Chapter 2 -- The Bases of "Traditional" Politics: Islam and Tribalism

The American conventional wisdom about politics in the Gulf monarchies -- that it is defined by immutable characteristics of Islam and tribalism -- is not so much wrong as it is outdated. The founding and development of all these states depended very heavily on the ability of the ruling families to mobilize military and political support from Arabian tribes, and in some cases to use Islamic political ideologies to link various tribes (and other social groups like merchants and settled populations) in a larger political movement. Tribalism and Islam are central concepts for understanding the origins of these regimes. But the relationships between the institutions of religion and tribalism and the governments have changed markedly, particularly since the advent of enormous oil wealth in the 1970's. It is not enough to say that the political systems in the Gulf monarchies are based upon tribalism and Islam. We must look at how those factors affect politics now.

The power of that "conventional wisdom" to influence analysis is abetted by the Gulf monarchies themselves. They portray themselves to their own people and to the world as the embodiment of Arabian tribal values and (more in some cases than others) Muslim piety. They have created an ideology of Islam and tribalism, based on their own interpretations of these concepts, to legitimate their rule domestically and internationally. The irony is that the symbols and rhetoric of tribalism and Islam have become more prominent at the same time that the institutions embodying these social formations have undergone drastic change. Nomadic pastoralism and the caravan trade, the economic bases of central Arabian tribalism, have virtually ceased to exist. The state now provides directly to the individual many of the benefits that, in the past, came from the tribe. The balance of power between the central authorities and the tribes is now squarely on the side of the former. Likewise the institutions of Islam are now much more dependent upon the state, and much more a subordinate part of the state apparatus, than was the case in the past.

These changes have not been accidental. Each of these regimes has worked assiduously to curtail the independent power of the tribes and make tribal structures subordinate parts of their political systems. They have absorbed the institutions of Islam -- mosques, schools, courts, scholarly organizations, awqaf (religious trusts) -- into the state apparatus, to control and direct them. The versions of tribalism and Islam constructed by the Gulf monarchies have become important arms of the state, providing institutional support and ideological legitimation to the regimes. Citizens of these states are permitted to organize socially and participate politically through these sanctioned institutions. The governments supply money to support tribal and religious institutions, and allow them the space to operate publicly. That public space is largely denied to other types of social and political organization, like political parties or, with some limited exceptions, a free press.[1]

The unintended consequence of this policy, however, has been to encourage political opposition, when it arises, to organize on tribal and religious bases, both ideologically and institutionally. The regimes have no monopoly on the political interpretation of Islam and tribal values, and opponents do indict them for failing to live up to the standards they themselves profess. By limiting public space largely to tribal and Islamic institutions, it is natural that political opposition would tend to coalesce around the tribe, the mosque, or the religious school. It is those movements which have operated on the fringes of sanctioned institutions, rather than those which have been driven underground, that have presented the regimes with their most serious challenges.

The Taming of Islam and Tribalism

All the Gulf Arab monarchies have used Islamic rhetoric and symbols to legitimate themselves, but it is only in Saudi Arabia that the regime claims an explicitly religious justification for its rule. The origins of this claim date back to 1745, when Muhammad ibn Sa^cud, ruler of a relatively small central Arabian oasis town called Dir^ciyya, formed an alliance with Muhammad ibn ^cAbd al-Wahhab, a scholar who was preaching a reform of religious practice through return to the strictist, most pristine interpretations of Islam. The alliance, cemented through generations by frequent intermarriage between the two families, was based upon the Saudi ruler accepting Ibn ^cAbd al-Wahhab's religious interpretation as the basis for his state, and the religious reformer recognizing the Al Sa^cud as the imams, or religio-political leaders, of his movement. The fortunes of the Al Sa^cud have waxed and waned in the two and one-half centuries since the alliance was formed, but the link between their rule and the puritanical "Wahhabi" interpretation of Islam has remained. This particular brand of Islamic ideology has been the cement holding together a polity that, before oil, had few economic resources and that was subject to the competing loyalties of tribal particularism and regional identities.[2]

The relationship between Islamic institutions and political authority in Saudi Arabia has been closer than in the other monarchies. King ^cAbd al-^cAziz Al Sa^cud (Ibn Saud), the founder of the modern Kingdom, relied heavily on the ^culama (those trained in religious learning) for advice and administrative support, lacking even a rudimentary state bureaucracy. Even more importantly, ^cAbd al-^cAziz used the Islamic ideology of Wahhabism to recruit and organize a potent military force known as the Ikhwan (Brotherhood) to extend the reach of his domains. Recruited from beduin tribes, the Ikhwan were settled in military-agricultural communes and instructed in the faith by the Saudi ^culama. They became a powerful political force in the Kingdom during the 1910's and 1920's, spearheading the Saudi conquest of the Hijaz (western part of Saudi Arabia, including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina) and encouraging ^cAbd al-^cAziz to carry his jihad against the British client states to his north (Iraq and Transjordan) and east (Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Trucial Emirates). The Ikhwan leadership was critical of any hints that the Saudis were straying from the path of Wahhabism, or considering political accommodation with outside powers. Fearful that the Ikhwan would draw him into a direct confrontation with the British and alienate more moderate Muslims under his rule, ^cAbd al-^cAziz eventually decided to confront them militarily. After receiving a favorable fatwa (religious judgment) from the ^culama in Riyad, he raised an army from among loyal tribal elements and townspeople and defeated the Ikhwan in a number of battles in 1929.[3]

The crushing of the Ikhwan was the essential first step to asserting the primacy of the Al Sa^cud over the religious institutions in Saudi political life. With the beginnings of a bureaucratic state apparatus in the 1950's and 1960's, the ^culama became marginalized politically in the Kingdom, while maintaining their special, state-sanctioned role in certain areas of social policy. Secularly educated Saudis staffed many of the new bureaus and provided an alternative set of political advisers and administrative cadres. The ^culama remain an important interest group within the Kingdom, whose voice is heard by the rulers. Their particular role will be discussed in more detail below. The institutions of religion in Saudi Arabia, however, are clearly subordinate to the political leadership.

Saudi Arabia is not the only Gulf monarchy where a religiously-based political institution confronted a ruling family's desire to centralize political control in its hands. During the 1950's the Sultan of Oman faced a challenge to his control of the Omani interior from the Ibadi Imam. Ibadism is an offshoot of the Kharijite movement of the first Islamic century, which rejected both Sunnism and Shi^cism. Its Omani variant is now very similar to the Omani practice of Sunnism. Political, rather than theological, loyalties distinguished the sect. From the beginnings of the twentieth century the Sultan in Muscat and the Ibadi Imam in Nizwa had a workable modus vivendi dividing their spheres of influence. In the 1950's the efforts by the British-backed Sultan to extend his influence into the interior, combined with the more aggressive stance taken by the new Imam, led to armed conflict between the two. Saudi Arabia, involved in a border dispute with Oman, gave support to the Imam's challenge to the Sultan. In two campaigns, in 1955 and 1957-59, the British-officered forces of the Sultan put down the Imam's challenge and established direct Omani control over the interior. The Imam fled to political exile in Saudi Arabia.[4] Since that time there have been no indications of political opposition in the Sultanate based on Ibadism.

The taming of religious institutions was a major part of state building in the Gulf Arab monarchies, in Saudi Arabia and Oman even requiring the use of military force. But once the secular authority's supremacy was established, the rulers sought to make Islamic institutions into agencies of the state. Including them in the state apparatus helped the rulers, who had few resources at their disposal before oil wealth, to staff their governments while still maintaining their ultimate control over the men of religion. By giving the ^culama a role in the system, with some amount of power and status, the rulers could earn their loyalty, reducing the chances that they would be a source of opposition. The official ^culama became an important element in the states' legitimating strategies, providing religious sanction to the political order.

