Professor Madawi Al Rasheed

David Commins The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia London: I.B. Tauris 2006, pp. 276, ISBN 1 845 11 080, Hardback £39.50
Tim Niblock Saudi Arabia Power, Legitimacy and Survival London: Routledge 2006, pp. 206, ISBN 10 0-415 30310 9, Paperback £19.99

Anthony Cordesman and Nawaf Obaid National Security in Saudi Arabia Threats, Responses, and Challenges Centre for Strategic and International Studies and Westport: Praeger Security International 2005, pp. 426, ISBN 0-275 98811 2 Hardback

Dependence on Saudi oil and strategic location in the heart of a volatile Arab region made this country the centre of academic interest in the second half of the twentieth century. Since 9/11 and the terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia itself, the country received further focused attention. Researchers flooded to Saudi Arabia to investigate its history, society, religion and security challenges.

Saudi history was revisited to draw lessons for the present. Its religious tradition, once regarded as a stabilising but radical trend within Islam, was accused of feeding young minds with the discourse of confrontation, hatred, and violence against the other. Security experts outlined the country’s military capabilities to combat terrorism and proposed enhancement.  Conclusions were mixed. Some concluded that the country is fertile ground for radicalism that would threaten not only the oil fields and the survival of the Saudi regime but also the World in general. Others dismissed such accusations and searched for the roots of terrorism elsewhere.

The three books reviewed here are a product of the contemporary fears that dominate Western thinking about Saudi Arabia.  The books are concerned with the big questions: the history of Wahhabiyya and its potential for generating the discourse of terrorism (David Commins), the resilience of the Saudi regime, regarded so far as the best protector of Western interests (Tim Niblock), and the security challenges facing the regime (Anthony Cordesman and Nawaf Obaid).

Commins’ book is a sober historical account of the rise of Wahhabiyya in the eighteenth century and its development as a religious tradition under the rule of Al-Saud. In the first chapter, he describes the Arabian scene on the eve of the Wahhabi revival in the eighteenth century. The first two chapters describe the religious scene of Arabia prior to the rise of Wahhabiya. He situates the movement and its preachers in the small oases of Najd, thus dismissing earlier misunderstandings of the movement which often considered it a Bedouin phenomenon. Commins shows that the movement’s roots lie among the sedentary people of Najd, in particular the small urban settlements. The tribal Bedouin population were recruited as soldiers who carried its flames outside this isolated region but were never the theoreticians of its discourse. Unlike other historians of Wahhabiyya Commins documents the schisms that the movement generated among the local population and its ulama, both resisted the totalising and coercive aspects of Wahhabiya as early as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

No doubt Wahhabiyya under the banner of its founder Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhabi stirred a fierce debate among supporters and opponents. The main debate centred on the excessive and uncompromising position adopted by Wahhabi ulama vis a vis the Muslim other. Furthermore, opponents of Wahhabiyya were driven by a desire to resist the political implications of Wahhabi discourse which eventually resulted in the loss of autonomy to a new rising power centre in Deriyya under the leadership of the Al-Saud family.  The religious tradition was from its early days tied with a political project to spread the hegemony of one leadership at the expense of others in Najd.

Commins offers a reading of various epistles exchanged between Wahhbai ulama and their opponents over several decades. Such epistles are extremely important for understanding the heated religious and political debate in central Arabia at the time. As Wahhabi influence reached more vital regions such as the Hijaz, Hasa the Gulf shores and southern Iraq, the movement was defined as a threat to Ottomans and Muslims. This led to the first round of confrontation between the local revivalist tradition and the Imperial power. By 1818, Wahhabi ulama and political leadership were temporarily defeated by the armies of Ibrahim Pasha.  The first round of Wahhabi activism was sealed. By that stage, Wahhabis had purged Najd of ulama opposed to their doctrine (p50). Yet throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries local leaders in Hail, Unayzah and Buraydah, the major settlements of central Arabia continued to rise in revolt against the newly re-established Saudi leadership in Riyadh.  Resisting Saudi-Wahhabi domination spread to Zubayr in southern Iraq, a Sunni colony in the middle of a Shia region. By the end of the nineteenth century internal dissention within the Saudi leadership, and a shaky Wahhabi hold over Arabia led to the closing of the second phase of Saudi-Wahhabi revivalism.

