Word: abdullah
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...political arrangements since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, where a conservative version of Islam, high unemployment, limited democratic rights and archaic attitudes to women fed a mood of unchecked radicalism among some young men. Last February, Abdullah announced a sweeping reshuffle of posts in government to remove some of the more old-style figures, including a top judge who once ruled it would be legal to kill the owners of a television station that broadcast "immorality." Abdullah installed an Education Minister charged with ensuring that schools emphasize Islam...
...right to just make the decision." Discussion as a way of making policy can be seen in the development of the National Family Safety Program, started in 1999 by a small group of professional women concerned about domestic abuse. As a measure of how seriously he takes the subject, Abdullah assigned his daughter, Princess Adelah, to spearhead the initiative, and in 2006, the group helped write the first laws making it illegal for husbands to abuse their wives and children. "For us as Arabs and Saudis and Muslims, you can't believe in these values and look at these stories...
...adhere to the strict religious and social conservatism that dates to the 18th century pact made between Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a puritanical preacher, and the founder of the Saud dynasty Mohammed ibn Saud. And many conservatives resent the social changes the King is pushing. "Those around King Abdullah use his peaceful positions to impose secular values," says conservative cleric Mohsen al-Awajy. "But Saudi society is a special, tribal society, and neither King Abdullah or anyone else can impose his own interpretation of Islam. They can do nothing without Islam. There is no Saudi Arabia without Islam. There...
...idea that society wouldn't accept drastic changes," says Mohammad al-Qahtani, a reform advocate and professor at the Saudi Foreign Ministry's diplomatic training institute. Awadh al-Badi, a political scientist at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, says the reason that King Abdullah and the royal family are still cautious on women's rights is that they themselves are products of Saudi culture. "It's a generational thing," al-Badi says. "The King is an 85-year-old Arab man and he himself sees women in a certain way." Abdullah, he thinks, struggles with...
...that reason, progress on women's rights may depend on who succeeds Abdullah. Several royal princes are in line for the throne, and some of them, like the King's powerful half brother, Prince Nayef, are known for their conservative views. But as Saudi leaders try to wean the country's economy off its almost total dependence on oil, and develop new industries, they are bound to find that it makes little sense to keep half the country's human capital cooped up at home. Nor will the newly emerging class of Saudi professional women willingly go back...