The Failure of Jihad in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi woman and her son walk past the Imam Muhammad ibn Abdel-Wahhab Philanthropic School for Women's Quranic Studies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 21, 2003.AP Photo Occasional Paper, Combating Terrorism Center February 25, 2010 Author: Thomas Hegghammer, Former Associate, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2009–2010; Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2008–2009 Belfer Center Programs or Projects: International Security; Religion in International Affairs This paper traces and assesses al-Qa'ida''s efforts to launch an insurgency in Saudi Arabia from the mid-1990s until today.
It examines the background of Usama bin Ladin's 1996 declaration of jihad, al-Qa'ida's activities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 2002, and the causes and evolution of the campaign waged by the group "al-Qa'ida on the Arabian Peninsula" (AQAP) from 2003 to 2006. For Academic Citation: From Arab Nationalism to OPEC. A History of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a wealthy and powerful country which exerts influence in the West and across the Islamic world.
Yet it remains a closed society. The author traces its history from the age of emirates in the nineteenth century to the present day. Fusing chronology with analysis, personal experience with oral histories, she illuminates the social and cultural life of the Saudis. This rich and rewarding book will be invaluable to students as well as others trying to understand the enigma of Saudi Arabia. "An accessible narrative that even those readers already familiar with the outlines of Saudi history can read with profit.
" Middle East Policy "The book...is written in a style that quite simply makes for a 'good read.' "Al-Rasheed's book is concise, timely, and well suited for a broad readership...Skillfully written and insightful. " "Madawi Al-Rasheed's critical reinterpretation of Saudi Arabian history is not only timely, it is provocative. Professor Madawi Al Rasheed. Salman al-Awdah: In the shadow of revolutions The Middle East in London Magazine April-May 2013 Madawi Al-Rasheed charts how religious scholars in Saudi Arabia reacted and adapted to the Arab uprisings There is nothing that prompts us to encourage revolution as it is enshrined in danger... .It just comes when profound reform has stumbled.
Salman al-Awdah, Islamist Like all of us watching the Arab world in the last two years, Saudi Islamists (I refer throughout to the Salafi Islamists) were taken by surprise when the Arab masses marched en masse calling for the downfall of their regimes. Official Saudi religious scholars immediately warned against the chaos of revolutions, banned demonstrations, and called for respect and obedience to rulers. Despite this, they supported the uprisings, perhaps in anticipation of Islamist parties and movements replacing the old regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and beyond. Posted by Main at 02:24 AM. Source: Posted by Main at 02:16 AM. Contesting the Saudi State. The terms Wahhabi or Salafi are seen as interchangeable and frequently misunderstood by outsiders. However, as Madawi al-Rasheed explains in a fascinating exploration of Saudi Arabia in the twenty-first century, even Saudis do not agree on their meaning. Under the influence of mass education, printing, new communication technology, and global media, they are forming their own conclusions and debating religion and politics in traditional and novel venues, often violating official taboos and the conservative values of the Saudi society.
Drawing on classical religious sources, contemporary readings and interviews, Al-Rasheed presents an ethnography of consent and contest, exploring the fluidity of the boundaries between the religious and political. A groundbreaking analysis of religious and political debate in Saudi Arabia after 9/11 Explains the rise of a radical Islamist movement in Saudi Arabia Considers Bin Laden's legacy and Saudi attitudes towards its 'favourite son'
The History of Saudi Arabia - Vassiliev. America is now engaged in the 10th year of war in Islamic countries, and there is no end in sight. A realistic understanding of the very heartland of the Islamic world is essential for the political leadership in our country - the decision makers - and it is equally important for the academics and "think tank" specialists who provide the advise and "policy papers. " This book is not for the casual readership of the general public, but it would be inspiring if a few "enlightened citizens," in the best Jeffersonian ideal, would tackle it, simply to be better informed on one of the central issues of our times. The perception of Saudi Arabia by almost all Americans is universally negative. In part this is the result of a relentless effort to present the Arabs in general, and the Kingdom in particular, by Hollywood, the news media, and in books, in ways that are now unacceptable if the same characterizations were made of Blacks, Jews, or Women.
Desert Kingdom - Toby Craig Jones. Oil and water, and the science and technology used to harness them, have long been at the heart of political authority in Saudi Arabia. Oil’s abundance, and the fantastic wealth it generated, has been a keystone in the political primacy of the kingdom’s ruling family. The other bedrock element was water, whose importance was measured by its dearth.
Over much of the twentieth century, it was through efforts to control and manage oil and water that the modern state of Saudi Arabia emerged. The central government’s power over water, space, and people expanded steadily over time, enabled by increasing oil revenues. The operations of the Arabian American Oil Company proved critical to expansion and to achieving power over the environment.
Political authority in Saudi Arabia took shape through global networks of oil, science, and expertise. Saudi Arabia is traditionally viewed through the lenses of Islam, tribe, and the economics of oil. Toby C. Jones. Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats, Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia. In Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats, the most thorough treatment of the political economy of Saudi Arabia to date, Steffen Hertog uncovers an untold history of how the elite rivalries and whims of half a century ago have shaped today's Saudi state and are reflected in its policies.