The reconsolidation of Wahhabiyya under the banner of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud in the twentieth century is considered in the third chapter. While the story is well documented in other books, Commins narrates the history of coercion deployed to bring the sparse geographic regions of the Arabian Peninsula under the fold of both the Saudi leadership and its “intellectuals” the Wahhabi ulama. Expansion into the tribal regions of Hijaz, northern Najd, the Eastern province and the south precipitated fierce resistance from Shia, Zaydi, Sufi and other Sunni Muslims. The expansion was conducted under the pretext of purifying Arabia from blasphemy practised by Muslims whose Islam was rejected by Wahhabi doctrines. By 1953, the year Ibn Saud died, a tamed Wahhabiyya became the official religion, imposed on a population recently included in one single political entity called the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Later chapters in the books demonstrate that geographical unity concealed serious religious, regional and political schisms that began to surface in the latter decades of the twentieth century.

The remaining chapters in the book trace the schism and dissent within Wahhabiyya in recent times. Commins also focuses on the expansion of Wahhabiyya beyond Saudi Arabia, thanks to state patronage and oil revenues, both facilitated the travelling of Saudi-Wahhabi religious discourse to distant lands. 

Commins tries to answer a persistent question that dominated Western debate after 9/11. Are Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaida supporters Wahhabis, drawing on Wahhabi theology to legitimise their acts of violence? He concludes that they are not. Commins asserts that the Wahhabi tradition maintains that it is the prerogative of the ruler to determine when conditions warrant Jihad (p. 172 and p. 185). He assumes that al-Qaida is anchored in the intellectual tradition of Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb, hung by Gamal Abd al-Nasir in the early 1960s. Many scholars who strove to dissociate current terrorism from Saudi-Wahhabi religious discourse and absolve the Saudi regime from any responsibility have reached this conclusion. The conclusion is however not so convincing for the simple reason that under state control, there developed in Saudi Arabia several trends within Wahhabiyya. By the end of the twentieth century there were at least several Wahhabi interpretations, the one close to power did maintain that only the ruler has the right to declare Jihad. But there were other serious dissenting voices within Wahhabiyya that challenged this official theological interpretation. An exploration of current Saudi Jihadi discourse reveals that Jihadis anchor their legitimation for rebelling against rulers and infidels in Wahhabi texts of the previous centuries. It is a mistake to argue that there is one single Wahhabi discourse in contemporary Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the globalisation of Wahhabi discourse and its intermingling with other Islamic interpretations both inside Saudi Arabia and outside it led to the emergence of hybrid interpretations that draw on several sources.  It is because of this hybridity itself that today it is difficult to draw firm conclusions aboput whether al-Qaida is Wahhabi.

Commins concludes that two hundred years of Wahhabi hegemony is today in jeopardy.  Wahhabiyya maintained doctrines that proved to be detrimental, uncompromising and exclusivist that Wahhabi future in Saudi Arabia remains uncertain. Moreover, the radical discourse itself is not enough to explain world terrorism. Wahhabiyya is not capable of generating terrorism without a specific historical context that impinges on its ability to mobilise and inspire. Wahhabiyya had always depended on a military and political leadership to widen its circle of supporters, the Al-Saud had always been its political and military wing. Its development attests to the importance of the role played by the political power that initially supported it for its own expansionist project and for gaining legitimacy at home and abroad. Wahhabiyya would not have gained hegemonic status without the endorsement of the Saudi leadership since the eighteenth century. As such the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance represented an anomaly in Islamic history. Like almost all Abrahamic traditions, Islam has known many radical trends and fringe movements but in modern times it is only in Saudi Arabia where these radical interpretations and doctrines became a state religion. Without Saudi sponsorship, Wahhabiyya would have sunk into historical oblivion like many other fringe interpretations that sprung across the Muslim world. 

