For years, Mohammed bin Salman appeared determined to prove that Saudi Arabia could be modernized by exchanging the stern face of clerical authority for the smiling face of entertainment capitalism. The kingdom of injunctions would become the kingdom of investment forums, Formula One, celebrity concerts and carefully imported glamour. Then Ansar Allah advanced, Saudi security came under pressure, Washington grew less dependable — and suddenly Islam was summoned back from storage.

Theology, it turns out, had not been retired. It had been subordinated to the state.

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed on August 7 by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye formalized the proposition that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all. Alliances are hardly mysterious: nervous states seek insurance. What is more revealing is how quickly that strategic arrangement has been wrapped in theological language.

The novelty is not that Pakistani ulema regard the defense of Mecca and Medina as a religious duty. It is the speed with which senior establishment clerics have blurred the distinction between defending the holy cities and preserving the Saudi political order.

The novelty is not that Pakistani ulema regard the defense of Mecca and Medina as a religious duty. It is the speed with which senior establishment clerics have blurred the distinction between defending the holy cities and preserving the Saudi political order.

Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Ashrafi, head of the Pakistan Ulema Council, went so far as to declare that the Houthis have “no connection with Islam,” converting a geopolitical confrontation into a test of religious legitimacy.

Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani’s intervention exposes the same dynamic from a different angle. One of the Muslim world’s most eminent jurists criticized Washington for failing to support Saudi Arabia more fully. The irony is severe: a scholar formed by a lifetime of jurisprudence reproaches an imperial power not for dominating Muslim........

© Middle East Monitor