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Returning from Exile: The Politics of the Shi'i in Saudi Arabia
Abstract
This paper analyzes the subsequent fragmentation of the Shi'i political community after their return to Saudi Arabia and its turn towards local politics and away from the idea of a cosmopolitan Shi'i state. The 1993 Accord between King Fahd bin Abdulaziz and the leaders of the Shi'i opposition signaled the reentry of the Shi'i opposition into mainstream Saudi society. After spending the 1980s in exile, leaders of the Shi'i community in Saudi Arabia earned the chance to sit down with the Saudi government to discuss the state of the Saudi Shi'i community and the return of its leaders from abroad. The announcement of a secret agreement with the Saudi regime and the Shi'i leaders came as a surprise to the region, but perhaps as shocking because former Shi'i oppositional movements began taking steps in the late 1980s to reform their message into one of acceptance. This agreement stipulated that the Shi'is must cease their political operations before they arrive home, and in return the Saudi government would implement changes to the discriminatory policies against Shi'is in the kingdom. However, the introduction of the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue presented a decisive issue for the community and created irreconcilable arguments concerning the advancement of the Shi'i population in the kingdom. The discipline previously acknowledged the importance of these Shi'i political developments across the region, but this paper will stress the prominence of the evolution of the Shi'i political community. I argue that the balance between the expectations after 1993 and their predicted life in the following years caused the Shi'i opposition to begin to fracture according to how they viewed their changing world and country. After the establishment of the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue in 2003 and the subsequent lack of agreement within the community, the group fully fragmented from the once cohesive Shi'i opposition movement. By examining the writings and statements of Sheikh Hassan al-Saffar, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, Fouad Ibrahim and Hamza al-Hassan, this paper tracks how the community evolved in its attempt to acquire rights for Shi'is in Saudi Arabia. The 1993 Accord provided a formative agreement from which the leaders could cement their modern interactions with their community.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Gulf
Sub Area
Identity/Representation