Saudi Arabia's Slow Religious Revolution

摘要

As an agent of Saudi Arabia's powerful religious police, Ahmad Alghamdi thought he'd finally found the perfect job. He would order stores to close during prayers, tell men to go to the mosque, and ask women to adjust their veils. He'd previously had short stints as a customs official, accountant, and teacher, but those jobs didn't sit well with the sheikhs, or religious scholars, whose doctrine he followed. Yet not long after joining the formidable muttawa in his 20s, he grew disillusioned, he says, with what was a pillar of the kingdom's establishment. He wasn't convinced its heavy-handed practices were grounded in Islamic law. Today, Alghamdi, now 56, is a sheikh who advocates for freedoms that his former superiors had banned, such as allowing men and women to mix in public, or to listen to music, or even to celebrate Valentine's Day. He can speak without fear of retribution because the kingdom's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is chipping away at the power of the doctrine known as Wahhabism that's underpinned his family's rule in the birthplace of Islam. The shift from theocracy to autocracy is dividing Saudis like Alghamdi from those who complain it could undermine the kingdom's status in the Muslim world.