Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance - Hudson Institute

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EDUCATIONAL REFORM IS CRITICAL:
Saudi Arabia’s Global Influence
A century ago, Saudi Arabia was sparsely populated with nomadic tribes who were not yet
united into a recognized nation. With relative suddenness, it has emerged from subsistence living
and obscurity to become a wealthy regional power, and an influential leader within the Muslim
world. Yet, its public educational system, reflecting its governing ideology, remains rooted in the
blend of the harsh desert traditions and severe Islamic interpretations of its past.
The origins of the modern Saudi regime lie in the partnership forged in the eighteenth century
between Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the modern-day Saudi dynasty, and Abd al-Wahhab, a
fundamentalist Muslim scholar. An extreme offshoot of Islam’s Hanbali school, Wahhab’s
thought is based on a dualistic worldview in which true “monotheists” are obliged until judgment
day to “fight” “polytheists” and “idolaters,” including Christians, Jews, Shiites, and
insufficiently zealous Sunni Muslims. It was made the ruling ideology and the underlying
philosophy of the sharia or law in the regions of Arabia under Saudi control. In the early
twentieth century, Saudi leader Abdulaziz al-Saud (Ibn Saud) unified the disparate tribes in the
Arabian Peninsula, mainly through conquest. The Hejaz, encompassing Mecca and Medina, was
among the areas that fell under Saudi control. In 1926, Ibn Saud convened a global Islamic
conference to affirm his position as guardian of the two holiest shrines in Islam. In 1932, the
current Saudi state officially emerged, keeping intact the close relationship between the Saudi
ruling family and the al Sheikh family, the hereditary leaders of the Wahhabi religious
establishment. The final element that would complete the definition of modern-day Saudi Arabia
was put in place in 1945, when Ibn Saud met with American President Franklin D. Roosevelt to
consolidate an economic alliance that his country had entered into a decade earlier with the
American company Standard Oil. Saudi Arabia, it was to be discovered, has one quarter of the
world’s proven oil reserves, a fact that has undergirded a U.S.-Saudi strategic alliance for the
past sixty years. 84
Governed on a monarchical model, Saudi Arabia defines itself today as an Islamic state. 85
Religion and government remain interlocked. It has established Wahhabism as the official state
political ideology and the basis of jurisprudence for its sharia, 86 pays the salaries of the Wahhabi
clerical establishment, and has elevated the office of Grand Mufti to a government cabinet-level
position. 87
Within Saudi Arabia, Muslims who openly disagree with Wahhabi rulings are denounced,
discredited, and intimidated and may be officially punished for blasphemy or apostasy. Dissent
from the state’s religious dogma can result in job loss or criminal prosecution. Political reformers
who peacefully petitioned for rights through a constitutional monarchy were imprisoned for over
a year for using “un-Islamic terminology,” and other offenses. 88 Despite the presence of millions
of non-Muslims and non-Wahhabi Muslims in the Kingdom, Saudi authorities forbid the public
practice of non-Muslim religions and severely restrict the practices of Shi’a Muslims, including
the Ismailis. 89
Saudi Wahhabism is the core of the public school curriculum, comprising much or most of the
school day through high school. Some five million Saudi students are educated with these