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Senator Joseph R. Biden discusses topics relating to Saudi Arabia with host Carol Marin.
Watch the video
or read the transcript.
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Will Saudi Arabia find a path to democratic
reform or succumb to a rising tide of Islamic extremism?
Read this week's briefing (below) to learn about Saudi Arabia's
political leaders and the role religion plays in internal and external
politics.
Saudi Arabia, America's Ally and Enemy
by Michael S. Doran
October 4, 2004
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Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a crisis. Its population is growing
faster than its economy, its welfare state is rapidly deteriorating,
regional and sectarian resentments are rising, and the disaffected are
increasingly turning to radical Islamic activism. Many understand that
the Saudi political system must evolve in order to survive, but a
profound cultural schizophrenia prevents the elite from agreeing on the
specifics of reform.
On the one hand, some Westernizers in the
ruling class look to Europe and the United States as models of political
development; on the other, a Wahhabi religious establishment holds up
its interpretation of Islam's golden age as a guide and considers giving
any voice to non-Wahhabis as idolatry.
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| 570 | Birth of Prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam, in Mecca,
Saudi Arabia
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| 622 | Prophet Muhammad flees to Medina, Saudi Arabia. Medina
becomes the base of Islam and the growing Islamic empire.
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| 1703 | Birth of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. He preaches a
particularly conservative Islam in central Arabia and forms an early
political alliance with Ibn Saud, considered the founder of the Saudi
state.
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| 1902 | Abdul Aziz ibn Saud (Ibn Saud) begins a thirty year effort
to unite and control disparate tribes and sheikdoms on the Arabian
peninsula.
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| 1932 | Based in Riyadh, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
is formed under the rule of King Ibn Saud.
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| 1938 | Oil is discovered in the desert near Dhahran,
by Standard Oil of California.
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The first oil tanker leaves Ras Tanura carrying 1358 barrels of crude.
| | 1951 | Arabian
American Oil Company (Aramco) is formed by Standard Oil of California
and the Saudis to produce and export oil. The Saudis hold a 50% share
of control and revenue.
| | 1952 |
Ibn-Saud dies and is succeeded by his son, Saud.
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| 1960 | OPEC, The Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, is formed.
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Saudi Arabia's two most powerful figures have taken opposing sides in
this debate: Crown Prince Abdullah tilts toward the liberal reformers,
whereas his half-brother Prince Nayef, the interior minister, sides with
the clerics. Abdullah cuts a higher profile abroad, but Nayef, who
controls the secret police, casts a longer and darker shadow at home.
The two camps divide over a single question: whether the state
should reduce the power of the religious establishment. The clerics and
Nayef take their stand on the principle of tawhid, or "monotheism," as
defined by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Wahhabism's founder. In their
view, many people who claim to be monotheists are actually polytheists
and idolaters. For the most radical Saudi clerics, these enemies include
Christians, Jews, Shiites, and even insufficiently devout Sunni Muslims.
From the perspective of tawhid, these groups constitute a grand
conspiracy to destroy true Islam.
In the minds of the clerics,
stomping out pagan cultural and political practices at home and
supporting war against Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq are two sides
of the same coin. Jihad against idolatry, the clerics never tire of
repeating, is eternal, "lasting until Judgment Day," when true
monotheism will destroy polytheism once and for all. The doctrine of
tawhid also ensures the clerics a unique domestic political status,
since it implies they alone have the necessary training to safeguard the
purity of the realm.
If tawhid marks the right pole of the
Saudi political spectrum, then the doctrine of taqarub -- rapprochement
between Muslims and non-Muslims -- marks the left. Taqarub promotes the
notion of peaceful coexistence with nonbelievers. It also seeks to
expand the political community by legitimizing political participation
by groups that the Wahhabis consider non-Muslim -- Shiites, secularists,
feminists and so on. In foreign policy, taqarub muzzles jihad, allowing
Saudis to live in peace with Christian Americans, Jewish Israelis, and
even Shiite Iranians.
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Will Saudi Arabia find a path to democratic reform?
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Debate the issues presented in this show in our online forum!
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Inside This Episode
 Get to know the faces and places of Saudi Arabia with our Photo Essay.
In Who's
Who, read about the ten most influential members of the House of
Saud
Learn about the Saudi oil industry and the world's dependence
on such in the Interactive Map.
Saudi Arabia's flag
Do Western norms and standards conflict with the basic beliefs and
practices of Islam ?
Discuss
the issue!
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