Introduction
In the '60s of the last century, the Egyptian Islamist ideologist Sayyid Qutb labelled with the term "new Pharaohs" those secular leaders of the Islam "Ummah" who governed against the precepts of the true Muslim faith. By doing so, according to Qutb's interpretation they were perpetuating the condition of "impiety and ignorance" (Jahilylya) proper to the Arab world before the coming of the Prophet (Kramer, 1997). Qutb's attacks, as well as those of the other theorists of the Islamic State (such as al-Banna, Mawdudi and Komeini) were directed against the cultural model of the European Enlightenment - with their corollary of secularism and division of powers - but also against nationalism and, more generally, against any system that was not part of the theoretical and practical reworking of political Islam.
Historical experience has identified the success of political Islam only in a few countries (Komeini's Iran, al-Bashir's Sudan, the Talibans in Afghanistan) and only in a relatively limited period of time (Kepel, 2000). The Egyptian case, cradle of the main ideologues of contemporary Islamism (al-Banna and Qutb) has experienced convulsive moments but, until now, not decisive for the success of political Islam in that country. Since the 50s of the last century, the Muslim Brotherhood was repressed (Qutb was executed in 1966 by order of Nasser), Islamism "harnessed" in a legal and controlled institution within the al-Azhar University and even timidly co-opted with Sadat (Lia, 1998). Although Sadat himself would later be assassinated in a sensational attack in 1981 by Qutb's followers, the Islamic revolution they hoped for would not have the social force to take root. Finally, the last chapter of the events of radical Islam in Egypt concerns the Arab Springs of 2013 that brought to the government, in the first free elections in the country, a president who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, deposed shortly thereafter by General Al-Sisi (Cavatorta, 2016).
Compared to the Egyptian convulsions, Saudi Arabia has always represented a "safe haven" for those Islamist dissidents fleeing from the repression of secular or socialist governments and seeking a path of life and faith sheltered from Wahhabi orthodoxy (Vassilev, 2000). The Saudi Kingdom is in fact intrinsically linked to the rigorist vision of Islam (that of the reformist Muhammad Ibn Wahhab who lived in the 18th century) from which it draws its political legitimacy. This union (symbolized in the national flag by the sword of the Saud and the Holy Book) has marked the entire history of the country, the only one in the Islamic Umma in which the Ulemas have an institutional power whose fatwa the kingdom regularly uses to legitimate its actions. Actions that are not always shared by the most fundamentalist movements of Sunni Islam. It is not by chance that the Kingdom is externally supported by the historical alliance with the United States (and before that with England) which has backed the fundamental geopolitical role of the country as the main exporter of oil (Gause, 2005). This alliance, however, represents the Achilles' heel of the "social pact" (or, better said, religious pact) with the galaxy of Islamic rigorist movements active in the Kingdom.
The arrival of US troops in Saudi Arabia on the occasion of the “First Gulf War” represented the first cause of dissent of the Salafi movements (grouped in the Sahwa movement that took root starting in the 80's) against the regime that authorized the arrival of "infidels in the Sacred Soil of Islam". For its part, the government has tried to ease friction with the Ulema, who are reluctant to accept an alliance with the "American Satan", by adopting a number of social and religious policies oriented towards a rigorous observance of Islamic codes of behavior: a tight grip on civil liberties, the autonomy of women and religious orthodoxy. However, modernity and, above all, the exploitation of the oil fields have not passed anonymously through a state that considers itself the indefatigable protector of a monolithic and particularly rigid version of Islam.
MBS
To change the face of the stiff Saudi monarchy, often victim of a complicated system of succession and intrigues that limits its decision-making prospects in the medium-long term, in 2017 the young Prince Mohammad bin Salman (born in 1985) was appointed Heir to the throne by his father Salman who, elderly and ill, still nominally holds the throne. Accumulating important positions (Minister of Defense; President of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs; Deputy Prime Minister), bin Salman is the effective holder of absolute power in Saudi Arabia, thus presenting himself as one of the youngest rulers on earth. Cosmopolitan, educated abroad, and with a strong admiration for the United States, Mohammad bin Salman (better known by his acronym MBS) represents an absolute novelty for the gerontocracy represented by the Saudi monarchy (Hubbard, 2020). His rise to power has not been free of "shocks" that seem, however, to have guaranteed his stability, through methods that are often controversial (behind the gilded imprisonment of many members of the national elite inside a luxury hotel in Riyadh, officially for reasons of corruption, many have seen a reckoning of the young prince with his internal opponents) and without many scruples in liquidating dissidence (an example is the Khashoggi case).
