Word: kingdomful
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...government has assiduously eschewed its usual counterpart, Westernization. The House of Saud has clung tenaciously to Wahhabism, the puritanical strain of Sunni Islam that was the driving force of Abdul Aziz's victorious Ikhwan (brethren) movement. The royal family, as well as most Saudis, believe Wahhabi fervor unifies the kingdom's diverse tribes. Though King Fahd is known not to relish meeting his subjects, he devotes an entire day each week, Monday, to conferring with the ulama, the country's religious scholars...
...keeping with the Wahhabi tradition, liquor, pornography and gambling are forbidden. Movies and dancing are also not permitted. Videos, books and publications are heavily censored; copies of this issue of TIME, for example, are certain to be banned from the kingdom. The Saudis enforce Islamic laws of justice to the letter. In the city squares, the hands of thieves are chopped off, adulterers are stoned to death, murderers and rapists are beheaded, and lesser offenders are flogged...
Saudis do have access to their leaders, even to the King, through the majlis, a regularly scheduled consultation. In these sessions, held throughout the kingdom, subjects petition the royals for favors; they might, for example, ask for money to send a sick relative abroad for medical treatment or for the mediation of a land dispute. In a complex and modern society, a handful of senior princes, no matter how conscientious, cannot possibly contend with the myriad demands of their subjects. Nonetheless, even the kingdom's small knot of reformists do not want to depose the House of Saud. "The royal...
Even if the royals do retain their undiluted authority, many Saudis would like to see curbs on their abuses of privilege. Paying huge commissions to princes is the price of doing business in the kingdom. "They already receive allowances from the government that allow them to lead easy lives," complains a prominent businessman, "and yet they shake us down...
...integrity of the government." From Washington's viewpoint, however, pushing Fahd and family down the fast track to Westernization and democratization is a likely prescription for a Shah-like disaster. Swift liberalizations could easily stir religious extremists to revolt. "If there's an internal threat to the kingdom," says a U.S. expert on Saudi Arabia, "it's from fundamentalists on the right, not liberalizers on the left...