ABSTRACT
The ulama were also becoming increasingly frustrated with the impact of modernisation and the presence in kingdom of large numbers of foreigners, especially western experts, whose alien cultural influences threatened Wahhabi-Saudi ‘way of life’. The Sudyris’ alleged attempt to monopolise all power in royal family enraged many of senior members of Al Saud but mostly the conservative ones. Led by Prince Muhammad, Khalid’s elder (full) brother, and frustrated by the erosion of the kingdom’s traditional character through modernisation and western influences, they rejected the new balance of power which the Sudayris wished to impose upon the ruling class. The renewed unrest in Saudi Arabia emanated partly from the socio-cultural ramifications of hasty modernisation and the growing tension within the royal family related to the Arab radicals’ consolidation of their power. Saudi Arabia’s rapid modernisation since late 1960s, and the socio-cultural changes which it induced, rekindled the fundamentalist sentiments which had been dormant after the suppression of the 1927–29 Ikhwan rebellion.
