Saudi rule has rested since 1744 on a clerics-decide, rulers-enforce division of power.

Evidence

The clerics (ʿulama¯ʾ) – Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahha¯b and his successors – would decide what is and is not proper Islam, while the rulers (umara¯ʾ) – Muh˙ammad ibn Saʿu¯d and his descendants – would enforce the clerics’ interpretation of Islam, take and control territory, and administer the state. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 1838

Categorization

• DEFINE: Pinpoints the al-Shaykh/al-Saud division of labor at the founding agreement — the institutional structure that distributes interpretive authority away from the state.
• XREF: This clerics-vs-rulers split parallels the sacralized-nationalism cases earlier: sacred interpretive authority held separately from coercive power, as in ch8 Hindutva and ch11 Iran. — connects to: The cleric-ruler division of labor is Saudi Arabia’s founding institutional model — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1838

Broader Connections

• The cleric-ruler division of labor is Saudi Arabia’s founding institutional model #expands (0.92) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 1838