The Circulation of Ideas in the Muslim World: Systematic Thought or Organizational Skills?

In my research on contemporary Islamic intellectual history, I focus on the more innovative and progressive, and therefore often controversial, currents of thought, which I have coined in provocative terms such as ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘heretical’. In discussing the trans-regional aspects of these alternative Islamic discourses, I am increasingly drawn to the notion of the ‘circulation of ideas’. This in itself somewhat amorphous expression strikes me as suitable for capturing the complex, multi-layered – even messy – nature of these contemporary trends of Muslim intellectualism. Already fruitfully employed in, for example, Indian Ocean Studies, I have become more convinced that it can also be aptly applied in research on contemporary Islamic intellectual history when I had a chance to listen to the anthropologist Martin van Bruinessen, emeritus professor and former holder of the ISIM Chair at the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands.

This week Aga Khan University in London hosted this specialist in the history of Islam in Turkey and Indonesia, as well as their present-day societies, for a talk entitled ‘Indonesian Muslims and their Place in the Larger World of Islam’. In his presentation, van Bruinessen concentrated on finding an explanation for the fact that Indonesian Islam still remains little known to Muslims from outside Southeast Asia. It certainly is not that the way Islam is interpreted, experienced and practiced in this largest Muslim nation-state is not interesting or has nothing to offer to the rest of the Muslim world, almost the contrary.

Van Bruinessen recalls an observation made in 1986 by the famous Pakistani scholar of Islam and modernist Islamic intellectual Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988). At the time, the latter was of the opinion that the two Muslim countries to watch for the emergence of innovative ideas and alternative trajectories in the Muslim world were Turkey and Indonesia. It was probably no coincidence that Fazlur Rahman, who was then Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago, was supervising numerous postgraduate students from these two countries, many of whom would rise to becoming prominent religious and political leaders in their respective home lands.

One of the possible reasons why the often interesting ideas developed by Indonesian Muslims did not catch on elsewhere is a matter of form. Generally, Indonesian intellectuals present their ideas in speeches, seminars, talks, newspaper columns, magazine articles and other forums. These are later published in often voluminous collections, but rarely – if at all – do they find their way into any systematic presentation of their thoughts. An explanation for this seemingly unstructured style is that many Indonesian Muslim intellectuals are also activists, who tend to live out their ideas rather than theorize about them. On the other hand, to have an impact new interpretations not only need ideational coherence but require also efficient dissemination. Here, as shall be seen below, the Indonesian Muslim knack for organization comes into play.

Also historically, Indonesia or, for that matter,  its predecessor -- the Dutch East Indies – never produced the equivalent of single, towering intellectual figures such as Shah Waliullah al-Dihlawi, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, or Abu Alaa Maududi. Yet, in the past, ulama from Southeast Asia, including regions which now form part of the Indonesian republic,  were present in the Haramayn for centuries, teaching and instructing visiting pilgrims and students in things Islamic. However, although they formed by far the largest contingent of non-Arab Muslims in the holy places, they did not profile themselves explicitly as ‘Indonesians’.

Also today, Indonesian Muslims continue to display a voracious appetite for learning about Islam. There is a vibrant ‘translation industry’ of books on Islam and the Muslim world written by Muslim scholars and other intellectuals from across the Muslim world, as well as Western scholars of Islam. According to van Bruinessen, knowledge from abroad has always been highly valued in Indonesia. One explanation for this eagerness for ideas from the outside – aside from centuries of participation in the Islamic scholarly networks connecting the region to centres of Islamic learning on the other side of the Indian Ocean, in India, Yemen, the Hijaz, and Cairo – is Indonesia’s colonial experience, when Western knowledge percolated into the Dutch East Indies, opening up yet another epistemological realm.

