Saudi Arabia’s Transition from a Wahhabi State to a State-Centered Wahhabism

This article is aimed at examining the relationship between Saudi Arabia’s political system and its religious establishment. Such a study can help better understand Saudi political and social policies in both domestic and foreign arenas. Through the study of the power and influence of religious scholars in Saudi Arabia at the official and social levels, I discuss the approach with which the political system acts towards demands of youth, women, minorities, as well as international demands and pressures for the advancement of reforms. The question I seek to answer in this article is how and why the relationship between Saudi Arabia’s political system and the religious establishment has changed over time. The hypothesis is that the relationship between the two has dramatically shifted over the past century due to the gradual decline in the religious establishment’ independent character as well as the political system’s desire to control it, giving way to the replacement of the traditional “Wahhabi state” with a "quasi-Wahhabi state" that uses Wahhabism as a tool (legitimizer) against its rivals and opponents. In other words, this relationship has gradually benefited the political system, and the religious establishment has become a dependent institute of the political power. This process was consolidated during the reign of King Salman in a way that intensified the religious establishment’s adherence to the political system and making it passive like never before.