree on the meaning of these terms. Contemporary Saudis debate religion and politics in traditional and novel public spaces, thus violating a well-established taboo. Under the influence of mass education, printing, new communication technology and global media, Saudis engage in formulating opinions that can generate both consent and contestation of official religio-political discourse. Modernity, together with state and oil wealth, consolidated official Wahhabi religious interpretations, especially those that generate social conservatism and political acquiescence. Yet the same forces that allowed this discourse to become hegemonic are now responsible for its contestation. Drawing on a plethora of classical religious sources, contemporary interpretations and interviews, this book presents an ethnography of consent and contestation. It highlights the fluidity of the boundaries of religious and political debate and the overlapping categories that dominate our thinking about so-called official, moderate and radical Islam. The book examines how state-initiated global religious flows develop their own momentum once they travel to distant locations. Bridging the gap between religious text and context, the author offers an understanding of the subtle ways in which states and citizens manipulate religious discourse for purely political ends and how this manipulation generates unpredictable reactions whose control escapes those who initiated them.

Saudi Arabia is an ‘Islamised authoritarianism’. The system rests on propagating religious interpretations of the Quran and the tradition of the Prophet, which seek to anchor authoritarianism in the sacred tradition.

Several myths, propagated inside Saudi Arabia and outside it, continue to influence the way people assess the Saudi enigma.

One myth is the claim that the state reflects tribal coalitions. The reality is that today the only tribe which practices political tribalism in Saudi Arabia is that of the Al-Saud. Over the past 100 years the Al-Saud have evolved from being a family into being a tribe. Saudi society continues to hold onto the social and identity aspects of tribalism, but no political tribalism is evident. Sections of Saudi society adhere to the ethos of the tribe but do not exhibit the political aspect of tribalism.

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was perhaps the most difficult challenge facing the Saudi government since the Gulf War of 1990-1.  The invasion was unprecedented, unprovoked, and lacking in wide Arab and international support and in the name of threats --WMDs, links to al-Qaidah--which proved to have little credibility. Official Saudi Arabia wished to see Saddam and the Ba’th regime go, but feared the aftermath. It opted for an indecisive position, hiding behind a confused rhetoric of open objections to the war in regional Arab meetings and forums and implicit approval, and even important co-operation in allowing US military command centres to conduct the war from its own territory. The ramifications of the swift collapse of the Ba’thist regime as a result of military intervention, without UN sanctions, has set up a precedent which could have serious consequences for Saudi Arabia and the whole of the Middle East.