Winds of change in Saudi Arabia

Since ascending the throne in August 2005, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the sixth monarch of modern Saudi Arabia, has embraced a programme of gradualist reform that has chipped away at the power and influence of the Wahabbist religious establishment. The king's announcement in early October of a major transformation of the country's judicial system is only the latest in a series of measures that has, in effect, diminished the influence of Wahabbi clerics.

Wide-ranging education reforms pledged by the king have also weakened one of the traditional bastions of Saudi ulema (a body of Muslim scholars recognised as expert in Islamic sacred law and theology) power. Recent government attempts to stymie the religious police (known as the Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, also known as the mutawain) and government-backed television shows that lampoon religious hypocrisy have added to this environment of change in the country. Although the king remains close to the religious establishment, his efforts to modernise the country's institutions has the potential to substantively transform the modern Saudi alliance between ruler and sheikh, and elevate other key players in the Saudi system, most notably the government technocracy and the private sector.

A more aggressive effort to root out extremism and roll back the violent Salafist-jihadists linked to or inspired by Al-Qaeda has been concomitant with the king's gradualist reform programme that has weakened the influence of the non-violent Salafist establishment.

Since the May 2003 attack on a housing compound in Riyadh that left 26 people dead including nine US citizens and seven Saudis, and the subsequent year of terrorist attacks on Saudi soil, the government has severely limited the extremist threat at home through direct assaults on militants combined with a education and reintegration programme of former militants.

While the government's battle with extremists makes headlines, it is the quiet transformation of Saudi institutions that will have the longer-term effect on the future of Saudi Arabia. The religious establishment have played a critical role in governing the Saudi state since the 18th century religious reformer Muhammad ibn Abdulwahab joined forces with Najdi tribal leader Muhammad bin Saud in the creation of what is often referred to as the first Saudi state.

Muhammad bin Saud embraced the ideas of Ibn Abdulwahab, who protested at what he saw as excessive innovation (bida) in the practices of Muslims from idol worship to the veneration of saints to loose morals. He also directly repudiated Sufi mystical practices and Shia ideas and practices. Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab also introduced the Arabian peninsula to the ideas of the 13th century Islamic thinker Ibn Taymiyah, whose understanding of tawhid (oneness and uniqueness of God) led him to reject popular practices such as praying at the saints' shrines or Shia rituals or celebration of the prophet Muhammad's birthday, as shirk (a term that denotes idolatry by comparing something to God). 479 of 2415 words