ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the political, economic, and religious context of the Covid-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. Although outsiders sometimes see the kingdom as inward-looking, it is deeply enmeshed in global contexts: economically as a rentier state dependent on external revenue flows, and religiously as an Islamic state that derives its legitimacy, not just domestically but in the wider Muslim world, from its assumed role as protector of religion. Covid-19 impacted these foundations of the state in two ways: it weakened the state through low revenues from oil exports, and it challenged the state politically because public health measures contradicted religious duties. