Wahhabi Expansion in Saudi-Occupied Mecca

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Michael Farquhar

Published:

2016

Publisher:

Stanford University Press

This chapter explores the use of education as a tool for expanding Wahhabi influence in the Hijaz, in the period immediately following its occupation by the Saudis in the 1920s. This project was fraught with tensions, occurring as it did in the context of a process of state-building within an occupied territory with its own religious traditions quite different from those of the Wahhabi heartlands of Najd. The chapter argues that this period saw the consolidation of numerous strategies — including not only material investment but also cultural appropriation, hegemonic modification of religious discourse, and the recruitment of migrants from across the Middle East to lend legitimacy to Wahhabi proselytizing — which would later become central to the role of education in expanding Saudi religious influence beyond the Peninsula. These arguments are illustrated with reference to the content and styles of teaching that developed in the Saudi Scholastic Institute in Mecca.

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