The irony of Islah (reform)

Washington Quarterly

Volumn 28, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 153-170

  Okruhlik, Gwenn ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN   (United States)

^b AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT   (Lebanon)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 27944450154     PISSN: 0163660X     EISSN: 15309177     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/0163660054798645     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. This analysis is not about "nation building" as embodied in U.S. policies. It refers to a serious, internal process that goes far beyond the imposition of institutions under foreign occupation. The fieldwork for this analysis was largely conducted in January-August 2003 in Riyadh, Jeddah, and several cities in the Eastern Province. The work was supported by a Fulbright Research Grant and supplemented with later interviews. More than 200 interviews crossed sect, gender, region, age, principled belief, and tribal/nontribal populations. All quotations are taken from these interviews.
2. On citizenship and nation-making, see Suad Joseph, ed., "Gender and Citizenship in Muslim Communities," Citizenship Studies 3, no 3 (1999);
3. Nils Butenschon, Uri Davis, and Manuel Hassassian, eds., Citizenship and the State in the Middle East (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000);
4. Sarah Radcliffe and Sallie Westwood, Remaking the Nation: Place, Identity and Politics in Latin America (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1996);
5. Sheila Croucher, "Perpetual Imagining: Nationhood in a Global Era," International Studies Review, no. 5 (2003): 1-24.
6. On myths, see Rogers Smith, "Citizenship and the Politics of People Building," Citizenship Studies 5, no. 1 (2001): 73-96;
7. Madawi al-Rasheed, "God, the King and the Nation: The Rhetoric of Politics in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s," Middle East Journal 50, no. 4 (Summer 1996): 359-371.
8. This is conveyed in the hadith sharif "kulukum ra'yi wa kulukum mas'ul 'an ra'yiatih," roughly translated to suggest that "you are all shepherds and you are responsible for your dependents (or flock)." It is given political meaning in the oath of allegiance "al baiy'a 'ala al sam' wa al ta'a," giving allegiance to hear and obey the ruler.
9. On citizenship in Saudi Arabia, see Fouad Ibrahim, "Al muwatana fi mujtama' ta 'addudi: halat al sa' udiyya' [Citizenship in a pluralistic society: the case of Saudi Arabia], Qadaia al khalij [Gulf issues], http://gulfissues.net/;
10. Yusif Makki, "Al muwatana wa al wihda al wataniyya" [Citizenship and national unity], Qadaia al khalij [Gulf issues], http://gulfissues.net/;
11. Khaled al-Rasheed, "Hal hunak hawiyya wataniyya sa'udiyya?" [Is there a Saudi national identity?], Shu'un sa'udiyya [Saudi affairs], no. 3 (April 2003): 26-27;
12. Wajiha al-Howaida, "Fuduha sira" [Stop this talk], June 1, 2005, http://www.hrinfo.net/.
13. Gwenn Okruhlik, "Networks of Dissent: Islamism and Dissent in Saudi Arabia," Current History, January 2002, pp. 22-28.
14. On the aftermath of 1979 and Islamism as a social movement, see Gwenn Okruhlik, "Making Conversation Permissible: Islamism and Reform in Saudi Arabia," in Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, ed. Quintan Wiktorowicz (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 250-269.
15. For an early and widely disseminated analysis, see "Kharitat al Islamiyyin fi al Sa 'udiyya wa Qossat al Takfir" [The Islamist map and the story of Takfir], February 27, 2003, http://elaph.com/.
16. Hebah Saleh, "Saudi Warning to Critical Civil Servants Dents Hopes of Political Reform," Financial Times, September 16, 2004.
17. For provocative work on the notion of a legitimate cultural repertoire, see Rhys Williams and Timothy Kubal, "Movement Frames and the Cultural Environment: Resonance, Failure and the Boundaries of the Legitimate," in Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, eds. Michael Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann (Stamford, Conn: JAI Press, 1999), pp. 225-248.
18. The United States is complicit in this deflection. It emphasizes reforms of education, banking, the WTO, and gender. It does not press for meaningful and explicit political power sharing. On the U.S. role in this process, see Ali al-Ferdan, "The Prison of Reformers and the Reality of the Saudi Government," Arabian News, May 16, 2005.
19. A linguistic note: "Wahhabi" seems to have taken on a hegemonic meaning in the international press that does not accurately reflect its usage in Saudi Arabia prior to September 11, 2001. Believers would never refer to themselves as Wahhabi, as that implies worshipping someone - Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab - other than God. They prefer instead to call themselves muwahhidun or ahl al-tawhid, to emphasize the centrality of monotheism, or Salafi, to emphasize the purity of their beliefs based on the precedent of the Prophet. Usually, Salafi is a broader category than Wahhabi and the latter implies less tolerance of diversity than the former. It is a confusing state of affairs as the term means different things to different people. It may be useful to think of three meanings of Wahhabism: as a religious practice grounded in time and place, as a set of social norms dominant in the Najd, and as a type of jurisprudence. There is an emphasis on what actions are haram (prohibited) or bid'a (heresy). Wahhabism is opposed to Sufism, saint worship, and folk religious traditions. It is exclusionary, carefully delineating boundaries that distinguish believers from others. Believers reject sectarian divisions and perceive Wahhabism as the one, true Islam. To refer to those people who have broader political aspirations directed against the hegemony of the West, the more appropriate term is al salafiyyun al judud (neo-salafi).
20. Hamad Saleh al-Misfr, "Ittako Allah Ya ma'shara al Kodatt Fi Ahkamikum" [Fear God, oh judges, as you make decisions], Al Quds Al Arabi, May 23, 2005. Al-Misfr asks, "Do the judges [who sentenced the three men] know what they are doing or are they ordered by the sultan?"
21. In the above article, al-Misfr refers to "al amen al fikri fi sunnat Allah" [the security of ideas in the way of God]. See Muhammad Mafouz, "Watania wa 'adala al siyasia" [Citizenship and political justice], Majala al Kalima, May 27, 2005.
22. See Faiza Amba, "Saudi Crackdown on Dissenters," Christian Science Monitor, May 16, 2005;
23. Mai Yamani, "How to Make Violence Inevitable in Saudi Arabia," Daily Star, June 2, 2005.
24. Madawi al-Rasheed constructs five "political heresies" that this fusion (al salafia al sultania) has produced. Madawi al-Rasheed, "Muhakamat duat al islah fi al sa'udiyya" [The judging of the reformists], Al Quds Al Arabi, May 17, 2005.