Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East

by Kim Ghattas

One virulent critic of Western influence, and a rising star, was a young blind cleric named Abdelaziz bin Baz. His influence would shape the minds of those who would transform the region in the decades to come. In 1940, Bin Baz, neither an Al-Saud nor an Al-ash-Sheikh, had the audacity to call for a ban on all non-Muslims on the Arabian Peninsula. He landed in jail. After his release, he would continue to issue anachronistic religious opinions; among them were refusing to believe the Americans had landed on the moon, insisting the sun orbited the earth, complaining about the introduction of radio and television, of girls’ education, of anything that was modern and novel. But he had understood the lesson of his time in prison: never undermine the House of Saud and the pillars of its power. No matter the failings of the Al-Sauds, the clerics saw them as a bulwark against worse dangers, like communism and secularism.