Saudi Arabia
The royal family of Saudi Arabia charges itself with the protection of the two holiest cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina, and the propagation of the Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam. The Muslim faith began in Mecca with the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century CE and quickly spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa along with Arab culture. Abdul Aziz Al Saud (1926-53) consolidated control over the Arabian Peninsula in the early 20th century, relying militarily on the Ikhwan, a Bedouin militia dedicated to spreading and enforcing Wahhabism. Islam is the state religion, and Wahhabi ethics are enforced by morals police. Non-Muslims may practice their faiths in private, but public displays of religion are limited to Wahhabi Sunni Islam. Of particular concern is the tendency of Wahhabism to breed militant Islamists; numerous terrorist attacks have been carried out against Saudi rule, and 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were Saudi.
ESSAYS ON SAUDI ARABIA
The Emergence of the Al Saud Family
The Saudi state traces its origins to the central Arabian Peninsula, a sparsely populated area east of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. In the seventh century, the Arabian Peninsula witnessed the appearance of Islam. The Prophet Muhammad and his followers established a thriving civilization, and Arab armies eventually conquered as far as Spain and India. However, in the centuries following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the centers of Muslim power gradually moved away from the peninsula. During the eighteenth century, religious reformer Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, who was engaged in a struggle against Shi’a Muslims and advocated a strict and austere form of Islam, forged an alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud for the purpose of creating an Islamic state. Endowed with the religious legitimacy of this alliance, Muhammad ibn Saud and his followers engaged in a series of campaigns to rid the region of practices they considered polytheistic. Following the death of Abd-al-Wahhab, Saudi rulers took the title of Imam, formally combining their temporal and religious authority. Since that time, state rulers of the Al Saud family have considered themselves Saudi Arabia’s supreme religious leaders. In 1803, Saudi armies captured Mecca and Medina, which prompted a response by the Ottoman Sultan and his Egyptian client, Muhammad Ali. The Egyptian army marched against the Saudi forces and, in 1818, they razed the Saudi capital and captured Abdullah ibn Saud, the grandson of Muhammad ibn Saud and leader of the family, bringing the First Saudi State to an end.
The Establishment and Consolidation of the Kingdom
Following the defeat of the First Saudi State, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed the restoration and expansion of the Al Saud family’s control over Arabia. Between 1821 and 1824, Turki ibn Abdallah retook the Saudi heartland from the Egyptians and consolidated his authority over much of the surrounding area. Intra-family struggles and pressure from the Ottomans and the British kept the Saudis from expanding their control during the nineteenth century. However, in 1905, Abdul Aziz Al Saud succeeded in capturing Riyadh and, with the support of local religious leaders, became head of the clan. Over the next twenty years, a combination of diplomacy and military campaigns gave him control over most of the peninsula, forging modern-day Saudi Arabia. During this time, he relied on the support of the Ikhwan, or Brotherhood, a religious army that was committed to spreading the version of Islam originally promoted by Abd-al-Wahhab. However, in 1929, conflicts with the Ikhwan led the Saudi leader to suppress them violently after he had secured the support of the religious establishment. The discovery of oil in the 1930s radically transformed the Kingdom and generated many new strains concerning inequality and corruption. After a period of instability during the 1950s and 1960s, King Faisal (1964-1975) pushed through a series of reforms that consolidated the power of religious conservatives while facilitating modernization. However, unrest reemerged in 1979-1980, as a group of armed religious traditionalists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca and Shi’a Muslims staged a series of protests in the northeast. Both events were violently suppressed but raised fears about the stability of the monarchy.
Recent Developments
The ability of Saudi monarchs to balance their role as rulers of a modern state, religious leaders, and protectors of the Islamic Holy Places has been tested over the last few decades. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait prompted King Fahd (1982-2005) to allow American troops to be stationed on Saudi soil, a decision that was harshly criticized by some Muslims who saw it as an assault upon the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. In 1995 and 1996, militants carried out terrorist attacks in the Kingdom, once more prompting concerns about domestic religious radicalism. The attacks of September 11 confirmed the international dimension of the phenomenon: 15 of the 19 perpetrators were Saudi, as was Osama bin Laden (1957-2011), the leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization and one of the masterminds behind the plot. In 2003, the United States withdrew most of its troops from Saudi Arabia. However, terrorist attacks in the Kingdom intensified over the following two years and remain a major concern. Religious freedom in Saudi Arabia is restricted; although non-Muslims are allowed to practice their religion at home, public religion is generally restricted to the formally approved interpretation of Sunni Islam. The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice acts as a religious police force, enforcing regulations pertaining to dress, gender relations, and prayer, among other aspects of daily life, and reports directly to the King.
