Islam in Saudi Arabia

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Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is called the "home of Islam"; it was the birthplace of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who united and ruled the Arabian Peninsula.[1] It is the location of the cities of Mecca and Medina, where Prophet Muhammad lived and died, and are now the two holiest cities of Islam. The kingdom attracts millions of Muslim Hajj pilgrims annually, and thousands of clerics and students who come from across the Muslim world to study. The official title of the King of Saudi Arabia is "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques"—the two being Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina—which are considered the holiest in Islam.[2]

In the 18th century, a pact between Islamic preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and a regional emir, Muhammad bin Saud, brought a revival of Islam (Salafism - that is, following the Quran and Sunnah in light of the intepretation of ‘As Salaf As Salih’) of Sunni Islam first to the Najd region and then to the Arabian Peninsula. Referred to by supporters as "Salafism" and by others as "Wahhabism", this interpretation of Islam became the state religion and interpretation of Islam espoused by Muhammad bin Saud and his successors (the Al Saud family), who eventually created the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. The Saudi government has spent tens of billions of dollars of its petroleum export revenue throughout the Islamic world and elsewhere on building mosques, publishing books, giving scholarships and fellowships,[3] hosting international Islamic organisations, and promoting its form of Islam, sometimes referred to as "petro-Islam".[4]

The mission to call to Islam the way the Salaf practiced it has been dominant in Najd for two hundred years, but in most other parts of the country—Hejaz, the Eastern Province, Najran—it has dominated only since 1913–1925.[5] Most of the 15 to 20 million Saudi citizens are Sunni Muslims,[6] while the eastern regions are populated mostly by Twelver Shia, and there are Zaydi Shia in the southern regions.[7] According to a number of sources, only a minority of Saudis consider themselves Wahhabis, although according to other sources, the Wahhabi affiliation is up to 40%, making it a very dominant minority, at the very least using a native population of 17 million based on "2008–09 estimates".[8][9][10] In addition, the next largest affiliation is with Salafism, which encompasses all of the central principles of Islam, with a number of minor additional accepted principles differentiating the two.[citation needed]

Public worship and proselytising by non-Muslims, including the distribution of non-Muslim religious materials (such as the Bible), is illegal in Saudi Arabia.[11][12]

Starting in late 2017, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, dramatic changes have been made in religious policy, including the elimination of the power of the religious police, the lifting of bans on amusement parks, cinemas, concert venues, and driving of motor vehicles by women.[13][14]

In a 2014 survey, conducted for the Boston Consultancy Group report on Saudi youth, it was found that 97% of the young Saudis consider Islam "as the main influence that shapes their identity."[15]

  1. ^ Bradley, John R. (2005). Saudi Arabia Exposed : Inside a Kingdom in Crisis. Palgrave. p. 145. ISBN 978-1403964335. 'home of Islam' as the 1930s geopolitical construct of Saudi Arabia is ... referred to "
  2. ^ Rodenbeck, Max (October 21, 2004). "Unloved in Arabia (Book Review)". The New York Review of Books. 51 (16). Archived from the original on January 6, 2019. Retrieved June 12, 2014. This is, after all, the birthplace of Muhammad and of the Arabic language, the locus of Muslim holy cities, the root of tribal Arab trees, and also, historically, a last redoubt against foreign incursions into Arab and Muslim lands. The kingdom is in many ways a unique experiment. It is the only modern Muslim state to have been created by jihad,[10] the only one to claim the Koran as its constitution, and [the only Arab-]Muslim countries to have escaped European imperialism.
  3. ^ Kepel, Gilles (2002). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. trans. Anthony F. Roberts, p. 72
  4. ^ Kepel (2002), pp. 69–75
  5. ^ Commins, David (2009). The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia. I.B.Tauris. p. 77. The region had been part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuries and consequently its religious culture was pluralistic, with the four Sunni legal schools, various Sufi orders and a tiny Shia community around Medina.... Hijazis naturally regarded the reintroduction of Saudi rule with much apprehension, ...
  6. ^ "Saudi Arabia, Islam in". The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Archived from the original on 2019-01-08. Retrieved 2009-12-01.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference shrefs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference al-ahmed-2002 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Schwartz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference IMW was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ "World Report 2015: Saudi Arabia". hrw.org. Human Rights Watch. 29 January 2015. Archived from the original on 6 January 2019. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
  12. ^ World Report 2018: Saudi Arabia Archived 2018-11-16 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved February 3, 2018.
  13. ^ Boghani, Priyanka (1 October 2019). "The Paradox of Saudi Arabia's Social Reforms". PBS Frontline. Archived from the original on 19 February 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  14. ^ Hubbard, Ben (21 March 2020). "MBS: The Rise of a Saudi Prince". The New York Times. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 February 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2021.
  15. ^ Thompson, Mark (2019). Being Young, Male and Saudi: Identity and Politics in a Globalized Kingdom. Cambridge University Press. p. 33.