Quest for Regional Hegemony: The Politics of Ontological Insecurity in the Saudi–Iran Rivalry

The Theoretical Framework

The OST builds upon certain assumptions and arguments regarding the behavior of individuals and states (Kinnvall, 2004; Mitzen, 2006; Steele, 2007; Zarakol, 2010). Firstly, ontological security is simply defined as the need of the individual to feel oneself as a whole and have a stable sense of self (Giddens, 1991). Ontological insecurity is the condition in which the subject cannot feel a sense of agency and therefore does not know how to get by in the world (Mitzen & Larson, 2017). What is included in these definitions is the assumption of “subjects as ontologically insecure, who then seek ontological security” (Solomon, 2018: 938). Secondly, individuals search for a coherent self-image and autobiographical narrative (Mitzen, 2006). In this way, they aim to maintain a coherent sense of self and a strong sense of order. Therefore, ontological security is a two-fold process. On the one hand, being ontologically secure is seen as “the confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their self-identity and constancy of the surrounding social and material environments of action” (Giddens, 1990: 92). On the other hand, it is viewed as a demanding task as it involves continuous security-seeking practices (Kinnvall, 2018). Overall, the OST conceptualizes the ontological security-seeking process as a “homeostatic tendency,” a tendency to maintain or restore stability and social order (Mitzen & Larson, 2017).

Accordingly, one of the central arguments of the OST is that states do not only seek physical security but also search for ontological security by adopting a subjective sense of self. In this way, the OST foregrounds the idea of security of being—having a sense of order and maintaining a coherent sense of self. On the one hand, states articulate a unitary and homogenous collective identity structured around a stable and coherent biographical narrative (see Adisonmez & Onursal, 2020). On the other hand, they maintain, reproduce, and routinize their collective identity (i.e., security of being) based on their relationship with antagonist others (Mitzen, 2006). Ontological security discourse, therefore, demarcates a clear political frontier between the state identity and its antagonist the other (Vieira, 2018). Following these arguments, states can experience ontological insecurity in two different ways. Firstly, they might feel internal ontological insecurity when they are not able to maintain or restore a stable collective identity and pursue their autobiographical narratives. Secondly, the ontological insecurity of states might originate from their antagonist relations with other states which are considered a block to their ontological security routines (Rumelili, 2015a; 2015b; Rumelili & Adisonmez, 2020).

Building upon this section, in what follows, we explain the affective and political dimensions of fatwas as religious narratives and their role in the constitution and reconstitution of ontological security narratives.

Ontological Security, Narratives, and Affect

Narratives have critical role in maintaining ontological security (Rumelili, 2018; Adisonmez, 2019; Browning, 2019; Steele & Homolar, 2019; Hom & Steele, 2020; Adisonmez & Onursal, 2022). For the OST, both individuals and states need to articulate consistent autobiographical narratives to feel ontologically secure. The collective identities of the states are therefore articulated side by side with autobiographical narratives upon which subjects and states can maintain a sense of self. Here, narrative can be briefly defined as “a story with meaning, characters, and a plotline” (Subotić, 2016: 610) that provides a particular understanding of the self, the world, and the social reality. Articulated in this way, narratives help actors in reading their past, making sense of their present, and imagining their future actions. In this way, they connect subjects with socio-political orders and channel their desire to sustain a stable way of being and a sense of self. As put by Kinnvall and Nesbitt-Larking (2011: 7), narratives:

[p]rovide cohesion to and transmit shared beliefs of common origins and identity. They are ontologically interrelated in a network of ideas embedded within a specific cultural and historical context. Some narratives become dominant in a specific context through processes of struggle over political meaning and selective appropriation of certain elements [e.g., following specific religious practices/sects], while others are omitted because they are considered less appropriate.

In this sense, ontological security narratives are both political and affective. These narratives are political because their articulation includes “a desire for a particular social order and a particular set of social practices and policies” (Subotic: 612). On the one hand, ontological security narratives are mobilized to actively reproduce the existing power relations, norms, values, and institutions. On the other hand, especially during the moments of increased insecurity, political elites selectively employ these narratives to justify policy changes that aim to restore physical security and preserve ontological security (Ibid: 611). In this sense, ontological security narratives are context-specific and political narratives upon which a particular meaning is assigned to the security internal and external threats and under which these threats are problematized. During the moments of increasing insecurities, ontological security narratives provide a sense of collective identity and order. In doing so, they also crowd out alternative policy choices and responses towards internal and external security threats.

Ontological security narratives also have an affective dimension. They channel subjects’ desire to feel ontologically secure and create identification options for them. In other words, they provide communities with “a sense of being in the world by situating them in an experienced space and an envisioned space, ordered from a particular place and delineated through horizons of experience and of possibility” (Berenskoetter, 2014: 282). The capacity of an ontological security narrative to stand as an affective force largely depends on two factors. The first factor is their capacity to sustain a sense of belonging that defines the collective body in space and time. The second factor is their ability to articulate affective frames that link subjects with social order and channel their desire for continuity via socially constructed objects, that is, political goals, ideologies, and symbols (Eberle, 2019).

Affective frames are therefore the driving force behind ontological security narratives. Subjects are both located in and transformed by these affective frames through identifications upon which they move on and make sense of themselves and the world. Ross (2014) explains the power of affective frames by developing two concepts: “circulations of affect” and “emotional contagion.” Although the former means “conscious and unconscious exchanges of emotion occurring in and through the process of social interaction,” the latter means “the nonintentional transfer of an emotion or mood from one individual or group to another” (Ibid: 16-20). Affective frames are therefore context-specific, political, and contagious. In other words, ontological security-seeking subjectivities emerge in a particular “affective atmosphere” (Solomon, 2018: 936). Some good examples of circulation of affect and the contagious dimension of affective narratives include the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, or the Iranian Revolution. These transnational political movements were “contagious” insofar as “events in one town, city, or region helped to shape, influence, and spark similar events elsewhere” (Ibid, 2018: 939).

Following this line of reasoning, we conceptualize fatwas as political and affective narratives. At the political level, fatwas function as a form of political closure by foreclosing alternative identities and articulations. Their political dimension manifests itself in different ways. Firstly, articulated based on an unchallengeable authority, fatwas dictate the terms of discussion by leaving no space for ambiguity and uncertainty. In this way, they clearly and forcefully limit what can be said on a particular issue. Secondly, they can function as an “identity-signifier” that offers agents with particularly influential stories and ideas by delivering “a picture of security, stability, and simple answers” (Kinnvall, 2004: 742). Thirdly, when put into practice, fatwas leave no room for alternative articulations by enforcing the audience to accept the hegemonic reality. As a form of religious narrative, especially when supported and institutionalized by the state actors, fatwas can represent themselves “…as being true, thus creating a sense that the world really is what it appears to be” (Ibid, 742). In this way, fatwas limit political activity and sustains an apolitical subjectivity by antagonizing those subjects who challenge the hegemonic conception of ontological security. This is because what is included in fatwas is a notion of “truth” that at the same time antagonize those who do not adhere to such a “truth” (Ibid: 759). At affective level, fatwas complement ontological security narratives by reinforcing the collective mode of being and providing identification opportunities for the subjects. Religious narratives, especially if shaped within the conflictual or antagonistic context, may outline the perspectives of agents, and become to constitute a “formed framework for existence” in time (Rumelili & Strömbom, 2021: 4). In this sense, fatwas, especially during the moments of social and political crises, provide subjects with a narrative that they can identify with and that provides a level of certainty, continuity, and sense of order.

Accordingly, we argue that the ontological security narratives in Saudi Arabia are grounded on religious, political and affective narratives through which the state and society make sense of themselves and the world around them. Fatwas issued by the Wahhabi ulama therefore play an important role in maintaining, constituting, and reconstituting the political regime and the ontological security narrative in Saudi Arabia. In what follows, we analyze the Saudi–Iran rivalry based on this framework by showing the affective and political ground of the ontological security regime in Saudi Arabia and demonstrating the ways in which fatwas are mobilized to justify and shape domestic politics and foreign policy.

