Description
The terms Wahhabi or Salafi are seen as interchangeable and frequently misunderstood by outsiders. However, as Madawi al-Rasheed explains in a fascinating exploration of Saudi Arabia in the twenty-first century, even Saudis do not agree on their meaning. Under the influence of mass education, printing, new communication technology, and global media, they are forming their own conclusions and debating religion and politics in traditional and novel venues, often violating official taboos and the conservative values of the Saudi society. Drawing on classical religious sources, contemporary readings and interviews, Al-Rasheed presents an ethnography of consent and contest, exploring the fluidity of the boundaries between the religious and political. Bridging the gap between text and context, the author also examines how states and citizens manipulate religious discourse for purely political ends, and how this manipulation generates unpredictable reactions whose control escapes those who initiated them.
Chapter
1 Consenting subjects: official Wahhabi religio-political discourse
Genealogies and geographies of people of knowledge
Consolidating the state:mystification of the world
2 Re-enchanting politics: Sahwis from contestation to co-optation
The meaning of Sahwa: re-enchanting politics
One Sahwi group among others
11 September: an accused and divided Sahwa
Sahwa: from contestation to co-optation
The domestic political front
The regional and international front
A triumphant or bitter and twisted Sahwa?
3 Struggling in the way of God abroad: from localism to transnationalism
Struggle in the way of God abroad
Phase 1 (the 1980s): early transnational encounters
Phase 2 (the 1990s): from excommunicating society to excommunicating rulers
London: contesting Wahhabi religio-political discourse
Transnationalisation in peaceful contexts
4 Struggling in the way of God at home: the politics and poetics of jihad
Taking Sahwa to its logical conclusion: qa'idun vs. mujahidun
The struggle in the way of God in the Arabian Peninsula
Jihadis and Sahwis: ‘the years of deceit’
The poetics of jihad: body and soul
Celebrations of life and death: jihad as performance
Gendered jihad: women, honour and shame
Repentance: violence to renounce violence
Jihad: self-annihilation, purposeful behaviour or agent of modernity?
5 Debating Salafis: Lewis Atiyat Allah and the jihad obligation
The first conversion: from Sahwi Islamism to liberalism
The second conversion: back to Sahwa
The final confirmation: Lewis the Jihadi
Lewis Atiyat Allah and Abu Yasir: from Buraydah to Manhattan
Abu Yasir’s point of view
Lewis and violence in Saudi Arabia
Lewis and his enemies: the jihad obligation explained
Lewis comes home to bilad al-haramayn
The ultimate defilement of bilad al-haramayn: ‘when a hypocrite becomes ruler’
The sultan’s 'ulama: ‘cursed by God and cursed by cursers’
Preparing for chaos: an Imam elected by an alternative council
Lewis: between admiration and detraction
Evaluating Lewis: popularity against anonymity
Searching for meaning: Lewis’s message
6 Searching for the unmediated word of God
The pillars of Saudi authoritarianism
Liberating history from Wahhabi domination
Liberating theology from Wahhabi domination
Liberating politics from Wahhabi interpretations
Breaking chains: the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia
INTRODUCTION: DEBATING RELIGION AND POLITICS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
1 CONSENTING SUBJECTS: OFFICIAL WAHHABI RELIGIO-POLITICAL DISCOURSE
2 RE-ENCHANTING POLITICS: SAHWIS FROM CONTESTATION TO CO-OPTATION
3 STRUGGLING IN THE WAY OF GOD ABROAD: FROM LOCALISM TO TRANSNATIONALISM
4 STRUGGLING IN THE WAY OF GOD AT HOME: THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF JIHAD
5 DEBATING SALAFIS: LEWIS ATIYAT ALLAH AND THE JIHAD OBLIGATION
6 SEARCHING FOR THE UNMEDIATED WORD OF GOD
Cambridge Middle East Studies 25
Contesting the Saudi State
：Islamic Voices from a New Generation
( Cambridge Middle East Studies )
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