245 research outputs found
The minaret and the palace: obedience at home and rebellion abroad
No full textFrom Tangier to Jakarta, and from Western capitals to those of the Arab world, Saudi Arabia has confirmed its status as a kingdom without borders. Its political influence, religious expansion and media empires are now applauded, debated or contested and both local recipients of Saudi largesse and governments enmeshed in Saudi agendas debate a phenomenon that so far has attracted more sensational reporting than serious scholarly analysis. Kingdom Without Borders is the first volume to shed light on this growing regional and international power and its ambitions to project its influence beyond its frontiers in three interrelated spheres of activity. This volume brings together established scholars from Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia to map the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of Saudi expansionism. Combining both top-down and grass roots analysis, contributors interrogate the reality and impact of Saudi transnational connections on local politics, religious affiliation and media genres. This exploration leads to a reassessment of the changing nature of state and society in Saudi Arabia in an age of globalisation. It highlights contradictions within Saudi Arabia with the emergence of multiple actors in the state and the consolidation of new non-state actors who, thanks to a second oil boom, may either consolidate or subvert the state. Contributors also trace the impact of Saudi religious, financial and political influence on receiving societies, — including Yemen, the USA and Lebanon — their objective being to move the discussion away from accusations and counter accusations about support for terrorism to offer a nuanced approach to how local contexts are shaped by external actors in a globalised world
Rituals of life and death: the politics and poetics of Jihad in Saudi Arabia
No full textFrom India to Iraq, from London to Lahore, the relationship between religion and violence is one of the most bitterly contested and casually misrepresented issues of our times. This groundbreaking volume brings together expert perspectives from a variety of fields to probe it. It seeks to shift analytical focus on to the contexts in which violence is expressed, enacted and reported. Ranging from Islam to Buddhism to new religious movements in the West, Dying for Faith offers a comprehensive and highly original account of a complex phenomenon that has so far attracted sensational media coverage but scant academic attention
The Saudi complex: power versus rights
No full textSaudi Arabia's rulers are deploying a mix of force and largesse to contain the threat of democratic protest. But an emerging civic movement is determined to persist, says Madawi Al-Rasheed
9/11 the memory of violence
No full textThe atrocity of 11 September 2001 entrenched an imaginary polarisation between “the west and the rest” - and buried a deeper reality that is only now emerging to light, says Madawi al-Rasheed
Imagined heroism of Saudi 'Nail Polish Girl'
No full textMadawi Al-Rasheed weighs in on the viral video of a Saudi woman confronting religious police and says that as long as Saudi women remain unorganized, Saudis and the rest of the world will continue to watch YouTube clips of futile disconnected incidents, grounded in sensationalism and imagined heroism
Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic voices from a new generation
No full textThe 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. Bridging the gap between text and context, the author also examines how states and citizens manipulate religious discourse for purely political ends, and how this manipulation generates unpredictable reactions whose control escapes those who initiated them
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