Saudi Arabia: The Formation of the State Identity and Wahhabism

The Saudi state was founded as a kingdom in 1932 before Saudi national identity came into being. It was created with the unification of families and diverse ethnic/religious tribal groups. Before the unification, the Arabian Peninsula witnessed “a loose alliance of nomads and townsmen, with a minimal, noninstitutionalized governmental structure and an undefined territory that changed depending on the shifts in tribal loyalty from one chieftaincy to another” (Kostnier, 1993: 185). Ibn Al Saud tried to legitimize his authority during the unification process (1902–1932) by relying on his ancestral claims to rule over a vast territory (Al-Rasheed, 2010). In Kostnier’s words (1993: 191):

In Saudi Arabia…regional-tribal descent—rather than a concept of “nation”—determined group identity. A society that focused on tribal identities and religious values coalesced and integrated in a dialectical interaction of centripetal and centrifugal forces…It was cemented by a monarchical regime and Islam rather than by secularist republican principles. The cohesion of coalitions, their ability to integrate and accept a monarchy, and a ruling version of Islam [Wahhabism] all were keys to a stable sociopolitical entity in Saudi Arabia.

Based on the idea of purification of Islam, Wahhabism has gradually laid the foundation for the articulation of a homogenous collective identity and an ontological security narrative in Saudi Arabia. These foundations have risen over a political and pragmatic alliance between the Wahhabi ulama and Al Saud family. Since the beginning of the formation of the first Saudi state, the Al Saud family agreed to protect “the true faith” of Wahhabism as long as the Wahhabi ulama provided them with religious legitimacy (Steingberg, 2005: 12). The Wahhabi ulama has provided the political regime in Saudi Arabia with a spiritual-ideological foundation (Al-Rasheed & Al-Rasheed, 1996: 97). In the absence of a constitution that determines legislative authority, the legitimacy of the political regime is derived from the Wahhabi doctrine. The legitimacy of the ulama derives from Prophet Mohammed’s hadith stating that “religious scholars are the inheritors of the Prophet” (Al-Kandari & Dashti, 2014: 129). ² The authority of ulama therefore can be described as an ideological authority—an authority that “rests upon a faith in the absolute value of a rationalized set of norms” (Willer, 1967: 235).

Against this background, Al-Atawneh (2009: 733) defines the Saudi political regime as a “theo-monarchy,” in which the Wahhabi doctrine justifies obedience to the ruler (Commins, 2006) and dictates loyalty to the political regime as a religious obligation (Doumato, 1992). A good illustration of this is a fatwa issued in 1964 in which the members of ulama highlight two points (Mouline & Rundell, 2014: 122) that the Al Saud family is “the sovereign and must be respected and revered by all” and that “as prime minister, Prince Faysal can freely manage the kingdom’s internal and external affairs without consulting the king.” Overall, there are two types of loyalties included in Wahhabism. Firstly, “the Kingdom is a cohesive national entity fused by a common loyalty to Islam as shaped by the Wahhabi tradition.” Secondly, “the Al Saud family are qualified—and uniquely so—to defend Islam and to ensure the moral well-being of the Muslim community” (Doumato, 1992: 36-7). The Al Saud family accordingly has been assigned as the guardian of holy places (Mecca and Medina) and the Islamic community, namely the umma (Piscatori & Saikal, 2019).

These two dimensions of Wahhabism are of particular importance for our analysis. Firstly, by articulating a homogenous religious/national identity, Wahhabism aims to unite the state with its people under a common reference of belonging and a singular social imaginary. In this way, it serves as a collective identity and plays an important role in governing everyday relations within the Saudi society. It does so by maintaining its presence in different domains of life (social, religious, and educational) and by limiting different types and modes of identification (see Farouk & Brown, 2021). Secondly, Wahhabism articulates a sharp antagonism between the Sunni and the Shia interpretation of Islam by locating the latter as an object of ontological insecurity, thereby a threat to the state’s subjective way of being. From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, the Wahhabi clergy has designated the Shia Islam as one of its main enemies (Matthiesen, 2015: 8). Therefore, for Wahhabism, the Shia Islam is a constitutive outside—a threatening other that is considered as a block to the identity of the inside (Laclau, 1990). An eloquent illustration of this exclusion is a fatwa issued in 1927 which declared Shias as “unbelievers” and called for the destruction of all Shia places of worship (Vassiliev, 2013). Overall, the very idea of Wahhabism has been gradually made equivalent to the idea of the Saudi state and thereby has crystalized into the state identity and autobiographical narrative.

