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Sunni faqt board top people8/12/2023 ![]() ![]() As is usually the case in Saudi Arabia, the change started at the top. The consequences of these changes are affecting the kingdom itself and Saudi diplomacy abroad too.Įven as Saudi religious institutions are being restructured, their tools are being pruned, ostensibly to increase governing efficiency but likely for political reasons as well. Previously powerful actors are being overruled, and their structures are being remolded but not abolished. Nothing is being wholly dismantled, but everything is being changed. There have been some suggestions of marginalizing but no frontal assault on Wahhabi teachings long-standing structures have survived, apparently immune and adapting to existential challenges, at least for now. And because these alterations amount to reshufflings rather than redesigns, they may be reversible or may simply be the endgame in themselves. Most of the changes are not wholly new but began under the previous king, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Rhetoric and tone are also shifting in ways that suggest more radical moves could come at some point. A combination of procedural shifts, personnel changes, bureaucratic restructurings, and changes in jurisdiction are revolutionizing the role of Islam in the Saudi state-and in public life.īut for all the potentially radical, cumulative effects, most of these changes are technical adjustments, redistributions of duties, or changes in appointment patterns. The Saudi governance system has been undergoing a rapid and radical restructuring, perhaps the most far-reaching alterations since its formation a century ago. 1 The trend began a few years ago, even before he became crown prince, and now it is accelerating. Its religious doctrine is no longer “committed blindly” to the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, or to any “certain school or scholar,” as the man championing these changes, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, stated on April 27, 2021. ![]() The country’s governing structures are being centralized, remolded, and reined in. But these characteristics are not timeless or immutable, and they may be changing. Wahhabi interpretations of Islamic texts and teachings-pursued and enforced by bodies like the religious police, the Ministry of Education, and a judiciary trained in sharia (Islamic law) that retains general jurisdiction-have given the Saudi state a religious character with no real parallel in the region. Since Saudi Arabia was founded almost a century ago, the doctrines and structures of the country’s religious institutions have evolved in unusual and distinctive ways.
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