Martin van Bruinessen

Consequently, the traffic of ideas has remained one-directional -- from other parts of the Muslim world and the West to Indonesia, whereas the ideas of Indonesian Muslim intellectuals have had very little exposure abroad. The only exceptions cited by van Bruinessen are former President Ahmad Sukarno and the one-time leader of the now defunct Islamist Masyumi Party, Muhammad Natsir. These were Indonesian Muslims who -- at one tim --  had an international profile with a global reach: Sukarno as a founding member of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries in the 1950s, and Natsir as a key figure in the Muslim World League and most prominent Southeast  Asian representative of Islamic reformism of the Salafi schnitt. In Natsir’s view, the benchmark for what constitutes ‘real Islam’, is provided by medieval Middle Eastern Islam. In the lively debates in Indonesia between ‘Westernizers’ -- who saw no contradiction between Islam and modernity, nor any fundamental incompatibilities with the other Abrahamic religious traditions of Judaism and Christianity -- and the ‘nativists’ who took issue with both Islamic and European influences, Natsir actually disagreed with both, neither did he approve of the advocates of a culturally specific traditional Indonesian Islam.

This lack of interest in or attention for the development of Indonesian Islam, does not mean that the country has nothing to offer to the rest of the Muslim world.  To return again to Fazlur Rahman’s view of the potential of both Turkish and Indonesian Islam, van Bruinessen also notes that, when comparing the two countries, another factor that needs to be taken into consideration is the matter of temperament. As another prominent non-Arab segment of the Muslim ummah, Turks have been more assertive in establishing themselves as significant and distinct from the Arabs than the evidently more modest and subdued Indonesians. At the same time, as I have discussed elsewhere, there are remarkable parallels between the Turkish and Indonesian experiences with Muslim intellectualism and the place of religion in public life in these two countries during the last twenty five years or so. These developments contain important lessons for alternative trajectories in the post-Arab Spring Middle Eastern parts of the Muslim world (see my posts of 5 February 2011 and  30 July 2011)

Among the aspects identified by van Bruinessen as having something to offer to the wider world of Islam is first of all the high level of organization among Indonesian Muslims. The country is home to what are not only the oldest and largest Islamic mass movements, they also manifest a longstanding and rich democratic tradition reaching from the local all the way to the national level. The political and legal framework of the Dutch East Indies, enabled Islamic modernists and traditionalist Muslims to establish organizations which focussed on  emancipation through educational and charitable initiatives and steered well clear of explicit political activities.

On all levels, both the modernist Muhammadiyah, founded as early as 1912, and its rivalling traditionalist counterpart Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) established in 1926, are run by elected governing bodies. Thus they have gained lengthy experience with selecting and electing leaders at national congresses which are held every five years, and the chance to develop a tradition of grassroots level democracy stretching back decades. This makes the Muhammadiyah and NU much more transparent than, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In regards to the organizational and institutional dimensions of Indonesian Islam, another interesting example is provided by Hizbut Tahrir. In Indonesia, this movement can command a disproportionately large following among the country's vast Muslim student population. On the other side of the Islamic political and intellectual spectrum, van Bruinessen also observed a very widespread and solid presence of contemporary Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandi-Haqqani, whose leadership is currently based in the United States. He even ventured a speculation that, given the pressures on Muslims in America, it would not be inconceivable if the current leader, Shaykh Hisham Kabbani, would decide to select Indonesia as the most suitable location for the organization’s future headquarters.

Then there is the flourishing of progressive and liberal interpretations of Islam. While it is true that, as explained earlier, the inspiration often comes from abroad, at the same time and in contrast to many parts of the Muslim world, Indonesian engagement with innovative and often controversial ideas is not only more intense, but also receiving  support from wider segments of society.  From the 1970s until the late 1990s, this was manifested through what Indonesians refer to as ‘cultural Islam’. During this period the ideas of thinkers such as Hasan Hanafi, Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri, and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, as well as Shi’ite intellectuals like Shariati and Mutahhari were translated into Indonesian and integrated into the Muslim discourses circulating in that country..