Contemporary Affairs
The uneasy alliance between Saudi Arabia’s monarchy and its entrenched conservative religious establishment has led to action against those who disagree with the state interpretation of Sunni Islam, including Shi’as and members of other minority communities. In August 2010, the government arrested leading Shi’a cleric Abdullah Saleh Al-Muhanna for leading prayer services in his home. The arrest was part of a broader effort by the government to crack down on independent Shi’a clerics in southern provinces. More recently, the imprisonment of Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer sparked a “day of rage” in March 2011, in which many Shi’as called for a new poltical system that would permit them to freely express their religion. The approximately 800,000 Christians who live in Saudi Arabia are also suppressed, and anti-Christian sentiment was further codified in March 2012 when the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia declared that all churches in the country must be destroyed. In January 2011, the Saudi government passed a law requiring all online news outlets and blogs to include the “call to Islam” and a keen consciousness of Sharia law in all their work. The King has granted women the right to vote and to run for local public offices beginning in 2015, a decision that is being hailed as a revolutionary development for women’s rights in the Kingdom. In light of the revolutions of the 2011-2012 Arab Spring, the Saudi government has given billions of dollars to friendly states facing political protests. At home, King Abdullah’s modest reform efforts have generated tension amongst Saudi Arabia’s political and religious elites.
Religious Freedom in Saudi Arabia
The government of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Basic Law do not recognize or protect freedom of religion in the country, and all citizens are subject to the government’s strict Hanbali interpretation of Sharia law. Since the establishment of the Saudi state, the House of Saud has promoted Wahhabism, a strict brand of Sunni Islam, as the only official religion. Despite a substantial Shi’a minority in the southern provinces and the presence of non-Muslims throughout the Kingdom, the government does not guarantee Shi’as and other religious minorities the right to worship privately. Religious minorities often practice their religion in the privacy of their homes, but the religious police unit has disrupted these ceremonies in the past. Certain Shi’a judges are allowed to operate in the south, but Shi’as face routine discrimination in higher education and the legal system. Both blasphemy and apostasy are punishable by death, though there have been no confirmed executions recently for either crime. In the last decade, King Abdullah has rhetorically supported religious pluralism in Saudi Arabia as part of broader modernization efforts to restore Saudi Arabia’s international image. In 2003, Saudi Arabia began hosting a series of “National Dialogue” sessions aimed at promoting religious pluralism in the Kingdom. Consequently, the religious police lost the power to interrogate suspects, and the official school curriculum has been modified. The conservative religious establishment opposed these changes and, so far, the King’s attitude has not translated into substantive policy changes.
Religion in the Saudi Arabian Constitution
The Saudi Arabian constitution, officially referred to as the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia, establishes an Islamic state with Islam as the state religion. It also declares the Qur'an and the Sunnah to be the constitution of the kingdom. This commitment is evident throughout the document, and its articles consistently refer to the importance of Islamic values and require that all laws and regulations abide by Sharia law. The document declares the family to be the core of Islamic society and states that the education system will aim to instill the Islamic faith in the younger generation. Although it states that the kingdom will protect human rights in accordance with Sharia, there is no guarantee of religious freedom. Also worth noting, the Basic Law makes no mention of women, in a religious or general context, leaving gender relations completely subject to religious law.
Article 1: Islamic State
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God's Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God's prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution, Arabic is its language and Riyadh is its capital.
Article 7: Power of the Government
Government in Saudi Arabia derives power from the Holy Koran and the Prophet's tradition.
Article 8: Government Principles
Government in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is based on the premise of justice, consultation, and equality in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah.
Article 9: Family
The family is the kernel of Saudi society, and its members shall be brought up on the basis of the Islamic faith, and loyalty and obedience to God, His Messenger, and to guardians; respect for and implementation of the law, and love of and pride in the homeland and its glorious history as the Islamic faith stipulates.