Commins anticipates the Saudi leadership to close ranks with the Wahhabi establishment, yet this project which has already started proves to be more difficult, for then the Al-Saud would lose their raison d’etre and legitimacy narrative. As Commins argues, the Saudi leadership lacks the confidence to challenge directly the Wahhabi ulama, perhaps from a sense that the dynasty’s claim to legitimacy is questionable (p. 122). One can argue that regimes may survive without such legitimacy narrative. A regime will have to resort to excessive coercive power to convince the constituency of its right to rule. At the moment the Saudi regime uses a combination of strategies to extract approval of its rule. One such strategy is appeasing the population through the redistribution of the excessive oil revenues that accompanied the rise in oil prices in the twenty first century.

It is this oil that underlines the narrative of Tim Niblock. Global dependence on Saudi oil and gas, together with the country’s involvement with issues of radical Islamism and security in the Gulf and Arab world are factors that push Saudi Arabia to remain the centre of academic and international attention. Niblock proposes a new approach to understand the dynamics of Saudi politics. He recognises that the regime may rely on the security apparatus, including the intelligence services, the police and various divisions of the armed forces, but it could not survive without legitimacy, defined by Lipset as ‘the capacity of the system to engender and maintain belief that the existing political institutions are the most appropriate ones for the society’ (p. 9). Niblock identifies the conditions that enabled the Saudi monarchical system to remain in power and the likelihood of this system to survive in the future.

According to Niblock, the Saudi regime derives legitimacy from four sources: ideological (religion), traditional (inheritance of leadership role), personal (charismatic leadership) and eudaemonic (welfare and satisfaction of citizens’ needs). However, it seems that the four sources are questionable at the present. As argued by Commins, Wahhabiyya itself is under threat but the Al-Saud remain reluctant to undermine it. The traditional and personal sources of legitimacy remain problematic with the aging leadership that dominate the key decision making positions. There remains the ability of the regime to buy loyalty, which in itself is under pressure because of the rapid increase in population size and unemployment. This ability is also dependent on a world commodity whose price may not always be easy to predict.

What is more relevant to understanding the dynamics of Saudi politics is the social constituencies, their development and relation with the centre of power. The royal family, dubbed by Niblock a political party, stands at the top of a hierarchy and constitutes the first important constituency in a pyramid that includes others: the religious scholars, and Najdi, bourgeois, commercial and administrative elites. It seems that all these constituencies do not form clear cut categories in the Saudi polity because of the intersecting and often overlapping interests and backgrounds.  However, in the search for clear cut classifications, one risks glossing the various power actors and their interconnected genealogies, regional and tribal backgrounds, in addition to their commercial and educational outlook. Niblock adds an external constituency consisting of external civil servants (early Arab functionaries) and foreign powers, with whom the regime endeavoured to nourish intimate relations, perhaps to counter volatile internal constituencies.

Much of Niblock’s book revisits old grounds familiar to most analysts of Saudi history and politics. One chapter deals with state formation in the twentieth century (Chapter 2). The reign of King Faisal is the subject of chapter three. This was the era of consolidating the centralised state through the creation of institutions and the welfare system. The major political and religious challenges of the 1980s are discussed in chapter four.  These led to major upheavals and forced the leadership to introduce a series of limited political reforms such as the Basic Law, the Consultative Council and the reform of the provincial administration. The most revealing part of the book is the chapter on the challenge of economic reform (chapter five). Niblock identifies the inadequacy of the economic system despite the huge resources available to the leadership. The paradox of unemployment and reliance on foreign labour seems to puzzle many Saudi observers. A combination of cultural factors and lack of adequate technical training contribute to perpetuating a situation whereby the Saudi economy remains dependent on expatriate labour while a huge young population remains unemployed.  Yet one must not forget that the import of foreign labour is an income generating business that benefits a close circle of beneficiaries, who may resist any serious labour saudisation schemes. The private sector has been reluctant to replace its Arab, Asian and Western workforce with untrained and expensive Saudis.