Martin van Bruinessen in discussion with Kathryn Spellman of Aga Khan University

If there is one area where it could be argued that Indonesia has actually managed to influence developments elsewhere, it would be Islamic feminism. Here again, the origins came from the outside, in this case from the American-Pakistani women rights activist Riffat Hassan. But Indonesia was the only Muslim country where she was permitted to give an address at an Islamic university. Aside from Riffat Hassan, also the ideas of the Sudanese jurist and theoretician of human rights Abdullahi an-Na'im, and the latter's mentor Muhammad Mahmoud Taha, are an important ingredient for Islamic feminist activism in Indonesia.

There is no Muslim country where Islamic feminism is so deeply rooted and supported on grassroots level than Indonesia. Its success does not depend on any prominent figures, but rather on the broad support and widespread activism by scores of Muslimas working in the women’s branches of mass organizations such as the NU and Muhammadiyah. The international dimension of Indonesian Muslim feminism is evidently visible in the Musawah network. Although a Malaysian and Iranian initiative, the Indonesian experiment with Islamic feminism soon caught the attention of the initiators and has left its mark on this international body for coordinating Islamic women’s rights activism worldwide.


What became manifestly clear from van Bruinessen's discussion of indonesia's Islamic scene is that, aside from a store of interesting, progressive ideas presented in a coherent and systematic fashion, the successful dissemination of such ideas also depends on effective organization, and here Indonesian organizations such as the NU and the Muhammadiyah have a track record that has -- so far -- remained unmatched in the Muslim world.


Hereunder are some of van Bruinessen's writings, for more materials also check his personal website.

Germany stimulates critical Islamic thinking with new postgraduate programme for Muslim theologians

The Germany-based Qantara website, which covers news from the Muslim world and 'diasporas' in the West, draws attention to a German initiative that seeks to stimulate critical Islamic thinking through a new postgraduate programme intended for Muslim scholars with an ambition to specialize in Islamic theological thought. Published under the adamant title 'Muslim theologians are instigators of change', the article argues that the 'advancement of research from below wll provide new perspectives on Islam and produce new insights so that Islam may establish itself within a German context'.

The nation-wide project will in first instance enable fifteen young researchers from seven universities to meet regularly at workshops and conferences to exchange ideas. The programme is financed with a 3.6 million Euro grant from the Mercator Foundation, which also organized this years Young Islam Conference in Berlin.

Islamic theology is still a very new academic discipline at German universities. It is hoped that a new nationwide post-graduate programme will boost its development, lead to increased representation of Muslims in Germany, and lay the groundwork for the training of state schoolteachers of Islam.

Mouhanad Khorchide

The project is coordinated by the Lebanese-Austrian scholar of religion Mouhanad Khorchide, currently associated with the Wilhelm University in Westphalia in Münster. Says Khorchide.:

The programme is promoting the same aim that the federal government has been pursuing since last year with the creation of four Centres of Islamic Theology. The political expectations are obvious. It's all about an appropriate integration policy and creating the conditions for "the necessary dialogue of cultures", as the Federal Ministry of Education has put it on several occasions.

Another scholar involved in the project is Professor Harry Harun Behr of the Interdisciplinary Center for Islamic Study or Religions (IZIR) at the University of Erlangen, who observes that:

Harry Harun Behr

Muslim theologians move along borders in order to be able to translate between different systems of knowledge management. [...] Muslim theologians should also have an effect within the Muslim community. Cautious provocation is part of the trade. Muslim theologians are instigators of change.

The fifteen academics involved are all young immigrants of the first or second generation addressing subjects such as They include subjects such as feminist Islamic theology, the re-discovery of forgotten early Islamic theologians, the historical-critical study of Koran manuscripts, or the role of language, script and reason in the interpretation of the Koran and the prophet's sayings. All are using critical methods and approaches:

many of the projects question overly simple concepts of a literal understanding of the canonical sources and might well end up angering conservative Muslims.

Just as with controversial subjects, the young academics show little fear of making contact with Christian traditions of theology and religious educational theory.

