The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia executed 81 men, including seven Yemenis and one Syrian, on Saturday 12 March 2022, citing their support for terrorist organisations, including al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and the Houthi movement in Yemen, and claiming that the victims had been “following in the path of Satan”. Prior to this, the largest Saudi mass execution in recent decades had involved 63 rebel puritanical militants, who paid the ultimate price for their armed invasion of the Masjid al- Haram (Great Mosque of Mecca) on 20 November 1979 when they were publicly beheaded in eight cities across the Kingdom in January 1980.
Saudi Arabia is an Islamic Kingdom, where the public practice of all other religions is strictly forbidden, and a holy land for all Muslims, being both Custodian of the Holy Places (Makkah and Madinah) and the Patron of Hajj, the largest annual pilgrimage in the world. The city of Makkah, more widely known to Westerners as Mecca, can be considered the birthplace and spiritual epicentre of Islam, at the heart of which lies the Masjid al-Haram and the Ka’aba (Cube) stone, a black meteorite.
Saudis follow the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd-al Wahhab bin Sulaiman al-Tamimi (1703-1792), a militant alem (religious scholar), whose opinions are summarised in his sole work, Kitab-ul-Tawhid (Book of Monotheism), which was published in 1730. Wahhab set about reforming Islam through a rigid and literal interpretation of the Quran and a strict application of the Sharia, guided by the earlier teachings of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780-855) of Baghdad, and rejecting the more recent veneration of Muslim saints and the construction of tombs and monuments, all felt to be diluting the message of the Prophet as originally intended. As practised in Saudi Arabia, today Islam is an austere and puritanical religion, with no scope for deviation from a narrow and well-defined path, which means that non-compliant Muslims, including Shias and Sufis, may be considered to be “infidels”, in common with other non-believers. Scriptural interpretation that does not accord with that of the Wahhabis, or more properly Salafis (followers of the Salafi, the original disciples of the Prophet Muhammad), is deemed to be haram (absolute heresy).
Wahhab’s alliance with Mohammed ibn Saud, leader of the Saudi tribe, who had founded the oasis settlement of Dir’iyyah in the arid heartland of Najd (Highland) in Central Arabia, was cemented in 1744. The Saudis made several territorial acquisitions in the Arabian Peninsula over the years that followed, supported by the Bedouin paramilitary force known as the Ikhwan (Brotherhood). Their territorial gains were finally consolidated through the proclamation of the British-facilitated Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by Abd al-Aziz Abd al-Rahman ibn Faisal al-Saud, better known as Ibn Saud, on September 23 1932. This kingdom is the foundation of the modern Saudi state as we know it today.
Sharia can be translated as “The Way” and refers to a body of Islamic Law derived from the Quran and from the sayings (hadith) and actions (sunna) of the prophet Muhammad, which together constitute the “Holy Law of God”. While there is no written penal code and no code of judicial procedure, Sharia’s recommendations for justice seem reasonably precise, and are considered by its proponents to be proportionate to the severity of crime being punished, which may thus entail the dispensation of an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth punishment on occasion. In theory, at least, any particular crime cannot be punished by a greater crime. Courts are, however, empowered to define criminal actions as they feel best, obtain forced confessions under torture if necessary, and then impose appropriate sentences in keeping with their ways of thinking.
Public enforcement of Islamic codes of practice and of Sharia law was once largely undertaken by the religious police, better known as the Muttawwa’een (‘deeply devout Muslims’), volunteer members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Eradication of Vice, but their wide-ranging powers were severely curtailed by royal decree in 2019, as part of a drive towards liberalisation.
Legally sanctioned punishment in Saudi Arabia typically involves some form of retribution, with the option of financial compensation in lieu of a sentence if the victim’s family so agrees. The sentences, which some consider “medieval”, may include flogging, stoning, amputation, eye-gouging, shooting, beheading, and even crucifixion in the most severe instances. Murder and drug trafficking are both capital sentences, automatically incurring the death penalty. Beheading, a particularly gruesome means of execution, is traditionally carried in public squares on Fridays, after prayers, maybe as a disincentive to commit crime. Deera Square in central Riyadh has come to be known locally as “Chop-chop Square” because of its frequent use for this purpose.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has chosen to visit Riyadh, via Abu Dhabi, on 16 March, soon after the mass executions, for talks with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, in the hope of securing increased supplies of Saudi fuel for British consumption and also to finalise a new sovereign investment partnership. We are aware that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under the Crown Prince’s stewardship, is embarking upon a journey of modernisation (educational reform, privatisation of public-sector enterprises, allowing women to drive), economic diversification (infrastructure projects, foreign investment, tourism, promotion of small- and medium-service business), rooting out corruption among Saudi elites, and the “Saudization” of what hitherto been a workforce largely made up of foreign expatriates. It is a matter of judgement as to whether Mr Johnson has balanced Saudi Arabia’s roles as an economic partner (supplier of oil ; purchaser of arms) and a trusted military ally in a zone of conflict, a burning desire to move away from reliance on Russian energy, and recent expressions of Saudi respect or otherwise for human life, and then made the right decision to travel to the kingdom in Britain’s best interests.
Ashis Banerjee