Article 10: Family Ties, Islamic Values
The state will aspire to strengthen family ties, maintain its Arab and Islamic values and care for all its members, and to provide the right conditions for the growth of their resources and capabilities.
Article 13: Education
Education will aim at instilling the Islamic faith in the younger generation, providing its members with knowledge and skills and preparing them to become useful members in the building of their society, members who love their homeland and are proud of its history.
Article 17: Islam and the Economy
Property, capital, and labor are essential elements in the Kingdom's economic and social being. They are personal rights which perform a social function in accordance with Islamic Shari'ah.
Article 23: Islam
The state protects Islam; it implements its Shari'ah; it orders people to do right and shun evil; it fulfills the duty regarding God's call.
Article 25: World Peace
The state strives for the achievement of the hopes of the Arab and Islamic nation for solidarity and unity of word, and to consolidate its relations with friendly states.
Article 26: Human Rights
The state protects human rights in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah.
Article 29: Science, Culture
The state safeguards science, literature and culture; it encourages scientific research; it protects the Islamic and Arab heritage and contributes toward the Arab, Islamic and human civilization.
Article 33: Armed Forces
The state establishes and equips the Armed Forces for the defence of the Islamic religion, the Two Holy Places, society, and the citizen.
Article 48: Application of Shari'ah
The courts will apply the rules of the Islamic Shari'ah in the cases that are brought before them, in accordance with what is indicated in the Book and the Sunnah, and statutes decreed by the Ruler which do not contradict the Book or the Sunnah.
Article 2: Public Holidays
The state's public holidays are Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha. Its calendar is the Hegira calendar.
Article 3: State Flag
The state's flag shall be as follows:
(a) It shall be green.
(b) Its width shall be equal to two-thirds of it's length.
(c) The words "There is but one God and Mohammed is His Prophet" shall be inscribed in the center with a drawn sword under it. The statute shall define the rules pertaining to it.
Article 5: System of Government
(a) The system of government in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is that of a monarchy.
(b) Rule passes to the sons of the founding King, Abd al-Aziz Bin Abd al-Rahman al-Faysal Al Sa'ud, and to their children's children. The most upright among them is to receive allegiance in accordance with the principles of the Holy Koran and the Tradition of the Venerable Prophet.
Article 6: Allegiance to the King
Citizens are to pay allegiance to the King in accordance with the holy Koran and the tradition of the Prophet, in submission and obedience, in times of ease and difficulty, fortune and adversity.
Article 11: Basis of Society
Saudi society will be based on the principle of adherence to God's command, on mutual cooperation in good deeds and piety and mutual support and inseparability.
Article 24: Holy Places
The state works to construct and serve the Holy Places; it provides security and care for those who come to perform the pilgrimage and minor pilgrimage in them through the provision of facilities and peace.
Article 39: Expression
Information, publication, and all other media shall employ courteous language and the state's regulations, and they shall contribute to the education of the nation and the bolstering of its unity. All acts that foster sedition or division or harm the state's security and its public relations or detract from man's dignity and rights shall be prohibited. The statutes shall define all that.
Article 38: Punishment, Nulla Poena
Penalties shall be personal and there shall be no crime or penalty except in accordance with the Shari'ah or organizational law. There shall be no punishment except for acts committed subsequent to the coming into force of the organizational law.
Article 41: Residents' Duties
Residents of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia shall abide by its laws and shall observe the values of Saudi society and respect its traditions and feelings.
Article 45: Fatwa
The source of the deliverance of fatwa in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are God's Book and the Sunnah of His Messenger. The law will define the composition of the senior ulema body, the administration of scientific research, deliverance of fatwa and it's (the body of senior ulema's) functions.
Article 46: Judiciary
The judiciary is an independent authority. There is no control over judges in the dispensation of their judgements except in the case of the Islamic Shari'ah.
Article 55: Duties of the King
The King carries out the policy of the nation, a legitimate policy in accordance with the provisions of Islam; the King oversees the implementation of the Islamic Shari'ah, the system of government, the state's general policies; and the protection and defence of the country.
Article 67: Regulatory Authority
The regulatory authority lays down regulations and motions to meet the interests of the state or remove what is bad in its affairs, in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah. This authority exercises its functions in accordance with this law and the laws pertaining to the Council of Ministers and the Consultative Council.
