David Commins on Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, and the Future of the Gulf States

What It Covers

David Commins examines Saudi Arabia's nation-building through Wahhabism, the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure, regional stability dynamics, Yemen conflicts, and the monarchy's recent social liberalization under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's leadership.

Key Questions Answered

• •Wahhabism's State-Building Role: The puritanical movement proved essential for Saudi expansion in the 1700s by creating religious cohesion across Central Arabia's towns, enabling the Saud family to sustain thirty-year campaigns conquering territories inch-by-inch despite harsh desert conditions and limited resources.
• •1979 Grand Mosque Seizure Origins: A millenarian breakaway faction from Saudi puritanical groups, rejecting television and paper currency, seized Mecca's mosque believing their leader was the Muslim Messiah appearing on November 20, 1979—a David Koresh-style movement unprecedented in Wahhabi history.
• •Gulf States Stability Mechanism: Small Gulf nations remain independent primarily through fear of annexation by larger neighbors like Iran claiming Bahrain and Iraq claiming Kuwait, sustained by Western strategic protection dating to British treaties in the 1820s and current US naval presence.
• •Saudi Social Transformation Depth: The post-2015 elimination of religious police, women's freedoms, and cultural openings represent a century-long modernist current dating to the 1920s annexation of cosmopolitan Hejaz, making reversal unlikely despite older generation opposition to current social changes.