Encyclopedia of Islam

Saudi Arabia

  

607  J

---

made it possible to project its influence and conser-

vative Islamic doctrines around the world.

During the cold war years, Saudi Arabia devel-

oped a close relationship with the United States 

as a bulwark against the spread of Soviet influ-

ence and leftist movements in the Middle East. It 

played a leading role in the creation of the m

Uslim

W

orld

 l

eagUe

 (founded in 1962) and the o

rga

-

nization

 

oF

 

the

 i

slamic

 c

onFerence

 (founded in 

1969), both of which exist to promote global Mus-

lim unity. It has also taken a strong stand against 

the spread of revolutionary Iranian Shiism in the 

Gulf region, and supported Iraq in its 1980–88 

war with Iran. In 1990–91, however, Saudi Arabia 

joined a large international coalition of forces, led 

by the United States, to expel Iraq from neighbor-

ing Kuwait. It also joined with the United States 

and Pakistan in the 1980s to aid the a

Fghan

 

mUJa

-

hidin

 in their war against the Soviet Union, which 

had occupied a

Fghanistan

 in 1978.

Saudi Arabia has made great strides toward 

educating its people, both men and 

Women

, since 

the 1970s. It has 20 public universities and more 

than 24,000 schools. Many members of the royal 

family and the middle class have received their 

college educations abroad in the United States and 

Britain. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has had to 

balance its conservative Islamic tradition, based 

on sharia law, with internal pressure for reform. 

Several domestic opposition movements have 

developed, while others are based abroad. These 

groups have called for a variety of reforms, par-

ticularly with regard to democratization, 

hUman

rights

 reform, and social justice. The lives of 

Saudi women are strictly controlled, but in 1990 

a number of university women publicly protested 

the ban that prohibits women from driving. In 

2008 the government agreed to some changes in 

rights for women, including a decree that allows 

women to enter a hotel without a chaperone; the 

government has also agreed to lift the driving ban, 

but no official decree has yet been issued.

Saudi Arabia must also deal with the question 

of religious violence and 

terrorism

. In 1979 a 

group of rebels, following a Saudi they believed to 

be the promised 

mahdi

, seized the Sacred Mosque 

in Mecca after the bajj and called for an end to 

Saudi rule. They were opposed to the sweeping 

modernization programs that the government 

had launched in the 1970s. The rebels could be 

removed only by force, with significant loss of life. 

The event left the Saudi kingdom greatly shaken. 

Later, in September 2001, many of the hijackers 

involved in the attacks on New York and Wash-

ington were Saudi nationals. U

sama

 

bin

 l

adin

, the 

leader of the 

al

-q

aida

 organization that conducted 

these attacks, was the son of the country’s foremost 

contractor, Muhammad bin Ladin (d. 1967), who 

had founded the company that built much of Saudi 

Arabia’s modern infrastructure. Although Usama 

had assisted the Saudi government in Afghanistan 

in the 1980s, he was stripped of his Saudi national-

ity in 1994 because of his opposition to the govern-

ment’s close relationship with the United States. In 

particular, he was opposed to the stationing of U.S. 

troops in the Muslim holy land. Beginning in 2003 

suicide bombers and militants suspected of having 

links to al-Qaida carried out, or attempted to carry 

out, a number of attacks in Saudi Arabia; most of 

those killed were Saudi nationals.

See also  b

edoUin

; 

commUnism

; F

aysal

 

ibn

a

bd

 

al

-a

ziz

 

al

-s

aUd

;  g

UlF

 

states

;  g

UlF

 W

ars

; 

h

ashimite

 

dynasty

; 

reneWal

 

and

 

reForm

 

move

-

ments

; s

hiism

.

Juan E. Campo and Kate O’Halloran