The Saudi Shi’i opposition towards the Saudi state has changed dramatically since 1989. Having followed a more revolutionary line supporting Khomeini before, it increasingly focused on the emancipation of the Shi‘i minority in Saudi Arabia by means of demanding civil rights and religious pluralism afterwards. During the 1990s this change allowed them to return from exile, but only during the 2000s did their new strategy begin to have effect and did they succeed in breaking down their isolation and build new coalitions with certain sections of the Sunni intelligentsia. Several reasons were responsible for this new development. After 9/11 Saudi Arabia was put under Western pressure to reform. But it was especially the attacks in 2003 and the crowning of Prince Abdallah in 2005 that brought about a change in the cultural and political atmosphere. The National Dialogue provided coverage for Shi‘i intellectuals and leaders such as Hasan al-Saffar, Tawfiq al-Sayf and Muhammad Mahfuz to promote their agenda against intolerance, religious extremism and discrimination. Their demands for equal rights, equal opportunities, toleration and the acceptance of “difference” (ikhtilaf) was now covered by a national tendency to acknowledge the radical dimension of Wahhabism. They argued that the religious, cultural and political base of Saudi society and political system should be fundamentally reformed on the basis of citizenship and a new relationship between state and citizen. This paper will deal with the changes of political concepts and strategies of the major Shi‘i thinkers and leaders after 1989. It is based on in-depth research of the major books and newspaper articles of specific thinkers as well as the debates and responses of their Sunni (Salafi) opponents and Sunni liberal supporters. It will try to gauge their success by analyzing several cases that show how far their strategy of seeking to improve their own situation and breaking down their isolation by calling for general reforms and universal civil rights have been adopted by others who support a discourse based on citizenship as ground for national unity.