From Iranian Revolution to Islamic Revolution: Ontological Insecurities and Hegemonic Struggle

Before 1979, the Saudi–Iran rivalry had mainly evolved around the concern regarding the regional order. It was based on an ideological struggle founded on the Arab–Persian competition and a degree of sectarian antagonism rather than a fundamental religious difference (Mabon, 2013). During this period, the Wahhabi clerics did not perceive Shah’s Iran as a major religious competitor to Saudi Arabia’s Islamic leadership. This is partly because the Shah regime did not incorporate Shiism in articulating its domestic and foreign policy (Ismail, 2016). It backgrounded Iran’s Islamic identity and rather put its Persian identity into the fore.

However, the dynamics, content, and form of the Saudi–Iran rivalry have changed dramatically since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The political transition from the Shah Regime to the Islamic Republic of Iran left significant marks on both parties and led to a new phase of the struggle between them. This was in many ways dislocatory. At one level, the dislocation ended the “twin pillars policy” in which both Saudi Arabia and Iran were supported by the US, thereby shifting the balance of power in the Middle East. Consequently, the hegemonic powers in the region had started to lose their power and they were forced to create new alliances. At another level, the revolution created conditions for a new socio-political landscape, social imaginary and “affective atmosphere.” This triggered social/political unrest and regional turmoil, spreading to neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, the dislocation was further intensified because of a series of traumatic events, such as the Grand Mosque seizure, the Hajj incident, ³ and the Iran–Iraq War.

Since then, the concern about the ideational threat by Iran has been at the center of the politics in Saudi Arabia, shaping both its domestic and foreign policy. The struggle of the Saudi regime to respond the ideational threat by Iran came to the light with the emerging political upheavals in the eastern part of the country where the Saudi Shia minority started to demand equal rights and government reforms following the Iranian Revolution (Al-Rasheed, 2011). Although the political unrest largely remained inconclusive, the Saudi regime struggled to maintain its hegemonic position. In this sense, the unrest created conditions for the re-articulation of Saudi Arabia’s ontological security narratives and motivated the regime to increase repression against the minority population. This period, therefore, represents the way in which the Saudi regime entered a deepening crisis and how its hegemonic ontological security narratives were put into question by a transnational political movement. As argued by Ismail, “it was not until the rise of Iran as an Islamic state in 1979 that Saudi clerics became significantly alert and defensive to the prospect of transnational identities” (2016: 109).

Following the Revolution, the Iranian regime gradually started to portray itself as a universal emancipatory movement. What was initially considered as a political phenomenon at the national level had gradually transformed itself into a universal political project. In its attempt to universalize the revolution, three overarching symbolic operations of the Iranian regime were clearly observable. Firstly, their articulation was non-sectarian. This was an attempt to cancel out the theological, political, and cultural differences among the umma by locating all under a common collective identity. For the governing elites, the Revolution transcends its particularity and represents a hope for all the subjects of the umma, which was framed by the elites as the oppressed people. Secondly, at the center of the ontological security narrative of Iran, there was an antagonism towards the West and its allies. The US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia were all considered as a block to the ontological security of the umma and articulated as threatening others. Finally, the Revolution was presented as the only feasible political project capable of ensuring the unity of Muslims against the ever-present enemies. Accordingly, the Pan-Islamist articulation was structured as a populist discourse where Iran would be located as the leader and defender of the oppressed people around the world.

Against this background, the Saudi–Iran rivalry has turned into a hegemonic struggle as Iran started to openly export its revolutionary ideas and problematize the hegemonic position of Saudi Arabia in the Islamic world. In this sense, Iran aimed to situate itself as a transnational religious soft power in the region, while intrinsically signaling that the regime has institutional and normative capacity to materialize the above-mentioned hegemonic shift (Mandaville & Hamid, 2018; also see Bettiza, 2020). This is why, the symbolic position of Saudi Arabia in the umma had become a major target of Iran’s political struggle. Given the importance of Islam in the ontological security narrative of both states, their rivalry has mainly evolved around the meaning of the Islam and the leadership for the umma. Firstly, the Iranian regime problematized the legitimacy of the Al Saud family and argued that they cannot be accepted as the guardian of the two holy places of Islam (Mabon, 2013, see EUISS, 2016). In this way, what was previously taken for granted or even sacred became politically contestable with the Revolution. Secondly, by universalizing its political project, the Iranian regime openly articulated its desire for the umma’s leadership. As openly stated by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei (1979–1989): “We do not distinguish among Gaza, Palestine, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen. We have supported Palestine for thirty-two years, and they are not Shia. It is not an issue of Shi’a or Sunni. It is the protest of a nation against oppression” (cited in Abdo, 2017: 94). The trans-state nature of the political and religious identities across the Middle East and Gulf region creates conditions for both Saudi Arabi and Iran to extend their struggle for hegemony beyond their borders.

