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Mohammed bin Salman: Saudi Reformer of Islam?

What comes next out of Saudi Arabia may surprise everyone.

In the U.S., Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia is perhaps most notoriously known for his role in killing the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey. However, in the Middle East, he is increasingly becoming known as a reformer and liberalizer of Islam. He also likely played a vital role behind the scenes in the Abraham Accords. What are his plans for the future?

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

When MBS became the crown prince in 2017, few people initially took notice. However, as he started to reform the ultra-conservative state, he became a noticeable blip on the Middle Eastern radar. He was greeted with cautious approval worldwide when he granted women more rights, such as driving a car. Critics still pointed out that women were not allowed to drive without a male family companion, however, and many dismissed his reforms as cosmetic changes to appease Western sensitivities.

Then in 2018, the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was eliminated in the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Usually, such an assassination would receive little media attention. Journalists are all-too-often killed in third-world countries, and China regularly kills political dissidents. Few in the Western media care. The fact that a quite ordinary political assassination suddenly was world headline news indicated something different about MBS. If he had been a typical dictator, he would likely have received the same level of media attention as any other third-world thug: next to nil. Could the attacks by radical leftist Western media signify his status is somewhat different?

Abraham Accords

President Donald Trump refused to denounce the crown prince.  A few years later, we may have got the answer to why. In 2020, the Trump administration announced the Abraham Accords, a novel peace treaty to normalize relations between Israel and various Arab and Muslim states, most notably the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Although Bahrain is only a tiny island with less than two million residents, it is universally understood as a satellite state of its next-door neighbor Saudi Arabia. It is unthinkable that Bahrain or any other neighboring state would have signed the Abraham Accords without the explicit knowledge and approval of MBS. Thus, he should be viewed as a silent partner in peace. Why would he want to stay in the shadows? He has many enemies who do not wish to normalize with Israel. He likely wanted to use Bahrain and U.A.E. as tests to see if the region was psychologically and politically ready.

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The peace treaty got its first significant stress test in May 2021 when Hamas attacked Israel. The timing of the attack is likely no coincidence. President Joe Biden had been inaugurated only a few months prior. He is generally perceived as a weak president who does not support Israel. Therefore, Hamas probably believed it could return to the old state of regional conflict before the Abraham Accords. However, the Arab states left the Palestinians out in the cold. The treaty held. With Trump out of office, one could assume that the engine behind this continued peace is MBS.

A Reformer?

In April 2021, the crown prince was interviewed on state television about his Neom project. He has been clear that Saudi Arabia needs to have a life and economy after the oil age, rapidly coming to an end. In anticipation of this, he has started building a large city and development area just south of the Israeli border called Neom. In this interview, he presented his vision for 2030.

The wow moment of the interview was when the host asked “what about the extremists?” Well-prepared, he then set out to explain how he will radically reform Islam and Saudi Arabia. He declared that only the Quran will be taken as legitimate and that the Hadiths will no longer be used for guidance. Furthermore, the Quran must be understood and interpreted in the light of the 21st century. When the interviewer asked him about opposition from the clergy, MBS cited Wahhabi, the religious founder of Saudi Islam. Wahhabi wanted the Quran to be the guide, not the clergy. As such, interpretation should be open to any Muslim.

Whatever power the clergy wields in Saudi Arabia, Bin Salman has weathered the situation. He is still alive and in charge. He delivered the explosive interview without causing a revolution or even a stir. Will he succeed? His odds are far better than anyone could have imagined only five years ago.

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Read more from Caroline Adana.

Read More From Caroline Adana

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