The Middle East witnessed the rise of nationalist and secular governments during the 1960s, notably in Egypt and Syria; this threatened the Saudi state apparatus and caused it to embrace strategies to ensure its stability (Lacroix, 2011). To counter the increased regional competition between the Saudi monarchy and Arab nationalism, the state apparatus championed modernisation and found in its processes a new source of legitimacy.
Large-scale modernisation was enabled by the rise in oil revenues and the gradual
emergence of an oil-based economy enmeshed in global market dynamics. Concurrently, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who represented the political opposition to the nationalist and secular governments in the region, found refuge in Saudi Arabia following their prosecution in Egypt and Syria (Hegghammer and Lacroix, 2007, p103–122; Lacroix, 2011; Menoret, 2005). As a religious organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood appeared to align with the state apparatus, which continued to derive its legitimacy from the religious apparatus, and which found in the Muslim Brotherhood an ideological tool mobilised to counter the threat of anti-monarchical politics.
The arrival of the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia since the 1960s represented a pivotal moment in the formulation of religious nationalism, as the Brotherhood
progressively infused a political consciousness into the religious apparatus, causing it to destabilise the established order in the locus of power. As religious as it is political, the Muslim Brotherhood is characterised by two ideological stances that caused the religious apparatus to oppose the state’s newly-embraced strategies of modernisation. As described by Lacroix:
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Like the Muslim reformist tradition from which it derives, the tradition of the Muslim Brotherhood is primarily political and was constructed, in its Bannaist version, against the ‘imperialist West’ and in its Qutbist version, against the ‘godless regimes’ of the Middle East. The Wahhabi tradition, in contrast, is primarily religious and was constructed against bida’, that is, the impurities that were supposed to have grown up around the original dogma of the pious ancestors. (Lacroix, 2011: 52)
Thus, the Muslim Brotherhood appeared complementary to the Salafi (i.e. Wahhabi) tradition, as it supplemented its local, isolated interests with a globalised political consciousness (Lacroix, 2011; Menoret, 2005). Consequently, the state apparatus
embraced new strategies for development while simultaneously implementing the seeds of its opposition. The logic of partitioning1 came under pressure as a new agenda was set for the religious apparatus to fight against the evils of ‘Westernisation’. Hence, a tension was created between the two sources from which the state derived its legitimacy.
The introduction of the Muslim Brotherhood also signalled the internal fragmentation of the apparatus responsible for unifying the multiplicities of the social space. Its insertion into Saudi Arabia created a religious apparatus composed of different groups characterised by the ‘... multiplicity of visions that motivates them’ (Lacroix, 2011: 2). Although state determinism led to an attempt to institutionalise the religious apparatus in the 1970s (Lacroix, 2011; Menoret, 2005), the religious sphere resisted homogenisation and
remained composed of different groups, most notably: 1) Traditional Salafis (Wahhabis), 2) the Muslim Brotherhood, 3) the Sahwa movement, which can be described as a hybrid movement established at the junction between the Wahhabi and Brotherhood traditions, 4) Ahl-al-Hadith, who desired to purify Wahhabism from the influence of Muslim Brotherhood ideology, and therefore by definition were anti-Sahawis, and 5) Jihadis, who emerged in the 1990s and advocated armed mobilisation against the state (Lacroix, 2011). Therefore, the religious apparatus became characterised by a multiplicity of opposing or overlapping views. Most significantly, the effects of these affiliations were propagated through the educational system — which was especially mobilised by the Muslim Brotherhood to
counter the effects of ‘Westernisation’ and its corruptive effects on the purity of the nation.
Both in schools and universities, generations were educated to ‘scorn what the West was giving them, while also being encouraged to blame the West for their ills’ (Lacey, 2009).
By the 1970s and through to the 1980s, the influence of the religious apparatus on the education system had the effect of propagating ideologies as well as the disciplines at the capillary level. Thus, the gradual fragmentation of the apparatus found its way into the social body. Affiliations were made explicit in some instances, while they remained implicit whenever members of the general population came under the influence of one group or the other. Therefore, the precepts of promoting virtue and preventing vice gained new dimensions, as implicit and explicit affiliations of official members and volunteers could vary across the ideological spectrum, while the general population was educated to counter the social ‘ills’ incurred from processes of modernisation.
Against this socio-religious background, the oil boom of 1973 stimulated and accelerated state-led modernisation. Urban and economic development was further accelerated due to economic deregulation coupled with the royal decrees issued between 1973 and 1978
— which greatly incentivised the private sector to participate in the modernisation process (Menoret, 2005; Taylor and Weissman, 1980, p331–359). The royal decrees placed a structural limitation on foreign capital by forcing non-Saudi investment to go through local representatives who were paid an important percentage of the profits generated in the local economy. By forcing partnership with the Saudi private sector, the state apparatus created an investment climate that caused the emerging Saudi business class to
accelerate the penetration of international capital. As a result, what the religious apparatus saw as a process of ‘Westernisation’ that risked undermining the purity of the social body became a source of enrichment for the emerging business elite. A split was therefore created in the locus of power between the sources of state legitimacy: one class constantly
‘Westernising’, and another constantly fighting ‘Westernisation’.
