Saudi Leader Seeks to Rein In Clergy Religious Reform Talk Surprises Many James Dorsey Wall Street Journal Thursday, March 14, 2002 JIDDA, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia's ruling Al-Saud family, shaken by the involvement of its nationals in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is seeking to reassert its control over the kingdom's influential Muslim clergy. In a meeting with senior Islamic leaders in November, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the kingdom's de facto ruler, called on religious scholars, or ulema, to distance themselves from extremism and to refrain from embarrassing the royal family and government. Saudi analysts say the crown prince is responding to external pressures to check religious extremism, including a U.S. push to ensure that Saudi Arabia's educational curricula and religious charities don't encourage or support Islamic militancy. Since the speech, the government has surprised many in the kingdom by emphasizing the need to reform the tradition-bound education system, long in the hands of the ulema, who set the kingdom's deeply conservative religious and social policies. It also has hinted that it may liberalize social customs, including some restrictions imposed on women. Earlier this year, the government introduced photo identity cards for women without first consulting the ulema, who oppose any depiction of uncovered women. In a rare break with Saudi tradition that bans women from meeting with men outside their families without the presence of a male relative, Prince Abdullah on Monday received a group of women who attended the World Economic Forum in New York last month as part of the Saudi delegation. While most ulema pledged their allegiance to the royal family during the meeting with the crown prince, several prominent figures, including Sheik Abd al-Muhsin al-Turki, the head of the Muslim World League, demanded that the royal family recognize the clergy as an equal partner in deciding affairs of state. Sheik Turki was supported by some of the kingdom's most influential clergymen, including Sheik Salih al-Luhaidan, Saudi Arabia's chief justice. The broader reaction to Crown Prince Abdullah's speech hasn't been entirely positive. A number of imams in local mosques across the country have taken leaves of absence to protest alleged government interference in their Friday prayer sermons, according to Saudis with close ties to the religious community. A struggle between the Al-Sauds and the kingdom's religious leadership could destabilize a two-century-old alliance between the royal family and supporters of Muhammed ibn Abdul Wahhib, the 18th-century warrior-clergyman. Key religious positions are often still occupied by Wahhib's descendants, while most ulema are state-supported. Analysts note that the prince's move to tame the clergy is part of a long-standing debate in Sunni Islam about whether Islamic scholars and judges should serve as advisers to the ruler, or as co-rulers. In a striking development, the government has allowed debate over the role of religious leaders to spill out into the Saudi media. Rebutting Sheik Turki's remarks, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief with close ties to the crown prince, argued recently in London's Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that Islamic law stipulates that the ulema's role is restricted to advising the ruler. Prince Turki's remarks were echoed by another prominent member of the royal family, Prince Talal bin Abdelaziz, who wrote in a separate article that "the principle of vesting political authority in religious scholars does not serve the democratic process that we are trying to achieve in the Arab and Muslim world." Similarly, government plans to reform education, including the removal of material that preaches religious intolerance and the need to open the kingdom to different schools of Islamic thought, has sparked a lively debate in Saudi newspapers, with prominent conservative clergyman Sheik Saleh al-Fawzan, the author of many texts used in Saudi religious curricula, and Education Minister Mohammed Ahmed Rasheed trading insults. The debate is being welcomed by many eager for reform. "The ulema used to have a veto, they used to be able to stop debate," says Jamal A. Khashoggi, deputy editor-in-chief of the English-language Arab News. "Now, if I feel like criticizing Sheik al-Fawzan, I can and it will be published." Analysts say the dividing lines between the clergy and the royal family are often blurred by the fact that significant segments of the Al-Saud family are themselves deeply religious and base their claim to legitimacy on their guardianship of Islam's two most holy cities, Mecca and Medina. Prince Abdullah, a graduate of Saudi Arabia's religious schooling, owes much of his popularity to his reputation as a pious Muslim. Yet some Saudi analysts fear that conservative forces may be so entrenched that they will be able to sidetrack efforts at reform. Writing in Al Watan newspaper, columnist Suleiman Al-Dhohain said the country's liberals were wrong to believe that their views would get a hearing in education reform. Echoing those fears, Abdul Aziz al-Tuwaijri, director general of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, last week rejected calls for changes in educational curricula as an attempt to identify Islam with terrorism. "We have to strengthen the cultural ability of our people to ward off influences of globalization," Mr. Tuwaijri said.