Starting in the late 1990s, Saudi Arabia embarked on an ambitious reform campaign to remedy its long-term economic stagnation. The results have been puzzling for both area specialists and political economists: Saudi institutions have not failed across the board, as theorists of the "rentier state" would predict, nor have they achieved the all-encompassing modernization the regime has touted. Instead, the kingdom has witnessed a bewildering mélange of thorough failures and surprising successes. Hertog argues that it is traits peculiar to the Saudi state that make sense of its uneven capacities. Oil rents since World War II have shaped Saudi state institutions in ways that are far from uniform. Dr Steffen Hertog. Inside the Kingdom. ... to The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Sa'Ud which ends at the beginning of the `80's. At the beginning of his previous work, Lacey relates how a Georgetown educated member of the House of Saud told him that he had lived in the Kingdom for 30 years, and if he tried to explain the country, and how it worked, the best he could do is get a B+ on the paper, and therefore, Lacey, as an outsider, could only hope to earn a C.
I disagreed, and in my review, said that Lacey deserved at least a B+, if not an A-. For this work, which covers the last 30 years, he deserves a solid A. Lacey starts with "Angry Face," Juhayman, and his followers, including the expected "Mahdi," who seized the mosque in Mecca (Makkah) in 1979. (This event is also covered well by Trofimov, in The Siege of Mecca: The 1979 Uprising at Islam's Holiest Shrine). The author selected a wonderfully appropriate epigraph for this section, from Dostoevsky: "Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer. Quibbles? Jihad in Saudi Arabia. “A rare combination of sympathetic nuance and critical rigour…[A] useful corrective to common misreadings of the kingdom and deserve a wide audience…Mr. Hegghammer’s analysis of the rise and fall of Saudi jihadism reveals some fascinating details…Yet what stands out most are his persuasive insights.
The spread of jihadist ideas in Saudi Arabia, it seems, owed as much to temporary local factors as to outside influences or, for that matter, to Islamic scripture. The state erred, for instance, with policing methods that switched abruptly from being so hard as to provoke anger to so soft as to dispel fear. Hair-splitting ideological rivalries between Islamists, meanwhile, led to a polarisation of the different camps and to a radicalisation of no more than a few men.”
The Economist “The definitive work on Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, this book makes an exceptional contribution to studies of Saudi Arabia, political Islam, and comparative political violence.” Thomas Hegghammer. Former Associate, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2009–2010; Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2008–2009 Experience Former Associate, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2009–2010; Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2008–2009 AP Photo February 2011 "The Foreign Fighter Phenomenon: Islam and Transnational Militancy" Policy Brief By Thomas Hegghammer, Former Associate, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2009–2010; Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2008–2009 "...
Winter 2010/11 "The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad" Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 35 March 31, 2010 "Lady Gaga vs. the Occupation" Book. America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier - Robert Vitalis. "America's Kingdom comes as a pleasant surprise... a scholarly and readable book on the interaction between Saudi society and Aramco, the US oil giant that had its beginnings when the Saudi government granted its first concessions to Standard Oil of California in 1933. Combining history with political anthropology, Vitalis sheds a bright light on the origins and less savory aspects of the Saudi-US relationship.
"—London Review of Books "If good historiography is about unveiling hidden connections, then America's Kingdom must stand among the best that the discipline has to offer... The book presents a wealth of previously unknown facts and anecdotes, is written more wittily than any other Saudi-related book, and is meticulously referenced, drawing on sources from eight different (American) archives. " "Groundbreaking is a word too often used in assessing historical scholarship. "Rich, marvelously researched, and densely argued... "Robert Vitalis makes us see the world in new ways. The Nature of Oil: Reconsidering American Power in the Middle East. Timothy Mitchell, Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil. New York: Verso, 2011. Toby Craig Jones, Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010. Robert Vitalis, American Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2006. For most of those who consider themselves politically liberal, oil—along with environmental degradation and foreign occupation—form a kind of political axis of evil on the American political landscape. In the past few years, three new books in Middle Eastern studies have complicated this picture considerably. Robert Vitalis’ American Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier effectively destroys the notion that ARAMCO represented a benevolent corporation committed to the “social uplift” of its employees.
Of the three books, Timothy Mitchell’s Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil makes the most far-reaching claims for the importance of oil. University of Pennsylvania Political Science Department - Vitalis, Robert. Awakening Islam - Stéphane Lacroix. Awakening Islam review. Salman al-Awdah: In the shadow of revolutions The Middle East in London Magazine April-May 2013 Madawi Al-Rasheed charts how religious scholars in Saudi Arabia reacted and adapted to the Arab uprisings There is nothing that prompts us to encourage revolution as it is enshrined in danger... .It just comes when profound reform has stumbled.
Salman al-Awdah, Islamist Like all of us watching the Arab world in the last two years, Saudi Islamists (I refer throughout to the Salafi Islamists) were taken by surprise when the Arab masses marched en masse calling for the downfall of their regimes. Official Saudi religious scholars immediately warned against the chaos of revolutions, banned demonstrations, and called for respect and obedience to rulers. Despite this, they supported the uprisings, perhaps in anticipation of Islamist parties and movements replacing the old regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and beyond. Posted by Main at 02:24 AM. Source: Posted by Main at 02:16 AM. Stephane Lacroix. Téphane Lacroix is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po.
In 2008-2009, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University. His work focuses on Islam and politics in the contemporary Middle East, with a particular interest in the Gulf region. He has published articles in some of the major academic journals in the field of Middle East studies, including the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies and the Middle East Journal.
His PhD dissertation was on Islamism in Saudi Arabia, and was transformed into a book, " ", which came out at the Presses Universitaires de France in February 2010; for a review in Le Monde . An English translation by Harvard University Press will be available late 2010. For a full c.v. with publications. Debating the 'Rentier state'