Other challenges facing the economy stem from the un-equitable distribution of wealth, weak accountability of economic and other institutions, and lack of controls over public spending. While economic liberalisation has already started, it seems that the Saudi economy needs a long period of time to adjust to the challenges. Niblock concludes that the economic reform and the legislations remain inadequate and proposes some remedies. Central to his suggestions is the creation of a new labour force that is competitive and capable of replacing the expatriate labour force. Curbing public spending and corruption, and engendering a more equal distribution of wealth are perhaps the most difficult to implement.

On foreign policy, Niblock identifies a number of irreconcilable requirements. The Saudi regime is still under pressure to maintain good and friendly relations with the West, combat terrorism, play a leading regional role in the Arab world, and continue to produce oil at reasonable prices. Such pressures seem to come into conflict with national and domestic interests. As many inside Saudi Arabia question the benefit of the close relations with the West, Niblock suggests that Saudi interests may well be better served by developing closer ties with the emerging Asian economies, which had already been promoted under the rule of King Abdullah. 

The conclusion drawn from Niblock’s book is that the Saudi regime faces a challenging moment in it history. The old mechanisms that bound ruler to subjects can no longer be taken for granted. Coupled with internal population pressure and the emergence of new actors who may in the future challenge Saudi credentials, the regime must act swiftly.  Niblock suggests ways to remedy challenges. However his optimism may not be justified in the long term.  Saudi Arabia has a serious problem at the level of its most powerful constituency, namely the royal family. The problem so far stems from old age, factionalism, and the inability of the leadership to design constitutional ways to deal with the transfer of power from the first generation (Ibn Saud’s sons) to their children.  In the near future the royal family will have to deal with how the various lineages within the royal family share power and who among the second generation will be able to assume the highest post. Given the sheer size of the family and the political and economic ambitions of the young members, this will not be an easy decision.

A second problem stems from the consolidation of an atomised constituency of young men and women, who cannot easily fit within the already existing constituencies identified by Niblock. The youth of Saudi Arabia areno longer served by the existing channels and their sheer number may pressurise the polity in unprecedented ways that the current leadership may be ill equipped to deal with. The outbreak of Jihadi violence in Saudi Arabia after 9/11 that claimed many lives attests to serious problems that the government prefer to deal with militarily, thus ignoring the underlying causes, both internal, regional and global, that triggered it off. Furthermore, regional upheavals in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, coupled with the consolidation of Iranian hegemony in the Gulf region exerted new pressures that implicated Saudi Arabia more in the volatile politics of not only the Arab but also the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia can no longer assume the moderating leadership role that most Western government aspire it to play. Saudi influence is curtailed not only by other states but also by a Muslim and Arab population openly hostile to Saudi position and manoevering throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Syria has already slipped away from Saudi patronage and opted for a clear identification with Iran. Iraq today is no longer an arena where Saudi Arabia can play a role. Similarly Lebanon and in particular Hizballah exposed Saudi policies seen by most as lacking independence and in total compliance with American and Western agenda. The cool reception received by the elected Hamas government in Riyadh increased the alienation of the Saudi regime in its immediate vicinity, not to mention the minor conflicts that often erupt between Saudi Arabia and its small Gulf neighbours, especially Qatar. These new regional problems are bound to not only affect the way the regime is perceived internally but also regionally and internationally.  There remains a serious question mark on Saudi ability to contain its own internal security threats.