The religious court systems in all the countries have been placed under the control of ministries of justice, with judges appointed by state authorities from among the religious scholars. Secular legal institutions have been established, particularly in business and economic jurisdictions, reducing the authority of the religious courts. The governments have established, or taken over financial and administrative responsibilities for, religious schools and training institutions. High-ranking Sunni religious functionaries, and Ibadi counterparts in Oman, are appointed by the governments, while the leadership of Shi^ci communities has remained more independent of the state. The governments designate officials, such as the Grand Mufti of Oman, or committees within their ministries of awqaf (religious endowments) and religious affairs, to issue fatawa (religious judgments, sing. fatwa) on major issues. In Saudi Arabia, the position of Grand Mufti became vacant in 1969. In 1970 a ministry of justice was established to supervise both religious and secular courts. The function of authoritative religious interpretation has been assumed by a state-appointed committee called the Directorate of Religious Research, Ifta', Da^cwa (Prosyletization) and Guidance.[5] It was the chairman of this body, Shaykh ^cAbd al-^cAziz bin Baz, who issued the fatwa sanctioning the Kingdom's call for American and other foreign troops after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the subsequent fatwa approving the coalition's offensive against the Iraqis.[6] Bin Baz was elevated to the position of Grand Mufti in July 1993 by King Fahd, an acknowledgment of his support for the regime during a difficult period. He is the first person to hold that office who is not a member of the Al Shaykh family, the descendants of Shaykh Muhammad Ibn ^cAbd al-Wahhab.[7]

Most of the ^culama, be they judges, teachers, scholars or preachers in local mosques, are now employees of the state. While the relationship between the higher echelons of the men of religion and the men of power in the Muslim Middle East has historically been close, the extent to which the state now monitors and controls lower-level ^culama is unprecedented. In the past, a local mosque preacher in a mid-size Arabian city would have been chosen by the local notables who supported the mosque financially, or would have inherited his position from his father or uncle in whose footsteps he had followed in pursuing a religious education. His salary would come from the local community, or from the income generated from awqaf set up as bequests by wealthy patrons in the past. Now, that same local mosque is likely to have been built or refurbished with government funds; and the preacher is more likely than not to be appointed by the state as a salaried employee.[8] The administration of awqaf has been centralized in government ministries, removing that route to financial independence. Even in those instances where a mosque was built with private funds and hired a preacher independent of the state (particularly in the Shi^ci communities of Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia), the content of the Friday sermons and the activities of the ^culama associated with it are likely to be monitored by state authorities from both the religious and the internal security bureaucracies.[9]

Saudi Arabia has seen the most extensive bureaucratization of religious institutions. As in the other monarchies, there is an elaborate system of religious courts for adjudicating personal status issues like marriage, divorce, and inheritance. The government has established Islamic universities in Riyad, Mecca and Medina for the training of religious scholars and the large King Faysal Islamic Research Center in Riyad. Members of the ^culama have access to the state media for religious instruction and proslytization, and enjoy enormous influence over the content of non-religious writings and programming under state auspices. The highest levels of the ^culama also enjoy direct access to the King for discussion of matters of concern to them. Certain aspects of state social policy, such as the role of women in society and some elements of educational policy, have been turned over to the ^culama by the regime.[10] The Saudi ^culama's influence is great in certain areas, but in exchange their role in other areas, such as state financial and economic affairs and foreign policy, has been limited. For the Saudi government, the trade-off is clear: power in certain areas in exchange for political loyalty and support.[11]

Saudi Arabia's special place in the Muslim world, as the home of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, the particular legitimating role of Islam in the political system, and the vast oil wealth at the state's disposal have combined to produce a state religious bureaucracy of far greater size and reach than those of the other monarchies. An entire ministry of the Saudi government is devoted to managing the annual pilgrimmage to Mecca, in which the Kingdom plays host to approximately one million visitors.[12] The state also supports the Committees for Enjoing Good and Forbidding Evil, whose members (known in Arabic as mutawwa^cin) enforce the strict interpretation of Islamic social mores that is officially sanctioned in Saudi Arabia. The mutawwa^cin, who are particularly prominent in urban areas, make sure that commercial establishments close during prayer times, guard against male-female interaction in public places, enforce restrictions against the production and consumption of alcohol, and monitor female dress to make sure that it adheres to standards of public modesty.[13]

The Saudi regime's interest in promoting its version of Islamic values and institutions is not limited to the domestic sphere. It sponsors and plays host to a number of international Islamic organizations, like the World Muslim League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, that promote Islamic activities and Saudi-supported interpretations of Islamic doctrine in many parts of the Muslim world.[14] The government and members of the royal family as individuals finance the construction of mosques and Islamic institutes throughout the Muslim world, and in Europe and North America. Riyad was also the driving force behind the founding of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 1972. The OIC, an international organization of Muslim states, holds periodic summit meetings. Its permanent secretariat is located in Jidda.

An intended consequence of the development of this vast complex of Saudi religious institutions is to produce and provide employment for a large cadre of graduates from religious educational institutions. By providing the ^culama with salaries, social status, positions of political importance, and opportunities to spread their message outside of the Kingdom, the Al Sa^cud family has hoped to link the ideological and political interests of the men of religion to that of the Saudi regime. By and large, the political leadership has succeeded in that goal. Part of that bargain, however, has been the acceptance by the higher ranks of the official ^culama of a clearly subordinate political position to the royal family. On no occasion in the last four decades have the men of religion holding high state office openly challenged the Al Sa^cud on matters of high politics. Rather, they have ratified political decisions on such important issues as the introduction of technical modernization (radio, television, female education, etc.), the deposition of King Sa^cud and the succession of King Faysal in 1964, the use of force agains the religious zealots who captured the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, and the conduct of policy during the Gulf crisis of 1990-91.[15]

This pattern of dealings between state authorities and religious institutions that has evolved during the twentieth century -- from a position of rough equality to that of subordination of religious institutions to the state, with the occasional use of force to solidify that subordination -- is mirrored in the evolution of relations between the states and the tribes. In one way or another, all of the ruling families of the Gulf relied upon tribal political connections and military strength to come to power. Though they generally have been settled in urban areas for at least 200 years, if not longer, the families maintained their historic ties to nomadic tribes and asserted their right to rule based (to a greater degree in the smaller states than in Saudi Arabia) upon their tribal lineage. They all now utilize tribal and other cultural symbols to convince their citizens that their political systems are authentic and deserving of support.

The Al Sabah in Kuwait and the Al Khalifa in Bahrain both established their rules in the late 18th century, as part of a migration to the coast by segments of the Bani ^cUtub tribe of the ^cUnayza confederation. The Al Nahyan laid claim to Abu Dhabi in the 1760's, as the hereditary paramount shaykhs of the Bani Yas tribal confederation, some of whose members had moved to the coast from the interior of the Arabian Peninsula. The Al Sa^cid of Oman originate from the Al Bu Sa^cid tribe, which has been an important base of their support, but their claim to govern all Oman stems from the election of the founder of the dynasty to the Ibadi Imamate in the early 1700's. The Al Sa^cud have their origins in the ^cUnayza confederation, but from the time of their immigration to central Arabia in the 15th century, and particularly from their assertion of rule in the early 1700's, they had been a settled urban clan. Their ability to extend their rule beyond the confines of their limited home territory depended upon their ability to gather tribal support around the religious banner of Wahhabism. Like the Al Sa^cid in Oman, the religious appeal was essential at the beginning to expanding their tribal support base.[16]

Tribal support was absolutely essential for the founding of these states. With no standing armies to speak of, the early leaders had to negotiate with tribal shaykhs to raise fighting forces. What administrative mechanisms existed, outside those of the religious institutions, were mediated through the shaykhs. The ability to play off inter- and intra-tribal rivalries was an essential element of statesmanship for the Gulf rulers right up to the last few decades, and in a limited way to the present day. But the tribes were fickle supporters. They could easily shift their allegiances, either to challengers from within the ruler's family or tribal group or to rival claimants. They were difficult to discipline, particularly to extract tax revenue from, as they could mobilize their own military forces. If sufficiently provoked, whole tribes in some cases would simply pick up and move to another jurisdiction.

Gulf rulers over the last three centuries have followed a number of strategies to lessen their dependence upon tribal loyalties to maintain their rule. They cultivated support from urban populations, some of whom still claimed tribal affiliation but who could be mobilized on the basis of economic interests and urban solidarity.[17] ^cAbd al-^cAziz Al Sa^cud's reconquest of central Arabia in 1901 and the Eastern Province (al-'Ahsa) in 1913 was accomplished with a military force made up predominantly of townspeople, not tribesmen. It was not until 1916 that he developed the fusion of tribal and religious power of the Ikhwan. When in 1929 the Ikhwan had challenged ^cAbd al-^cAziz's rule, he again turned to his urban populations for military support.[18] In the coastal emirates, the rulers came to rely on local merchants, particularly those involved in the pearl trade, for taxes and political support.[19]

As the case of the Ikhwan in Saudi Arabia indicates, tribes posed more direct dangers for ambitious Gulf state-builders than simply being uncertain allies. At times they were real military threats. The geographical and functional extensions of state authority, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Oman where substantial geographical hinterlands encouraged tribal autonomy, at times elicited armed opposition from the tribes. In the case of Saudi Arabia, ^cAbd al-^cAziz not only had to confront the Ikhwan, but previously faced the tribally-based military challenge of the Rashidi dynasty of the Jabal Shammar area (defeated in 1921) and the Hashimite dynasty in Hijaz (defeated in 1924) in his geographical expansion of Saudi rule. Hashemite intrigue aimed at stirring up tribal opposition to the Saudis continued for decades after his capture of Hijaz.[20] Both the Jabal Akhdar revolt of the 1950's and the Dhufar revolt of 1963-1975 against the Sultan's authority in Oman raised the bulk of their forces on a tribal basis, even though the former revolt was made in the name of religion and the latter came to be led by left-wing ideologues.[21]

The rulers not only sought out local allies to balance off the tribes, but also looked to international actors for support. For the period between 1820 and 1971, the major foreign power in the Gulf was Great Britain. Under the pretext of protecting the maritime trade routes to India, Britain became increasingly involved in the politics of the Gulf coast. In exchange for ceding control over foreign and defense policy, the shaykhs who received British recognition obtained in return commitments of British defense from regional rivals, arms for their own forces, and financial subsidies. British protection was vital in maintaining the smaller emirates of the coast against the more powerful forces of the Ottoman and Persian empires and, in the first half of the 20th century, the expansionist Saudi state.

British support also lessened the reliance of the rulers on tribal backing. Britain provided military and police forces if the rulers were challenged domestically. British subsidies lessened the rulers' need for tax revenues and gave them the ability to offer the tribes financial inducements for loyalty or, at least, quiescence. Even ^cAbd al-^cAziz Al Sa^cud, who never entered into a protectorate treaty with Britain as did the rulers of the smaller emirates, benefitted from his relationship with the imperial power. British subsidies and arms helped him to defeat his Ottoman-backed tribal rivals the Rashidis during World War I and to ride out the economic crisis of the 1930's, when the world depression severely reduced the revenues his state collected from the annual pilgrimmage to Mecca.

Bahrain provides an example of how British intervention altered the relationship between the ruling family and the tribes. Prior to the 1920's, most of the important economic activity on the island was organized on an explicitly tribal basis. Individual tribes controlled pearling activity in various coastal towns, with their own courts and armed forces to police their activities. Agricultural land was divided up and administered directly by members of the Al Khalifa family, ruling over the largely Shi^ci peasantry. The Al Khalifa amir had no formal control over these activities, though by dint of his personal stature did have influence throughout the island. The urban merchant class also administered many of its own affairs, though with a more direct role for the amir.

The British Political Agents in the 1920's, Maj. H. R. P. Dickson and Maj. C. K. Daly, enforced a number of administrative and legal changes that centralized power in the office of the ruler and the new organs of the state. The tribal courts that supervised the pearling industry were abolished, replaced by a centralized court system administered from the capital. The Al Khalifa agricultural estates system was ended, with the introduction of private property and laws governing landlord-tenant relations. One-third of the oil revenues accruing to the state (the first oil concesssion in Bahrain was granted in 1928; oil was discovered in 1932) were set aside for the ruling family, allowing many collateral members, deprived of their livelihood with the end of the estate system, to be put on pensions. The right to collect taxes was reserved to the state. Military formations, particularly in the estates, were disbanded and efforts undertaken to establish a central police force. A municipal council was set up in the capital and the Customary Council, which adjudicated commercial issues was revamped, with the Agent appointing five of its members and the ruler another five.

These changes did not occur peacefully. Britain forced the abdication of the ruler, Shaykh ^cIsa, in favor of his son Hamad in 1923 because of ^cIsa's opposition to the changes. Attacks on Shi^ci villages by members of the Al Khalifa who lost control over their estates and by tribes hurt by the centralization led to the dispatch of British gunboats to the island to restore order. Some of the Al Khalifa responsible for the attacks were brought before state courts, an unprecedented act, and others were exiled. The Dawasir tribe, which controlled a pearling village, left en masse for the Arabian Peninsula, where they sought the support of the Saudis in mounting military expeditions to regain what they saw as their ancestral rights. Britain made clear that it would not tolerate such activity, lessening King ^cAbd al-^cAziz's enthusiasm for supporting them. Their return to Bahrain was conditioned on their recognition of the state's tax collectors, police and judicial officials.[22]

The irony of subsequent Bahraini political history, very similar to that of the other Gulf monarchies, is that the curbing of tribal and family autonomy did not end tribal and family power, it simply changed the way it was exercised. The office of the ruler and the administrative instruments of his state became dominant. Oil revenues, going directly to the state, increased its power. But with the Sunni Arab tribes and the family no longer major threats, the rulers turned to them to staff many of the important offices of the state. Al Khalifa have come to control the "political" (as opposed to technocratic) ministries in the government and a number of other bureaucratic positions. The armed forces and police forces are headed by members of the family and recruited largely from Bahrainis with tribal backgrounds. During the political agitation of the 1950's, when urban Sunnis and Shi^cis were making common cause against the government, the family and the tribes provided support and, very literally, political "muscle" in the streets for the ruler. The British reforms in Bahrain changed the balance of power between the ruler and these previously autonomous groups, but did not break the political alliances holding them together.

In effect, the political map of the Arab side of the Gulf, both in terms of state boundaries and ruling regimes (with the exception of the Saudis), was determined by British policy in the area during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Britain entered a very fluid tribal political milieu on the Arab side of the Gulf in the 19th and early 20th centuries, where clan and tribal political entities rose and fell with some regularity, and territorial boundaries were both amorphous and fluctuating. Both for their own immediate political purposes, and out of the mistaken belief that what they saw on the ground at the time must have been the case from time immemorial, the British froze the existing tribal-political map. By recognizing and protecting some families as ruling families in certain territories, they interrupted the historical process of rise and decline. By strengthening the hands of the rulers, they altered the balances of political power domestically. By protecting the smaller states militarily, they halted the expansion of the Saudi state in the first half of the 20th century. As a result, in the 1960's and 1970's they bequeathed independent sovereign states to the heirs of those ruling families.[23]

British protection, while essential to the survival of the smaller emirates, was not an unmixed blessing for the rulers. Taking the king's coin, they increasingly had to march to the beat of his colonial drummer. British officials at the 1922 Uqayr conference drew the Kuwaiti border in a way that Kuwaitis still feel deprived them of their historical territory, in favor of the British client state of Iraq and the more powerful Saudis. To lessen the power of any particular coastal emirate, the British sliced up jurisdictions like salami. They recognized the Al Thani as the predominant clan in Doha, with some amount of independence from Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, in 1868, and in 1916 signed a protectorate agreement with them guaranteeing their rule over Qatar.[24] The fact that there are two emirates in the UAE governed by clans from the Bani Yas confederation (Abu Dhabi and Dubai) and two from the Qasimi confederation (Sharja and Ra's al-Khayma), as well as other emirates controlled by very small and historically minor tribes, is not simply the result of tribal fractiousness. Britain encouraged these kinds of divisions.[25]

During the twentieth century, Britain came to control not only foreign policy, but domestic politics in the smaller emirates as well. Bahrain was the first of the emirates where Britain took a decisive role in internal affairs, as discussed above, and in many ways served as a model for subsequent policy elsewhere. British administrators ran what bureaucracy there was, British officers commanded the police and armed forces, British taxmen collected the customs. Rulers who were inconvenient, as a result of an excess of independence or an excess of incompetence, were removed from power by Britain. As recently as 1970, a year before the end of their protectorate treaty with Oman, the British engineered the abdication of Sultan Sa^cid and the succession of his son Qabus.

While rulers used urban groups and the British to decrease their reliance upon the tribes, it was the coming of oil revenues that finally and decisively shifted the balance of power away from tribal structures and toward the state. With oil money, the rulers ceased to rely upon local groupings -- tribal or urban -- for financial support. Rather, they now had money to give away, or, better put, to bargain for political loyalty and service. Tribal leaders were put on state payrolls, with generous regular salaries replacing the irregular and less lucrative subsidies of the past. Their ability to provide for their tribesmen has come to depend on the state, rather than on their own and tribal resources. The tribal shaykhs have become salaried employees of the state.

Even more importantly, the rulers through the new mechanisms of the state could appeal directly to tribesmen, without the mediating figure of the shaykh. Education, medical treatment, subsidized food, housing, and state employment are granted directly to citizens, shifting their political focus (if not always their political loyalty) toward the state and away from the tribe. Good salaries draw tribesmen into the regular armed forces, eliminating the need for rulers to go through the shaykhs to recruit tribal levies. The concentration of education, state employment and economic activity in major cities draws some tribesmen out of the desert and into urban life. While the social importance of their tribal origins remains important (on issues such as marriage patterns, for example), their political and economic reliance on the tribe is much reduced. In the past, tribal structures offered physical and economic security to their members; in all the Gulf monarchies the state has now assumed that role. (Chapter 3, on oil and politics, discusses these changes in detail.)

The most telling sign of the changed political role of the tribes on the Arabian Peninsula is their increasing urbanization and sedentarization. By 1970, only around 10% of the Saudi population lived a nomadic lifestyle, as opposed to roughly 40% in the 1950's.[26] The oil boom of the 1970's decreased that percentage even further. In the smaller states as well there have been sustained efforts, funded by oil wealth, to settle tribesmen. Even without direct government efforts, the move from the desert to the city has been an inevitable byproduct of the economic changes brought about by oil wealth.[27] Sedentarization means that tribesmen are directly dependent economically on the state -- for their houses, probably for their jobs (if they take one), for social services. They are therefore easier to control politically, either through their shaykhs or bypassing their shaykhs, if necessary. The prospect of armed, organized tribal opposition to state authority, the most important impediment to state building in the Arabian Peninsula over the centuries, has in effect disappeared in the Arab Gulf monarchies.

Perhaps the clearest indication of the changes that have occurred in the past century in the relations between the states and the tribes in the Gulf monarchies is to contrast them with the situation in the other Arabian Peninsula state, Yemen. With oil discovered there only in the 1980's, and as yet in limited amounts, the Yemeni government has not had the financial resources with which to entice the Yemeni tribes into a subordinate position within the political system. Nor has it been able to muster the military capacity to break tribal autonomy in any final way. As a result, tribal forces in Yemen still act as independent, in some cases well armed, actors in Yemeni politics. No tribe in the Gulf monarchies has been able to maintain an independent military capacity; many tribes in Yemeni do. Though the central government in Yemen has vastly increased its capacities to deal with the tribes over the past two decades, to this day there are areas where agents of the state enter only on tribal sufferance. Tribal blockades of roads are not uncommon. Armed conflict between tribes arises, outside of the ability of the state to control. In some instances, the armed forces of the tribes confront those of the state. These manifestations of tribal independence no longer occur in the Gulf monarchies.

The Uses of Islam and Tribalism

The conventional wisdom about the religious and tribal nature of politics in the Gulf monarchies misses an essential fact. The building of state authority has necessarily meant the subordination of Islamic and tribal institutions to state supervision, if not outright control. However, that does not mean that those institutions, and the rhetoric and symbols that accompany them, are unimportant politically. Having "tamed" Islam and tribalism (or at least believing that they are tamed), the ruling families have appropriated those institutions, symbols and rhetoric into an ideology of support for their rule. What most Westerners see as a "traditional" political culture is in fact a construction of recent decades, where the rulers employ a political language redolent with Islamic and tribal overtones to convince their citizens of the legitimacy of their political system. The rulers portray their system as representing the best parts of religious and tribal traditions, and contend that obedience to it is a religious and cultural obligation. They use these images and institutions to "forge emotive links with the populace over which [they] rule," and thus to gain legitimacy.[28] If one of the markers of "traditional" politics is the absence of ideology -- a consciously articulated justification for a particular political system -- then the Gulf monarchies are hardly "traditional."

A central element of this legitimation formula common to all of the monarchies is the notion of the ruler as the paramount shaykh (shaykh al-masha'ikh) of all the tribes in the country. In that capacity the rulers maintain very public relations with tribal leaders, meeting them not from behind Western-style desks but in the tribal tradition of the majlis. Those meetings now rarely occur in tents, more usually in air-conditioned palaces, and are recorded so that clips can be shown on that evening's television news program. But the effort to maintain the ties with the symbols of the past, and use those authority structures to bolster the legitimacy of the rulers is obvious. The Sultan of Oman makes a yearly progress through the interior and southern parts of the country, receiving tribal leaders and local notables. Senior members of the Al Sa^cud also visit tribal areas regularly.

The rulers also use more tangible means to encourage their subjects to think of themselves as tribesmen in a political system whose chain of loyalties culminates in the king, amir or sultan. They dispense patronage through the tribal leaders, according them a place of influence in the political system and reinforcing tribal identifications among those who eventually receive that patronage. They accept, even tacitly encourage, the prominance of personal and tribal connections in hiring practices in state agencies. In Kuwait, the only Gulf monarchy with an elected parliament, the government has drawn the districts to overrepresent tribal constituencies. Many of the tribes hold, in effect, primary elections to produce the candidates (two in each district) whom the tribe will support. While such elections are not technically permitted under Kuwaiti electoral law, they are tolerated, if not encouraged, by the government. Tribal connections can be particularly important in recruitment into the armed forces and police forces of all the states. The Saudi National Guard, a force independent of the regular army and headed by Crown Prince ^cAbdallah, has units explicitly organized along tribal lines.

Even in matters as apparently mundane as dress there is an effort to portray the rulers as the true inheritors of the Arabian tribal tradition. All the Gulf rulers have continued to wear the traditional thobe and kuffiya headdress (in Oman the slightly different turban). It is interesting to note that the leaders of Yemen and Iraq, who donned Western-style suits or military uniforms after their "revolutions," are now frequently pictured on official occasions and in state propaganda in "tribal" garb. In Oman all state employees on official business are required to wear the "janbiyya," the curved daggar. Sa^cud al-Faysal, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia and son of the late King Faysal, in the 1970's would occasionally appear in international fora like the U.N. in Western business suits. Now he appears in thobe and kuffiya. Bandar ibn Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, whose wardrobe is as European-stylish as any Western ambassador, wore thobe and kuffiya at the Madrid peace conference in the spring of 1992. The only exceptions to this rule are the ruling family members who are officers in the armed services, who appear in Western style uniforms. Sultan Qabus of Oman is the only Gulf ruler who sometimes dons a uniform for public occasions.

The issues of dress and public affirmation of tribal structures are part of a larger intellectual agenda pursued by the Gulf monarchies in the name of turath (heritage). State-supported projects in all the Gulf monarchies attempt to preserve, or recapture, parts of economic and social life that have been in decline since the advent of the oil era. These projects are a way of affirming the cultural values and uniqueness of their society in the face of Western cultural influences. They also implicitly strive to connect the political system with these cultural manifestations, as a way of asserting the authenticity of the monarchical-tribal form of rule in these societies. Some of these projects are explicitly tribal in content, such as support for camel breeding and camel racing from the Saudi royal family, and some of the folklore studies promoted by the various states. In Oman the government has undertaken an ambitious program for restoring the old forts that dot the countryside. This project not only helps preserve Oman's history, but also subtley asserts the relatively recent control that the central government has established over these symbols of regional autonomy and, at times, rebellion.

Folklore is not limited to the desert. The smaller states, always more focused on the sea, have encouraged the study of the history, economics and sociology of the pearl diving and shipbuilding industries, and the folk customs of urban settlements. National museums in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Dubai and Oman portray aspects of pearl diving, mercantile economies, and urban social customs. Abu Dhabi in the UAE supports an open-air "heritage village," where guests can inspect recreations of pre-oil markets and village architecture, watch tribal dances, and sample local cuisine. The state and the ruling families in Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and Oman subsidize craftsmen in the building of the traditional Gulf sailing vessels. To coordinate and support the study of folklore, the monarchies (along with Iraq) in 1982 joined together to establish the Arab Gulf States Folklore Center, headquartered in Doha. Its board of directors is the ministers of information of the major donor states.[29] The effort to project certain cultural images is not limited to domestic audiences. Perhaps the best known example to Americans of such state-supported efforts to portray certain cultural and historical pictures of society was the exhibit "Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today" that toured the United States in 1989-90. That exhibit emphasized the seamless integration of tribal traditions, Islam, modern technologies and advanced social services in the Kingdom.

Jill Crystal provides a fascinating discussion of how Qatar, the Gulf monarchy with the shortest history and least distinctive set of social and political institutions, upon independence faced the problem of creating what she terms a "civic myth." The government started with an archaeological study tasked with a very specific mandate: to create a national museum. The British team that conducted the study, with the cooperation of the highest levels of the government, produced a wealth of material. The information ministry organized a national acquisition campaign for the museum, encouraging Qataris to donate items from their private collections. Older Qataris, whose life stories are the history of the development of the state, were recruited for the museum staff. The centerpiece of the museum, around which the other displays are organized, is the Al Thani amir's palace from the turn of the century, asserting in a physical way the link between the country's history and its rulers. The museum, opened in 1975, has been a great success, winning international awards and, more importantly, becoming very popular with Qataris.[30]

Promotion of the "civic myth" in Qatar and in the other Gulf monarchies is an important government priority, primarily the responsibility of the ministries of information. They control the media in their countries, in most cases with a very firm and direct hand. Newspapers in Kuwait have the most freedom from government control in the Gulf, and in fact are frequently critical of government policies, but censorship has been imposed for long periods in the past. Newspapers in Bahrain and the UAE do not have the same freedom of those in Kuwait, but enjoy somewhat more latitude than those in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman. In all the states television and radio are directly under the control of the information ministries. As mentioned above, they promote cultural and folklore studies and exhibitions for both domestic and foreign audiences. The ministries also support academic and popular publications, in Arabic and in Western languages, that portray the governments' prefered view of themselves, their past and their people. In many cases they act as censors of printed and video material entering the country (in Saudi Arabia the religious authorities vet incoming material). They control access of foreign journalists and researchers to the countries.

The "civic myth" in the smaller states is based mainly upon interpretations of history and culture. It is only in Saudi Arabia that specific Islamic themes are an integral part of the ruling ideology, stemming from the historic alliance between Muhammad ibn Sa^cud and Muhammad ibn ^cAbd al-Wahhab in 1745. Saudi rulers have continued to affirm the importance of this ideological basis for their rule, even as they have endeavored to bring the ^culama more and more under state control. They enforce the strict Wahhabi interpretation of social behavior as state policy, and allow the mutawwa^cin wide latitude in enforcement practice. Wahhabi ^culama dominate the airwaves in the state media, and are sent abroad on proselytizing missions. The texts of the movement are reprinted and distributed at state expense both domestically and internationally. Saudi rulers have always averred that the Quran is the constitution of the state (and by implication that their rule is religiously sanctioned). The recent "basic system of government" promolgated by the King in March 1992 states explicitly, in its first clause, that the constitution of the Kingdom remains the Quran, though for all intents and purposes the "basic system" is the functionaly equivalent of a constitution.[31] Long before the Iranian Revolution, and with some fervor thereafter, the Saudis have contended that their's is the model "Islamic state."

Another aspect of the Al Sa^cud's particular claim to religious legitimacy is their control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and their management of the annual Muslim pilgrimmage. This element is less doctrinal and more functional in nature. In fact, since the conquest of the holy cities by ^cAbd al-^cAziz in 1924 (and some unfortunate incidents involving his zealous Ikhwan troops), the Saudis have emphasized that their custody of the holy places is a trust for the entire Muslim world, not an exclusively Wahhabi inheritance. That the government can provide the facilities and organizational wherewithall to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who make the pilgrimmage every year is a matter of great pride domestically, and of international stature in the Muslim world. The Saudis have undertaken numerous renovations of the holy places, under explicit royal patronage. In the mid-1980's King Fahd, in a specific attempt to blunt the Iranian revolutionary contention that monarchy is an "un-Islamic" form of government, adopted the title "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" (khadim al-haramayn al-sharifayn).

The centrality of the Islamic aspect of the Saudi legitimation formula was emphasized by the King immediately after the Gulf War. There was much speculation outside the country, and some discussion inside it, that the crisis would lead to a re-evaluation of the principles of politics in the Kingdom. On March 5, 1991, shortly after the liberation of Kuwait, King Fahd addressed his country in a televised speech, a rare occurence that underlined the importance of his remarks. He asserted that the nature and duties of Saudi Arabia and its people are different from any other country, because of its role as the protector of the holy places of Mecca and Medina. The King went on to say:[32]

On this basis we will not adopt any principle of social organization except those which emerge as beneficial to Islam and to Muslims, on the condition that they do not differ from or oppose what God has made clear in His almighty Book, and what His gracious Prophet, His rightly-guided Caliphs, and the Imams of the Muslims have made clear. Therefore we are never interested in any way, shape or form with those who want to say that this country is a backward country...Why are we backward or underdeveloped? Because we hold fast to the Book of God, and the Sunna of His Prophet? This is a strength and an honor. We take pride in it...I promise before God that the Islamic faith is our basis, our foundation, our starting point. What contradicts it we are not interested in and will not follow.

The other Gulf monarchies rely less on explicit relgious justifications in their legitimacy formulas. The Al Thani in Qatar also subscribe to the Wahhabi interpretation, and enforce similarly strict social laws as do the Saudis. They cannot, however, claim a political inheritance from the founder of the movement himself. The Al Sa^cid sultans of Oman have made no effort to reclaim the now vacant Ibadi Imamate. The other ruling families make no claim to a special religious status. Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and just recently Oman, in order to encourage tourism, even permit the sale of alcoholic beverages in their countries. None of the families, however, would assert a completely secular basis for their right to rule. All claim the shari^ca (Islamic law) as a basis of their legal systems and Islam as the religion of the state.

The legitimation formulas used by the regimes in the Gulf monarchies have been remarkable successful. Their interpretations of tribal and Islamic values obviously resonate with large numbers of the citizens of those states. It should not be forgotten that these interpretations are constructs, not ineffable truths. They remain contested, both domestically and regionally, as we will see below. However, it is clear that they strike many in their societies as culturally authentic. The very fact that these regimes -- written off as anachronisms during the Arab nationalist era of the 1950's and 1960's, identified as the next victims of the Islamic "wave" purportedly unleashed by the Iranian Revolution, challenged militarily and politically by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait -- have survived all these challenges means they must be doing something right. Their ideological efforts to link citizens to rulers have been at least as plausible, if not more so, than those of the Ba^cthist regimes to their north and the Republic of Yemen to their south and west. Tribal heritage and Islam are extremely important in the lives of many of the citizens of these states. The Gulf monarchs are not appealing to sentiments that are foreign to those whom they rule.

Islam, Tribalism and Opposition

While the Gulf monarchies may have "tamed" the institutions of tribalism and Islam, they have not completely neutralized these concepts in the political sphere. Indirectly, they may even have contributed to the growing strength of Islamic political movements in their societies. Particularly in Saudi Arabia, the rulers, by asserting an Islamic justification for their rule, have established a very strict standard against which to be held. It is harder to simply ignore and/or suppress voices that say the rulers are not living up to their own ideals, than it is to do the same with Arab nationalist and leftist opposition voices that reject the political system entirely. By legitimizing Islamic discourse in politics, the regimes to some extent legitimize opposition platforms that use the same language.

Islam is a contested concept in the political realm, as the ideological competition between Saudi Arabia and revolutionary Iran demonstrates. There are those in the Gulf monarchies who interpret Islam's political implications in ways other than those of the governments. The most obvious examples are among the Shi^ci minorities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the Shi^ci majority in Bahrain. Particularly in the early and mid-1980's, inspired by the Iranian Revolution and supported by the Iranian government, underground Shi^ci organizations in Kuwait and Bahrain conducted violent campaigns against the regimes there. A coup plot in Bahrain in 1981 and an attempt to assassinate the Kuwaiti amir in 1985 were among the most publicized of these activities. Shi^ca in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province clashed with police in early 1980, when tensions generated by the Iranian Revolution were at their height. The failures of such groups to foment popular uprisings on the Iranian model, combined with the waning of revolutionary enthusiasm and more cautious policies in Iran itself, have lessened the salience of violent Shi^ci opposition in region. In all three countries, Shi^ci organizations and leaders are now professing loyalty to the existing political systems and pressing for guarantees of their rights and an expanded role within the system. (This trend is discussed in Chapter 4.)

By no means, however, are Islamic activists limited to the Shi^ca. Sunni Islamic movements in Kuwait, which did well in the October 1992 elections, and in Bahrain advocate making the shari^ca the sole basis of law in their countries, not simply one of the bases of law as it is now. The most prominent Islamic activist in Bahrain in recent years is not a member of the Shi^ci majority, but a Sunni professor of Islamic studies at the University of Bahrain. Dr. ^cAbd al-Latif Mahmud Al Mahmud was arrested in December 1991 after his return from a conference in Kuwait where he delivered a paper criticizing the Gulf regimes and calling for directly elected legislatures with real powers in the Gulf states. He was released shortly thereafter. Bahrainis across sectarian and political lines expressed support for his release, and he remains a popular preacher in one of the Sunni mosques.[33] The irony of the recent growth of Sunni movements in the monarchies, particularly in Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, is that these movements were encouraged by the governments in the early 1980's, in reaction to the Iranian Revolution and as a counterbalance to Shi^ci organizations.[34] There are other Sunni activists who agree with the official interpretations of Islam, but do not see them fulfilled by the leaders. The followers of Juhayman al-^cUtaybi who took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca in November 1979 claimed that the Al Sa^cud regime had lost its right to rule because it had strayed from the tenets of Wahhabi Islam upon which the Kingdom had been built.[35]

The most interesting case of increased activism by Sunni Islamists since the Gulf War has been in Saudi Arabia. Criticism of the government has come not from suppressed groups or marginal individuals, but from ^culama and religious activists who hold positions within the state's religious bureaucracy. While not overtly challenging the right of the Al Sa^cud to rule the country, or resorting to violence as did those who precipitated the events of November 1979, they have used the Islamic rhetoric of the regime and the platforms supplied by the regime's religious institutions to question in a sharp and direct way aspects of Saudi domestic and foreign policy. In response the regime has adopted a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, the King has reaffirmed the close relationship between the government and the religious establishment, emphasizing the state's fidelity to the principles of Islam. On the other hand, he has pointed in no uncertain terms to the limits on religious dissent, cracking down on the most vocal critics and reasserting the government's ultimate leadership of the religious institutions.

Discontent began to surface in religious circles about the presence of American and other foreign forces in the Kingdom during the Gulf crisis, but it was relatively low-key.[36] The government was careful to defend its policies during the crisis in Islamic terms, soliciting and receiving fatwas from the Kingdom's highest religious authority, Shaykh ^cAbd al-^cAziz bin Baz, approving of the invitation to the foreign forces and of the initiation of conflict with Iraq. The government deferred to the religious establishment on a number of issues during and immediately after the crisis, including the prohibition on driving by women that became a cause celebre in the West (discussed in Chapter 6). Islamic political currents came to dominate the intellectual agenda of the country's universities, to the dismay of more secular professors.[37] Over 400 members of the ^culama and Islamic activists sent a petition to the King in the spring of 1991, in response to an earlier petition by Saudi liberals, supporting the King's announced intention to appoint a consultative council and urging him in general terms to pursue an "Islamic" policy line on a number of issues (this petition is discussed in detail in Chapter 4).

The limited opening in Saudi political life occasioned by the Gulf crisis led some elements in the Islamic movement to push against the outer limits of tolerated criticism. A number of university lecturers and mosque preachers castigated what they saw as un-Islamic policies on women's issues, the continued role of interest in the Kingdom's banking and financial system, the country's ties to the United States, and corruption in government. Cassette tapes of many of these lectures circulated throughout the Kingdom.[38] In response to these developments, the regime signalled that it would not tolerate unbridled criticism from religious circles. In December 1991 Shaykh bin Baz publicly condemned religious militants who criticized the regime, calling their assertions "lies" and "conspiracies against Islam and the Muslims." Prince Turki Al Faysal Al Sa^cud, head of one of the Saudi intelligence agencies and son of former King Faysal, warned religious activists not to push too far.[39] One prayer leader in a Riyad mosque was relieved of his duties after harshly criticizing the activities of some women's benevolent organizations in which female members of the royal family were involved.[40]

King Fahd himself weighed into the public debate at the end of January 1992, with remarks publicized in the Saudi press, indicating the seriousness with which these issues were viewed. Using almost the exact same words in consecutive meetings over two days, the first with the Council of Ministers and the second during his weekly meeting with senior religious officials, the King defended his policies. He stressed that the internal stability and economic strength of the Kingdom were a result of "our adherence to the Islamic faith in all our affairs, religious and secular, [our] service to the two holy shrines and [our] defense of Islamic holy places everywhere." He went on to say that he was "following events with wisdom and moderation, and am working to solve them by amicable means." He was encouraged to find "with those whom I speak that we are still able to use peaceful, moderate means to deal with certain behaviors." He ended both statements with a clear warning to the activists: "If matters exceed their limit, then for every action there is a response."[41]

The King's intervention, and his subsequent announcement in March 1992 of the new Basic System of Government and plans for a consultative council (discussed in Chapter 4), did not end the debate. In the summer of 1992 over 100 members of the ^culama, faculty at the religious universities and other activists signed a 46-page "Memorandum of Advice" (muzakkarat al-nasiha) to the King. It was unprecedented in recent Saudi history for the bluntness of its tone, its detailed critique of a wide-range of the government's policies, and the public nature of its dissemination. Many of its general themes were echoes of those advanced in earlier, much shorter petitions to the King: the need to curb arbitrariness in the enforcement of law, the need for independent oversight of government financial institutions to prevent corruption, the need for the more efficient provision of government services to citizens, the need for an independent and truthful media to report on government activities. It specifically criticized judicial practices that did not safeguard individual rights as set out in the shari^ca and government regulations in the realms of economics and personal status which were not sanctioned by the shari^ca. Where it differed from them was in the specificity of its criticisms and suggestions.

The Memorandum began with the assertion that the Saudi people and government were displaying a "lack of seriousness" in abiding by the shari^ca. It complained that the ^culama were being marginalized in the policy process, their fatwas relating to policy issues were being ignored, and their independence was being circumscribed by state restrictions and prohibitions. Foreign legal codes, particularly on business and financial issues, were being introduced and secular judicial bodies set up, diluting the role of the shari^ca in society and introducing "paganistic" (al-taghut) practice into the Kingdom. "All this," the Memorandum read, "may lead to the separation of religion from the reality of the life of the people." The signers called for truly independent religious institutions, with sources of revenue independent of the state, and for the equivalent of a religious "supreme court" with the power to invalidate any law or treaty found to contravene the shari^ca. In effect, they advocated making the ^culama a separate and co-equal branch of government.

Very specific criticisms were leveled in two areas of policy where the ^culama's influence has historically been limited: economics and security policy. The signers were particularly insistent that all manifestations of interest (riba') in the Saudi banking and financial system must be eliminated, including the investment of state funds in interest-bearing certificates from the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury, the selling of interest-bearing certificates to local banks, borrowing at interest from foreign banks, and state support for local banks that traffic in interest. They called for an end of all forms of monopoly and economic privilege, and a guarantee of equality in economic competition with judicial oversight "to prevent unfair advantage to people of influence." They condemned what they termed the Kingdom's "overproduction of oil...on the pretext of 'supporting the stability of the world economy'," advocating production cuts to increase the world price of oil.

In the realm of foreign and defense issues, the Memorandum challenged the policy lines set down by the Kingdom in the wake of the Gulf War. It called for an end to the practice of giving loans and gifts to what it termed "un-Islamic" regimes like "Ba^cthist Syria and secular Egypt," pointing to the folly of funding Saddam's Iraq during its war with Iran. It said that the Gulf crisis pointed out the "lack of correspondence between the enormous military budgets and the number and capabilities of the forces," and called for the expansion of the army to 500,000 men (an increase of at least 400%), obligatory military training, the diversification of foreing arms sources and the building of a domestic arms industry. The signers criticized the government for not supporting Islamic movements, but rather providing aid to states that "wage war" against such movements, like Algeria, and called for a strengthening of relations with all Islamic tendencies, be they states, political movements or individuals. The three bases of Saudi foreign policy ought to be spreading the call to Islam, uniting the Muslims, and working for the victory of Muslim causes. In that light, the signers were very leery of the close relations the government had with Western regimes "which lead the assault against Islam," particularly in "following the United States of America in most policies, relations and decisions, like the rushing into the peace process with the Jews."[42]

The Saudi government wasted no time in reacting to this unprecedented challenge from within the religious community. The Committee of Higher ^cUlama, the senior members of the religious establishment, issued a public statement condemning the contents of the Memorandum after they had leaked into the foreign press. The statement asserted that rumors to the effect that Shaykh bin Baz approved the draft and passed it on to the King were completely untrue. It questioned the motives of those who prepared the document, as they refused to acknowledge the many good points of the state, and accused them of "planting rancor" in Saudi society to serve the interests of the enemies of the country. The statement made clear that "this action is at variance with the forms of legitimate (shar^ci) advice and the justice in word and deed it requires."[43]

Having mobilized the religious establishment to disown the Memorandum, the King asserted very forcefully his ultimate control over that establishment. In December 1992 it was announced that seven members of the Committee of Higher ^cUlama had resigned their positions for health reasons, and ten younger scholars appointed to take their place.[44] Despite official denials of differences between the government and the religious establishment, Western news sources reported that the seven were removed from office for their failure to join in the condemnation of the Memorandum of Advice issued by their Committee.[45] A few weeks after the changes were announced, King Fahd met with senior ^culama. His remarks were published in the Saudi press. He called on them not to use the pulpit to discuss "worldly issues" and those things not related to "the common interest." He stressed that the religious scholars have a primary place in the state, and that mutual advice (al-tanasuh) must continue among them. However, he distinguished between "superficial advice, by which a man wants to gain some external notoriety, even if it is wrong, and the advice that aims at giving counsel, which is acceptable." The King went on to say:[46]

Have we arrived at a point where we rely on criticisms and cassettes and on talk which brings no benefit? Our doors are open, not closed. But in recent years I think we have begun to see things we have not known, and were never present among us. Do we accept that someone comes to us from outside our country and gives us direction? No!

The Memorandum of Advice incident was followed in May 1993 by the establishment of a "Committee to Defend Legitimate Rights" (lajnat al-difa^{c c}an al-huquq al-shar^ciyya) by six Saudi Islamic activists. The group said that its purpose was to use "legitimate means and methods" to combat injustices in the Kingdom, and called on Saudi citizens to contact them with information about such injustices. The authorities reacted harshly, removing four of the founders from their government positions and revoking the law practice licenses from the other two. The spokesman for the group, a son of one of the signers, was arrested, after telling Western news agencies that demostrations of support for the Committee has taken place in many parts of the Kingdom. The Committee of Higher ^cUlama, headed by Shaykh bin Baz, condemned the formation of the group, and senior members of the Al Sa^cud publicly defended the Kingdom's human rights record. By the end of the month, one of the founders, Shaykh ^cAbd Allah bin ^cAbd al-Rahman al-Jibrin, renounced his membership in the group and professed his loyalty to the political leadership.[47]

These two episodes -- the Memorandum of Advice and the Committee to Defend Legitimate Rights -- highlight a number of important points about the relationship among the state, the religious establishment and Islamic movements in Saudi Arabia. First, the signers of the Memorandum do not represent the entire Islamic tendency in the Kingdom. They numbered around 100; an earlier, less critical, petition to the King from religious activists (discussed in Chapter 4) had over 400 signatures. Only six activists were involved in the Committee. Even these most critical Islamic activists did not overtly challenge the right of the Al Sa^cud to rule the country, as did their Iranian counterparts in the overthrow of the Shah. They want major changes in the political system, giving them more power and independence, but they still see themselves as acting within the system. Second, the state's institutional control over the religious establishment is still strong. It mobilized a condemnation of both the Memorandum and the Committee from the highest religious authority, and asserted its right to determine the membership of that authority.

Third, even while exerting that control, state authorities at the highest level were concerned to portray themselves as acting within Islamic parameters in their actions. The King personally discussed the Memorandum with senior ^culama on at least two occasions, acknowledging the need to consult with them. In his publicized remarks at those two meetings, he was at pains to emphasize the continued adherence of the state to Islamic principles and the important role the men of religion play in the public life of the country. He sought to delegitimize the Islamic credentials of religious critics by linking them to Shi^ci Iran, referring to ideas coming from "outside the country," and in so doing maintain the state's right to define just what Islamic politics means in the Saudi context. Similarly, senior family members defended the political system on human rights and Islamic grounds during the Committee incident. After these incidents, in July 1993, King Fahd appointed Shaykh bin Baz to the position of Grand Mufti and established a new Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Awqaf, Da^cwa (Proselytization), and Guidance, on the recommendation of bin Baz.[48] These moves served the purposes of reiterating the regime's commitment to Islam, reasserting its right to direct the religious establishment, and rewarding those in that establishment loyal to the regime with new positions and new access to state employment.

Finally, these episodes are a clear indication that the right to define the relationship between Islam and politics, claimed by the state in Saudi Arabia on the basis of its unique history, is not unchallenged. Both the ideology and the institutions of the state can be used to challenge the policies of its government. The Saudi state has considerable resources to meet such challenges, and its stability is not particularly threatened by them. But the Islamic trend in the Kingdom, and throughout the Gulf, will remain an important actor in political life for the foreseeable future.

Unlike Islam, tribalism does not provide a set of unifying symbols around which country-wide opposition movements could coalesce. On the contrary, individual tribal loyalties tend to separate, not unite, political movements in the Gulf monarchies. However, there are some critics who idealize tribal and village life before the advent of oil wealth, criticizing the regimes for allowing and encouraging the social and cultural changes it brought. Perhaps the best known of such critics to the American audience is Abdelrahman Munif, whose novels Cities of Salt, The Trench and Variations on Night and Day (all translated into English with great skill by Peter Theroux) portray in graphic and fascinating detail the upheavals wrought in the lives of ordinary people by the coming of the oil industry to Saudi Arabia.[49] Munif has been stripped of his Saudi citizenship and his works are banned throughout the Gulf monarchies. While it is ironic that someone whose political affiliations are leftist and Arab nationalist would engage in radical nostalgia for the pre-industrial era, there is no denying the emotional power and pull of his writing.

In a very practical way, the states' subordination and use of Islamic and tribal institutions has encouraged opposition groups to form around those organizational foci. Mosques and religious schools are among the few places in public life (as opposed to private homes) where people can openly meet and talk in these societies. There is some "social space" there, denied to other kinds of "meeting places" (political parties, free press, labor unions), that political activist can and do use to put forward their opinions and organize their adherents. It is in that milieu that the Saudi Memorandum of Advice originated. By contrast in Kuwait, the one Gulf monarchy that does allow more freedom of speech and association, Islamic movements do not monopolize political discourse in civil society. They share the political field with other organized groups. Likewise, since tribal identity is encouraged by the governments, even leftist ideological political groups frequently are recruited along tribal lines. The Dhufar rebellion in Oman is a good example of how tribally organized opposition forces came under the leadership of a Marxist political movement. We will return to the general questions of political participation and representation in Chapter 4. Here it is enough to point out that the institutions of Islam and tribalism, while used very effectively by the regimes for their own purposes, can also be used by others in the political sphere.

Conclusions

This chapter began with the assertion that the "conventional wisdom" about the tribal and religious nature of politics in the Gulf monarchies was a distorted picture. Tribalism and Islam are important markers of personal and social identity. Tribal ties can help people politically and economically, by opening doors and linking them to those in power. The institutions of tribalism and Islam have developed into significant supports for the existing political systems in the Gulf monarchies, while losing much of the ability they had in the past to challenge those systems. Ideological constructs based on interpretations of tribalism and Islam are used to legitimize those systems to their citizens. The regimes have been largely successful at taming and using Islam and tribalism as institutional and ideological supports. However, they have not monopolized these concepts, and other political forces have emerged which contest the regimes' interpretations.

Islam and tribalism are therefore important to understanding the politics of the Gulf monarchies, but they are not the whole story. How did the regimes change the balance of power between the state and these institutions so drastically in favor of the former? Where did they get the resources to bypass tribal economic and political structures, to deal directly with citizens? How did they build the large bureaucratic structures that monitor society and control their economies? How were they able to construct and transmit their ideological messages to the citizenry through educational systems and the media? To answer these important questions, and thus to understand the nature of political power in the Gulf monarchies today, we must look at the effect of oil wealth on politics. It is to that task we turn in Chapter 3.

NOTES -- CHAPTER 2

[1]The other major institutional framework sanctioned by the Gulf monarchies for popular organization is the chamber of commerce. In every state but Kuwait the national level chambers of commerce are very close to the government. Kuwait is the exception among the Gulf monarchies in terms of public space for political and social organizing. Civil society institutions other than those of religion and tribalism, such as political organizations, the press, professional associations, are much more vigorous and independent of the state in Kuwait than elsewhere.

[2]On the link between Wahhabism and the Al Sa^cud, see: Christine Moss Helms, The Cohesion of Saudi Arabia, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), chapters 1-3; R. Bayly Winder, Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Century, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965); Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), chapters 1-2. A first-hand and personal account of the history of the Al Sa^cud and the development of the twentieth century Saudi state, see the works of H. St. John Philby, the British Arabist who served as advisor to King ^cAbd al-^cAziz. Among his better known works are Arabia of the Wahhabis, (London: Constable, 1928) and Saudi Arabia, (London: Benn, 1955).

[3]Helms, Cohesion of Saudi Arabia, chapter 8; Joseph Kostiner, "Transforming Dualities: Tribe and State Formation in Saudi Arabia," in Philip Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, (eds.), Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).

[4]On the political history of the Ibadi Imamate, see particularly John Wilkinson, The Imamate Tradition of Oman, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

[5]Ayman Al Yassini, Religion and State in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, (Boulder: Westview, 1985), pp. 70-72, 76.

[6]The text of the fatwa on the foreign troops can be found in al-Sharq al-'Awsat, August 21, 1990, p. 4; and the fatwa referring to the war with Iraq as a legitimate jihad is mentioned in New York Times, January 20, 1991, p. 18.

[7]al-Hayat, July 12, 1993, pp. 1, 4.

[8]James Bill reports that in the decade after the 1973 oil boom, the number of mosques in the Gulf Arab monarchies tripled. While some were privately financed, "most of the mosque construction is being planned and financed by governments." "Resurgent Islam in the Persian Gulf," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 63, No. 1, (Fall 1984), p. 116.

[9]In Oman the ministry of religious affairs distributes sample sermons to mosque preachers throughout the country. For a fascinating account of the relationship between the state and religious institutions in Oman, see Dale F. Eikelman, "National Identity and Religious Discourse in Contemporary Oman," International Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, (1989).

[10]Eleanor Duomato, "Women and the Stability of Saudi Arabia," Middle East Report, No. 171, (July/August 1991), pp. 34-37.

[11]For an extensive and interesting discussion of this issue, see Al-Yassini, Religion and State in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, pp. 67-79.

