Saudi rulers exported Wahhabi militancy abroad to deflect criticism at home.
Evidence
In the wake of public criticism, the kingdom repressed its most outspoken critics while again appeasing Wahhabi clerics by ceding to them ever more control of Saudi education and society. Saudi rulers and clerics also encouraged those who might otherwise have criticized Saudi rulers for not enforcing Wahhabi teachings within the kingdom to fight outside of it against other Muslim-led governments, militias, or parties – a policy that has been described as one of “obedience at home and rebellion abroad” (al-Rasheed 2008a). — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 1904
Categorization
- ADDENDUM: This ‘obedience at home, rebellion abroad’ export mechanism is exactly the reader’s enemy-making-machine running in redirect mode: the internal enemy that cannot be fought at home is displaced onto fellow Muslim-led states abroad.
- DEEPTHINKING: The double game — anathematizing Muslims who aid non-Muslims while being itself an ally of the non-Muslim West, and exporting maximal doctrines it refuses to enforce internally — is a rich, tilting structure worth sitting with.
- XREF: Directly speaks to the closing-gap task: the machine stands anywhere, and here it redirects a potential internal challenge to the monarchy outward against rival Muslim politics. — connects to: A state channels domestic religious zeal outward to protect its own rule. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1904; The Saudi-sponsored English Qur’an interpolates Wahhabi doctrine while disavowing the connection. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1888