THE past year has been a trying time for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As the kingdom celebrated the 85th anniversary of its National Day on Sept 23, which fell in the holy and blessed occasion of the haj season for all Muslims, national pride was tainted by the haj pilgrimage stampede in Mina.
This calamity, which took 769 lives, came 13 days after 109 people were killed when a construction crane collapsed at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The Mina tragedy was the deadliest since 1990, when 1,426 people died in a stampede, the highest death toll of any haj tragedy in modern times.
The “Terowong Muassim” disaster occurred when a bent pedestrian bridge railing caused a few people to fall off a bridge and onto people exiting the tunnel which led to the halt of the movement of the pilgrims, filling up the tunnel five times its capacity.
The country drew fierce criticism from regional rival Iran over its handling of pilgrims’ safety. Officials in Islamic countries stressed that Saudi Arabia has to accept responsibility for the Mina incident and urged the kingdom to endorse the management of the pilgrimage as a joint Muslim issue or allow a global Muslim committee to supervise its management.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been confronted with what many consider its greatest challenge: achieving modernity without surrendering its heritage, faith, or culture. Today, it is a nation marked by sophisticated political and financial systems, with a culture rich in history and deep in faith.
The kingdom is an oil-rich nation that occupies the majority of the Arabian peninsula. It wields considerable military and political power in Middle Eastern affairs and is the sole Arab nation to be part of the G-20 major economies.
Saudi Arabia’s prominence in the Islamic faith is anchored by the Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, the religion’s two holiest sites.
Modern Saudi Arabia was unified in the early 20th century by King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud. The country has remained an absolute monarchy under the House of Saud, which over the course of the 20th century leveraged the nation’s vast oil wealth to pursue stability, international alliances, military power and regional influence.
The nation is currently ruled by King Salman Abdulaziz Al Saud, who assumed the throne following the death of his half brother King Abdullah in January this year.
King Salman’s early rule had been marked by a military campaign against Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen.
On March 26 this year, “Operation Storm of Resolve”, a military operation led by Saudi Arabia and an international coalition of 10 countries, commenced.
The United States provided intelligence and logistical help, despite only a few hours’ notice from Riyadh regarding the first airstrikes. President Barack Obama has been a strong supporter of the kingdom; it was the first country in the Middle East he visited as president.
So far the Yemeni adventure has not gone well. The war seems to be bogged down in a stalemate. Saudi Arabia and its allies control Yemen’s airspace and coastal waters and the southern port of Aden, but the Houthis and their allies control most of northern Yemen.
The Yemen war, which is King Salman’s first major foreign test, has profound implications for the stability of Saudi Arabia, the Arabian peninsula and the region as a whole.
Direct challenges to the Saudi royal house are rare and unforgivable. However, in November 1979, the kingdom experienced a major challenge to the Saudi royal family’s legitimacy and governance. A band of Islamic extremists, who believed the apocalyptic End Times had arrived, took control of the Great Mosque in Mecca.
Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia is the world’s last significant absolute monarchy. The royal family will not give up its control of the nation nor loosen ties with the Wahhabis and their faith.
In fact, King Salman has instead moved the kingdom even closer to the Wahhabi establishment. The king has met often with notoriously reactionary members of the ulama elite. He built close ties with them during the 50 years he was governor of Riyadh, a period when the city went from a population of about 200,000 to over seven million, but retained its status as the most conservative city in Islam.
The House of Saud has outlasted the Ottomans, Nasserism, Communism, Baathism and most other royal families. In 1979 many thought it would go the way of the Shah of Iran. The Saudi establishment believes they have survived more than two and a half centuries in the midst of an unstable region of the Middle East due to their ruthless determination to stay as absolute monarchs, and also due to the strong alliance with the Wahhabi ulama.
With the recent calamities of the haj season, the Yemen war and the power rivalry of the Sunni-Shia axis of the Middle East, it is fair to claim that Saudi Arabia and its royal establishment have the resilience to tackle its threats and challenges.
The writer is a former lecturer at UiTM and the International Islamic University Malaysia