The emergence of Iran as a counter-hegemonic movement turned into an ideational threat to Saudi Arabia and dislocated the regional balance of power. Soon after the Revolution, a Shia rebellion started in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, showing the gravity of the ideational threat by Iran and the strength of its transnational ideology. On the one hand, these developments deepened Saudi Arabia’s physical and ontological security concerns, driving the country to purchase more US arms and to side with Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War (1980-1988). On the other hand, the security concerns intensified Saudi Arabia’s desire to re-align with the wider Arab world and to be an active player in the region. ⁴ In this context, the Saudi leadership took the lead to form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) with the participation of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Oman in 1981 (Aras & Yorulmazlar, 2016) and has used the GCC as a platform to contain and balance against Iran’s increasing power in the region.

In this context, the hegemonic struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran revolves around antagonism, power, and exclusion. As part of the newly emerging balance of power, Saudi Arabia had backed Iran’s Shah regime and accused Khomeini of propagating “wrong subversive ideologies” (Korany & Dessouki, 1984: 252). In response, the political regime in Iran antagonized the Al Saud family and mobilized the Shia minority in Saudi Arabia. On the one hand, Khomeini openly supported the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy, going so far as to call for the death of the royal family (Cordesman, 2003). On the other hand, the oppressed people were called upon to resist and distance themselves from their oppressive regimes by embracing the revolutionary ideas. As Khomeini openly articulates: “… if we want to export this revolution, we must do something so that the people themselves take government in their own hands, so that the people from the so-called third stratum come to power” (New York Times, 1981).

Although the Iranian political elites aimed to create a chain of equivalence between different political struggles in the umma by foregrounding the Islamic identity and universalizing the Revolution, the political elites in Saudi Arabia sought to break this chain and put the very idea of Revolution into question by foregrounding the Shia identity. In this context, the meaning of Shia gradually shifted from being “unbeliever” to a “threatening other.” In this line, the Revolution was framed as a source of ontological insecurity and a threat to the Saudi collective identity. Similarly, while the Wahhabi fatwas mainly focused on theological differences between Sunni and Shia before 1979, the Revolution opened the door for the politicization of the Shia identity. For example, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Baz, the former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, declared in 1982 that the Shia practices constitute apostasy in Saudi Arabia, meaning that observing the Shia religious routines and beliefs would be punished by death (Alifta, 2022a). A series of subsequent fatwas also fiercely antagonized both the Shia religious practices and Shia clerics (see Alifta, 2022b). In these articulations, the Shia Islam has been entirely signified as a negative reference point, an object of anxiety, and an obstacle to maintain Saudi Arabia’s ontological security.

An integral part of the formation of Saudi ontological security regime was the process of knowledge production and dissemination. To contain the ideational threat from Iran, Saudi Arabia worked closely with the “Wahhabi ulama to build a network of seminaries, mosques, educational institutions, preachers, activists, writers, journalists, and academics that would articulate and emphasize Sunni identity, push it in the direction of militant Wahhabism, drive all possible wedges between Sunnism and Shiism” (Nasr, 2007: 157). Many fatwas were published in short pamphlets, and distributed within the public spaces in Saudi Arabia, including schools (Al-Rasheed, 2013). Accordingly, significant resources were mobilized by the Saudi regime to undermine the power and appeal of the Iranian Revolution by foregrounding its distinct Persian dimension in general and Shia dimension more specifically (Hashemi & Postel, 2017).