[12]In 1990, the number of foreign pilgrims was 827,236, down from a high in 1987 of 960,386. These numbers do not include Saudis, obviously, and also probably underestimate the number of Yemenis on pilgrimage, as until 1991 Yemenis could enter the Kingdom without a passport. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Finance and National Economy, Central Department of Statistics, Statistical Year Book - 1990, Table 4-36, p. 223.

[13]For a brief discussion of the origin and mission of the mutawwa^cin organization, see Al-Yassini, Religion and State in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, pp. 68-70.

[14]Al-Yassini, Religion and State in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, pp. 72-73.

[15]On the political role of the ^culama in Saudi Arabia, see Alexander Bligh, "The Saudi Religious Elite (Ulama) as Participant in the Political System of the Kingdom," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, (February 1985); and Joseph A. Kechichian, "The Role of the Ulama in the Politics of an Islamic State: The Case of Saudi Arabia," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1, (February 1986).

[16]On the tribal bases of the various Gulf ruling families, see: Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), chpater 2; Helms, Cohesion of Saudi Arabia, pp. 76-77; John E. Peterson, Oman in the Twentieth Century: Political Foundations of an Emerging State, (London: Croom Helm, 1978), chapters 1-2; Frauke Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, (New York: Longman, 1982), chapter 2; Fred H. Lawson, Bahrain: The Modernization of Autocracy, (Boulder: Westview, 1989), chapters 1-2. For a general discussion of the role of tribes in the politics of the Arab coast of the Gulf, see J. E. Peterson, "Tribes and Politics in Eastern Arabia," Middle East Journal, Vol. 31, No. 3, (Summer 1977).

[17]For interesting anthropological discussions of Arabian city life, see Soraya Altorki and Donald Cole, Arabian Oasis City: The Transformation of Unayzah, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989); and Madawi Al Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis: The Rashidi Tribal Dynasty, (London: I. B. Taurus, 1991).

[18]Helms, Cohesion of Saudi Arabia, p. 113; Tim Niblock, "Social Structure and the Development of the Saudi Arabian Political System," in T. Niblock (ed.), State, Society and Economy in Saudi Arabia, (London: Croom Helm, 1982); Henry Rosenfeld, "The Social Composition of the Military in the Process of State Formation in the Arabian Desert," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 95, No. 1, (1965); and idem., "The Military Forces Used to Achieve and Maintain Power and the Meaning of Its Social Composition: Slaves, Mercenaries and Townsmen," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 95, No. 2, (1965).

[19]On the economics and politics of the pearling industry in the Gulf, see Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, chapters 3, 5; Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, chapters 5-6.

[20]Helms, Cohesion of Saudi Arabia, chapters 6-7; Al Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, chapter 9; Yehosua Porath on Arab unity and Abdallah.

[21]Peterson, Oman, chapter 7.

[22]For accounts of these events in Bahrain, see Fuad Khuri, Tribe and State in Bahrain, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), Chapters 5, 6 and 11; Fred Lawson, Bahrain: The Modernization of Autocracy, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1989), Chapter 2.

[23]For a general discussion of British colonial policy in the Gulf, see Malcolm Yapp, "The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," and "British Policy in the Persian Gulf," in Alvin J. Cottrell (ed.), The Persian Gulf States, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). For a critical account from a local nationalist perspective of the British role, see Khaldun Hasan al-Naqueeb, al-mujtama^c wa al-dawla fi al-khalij wa al-jazira al-^carabiyya, (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al-^cArabiyya, 1987), chapters 4-5. al-Naqeeb's book has been translated into English: State and Society in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, (New York: Routledge, 1990).

[24]Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, (London: Croom Helm, 1981), chapters 3-5; Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Making of the Modern Gulf States, (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), chapter 6; John Wilkinson, Arabia's Frontiers: The Story of Britain's Boundary Drawing in the Desert, (London: I. B. Taurus, 1991), pp. 41-48.

[25]On British policy in what became the UAE, see Frauke Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, (London: Longman, 1982), Chapters 8 and 9; and Wilkinson, Arabia's Frontiers, chapter 2. The most stinging criticism of Britain in this regard can be found in al-Naqueeb, al-mujtama^c wa al-dawla, chapters 3, 4.

[26]Dale Eickelman, The Middle East: An Anthropological Approach (2nd ed.), (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989), p. 78.

[27]These kinds of changes among the Al Murrah beduin of the Empty Quarter (southeastern Saudi Arabia), who inhabit the most isolated and forbidding part of the Peninsula, are documented by Donald P. Cole in Nomads of the Nomads: The Al Murrah Bedouin of the Empty Quarter, (Arlington Heights, Illinois: AHM Publishing Corporation, 1975), pp. 146-163.

[28]The quote is from the introduction to an interesting book about how states in Arab oil producing countries attempt to construct and use ideologies to gain the loyalty of their citizens. Eric Davis, "Theorizing Statecraft and Social Change in Arab Oil Producing Countries," p. 13, in Eric Davis and Nicolas Gavrielides (editors), Statecraft in the Middle East: Oil, Historical Memory and Popular Culture, (Miami: Florida International University Press, 1991).

[29]Muhammad Rajab al-Najjar, "Contemporary Trends in the Study of Folklore in the Arab Gulf States," in Davis and Gavrieledes, Statecraft in the Middle East, pp. 176-201.

[30]Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, pp. 161-64.

[31]The text of the basic system can be found in al-Sharq al-'Awsat, March 2, 1992, p. 4.

[32]The text of the King's speech was published in al-Sharq al-'Awsat, March 7, 1991, p. 3.

[33]al-Hayat, December 29, 1991, p. 1; personal interviews in Bahrain, May 1992. For the text of his paper, see ^cAbd al-Latif Mahmud Al Mahmud, "dur al-musharak al-sha^cbiyya fi siyyagha al-qirar al-siyasi wa mustaqbal al-dimuqratiyya fi al-mintaqa [The Role of Popular Participation in Political Decision-Making and the Future of Democracy in the Region]," al-Jazira al-^cArabiyya, No. 12, (January 1992), pp. 20-23.

[34]James Bill, "Resurgent Islam in the Persian Gulf."

[35]On the 1979 incident and Juhayman al-^cUtaybi's political thought, see Joseph Kechichian, "Islamic Revivalism and Change in Saudi Arabia," The Muslim World, Vol. 80, No. 1, (January 1990).

[36]See for example the remarks against the American presence made by Dr. Safar al-Hawali, dean of Islamic studies at 'Umm al-Qura University in Mecca, published in the New York Times, November 24, 1990, p. 21. See also New York Times, December 25, 1990, p. 6.

[37]Personal interviews, Riyad, May 1991.

[38]See the following New York Times reports: December 31, 1991, pp. A1, A10; January 1, 1992, p. 3; January 30, 1992, p. A3; March 9, 1992, pp. A1, A7.

[39]New York Times, December 31, 1991, pp. A1, A10.

[40]al-Hayat, January 29, 1992, pp. 1, 4. At this same time, in early 1992, opposition sources reported that a number of religious activists were arrested. These reports could not be independently confirmed.

[41]al-Hayat, January 28, 1992, p. 1; January 29, 1992, pp. 1, 4.

[42]The author obtained copies of the Memorandum of Advice in Saudi Arabia. All translations are mine. One of the copies was dated Muharram 1413, which corresponds to July 1992, indicating that it was in circulation before the fall of 1992, when Western news organizations reported on it (New York Times, October 8, 1992, p. A6). I counted 111 signatures on the petition; the Times and the Makka News, an oppostion organ published outside of the Kingdom, reported 107 signatures.

[43]al-Hayat, September 18, 1992, p. 4.

[44]al-Hayat, December 4, 1992, p. 6.

[45]New York Times, December 15, 1992, p. A14.

[46]al-Hayat, December 22, 1992, p. 4. See also New York Times, December 22, 1992, p. A10.

[47]The author obtained Arabic and English versions of the Committee's founding declaration from sources in the Gulf. Accounts of the events related to the group can be found in: al-Hayat, May 13, 1993, pp. 1, 4; May 14, 1993, pp. 1, 4; May 24, 1993, pp. 1, 4; May 26, 1993, pp. 1, 4; June 2, 1993, pp. 1, 4, 5; Washington Post, May 16, 1993, p. A27; New York Times, May 14, 1993, p. A3; Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report, Near East and South Asia, May 17, 1993, pp. 37-38; May 18, 1993, p. 20.

[48]al-Hayat, July 12, 1993, pp. 1, 4.

[49]Abdelrahman Munif, Cities of Salt, (New York: Vintage, 1987); The Trench, (New York: Pantheon, 1991); Variations on Night and Day, (New York: Pantheon, 1993).