In the chiaroscuro of the Saudi political landscape, it is also necessary to point out the decisive change desired by MBS in undertaking an ambitious modernization plan that moves on two parallel levels: on the one hand, the imperative to diversify national production in an attempt to emancipate the country from the “Rentier State” status tied to its role as the world's leading oil exporter. On the other -and in part functional to the first objective- to modernize the country also in terms of customs and greater "liberality" so as to make it an effective pole of attraction for international investors.
And it is precisely in this double perspective that the nationalistic discourse is inserted, upsetting the doctrinal pillars on which the Saudi monarchy has always relied. The concept of nationalism (watraniyya) had already been partly cleared by MBS's uncle in 2003 (Champion, 2003). It was King Abdullah, then hereditary prince, who instituted the National Day of the Kingdom and it was he who opened, albeit timidly, to other currents of Saudi Islam through a special assembly that even welcomed the Shiite minority (always considered "heretical" by Sunnism, especially if of Wahhabi matrix). Today, the concept of nationalism advocated by MBS is enriched with new important meanings, especially in light of the historical upheavals of the last decade. First of all, the "Arab Springs" have revealed all the risks of a phenomenon that in all its variants (from the democratic impulse to the Islamist option) represents a real danger for the equilibrium of the Saudi monarchy. A response to these instances had to be reformulated according to an original - and vertically oriented - paradigm capable of mobilizing consensus around the royal house without risking the involvement of religious passions that are difficult to control. The long lasting war in Yemen, which represents one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of our times - and which for the royal family has proved to be a costly failure in strategic, economic and image terms - requires a renewed incitement to national pride in order to continue the mobilization of a population now tired of a useless and harmful military failure (see the attacks perpetrated by the Huthi rebels on the Aramco refineries on Saudi soil).
Nationalism and Contemporaneity
Above all, the reference to watraniyya is instrumental to the grandiose plan of reforms desired by MDS, who aims to make Saudi Arabia a pole of attraction for international investment, diversifying its economy away from dependence on oil. The ambitions of the young prince have focused on the "Vision 2030" Project with the construction of futuristic cities in the desert, hubs of new high-tech business to be built with private investment. This initiative and the public relations operation that MBS has strenuously promoted both abroad and at home cannot do without an ideological prop that dilutes the reactionary image of the Wahhabi imams with which the Saudi monarchy has long been associated. As much as the impetus of the young prince would seem propitious to relaunch the new role of Saudi Arabia in the changed international chessboard, MBS will, however, have to reckon with the consequences that this "restyling" could have on both the social and religious levels.
If during the 80s petrodollars represented a strong pole of attraction for thousands of unqualified personnel coming from every part of the Islamic world and beyond, the drastic drop in the price of crude oil today risks upsetting the delicate social balance on which the legitimacy of the kingdom is based (Gause, 1994). Tripling the volume of direct taxes from 5% to 15% (in a fiscal regime, typical of the "rentier state" that until recently knew almost no taxation) and burning billions of dollars with the lower oil revenues, there is a real risk of the emergence of protests by the urban middle classes, which have always been on the margins of the enormous wealth derived from black gold, wealth which was prerogative rather of the rich technocrats and state administrators (often members of the same royal family). Moreover, if until today the discontent of the rural classes of recent urbanization could somehow be catalyzed in a religious practice coherent with the Wahhabi weltanschauung, the social openings in customs inaugurated by MBS -however timid they may be- risks disintegrating even that religious Pax that kept the most marginalized classes "at bay". The restriction of the prerogatives of the mutawi'a (partly comparable to the Iranian pasdaran and in charge of overseeing the application of religious rules in daily life) risks displeasing the poorest part of the population to which the militias belong, and which finds in this role an outlet for its socio-economic frustration.
In some cases, the political actions undertaken by the Crown Prince go even against the sensibility of the Wahhabi hierarchy, such as having accentuated the importance of the Saudi National Day of September 23rd (in a secular sense), provoking the firm condemnation of the religious. Indicative of this new Zeitgeist is also the impetus adopted by the prince in recovering and enhancing pre-Islamic archaeological sites for tourism, something that makes shudder the most extreme among the iconoclastic Islamists -who associate the pre-Islamic period with the condition of jahilylya (pagan ignorance). More generally, it is the nationalist rhetoric that seems to inflame MBS's soul, in a discourse never heard before, and that pushes him to indicate a precise historical period (prior to 1979, the date in which the bond between political and religious power strengthened, accentuating a tightening of customs and morality) as a desirable point of reference for the kingdom of the future.