The post-1979 fatwas and discourses not only describe Shia as disloyal to Islam, but also politically dangerous and disloyal to the Saudi Kingdom. For example, Nasir al-‘Umar, a prominent Wahhabi cleric, issued a fatwa in 1993, describing the Shia minorities in Saudi Arabia as “infidels and a danger to the nation and the Islamic umma” (Matthiesen, 2015: 56). Al-‘Umar further supported Shiites’ alienation and isolation within the Kingdom by accusing them of trying to convert Sunnis. This fatwa has often been cited within the close Wahhabi circles, including Shaykh al-Jibrin, Shaykh al-Hawali, Shaykh Mamduh al-Harbi, and Shaykh al-Salaf, provoking sectarian cleavages in their sermons and lectures (see e.g., Matthiesen, 2015; Ismail, 2012; 2016). In the context of the entanglement of religion and politics, these anti-Shia views went beyond the religious arena. One of the most evident cases was perhaps their reaction against the visit of Akbar Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president, to Saudi Arabia in 1998. For example, the imām of the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, expressed in his sermon that Sunnis would never cooperate with Iran due to theological flaws and deviant practices in Shiism (Ismail, 2016).

Following the death of Khomeini in 1989, the political struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran seemed to have toned down. ⁵ However, the rivalry between both states intensified again as a result of series of political and dislocatory events, including but not limited to the Gulf War (1990), the invasion of Iraq (2003) and finally the Arab Spring (2011). Firstly, following the Gulf War, the regional balance of power shifted dramatically. Although the military presence of the US increased significantly, there was “very little cooperation and alliance-making across the region” (Kamrava, 2018: 39). The invasion of Iraq and the collapse of the Baath regime (2003) had further shifted the balance of power in the Gulf Region and the resulting power vacuum created the conditions for the increasing Iranian influence. In 2004, the King of Jordan highlighted the rising Iranian influence in the Middle East by using the term “Shia Crescent,” signifying the increasing geopolitical and ideological influence of Iran spreading from Beirut to Damascus and beyond (Barzegar, 2008). Finally, as a transnational political movement, the Arap Spring not only dislocated the socio-political landscape in the Middle East, but also led to a new “affective atmosphere.”

The Arab Spring, Fatwas, and Saudi–Iran Rivalry

The Arab Spring created conditions for a new phase for the Saudi–Iran rivalry, manifesting itself in the form of proxy wars across the region: the Syrian Civil War (2011–present) and Yemeni Civil War (2015–present). Immediately after the eruption of the Syrian Civil War, Iran mobilized thousands of Shia militia to support the Syrian political regime (Joobani & Adisonmez, 2018). Although Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen started in 2009 and led to a ceasefire in 2010, the conflict resurged when the Houthis seized control of Yemen’s capital in 2014. In 2015, Saudi Arabia started Operation Decisive Storm to route the Houthis and restore the “legitimate” Sunni government in Yemen (Perkins, 2017: 314). All major Sunni states, such as Egypt, Qatar, Sudan, and Kuwait, also joined this campaign which has intensified after 2017 when the Houthis fired ballistic missiles targeting Saudi Arabia. It eventually triggered a humanitarian disaster in Yemen, described as “genocide” by Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (BBC, 2015) who has been accused by Arabia of providing missiles to the Houthis (BBC, 2017).

The Arab Spring has triggered a series of protests and demonstrations across the Middle East. What was initially started as a political act of an individual, gradually transformed into a transnational political movement leading to counter-hegemonic movements against the authoritarian regimes in the region. Against this background, Saudi activists mobilized on the internet under names such as the National Youth Movement and the Free Youth Movement (Al-Rasheed, 2011). They organized a nation-wide protest named the “Day of Rage” and called all Saudi subjects to challenge the political regime in Saudi Arabia. In so doing, the activists sought to highlight deep social, economic, and political inequalities in the Saudi society. However, the Saudi elites were able to prevent the movement before it become a major source of political struggle. In this context, the Saudi clerics began to articulate religious narratives—Fatwas—on the evolving political conditions. One of these fatwas by Saudi Arabia’s Council of Senior Clerics was articulated as follows:

The Council of Senior Clerics affirms that demonstrations are forbidden in this country. The correct way in sharia (Islamic law) of realising common interest is by advising… Reform and advice should not be via demonstrations and ways that provoke strife and division, this is what the religious scholars of this country in the past and now have forbidden and warned against… ⁶

