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Hellige råd til kongen – staten og islamisk opposition i Saudi-Arabien

Engelsk summary:

Taking the Islamic opposition in Saudi Arabia the last 30 years as a departure, this article argues that the Islamic opposition can not be understood only within a terror-oriented global framework but also needs to be seen through a national state-oriented scope. When analyzing the Saudi state building process – beginning in 1744 with the alliance between the tribal leader Muhammad Ibn Saud and the religious reformer Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab – it becomes clear that the Saudi state has in fact defined the terms of both the state and the Islamic opposition. Terms in which state and religion are intertwined. The Saudi royal family has used religion to legitimate their hegemonic status within the state but on the same time also obligated themselves to live according to the strict wahabi interpretation of Islam. It is the royal family’s obligation to the “pure” and virtuous Islam that the Islamic opposition since 1979 has insisted on, and it is also this obligation which the very different Islamic groups have in common in spite of different means.