Also other prominent Muslim scholars of Islam currently based in Germany have weighted in with their support for the initiative:

Ömer Özsoy

The establishment of Islamic theology (in Germany) can no longer be undone (Ömer Özsoy, Professor of Exegesis, University of Frankfurt). 

Katajun Amirpur

There is certainly an underlying expectation that this discipline will make Islam compatible with democracy and help reduce problems with Muslim,s [...]: We're not engaging in contract research here and won't invent some kind of integrated Islam for you. (Katajun Amirpur, Professor of Islamic Theology in Hamburg)

The young researchers involved in the project include Serdar Kurnaz(New philological, theological, and legal phiolsophical approaches to Islamic jurisprudence); Nimet Seker (Gender-equitable approaches to the Qur'an); Tolou Khademalsharieh (Early textual history of the Qur'an); and Fahimah Ulfat (Islamic religious educational theory). Watch this space for more news on their future academic exploits.

Where are the Arab Intellectuals?

In his news analysis of 29 October 2011 published in the Sunday Review section, New York Times staff writer Robert F. Worth examines the relative silence of intellectuals from the Arab World during this year's 'Arab Spring'. It looks at the disappointment of Syrians due to the absence of any bold challenges by the famous poet Adonis in his open letter to Syrian President Asad.

Syrian-Lebanese poet Adonis

This makes Arab intellectuals look meek in comparison to their European, Asian and American intellectual predecessors like Vaclav Havel, Mao, and Thomas Paine. According to Worth it reflects the climate of repression under which many intellectuals in the Arab world live and work, but it is also symptomatic of the post-ideological era in which we live with much less room for 'unifying doctrines' and 'grandiose figures'. 

Syrian philosopher Sadiq Jalal al-Azm

Worth continues: 'To some extent the intellectual silence of the current uprising is a deliberate response to the revolutionary rhetoric of previous generations... [...] The protesters who led the Arab Spring had grown tired of the stale internationalist rhetoric of their forebears'. There is a perceptible shift from ideological grandstanding to a more realistic and pragmatic concern with human rights and democratization. Thinkers such as the Syrian philosopher Sadik Jalal al-Azm joined other Syrian intellectuals to sign the 'Declaration of the 99'.  But then again:

But in recent years their voices often went unheard, because their secular language had little resonance in societies where political Islamic was becoming a dominant force. nor did Islamic reformers fare much better when they tried to cast their political critique in religious terms. The Egyptian scholar Hassan Hanafi, for instrance, in the 1980s began calling for the creation of an "Islamic Left", a socialist ideology rooted in religion. He was branded a heretic and had to seek police protection after receiving death threats from jihadists. His work gained an audience in Indonesia, but not in his own country, said Carool Kersten, a lecturer at King's College London who has written on Islamic reformers. 

It appears intellectuals throughout the Arab world are struggling to find a way for giving voice to the frustrations, ambitions and expectations of its citizens. To read the full essay click here.


* those who read Arabic click on this link.

Curing 1000 years of amnesia: Europe's (re)discovery of Arab Culture

Britain's venerable Royal Society (dating back to the 1660s) hosted Professor Charles Burnett of The Warburg Institute, University of London, for a talk entitled 'The European Discovery of Arab Culture'. A medievalist by training, Charles Burnett has been Professor of Islamic Influences in Europe since 1999 and is the founder of the Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe (CHASE). Although there appears to be a cavalier conflation of 'Arabic' and 'Islamic' in these designations, in his introductory remarks, Professor Burnett took care to underscore the importance of making a clear distinction between the two.

The lecture, co-hosted by the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization, was held as one of the closing events celebrating an exhibition of Muslim contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge throughout the Middle Ages at the Royal Society's headquarters on Carlton House Terrace.