This narrative follows a double strategy. Firstly, in this articulation, the meaning of demonstration is reduced to a point where it can only be understood as a source of strife and division. The political act of demonstration here is inextricably linked with ontological insecurity and articulated as a threat to the political regime. Secondly, issued based on an unchallengeable authority, this fatwa leaves no room for the political practices and calls the Saudi subjects to accept the hegemonic reality by showing loyalty to the political regime. Here, this articulation is closely linked to the idea of fitna—political disorder or chaos (Salamé, 1987). Based on the logic of political quietism, any form of disobedience or political action is equated with the idea of fitna and should be avoided at all cost (Mouline & Rundell, 2014: 121, also see Al-Sarhan, 2020). Fatwas are therefore mobilized to maintain the ontological security regime, the existing power relations. They antagonize those subjects who challenge the legitimacy of the political regime.

Although fatwas are mobilized to govern the minority dissent and keep the political dimension of the protests at bay, they also assemble society around a unitary and singular collective identity by channeling subjects’ desire to be ontologically secure. In this sense, the above-mentioned fatwa by the council of senior clerics continues as follows:

The Council warns of deviant ideological and party-political connections since this nation is one and will adhere to the ways of the pious ancestors… The kingdom has not and will not allow ideas from the West or the East that take away from this Islamic identity and divide the unity of the whole... ⁷

This articulation foregrounds a collective identity (Islamic identity) and its autobiographical narrative (the ways of the pious ancestors) by locating the collective identity against common enemies: The West and the East who are assigned as the source of ontological insecurity (divide the unity of the whole). There are two vital elements of this articulation. Firstly, it completes the autobiographical narratives of the state by reinforcing collective identity and ontological security narrative. Secondly, by articulating the antagonism at the regional level, this narrative trivializes the importance of the political, ethnic, and religious differences at the domestic level. It aims to establish unity and solidarity between different elements of the society against a threatening other in the name of maintaining ontological security. By signifying a clear antagonistic frontier, this narrative promotes homogeneity as security by foregrounding a unitary/singular identity (this nation is one). Accordingly, the narrative provides clear answers to society-wide ontological insecurities by providing subjects with a stable collective identity and promising a homogenous society with no ontological insecurity.

Then, the ontological security narrative is articulated around an essentialized antagonism between Sunni and Shia by locating the latter as a source of ontological insecurity in Saudi Arabia. In various other fatwas, the members of Shia Islam are articulated as “unbelievers,” “polytheists,” and “al-Rafida”—a highly derogatory term meaning that Shias are outside Islam (Alifta, 2022c). The head of the Council of Senior Cleric issued a fatwa where he argued that “we must understand that these are not Muslims, they are the sons of Majus [meaning fire worshipper, non-Muslim unbeliever], and their hostility with Muslims is an old matter, particularly with Ahlus Sunnah [suggesting that Sunnis are true believers following Prophet Mohammed’s practices]” (BBC, 2016). In another example, Shaykh Sultān al-Awīdargued that Shias are from childhood indoctrinated with the belief that all Sunnis are infidels (quoted in Ismail, 2016: 148). In the context of the war in Yemen, Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia’s current grand mufti, argued that the Houthi Shias are “corrupt tyrants” that deviated from Islam (Arab News, 2018) and clashing against them in Yemen is a “holy task” (PostWashington, 1988).

Following this line of reasoning, the meaning of political protests in Saudi Arabia was articulated as an integral part of the Saudi–Iran rivalry and a function of ideational threat by Iran. For example, Shaykh al-Fares accused the Shia minority in Saudi Arabia of being disloyal to the monarchy and warned against the propagation of the Shia beliefs among the Sunni population at home (IslamWeb, 2021), while labeling the Shia subjects as spies for Iran (Human Rights Watch (HRW), 2017). In another example, Shaykh al-Arifi, openly accused the Shia minorities of pledging alliances to the Shia leaders in other countries (Human Rights Watch (HRW), 2017). Articulated in this way, fatwas are mobilized not only to justify the domestic and foreign policy choices of the Saudi regime, but also to present these choices as the only options to resolve the on-going security problems. As argued by Al-Rasheed (2011: 522), “the regime fosters the impression that, without its intervention, the country will enter a Hobbesian state of nature where tribes, sects, and regions unleash their fanaticism and violence on each other and undermine the security of all Saudis.”