ABSTRACTWAHHABISM AND POWER IN SAUDI ARABIA:A PRACTICAL TEST OF WEBERIAN THEORYByAbdullah Alrebh Weber's theory of authority is an important tool when studying power and its relationship to human collectives, especially religious groups. Weber focused on the rise of Protestants' power in the West and how this group created and maintained economic power which helped them gain political control in various countries, including the U.S. In this paper, I incorporate Weber's insights about the Protestant ethic, bureaucracies, and types of authority to examine Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. I compare Saudi Wahhabism with Protestantism, analyzing the rise of the Saud family as controllers of the economy and politics. The role of bureaucracies in these processes will also be discussed. The similarities and differences between Protestantism and Wahhabism are used to investigate power inside their respective societies. These comparisons will highlight the types of authority which allowed each sect to enhance power and how those processes of creating, consolidating, and maintaining power relate to the larger social climates in both Saudi Arabia and the Western world. Finally, I investigate images of the Saudi State in the The London Times between 1927 and 1937 to explain how power in the hands of a Wahhabi king was presented to Western readers.
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