Bettany Hughes

The exhibition and lecture were conceived to cure what has been dubbed the collective 1000-year amnesia which has made the West forget the significance of Arab and Muslim achievements in science and knowledge in general for the development of European civilization. The event was MC'ed by the historian and renowned broadcaster Bettany Hughes, while the lecture was chaired by Jim al-Khalili, a Professor of physics at the University of Surrey and also a well-known TV figure actively engaged in the promotion of the sciences and the significance of inter-civilizational contacts for the development of human knowledge. Words of welcome were also spoken by Professor Lorna Casselton, the Society's Foreign Secretary, and Professor Salim al-Hassani, Chairman of the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization (FSTC) -- a British-based non-profit organization established to promote the contributions of Muslim civilization and its role in the advancement of humankind through scientific knowledge and its technological application. It seeks to promote awareness of Islam as a civilization and stimulate interest in the multicultural aspects of scientific progress through the centuries by supporting a wide range of activities including the online based initiatives, MuslimHeritage and the global 1001 Inventions Project.

Prof. Salim al-Hassani

In his talk, Charles Burnett sketched how, up to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, European scholars eagerly learned Arabic in order to access the Islamic depositories of knowledge. Meanwhile merchants were encouraged to carry manuscripts from the eastern bassin of the Mediterranean and from North Africa to the southern shores of Europe. What is remarkable about the exchange is that European curiosity was generally limited to the exact or natural sciences. However, by the 1300s, this interaction reached its conclusion as Europeans became of the opinion that also in these fields nothing new could be gained from Arab and Islamic scholarship. This closing of the mind lasted until the sixteenth century, when interest in the Orient was rekindled. In contrast to the earlier ages, now there was an expressed interest in Arab and Islamic culture and civilization. The first chairs in Arabic were established in Paris, Leiden, Cambridge and Oxford with the objective of expanding the knowledge of Semitic languages in order to come to a deeper and better understanding of Jewish and Christian scriptures. In this development, Arabic was treated as an auxillary to the study of Hebrew and the seeds for a polemical engagement with Islamic religious doctrine were laid as well.

Prof. Jim al-Khalili (L) and Prof. Charles Burnett

The evening's programme was closed by Dr Rim Turkmani, a Syrian-born astrophysicist at Imperial College, who helped curate the 'Arabick Roots of Knowledge'  exhibition. In her presentation she showcased some of the main exhibits. 

'Arabick Roots' Exhibition at the Royal Society

Dr Rim Turkmani

While it is debatable whether the scholars from the medieval Islamic world would qualify as critical Muslims in a contemporary sense, what becomes evident from both the Royal Society exhibition and Prof. Burnett's lecture is that these Muslims were certainly critical to the development of Western civilization and the subsequent emergence of modernity.

Arab Spring: Is there a critical Islamic discourse in Saudi Arabia?

On 17 October 2011, my colleague Madawi al-Rasheed, Professor of Social Anthropology at King's College London, gave a talk in the Middle East Seminar convened by the London School of Economics (LSE), under the title 'A Saudi Spring of Sand Storms; Signs of Domestic Turbulence'. The chair of the event, Fawaz Gerges, Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at LSE, introduced Prof. al-Rasheed as one the most renowned scholars on present-day developments in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, and certainly the foremost critical voices on current affairs in the Kingdom. She is the author of a number of books on Saudi Arabia.

Madawi al-Rasheed

In her preliminary remarks, Prof. al-Rasheed already foreshadowed a more pessimistic account when compared to seismic shifts which have occured elsewhere. Alluding to the metaphoric associations employed by Egyptians and Tunisians, who refer to the Spring as the season of blossoms and jasmine flowers respectively, in Saudi Arabia the arrival of Spring is accompanied by often vicious sand storms. Accordingly, the trajectory of the Arab Spring in the Arabian Peninsula in general has been less than promising. The Sunni-controlled government of the neighbouring miniature island state of Bahrain has clamped down, without mercy, on expressions of dissent by its disenfranchised majority Shi'a population -- rapidly and readily assisted by Saudi troops in armoured vehicles sent across the strategic King Fahd causeway by the government in Riyadh. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia' s southern neighbour Yemen teeters on the brink of civil war as the protests against Abdullah Ali Saleh are turning increasingly violent and bloody.

Saudi Arabia itself, like many other Arab kingdoms (Jordan, Morocco, Oman), makes every effort to present the monarchical system in the most benign ways, alleging it offers a favourable contrast to the nasty republican regimes that seem to be falling like dominoes. As a critical note, Prof. al-Rasheed observes that this rosy image is swallowed without question, and even spread further, by external stakeholders in regional Gulf stability. these interested parties are no longer confined to America and Western Europe, but now also include Russia and China. Their willingness to side with the incumbent regime is motivated by the need for access to Saudi oil reserves and the prospects of lucrative arms deals.

But, the sand storms of the Spring of 2011 are harbingers of growing domestic turbulence, Prof. al-Rasheed insists. As one of her informants has it: 'The events of early 2011 have propelled Saudi Arabia ten years ahead of its own pace of development'.

There is widespread dissatisfaction in Saudi Arabia, but Saudis express their grievances and frustrations differently than elsewhere. Again, al-Rasheed refers to the explanation offered by a disaffected activist within the Kingdom she is in contact with: If Saudis would be confronted with the kind of humiliation suffered by Egyptians or Tunisians at the hands of security forces, their temperament and cultural conventions would force them to respond in kind. In a country where weapons are readily available, violence would rapidly spirall out of control. So instead, critics of the regimes and opponents of the present political order have taken recourse to their conventional way of addressing complaints to the government: sending petitions.

Since the mid-1990s, when foreign troops taking part in Operations 'Desert Shield' and 'Desert Storm', assembled on Saudi soil to fend off the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Saudi opposition has issued a dozen or so petitions demanding reforms and change. In general, these addresses studiously avoided any direct criticism of the king or other members of the royal family. And whereas, the ruling monarch, the crown prince, and the grand mufti -- as leader of the religious establishment -- still retain near sacred status, the latest petitions contain thinly veiled criticisms of the highly umpopular minister of interior, Prince Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz. Heading a vicious security apparatus and himself an epigone of political conservatism and authoritarian repression of any democratic reforms, Nayif is nevertheless best positioned to succeed the aging king and ailing crown prince -- both of whom have spent extended periods of time in hospital during the last few years.

The government, in turn, has responded with its time-tested counteroffensive: financial mumificence. This time around the key beneficiaries were, first of all, the armed forces. All serving members were promoted one rank, while also receiving the cocomitant rise in pay. In addition, another 60,000 new positions will be created. Whereas this will only lead to a further militarization of Saudi society, Madawi al-Rasheed took care to note that the armed forces are by no means a united front. In fact, the loyalty of the various branches is fragmented and divided between key senior members of the royal family. The religious establishment too benefited from royal generosity, receiving additional budget for its activities. Combined with the third strategy: a further curtailment of the press, the Saudi regime has -- for now -- taken the sting out of the protest movement.

But aside from a combination of repression and largesse on the part of the government, there is another reason why protests in Saudi Arabia have remained relatively subdued when compared to other Arab countries. Calls for a 'day of rage', scheduled for 11 March, were generally ignored because there is no consensus among the protesters on the agenda for reforms. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has no tradition of civil activism. In order to prevent the development of such a sense of civil society or the articulation of shared citizens' concerns, the government also plays up tribal belonging and sectarian divides: pitching regions and tribes, and Sunnis and Shi'ites, against each other.

Saudi Arabia's 'day of rage' (11 March 2011)

However, it cannot be denied that Saudi society is sick, and the key ailments include not just the repression of the Shi'ite minority (not only 'Twelvers' or 'Imamis' in the Eastern Province, but also the often forgotten Ismaili community in the southern border province of Najran). Then there is the denial of equal rights to women; the continued detention of large numbers of political prisoners; and -- above anything else -- the rampant unemployment of the Saudi youth. According to some estimates, the level of joblessness in Saudi Arabia is only topped by Gaza and Iraq. In the face of such challenges, Saudi society increasingly resembles a pressure cooker ready to explode.