Cordesman and Obaid argue that a potential conventional threat to Saudi national security comes from Yemen and Iran. The first is grounds for weapon smuggling into Saudi Arabia and infiltration by extremists. Iran represents an external conventional threat, given the development of Iran’s military capabilities and controversial nuclear programme. Cordesman recommends that Saudi Arabia responds by accelerating efforts to deploy new missile defences, to act as deterrent in case the Gulf becomes once again the theatre for a new military confrontation with Iran. This recommendation carries a twisted logic. Instead of reaching out to Iran to break its isolation and contain its military threat through rehabilitating the Iranian polity in the Gulf region, it calls for the further drawing of Saudi Arabia into the armament race that benefits only Western weapon production and sale, further discredits the regime in Riyadh, and channels petrodollar into projects that benefit only a small minority of princes and their close allies in the West.  The scenario sketched by Cordesman is of course dependent on the United States, who in his opinion will be the power to provide a deterrent. While Niblock recommends the development of Saudi links with the East, Cordesman still cherishes tying Saudi Arabia further to the West, especially the United States.

However, the most urgent and immediate threat to Saudi national security remains internal, consisting of Islamic extremism and terrorism. A chronology of al-Qaida attacks on Saudi soil, followed by an assessment of the threats on the ground, leads to a recommendation. Combating the menace of al-Qaida cannot be achieved only through the deployment of new intelligence techniques, policing methods and modern military technology. Cordesman sees the solution in evolutionary and measured reforms, which respond to the aspiration of reform-minded princes and citizens, thus echoing the Saudi official discourse on political reform in the Kingdom after 9/11. The regime has resisted calls for democratisation and has always warned that rapid change may destabilise the Kingdom. In Cordesman’s book, one finds an academic umbrella that injects academic credibility into official defensive positions. It is also uncertain whether democratisation will result in less terrorism, a position developed by Gregory Gause who argues that democracy is not a shield against extremism. In Saudi Arabia, terrorist attacks increased as the regime announced measures to introduce limited reforms. It seems that the more the government responds to external calls for reforming its society, politics and religion, the more extremist voices resisting such reforms find their way to the public sphere.

Cordesman documents the various security, military and paramilitary capabilities of the Saudi regime, including the intelligence, armed, naval and air forces. For non-specialists, these sections of the book can be tiresome and irrelevant to the general picture. However, they remain important for those concerned with the country’s military profile and whether this profile would enable it to face the internal and external threats.  While the military chapters offer abundant data on existing strength and how it can be enhanced, sections of the book dealing with internal social and religious reform are limited in scope. They are very descriptive and tend to reiterate official justifications for the slow pace of change in the Kingdom.

Cordesman and Obaid treat the social and religious fields as obstacles to change that can backfire if pressured from outside. There is no critical evaluation of the social or economic forces that may resist change, for example the entrepreneurial class that benefits from privatisation or the religious elite whose function had been so far to maintain the acquiescence of the population. Cordesman uncritically accepts the leading role of the princes in the reform without outlying how certain members of the royal family obstructed and thwarted various attempts to move political debate, for example the harsh treatment of the constitutional reformers at the hands of the Minister of Interior, Prince Nayef in 2004. There is an absence of discussion of social forces in the kingdom and an engagement with their various intellectual and political productions that continue to grow and thrive outside the official public sphere. The problem with Codesman’s book is that it takes official statements and positions at face value.

The three books reviewed here sketch the historical, religious, political and security threats facing the Saudi regime in the post 9/11 era. Together they inform a wide audience about past, current and future potential threats facing a Kingdom, increasingly defined by outsiders as the sick man of the region. There are many observers who are willing to prescribe remedies, which if effective, would prolong the status quo until an obvious internal alternative to the political configuration emerges. Commins is ambitious and comprehensive. It will appeal to both historians and specialists in religious studies. Niblock offers insights into the political economy of Saudi Arabia but specialists may find it too general. It is a good and quick introduction to the novices. Cordesman’s is of limited use to those outside the field of military and security studies. All books reviewed here are reassuring when it comes to the short-term survival of the Saudi regime. They are all a welcome addition to scholarly work on Saudi Arabia. 

Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed