The truth about Saudi Arabia's rulers is more worrying than you thought
The behaviour of Saudi Arabia's most powerful prince invites a peculiar fascination. Mohammed Bin Salman, 39, effectively runs the oil-rich state as his 89-year-old father Salman ails; yet MBS, as the prince is known, seems to spend much of his time aboard his 400 ft superyacht, Serene, where on one cabin wall, it is said, hangs Leonardo da Vinci's stunning painting Salvator Mundi, bought at a New York auction for $450m. The crown prince's timekeeping is disorganised, even chaotic. He sleeps irregularly, day and night, and when he nods off in meetings, courtiers must attend patiently until he wakes. In October 2023, MBS kept the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, waiting for several hours. He only showed up the following day.
What to make of this behaviour? Malise Ruthven, in his critical account of the contemporary Saudi regime, Unholy Kingdom, considers it evidence of sheer narcissism. MBS was not the chosen heir to the throne, but out-manoeuvred his cousins in a 'Corleone-style progression' to the top. The regime is at once 'ruthless and reckless'.
It thought nothing of assassinating a dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. (Khashoggi was sedated, suffocated, and his body sawn into pieces, never to be found.) For a while, the murder discouraged foreign investors from heading to Saudi Arabia, but now, as Ruthven puts it, a 'Scramble for Arabia' is in full swing, with consulting firms, footballers and architects among many pursuing their fortunes in the desert.
This telling account relies heavily on the work of other scholars to paint a brutish picture of the regime. MBS, who will be the first grandson of the kingdom's founder Ibn Saud to accede to the throne, is recasting the tribal monarchy as a modern-day 'personality cult'. To wean his state off oil revenues, MBS wants to cut public spending and to diversify into tourism and new industries, like electric vehicles, pharmaceuticals, and nuclear power. Massive infrastructure projects include Neom, a futuristic city in the desert, and Trojena, an unlikely mountain ski resort. The regime is loosening restrictions on young people, allowing some gender mixing, cinemas and music concerts, as well as permitting women to drive. Young Saudis are supportive, Ruthven suggests, because they hope to escape high rates of unemployment, relative poverty and anomie.
But the reforms are economic and social, not political. There are no legislative elections, political parties are banned and regime critics are routinely jailed. MBS wants 'change in the exercise of power, but not its distribution,' as Ruthven puts it. A key challenge for MBS is to renegotiate his relationship with the Wahhabi clerics, who have historically partnered with the Al Saud family, providing the royals with legitimacy in return for autonomy in propagating their austere, ultra-conservative, highly sectarian interpretation of Sunni Islam. MBS has promised a turn to 'moderate' Islam, and the powers of the religious police have been curbed. But his reforms are primarily a power grab. Hundreds of clerics who dared to challenge his rule are now in prison.
It's a stretch to argue, as Ruthven does, that the kingdom's new interest in sport might substitute for religious fervour. But it's true that millions of petrodollars have been poured into sporting businesses like football and golf. Saudi will host the 2034 football World Cup and has used its LIV golf project to effectively buy into the PGA tour. These soft power investments are intended to buy international influence, ease investor concerns, and, perhaps, generate a greater sense of national identity at home.
The kingdom may be about to take on a renewed role in the region, given the Trump family's close rapport with the Al Sauds. Ruthven predicts a 'brutal realignment' in the region, with Saudi and Israeli intelligence services cooperating closely. MBS has already made high-risk moves in his foreign policy, engaging in a destructive war in Yemen, pivoting towards China and even having prepared for normalisation of relations with Israel – at least until the Hamas attacks of October 7 and Israel's war in Gaza. He may be further emboldened now that the kingdom's longtime rival, Iran, is strategically weaker following the fall of Assad in Syria and Hizbollah's losses in Lebanon. If President Donald Trump hopes for some grand bargain to restructure the Middle East, he'll rely heavily on his friends in Riyadh. And that in turn will test the prince's reform project and its limits.
Unholy Kingdom is published by Verso at £25. To order your copy for £19.99, call 0330 173 0523 or visit Telegraph Books
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