Shi'ites protesting in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province

External factors also play a role in defining the future prospects for a Saudi Spring. According to Prof. al-Rasheed the world is rapidly moving, if it has not already, from a one-super power post-Cold War order to a multipolar world, in which varies powers are vying for influence, including orchestrating developments in the strategically so important Persian Gulf Region. On a global level these include the USA, Russia, China and India, on the regional level Saudi Arabia itself, Iran, and Turkey. Each of these players tries to direct developments into a direction that serves its own interests.

Whereas some Arab countries are looking to Turkey for inspiration, it is highly unlikely that this will be a useful model for Saudi Arabia, at least in the short term. Its lack of a sense of civil society and tradition of feminist activism currently deprive it of the necessary preconditions. This lack of civil action also severely limits the likelihood of a 'facebook' or 'twitter' revolution -- which al-Rasheed also considers a misnomer in the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria.

However, what is not an unlikely scenario is that continuing turbulence and the persistence of critical questions being directed at the government could destabilize the regime to such an extent that a fragmentation of the Kingdom is not entirely inconceivable. Most likely candidates for a breakaway would be the oil-rich Eastern province and the Asir and Najran provinces on the border with Yemen.The lack of a tradition of civil disobedience also makes a violent turn of events a very likely option.

According to Prof. al-Rasheed the current initiatives of the government to respond to the demands of the protesters are insufficient. Although Saudi Arabia's economy continues to expand it has never managed to absorb the country's rapidly growing population; for that the government has always relied on expanding the civil service, which is seen as inefficient and corrupt. Women's issues are primarily addressed in response to foreign criticism, but Madawi al-Rasheed is adamant that the kind of emancipation introduced by the Saudi regime will not undermine its authoritarian grip on power. Playing up sectarianism often expressed by pandering to a sense of 'Iranphobia' will also not contribute to the creation of a sense of nationhood. However, according to al-Rasheed there are signs that leading figures among the citizenry in the Western Hijaz province, a more cosmopolitan region with a historical tradition of plurality where also the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina are located, are trying to build bridges between Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Even though the Saudi government has been pushing for years for a military intervention in Iran, al-Rasheed thinks that in the current multi-polar world a sustained military campaign against Iran is highly unlikely, and Saudi Arabia definitely lacks the means to go it alone.

King Abdullah

However, the key to any future scenario for Saudi Arabia is the succession question. At present there are five key princes, representing various factions within the royal family. Aside from the King and Crown Prince, and their sons, there is the governor of the Eastern Province, Prince Muhammad bin Fahd, the oldest surviving son of the late King Fahd (1982-2005), and the governor of Mecca, Prince Khalid bin Faisal, as the most senior member among the descendants of King Faisal (1964-1975). However, as she mentioned earlier, at present Madawi al-Rasheed considers the powerful interior minister, Prince Nayif -- a half-brother of King Abdullah and full brother of Sultan, the ailing crown prince and defence minister -- as the most likely future king. This does not bode well for the prospects of any drastic reforms.On the other hand, it is never certain what the 33 most senior members of the royal family will decide. What is certain is that the opportunities for a horizontal succession -- for brother to brother -- will soon be exhausted. How this will play out the next level, the sons of the leading royal members of government, is anybody's guess.

Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayif

In Madawi al-Rasheed's mind, for any drastic change to occur -- and this is only likely in the long run -- it will be absolutely vital that freedom of expression and organization are widely expanded; without the creation of a viable public space any attempts for real political reforms are doomed. That is exactly why the regime continues to stress tribal and sectarian affiliations;why it makes sure to kepp foreigners away from the native population by confining them to their walled compounds and labour camps; and why universities are closed enclaves keeping young Saudis isolated, under strict surveillance, while exposing them to skills training rather than an education which would enable them to articulate their critical faculties. Critical Muslims are the nemesis of a regime composed of a well-entrenched royal family and collaborating religious establishment as the self-appointed custodians of a narrow-minded intolerant interpretation of the Islamic tradition.