The Islamic Utopia The Illusion of Reform in Saudi Arabia By Andrew Hammond (London: Pluto Press, 2012. 240 pages.)

Abstract

This book is an interesting exposition of the reform discourse and reform
ironies in the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia ... a country ambivalent in its
sense of security and insecurity, content in its presumed “orthodoxy,” uncertain
about where it fits in this world and about its future, and unsure as to what
extent it can continue to linger in its self-imposed cocoon – and yet, by the
same token, how far it can go in opening up to a perceived threatening world.
All of this ambivalence, as one senses while reading the book, hinders, obstructs,
and consequently undermines King Abdullah’s alleged attempts at reform.
In fact, as Hammond points out, many of these reforms have been
nothing but “window dressing … driven entirely by the desire to protect the
extraordinary powers of the Saudi royal family,” as well as by a felt necessity
to appease the Americans (p. 150).
Despite the king’s efforts to project the image of himself as a reformist,
one “religious reform” (ṣaḥwah) figure describes him as simply being “out
of the arena” (p. 137). Reforms, particularly judicial reforms, which Hammond
describes as Abdullah’s “central plank,” are defined by a Najdi context
as well as in Najdi terms (Najd is the central region of the Arabian Peninsula).
The result has been a polity “trapped” within a pre-modern framework and ...