Saudi Writer Recasts Kingdom's History

Dakhil was allowed to publish only the first two of a set of three articles, and a rebuttal to attacks in the Saudi press on his work, before his newspaper, al-Ittihad, asked him to stop writing on the subject and then put him on indefinite leave. The paper is based in the United Arab Emirates, a close Saudi ally.

He tackled the subject of succession after the royal family announced in October that it had formed a council of senior members to formalize procedures and vote on the eligibility of future kings. The throne has passed to the eldest sons of Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, who forged most of the Arabian Peninsula's disparate regions into a country he named after himself in 1932. Abdullah, in his early 80s, is the fifth of his sons to take the throne.

In an article in the Dubai-based Forbes Arabia, Dakhil suggested that members of the appointed consultative Shoura Council, especially if it becomes an elected body, join the royal council to weigh in on who becomes king. Local censors ripped out Dakhil's column in the December issue before allowing it into the kingdom.

Sitting in his comfortable home near King Saud University, where he taught until last year, Dakhil said it was his duty to raise sensitive topics.

"I'm doing this because I'm an intellectual and an academic, and I have to be faithful to my job," said Dakhil, who had just returned from his daily walk around campus and was wearing running shoes under his traditional long, white robe. "I'm convinced this is not against the interests of the state; in fact, allowing diversity and critical thinking strengthens the state."

Dakhil has written for publications in the United Arab Emirates and the London-based Web site Saudi Debate since his column in al-Hayat, a Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper, was stopped in 2003. Though the topics open for discussion in the Saudi media have expanded, those who cross red lines may not write in the Saudi-owned press or appear on Saudi-owned satellite channels, the largest in the Arab world. A 2004 ruling making it a punishable offense for government employees, like Dakhil, who taught at a public university, to criticize government policy so inflamed him that he wrote an op-ed article against it in the New York Times.

Dakhil's fight for free expression has received some local support. In December, a form letter on the Muntdiatna Web site urged readers to fax the government-appointed human rights committee and ask it to help lift the ban on Dakhil and another prominent Saudi writer, Qenan al-Ghamdi.

Despite the censorship, Dakhil's articles on the history of the Saudi state and succession, and parts of his doctoral thesis on the Wahhabi movement, which he wrote at UCLA, have been reprinted and discussed on the main Web sites frequented by Saudis.

Some have applauded his courage. Others have accused him of stirring up trouble. But many Saudis, brought up on the official story, were incensed by his assertion that the Wahhabis were not purely a religious movement, as Wahhab's historians had laid out.

Dakhil said he was not surprised. When he had shared his findings with his seniors at King Saud University, many had been shocked and offended. The university later asked him to keep to the curriculum.

The Wahhabi version claims that the movement was created to save the region from declining faith, polytheism and widespread idolatry. But his research indicates that there was no change in people's beliefs at the time the Wahhabi movement was born and that polytheism was not rampant in the region, and therefore was not the trigger for the foundation of the movement, he said.

In a chapter he has written for the book "Understanding Wahhabism," to be published this year by the University of Michigan Press, Dakhil argues that Wahhab's goal was to create a strong state to make up for the disintegrating tribal system and that the preacher found his first willing sponsor in Muhammad bin Saud, first head of the House of Saud.

The mosque was a place to exert authority; the call to prayer and enforcing communal prayers were symbols of authority, Dakhil said. Wahhab labeled as apostates all the villages that broke away from the first Saudi state or refused to join it, he said.

"Religion is a much more powerful enforcer. Wahhabis made being a good Muslim contingent on obeying the ruler. That's a naked political statement," Dakhil said.

Despite what his detractors say, his intention is not to malign Wahhabism, Dakhil said.

"Whether you talk about succession, history of the state or Wahhabism, they all form one [problem]. I want to lift the censorship on this way of approaching the history of the state. I want to make opening it up for discussion normal," he said.