Saudi Prince, Asserting Power, Brings Clerics to Heel

[DonViejo]

By BEN HUBBARD NOV. 5, 2017

BURAIDA, Saudi Arabia — For decades, Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment wielded tremendous power, with bearded enforcers policing public behavior, prominent sheikhs defining right and wrong, and religious associations using the kingdom’s oil wealth to promote their intolerant interpretation of Islam around the world.

Now, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is curbing their power as part of his drive to impose his control on the kingdom and press for a more open brand of Islam.

Before the arrests on Saturday of his fellow royals and former ministers on corruption allegations, Prince Mohammed had stripped the religious police of their arrest powers and expanded the space for women in public life, including promising them the right to drive.

Dozens of hard-line clerics have been detained, while others were designated to speak publicly about respect for other religions, a topic once anathema to the kingdom’s religious apparatus.

If the changes take hold, they could mean a historic reordering of the Saudi state by diminishing the role of hard-line clerics in shaping policy. That shift could reverberate abroad by moderating the exportation of the kingdom’s uncompromising version of Islam, Wahhabism, which has been accused of fueling intolerance and terrorism.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-wahhabism-salafism-mohammed-bin-salman.html?emc=edit_th_20171106&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284&_r=0

[Demsrule86]

1. The Saudis support Terrorism...big supporter of Isis and let's not forget 9-11 hijackers were mostly

Saudis...hope the prince succeeds.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. Sounds like a good thing to me, at least on its face.

[skip fox]

3. The NY Times focuses on the moderating influence of this crackdown

but do not speculate as to whether Trump, through Kushner's unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia the week before (Oct. 25-28) had anything to do with it.

Could Kushner have prodded him into this? Given him the green light?

Could he have provided the Prince US intelligence as to who he should target?

[superpatriotman]

4. The world will only truly be free

When the last king is hung with the entrails of the last holy man.

[pressbox69]

6. Maybe that day will come

when the last CEO pancakes after landing with the last golden parachute.

[coolsandy]

5. Now if we could only rid the USA of the hard-line clerics and the powerful evangelical, billionaires

who now control every aspect of our government.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. The Saudis have been riding this tiger for a long time ...

it was Wahhabi warriors who created the modern Saudi kingdom and ensconced the royal family in power. Ever since, the royals have found it difficult to disassociate themselves from their version of whirly-eyed fundies. If they turn on the clerics, they risk being overthrown themselves -- unless the populace-at-large no longer backs the clerics with the enthusiasm they once did, which seems to be the gamble (not a perfectly safe gamble, but good odds) that bin Salman is making. Obviously he plans to shift the odds with muscle where needed, as well.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. This all sounds good. But I remember when the Shah of Iran sounded good too.

The Shah was relatively advanced in his thinking on issues of women's rights, but below his western public relations surface, he was still an autocrat imposed on the Iranian public, and that festered into the revolution that brought in the current Iranian regime.