Holier than Thou: Saudi Arabia's Islamic Opposition

Book Description
There are few countries governed more closely by the strictures of Islam than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ironically, as historian Joshua Teitelbaum points out in this trenchant and timely book, radical Islamic fundamentalists such as Osama bin Laden, whom the U.S. believes to be behind the September 11 terrorist attacks, still pose the most substantial security threat to the ruling Al Sa'ud family, guardians of Islam's two holiest shrines and the world's largest source of oil. Composed of both mainstream Sunni and minority Shi'i radicals, Saudi Arabia's Islamic opposition poses a new and original threat to the Al Sa'ud by questioning the legitimacy of the family's longstanding claim to govern according to Islamic shari'a law. Indeed, the radical fundamentalists stand poised to shake the public image of Saudi Arabia as the only Islamic country to have achieved a successful marriage between tradition and modernity. In this book, Teitelbaum analyzes the social, political, and economic roots of the Saudi opposition, giving sorely needed context to the phenomenon of bin Laden. But bin Ladin and his supporters in Saudi Arabia do not simply represent a challenge to the Saudi system of government. On the contrary, the entire Islamic opposition poses a real threat to the Saudi royal family and to U.S. forces that provide a security umbrella to the Saudis and other Gulf countries. Even before September 11, radical fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia left their violent mark in bloody terrorist acts such as the 1995 attack on a U.S. military mission in Riyadh and the 1996 al-Khobar Towers bombing against U.S. forces in Dhahran. Indeed, the future of U.S.-Saudi relations, which since September 11 have become of primary concern to all Americans, hinges upon a deeper understanding of the severe Islamic troubles that plague the Saudi regime.

About the Author
Joshua Teitelbaum is Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, and Lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University. He is the author of _The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of the Hijaz_ (New York: New York University Press, 2001).


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