The Sword and the Book: a difficult relationship
It is true that fluctuations in the relationship between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the ruling house have marked the long history of Saudi Arabia: when the charisma of the preachers overpowered that of the rulers, it was they who prevailed; nor, on the other hand, at the beginning of the 1920s, did the progenitor of the kingdom, Abdul Aziz Saud, hesitate to exterminate the Mujahideen (Ikhwan)-supported by the British Air Force-when they proved to be a threat to the stability of power (Kostiner, 1993). And it was precisely among the clans whose members were members of the decapitated Ikhwan of that time that the commando of extremists emerged who in 1979 attacked the Great Mosque of Mecca, taking its pilgrims hostage. On that occasion, too, the repression was ruthless and marked a decisive moment in the ticklish dialectic between monarchy and clergy. Paradoxically, after that dramatic event, the clergy scored a point in its favor: in exchange for renewed support to King Khaled, the Ulema were granted wide margins of flexibility in education, teaching and propagation of the faith, with radio and television networks dedicated to them. Moreover, they obtained a tightening of customs and public morality that limited individual freedoms, especially for women. This was the beginning of the Sahwa (literally "the awakening"), a period of great dynamism in the religious field, personified by two charismatic Ulema, Salman al-Ouda and Safar al-Hawal.
However, the new preachers of the Sahwa were less cautious than the majority of the Wahhabi clergy in not clashing with the sovereigns, criticizing the "sloth" of the Ulema who supported the king and denouncing the exercise of a secular sovereignty which - according to them - cannot replace the divine one. To these doctrinaire diatribes is added the event -traumatic in many respects- represented by the First Gulf War in which Saudi Arabia participated, with the authorization of the permanence (which from then on will be stable) of American troops on the Saudi territory. Such a decision marks a fracture in the Sahwa, with the "old guard" of the Wahhabi Ulema sanctioning the king's decision with two fatwas, while the new generations of Salafists-Qutbists consider the foreign presence on the "sacred soil" nothing less than impiety. In addition to these dissidents, in the persons of Al-Hawali and al Awda -who were immediately arrested- many even more radicalized Salafists gave life to violent actions and to attacks against the American presence. Among the latter there is Osama Bin Laden, who just since then starts his own "Jihad" against "Jews and new crusaders" (sic).
Conclusions
It can be said that MDB's journey has indeed just begun, and as some observers suggest the young prince has the potential -both genetic and constitutional- to reign until 2070. The way he has so far managed power -in a mixture of cruelty and openness, modernity and tradition- would seem to bring him close to the figures of the enlightened absolutists of 18th-century Europe. The great unknown remains on how he will be able to stand on a very thin balance between modernization and Wahhabism, and on how the social and Islamic base will react to the announced reforms. The "condemnation" of black gold, in a particularly difficult current situation and in the urgency of freeing the Kingdom from the hegemony of hydrocarbons, requires a prudent but imperative policy, which the young prince seems to have undertaken. It will not be easy to convince those who, until yesterday, enjoyed the enormous revenues linked to oil to bear the costs of economic reconversion: taxation, a novelty in the terms in which it is announced today, and the drop in foreign manpower linked to the restrictions of Covid-19, certainly risk provoking discontent among the urban middle class and the merchant class that have so far supported the ruling house.
The real risk is that this discontent could be exploited by radical Salafi groups or by individual religious people who do not bow to the will of the Saud dynasty. If, on the one hand, MBS knows that he can count on the "docility" of the Council of Ulema, presided over by the powerful al-Sheikh family (direct descendants of Muhammad Ibn Wahhab and appointed by the monarch himself), spaces for radicalism exists outside the Council, as the history of Sahwa demontrates. Precisely those Ulema who have internalized and integrated the thoughts of Qutb, such as Salman al-Awda or Safar al-Hawali (who in the past had found themselves on a collision course with the power and then "rejoined the ranks) are now once again under the axe of MBS that had them arrested: al-Awda because he refused to sign the fatwa against Qatar and al-Hawali for having expressed himself in the press against the Crown prince. Is this the prelude to a renewed clash between an ambitious young prince, a potential "new pharaoh" to be overthrown according to fundamentalist rhetoric, herald of an unprecedented Saudi nationalism on one side and an Islamist galaxy determined to reaffirm the hegemony of fundamentalist Islam on the other? The outcome of this possible tussle, in which the former would have everything to lose and the latter everything to gain, will determine the destiny of the Saudi monarchy and, potentially, of the entire Middle East.
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