Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman promoted the adoption of religious openness and tolerance as a means of perpetuating oppression, and he did not support the “moderate Islam” approach except because it serves, in large part, his dictatorial policies.
The Foreign Policy said that Mohammed bin Salman and other Arab tyrants like him are following a new book on religion by exploiting religion to continue ruling with authoritarian and repressive methods.
The magazine stated that Saudi Arabia is working to promote a peaceful and calm view of religion, which emphasizes absolute obedience to the ruler, as it depicts obedience to the ruler as a religious duty, as it promotes a submissive religious interpretation of the state and is unable to challenge the legitimacy of the regime or its policies. At the same time, it delegitimized other forms of authority.
According to the American magazine, the Saudi authorities resort to portraying any form of Islam or political Islam as extremism and radicalism.
This approach was aided by anti-terrorism laws that spread in the Middle East in two waves: the first after the attacks of September 2001 and the second after the Arab Spring. These legislations are vaguely formulated to give the state the power to target any attempt to address the status quo.
These legislations were used in Egypt, Jordan, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and other places. By portraying any challenge to the status quo as extremism and a kind of religious radicalism, these governments have deflected their dictatorial policies, usually a catalyst for instability in the region, and suppressed anyone they deem a threat to their rule under the pretext of combating this extremist behaviour.
Such a framing would allow this government to monopolize the religious debate concerning the reform of Islam and politics in the Middle East.
It is widely seen that the project of moderate Islam was directed at the West, specifically, the United States, which remained the most important guarantor of these regimes, and marketed this image as part of soft power initiatives and obtaining legitimacy for its internal and external policies.
At the forefront of countries that successfully used the project of moderate Islam was Saudi Arabia, where Mohammed bin Salman presented himself as a reformer who wanted to modernize the country.
As he took measures such as allowing women to drive cars, live alone, and travel without a mahram, permitted places of entertainment, limited the power of the religious police, and imprisoned preachers whom he considered extremists in exchange for the traditional clerics who described him as a reformer, even though he distanced the history of Saudi Arabia from the history of the Wahhabi movement.
On the international level, Mohammed bin Salman used the project of moderate Islam. He presented it to the West through institutions such as the Muslim World League and its Secretary, Muhammad Al-Issa, who established relations with Jewish and Christian evangelical organizations.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia received a delegation of evangelical Christian leaders, and another delegation visited the Kingdom in 2019.
In January 2020, Al-Issa led a delegation of Muslim scholars to visit the site of Auschwitz in Poland, accompanied by representatives of the American Jewish Committee. A year later, Pope Francis received Al-Issa in the Vatican.
Despite all this, nothing has changed in Saudi Arabia’s dictatorial behaviour. It is at the forefront of emerging dictatorial countries in the region and has supported campaigns to silence dissidents at home and wars abroad.
Indeed, in recent years, the Kingdom has witnessed an escalation in suppressing the basic freedoms of citizens, activists, journalists, and human rights defenders.
Although the alleged social and economic reforms were launched by Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi authorities do not tolerate any kind of criticism or expression of opinion contrary to the official one.
According to reports by international human rights organizations, Saudi Arabia is detaining dozens of dissidents and opponents of the government without a fair trial or clear charges and is imposing harsh sentences on them that reach the death penalty in some cases.
Saudi Arabia also uses anti-terrorism and information crime laws to criminalize any political, human rights, or media activity that criticizes government policies, calls for democracy or defends the rights of women or minorities.
In addition, Saudi Arabia is witnessing gross human rights violations in its prisons, as detainees are subjected to torture, humiliation, enforced disappearance, and denial of legal counsel and visits.