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119 118
The 1970s were also marked by the increased appearance of women in the public sphere.
Modernisation during this period opened new channels for women’s participation in public media such as the appearance of women’s photographs in newspapers (Lacey, 2009).
However, at the social level, the oil boom of 1973 led to the double exclusion of women (Al-Rasheed, 2013). Women were excluded from the general economy, as men were the sole breadwinners; at the same time, economic abundance caused women to be excluded from the domestic sphere as more families were able to afford the use of domestic help (Al-Rasheed, 2013). Consequently, increased purchasing power and free time caused women to become agents of surplus absorption through consumption. As Al-Rasheed (2013) notes, the situation of women challenged societal norms as they started to be more visible in urban spaces. As a result, segregation between the sexes — which was the rule in central Arabia2 (Lacey, 2009) — came under pressure in the 1960s and 1970s as more women ventured in unregulated urban spaces. However, this caused women to become targets of harassment, intimidation and flirtation (Al-Rasheed, 2013). In response, the state apparatus gave more power to the CPVPV, which was charged with repressing contact between the sexes (Al-Rasheed, 2013). This development must be understood in light of the state apparatus’ desire to appease growing religious discontent caused by such social developments. Therefore, state-led modernisation continued without interference from the religious apparatus at the political and economic level. On the other hand, the social sphere came increasingly under its influences in order to counter and suppress what was believed to ‘compromise’ the integrity of the social body.
Nevertheless, the increasing tension created by the state apparatus caused a militant opposition group to emerge at the fringes of the religious apparatus. The group was established in in the mid-1960s by religious students who assumed the duty of practising the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice (hisba) (Hegghammer and Lacroix, 2007, p103–122; 2011; Lacroix, 2011). Disciples of prominent scholars and named Al- Jama’a al-Salafiyya al-Muhtasiba (the Salafi Group that practices Hisba), members of the group derived their position from Ahl-al-Hadith in their anti-Sahawi ideology (Hegghammer and Lacroix, 2007, p103–122; 2011; Lacroix, 2011), presenting themselves as volunteers with
the mission of protecting society from the ‘corrupting’ effects of accelerated modernisation and Westernisation.
A complete account of Al-Jama’a al-Salafiyya al-Muhtasiba and its history is beyond the scope of this research; however, what is important to note is that the group witnessed a split in 1977 led by a radical follower, Juhayman al-‘Utaybi, who became the leader of the internal rebellion (Hegghammer and Lacroix, 2007, p103–122; 2011). Progressively, Juhayman and his followers differed with the official religious establishment as they accused it of tolerating the immorality of the state apparatus (Hegghammer and Lacroix, 2007, p103– 122; 2011; Lacroix, 2011). The group rose against what they perceived as the state’s perversion of Islamic precepts, condemned the state’s allegiance to the United States as the enemy of the Islamic nation, and attacked the state’s imposition of moral corruption and vice over society (Lacroix, 2011; Menoret, 2005). Thus, the disciplinary mechanisms of the precepts of promoting virtue and preventing vice were re-appropriated, turned against the state apparatus, and mobilised as a source of legitimacy for political opposition.
By the end of 1979, the efforts of Juhayman and his followers culminated in the armed occupation of the Grand Mosque in Mecca (Hegghammer and Lacroix, 2007, p103–
122; 2011; Lacey, 2009; Lacroix, 2011). The year 1979 also coincided with the Islamic Revolution and overthrow of the Shah of Iran, which followed the rise of Arab nationalism in the region. Such local and regional events raised political concerns which caused the State to turn to the religious apparatus and adopt strategies to ensure the stability of the Saudi locus of power.
The seizure of the Grand Mosque came as a shock to the state apparatus, which was not equipped at that time with the tools necessary to deal with the complexity of the situation (Lacey, 2009). Due to the religious — both ideological and geographical — context of the occupation, the state apparatus turned to the official religious establishment to provide a legal opinion prior to military intervention. The response of the religious establishment came three days later, which suggested the embarrassment felt by the scholars, who were
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asked to condemn ‘…the pious young men they had once blessed as their missionaries’
(Lacey, 2009: 27). Ultimately, two weeks of military intervention with the help of the French special forces GIGN3 ended the occupation and restored public order (Hegghammer and Lacroix, 2007, p103–122; 2011; Lacey, 2009; Lacroix, 2011).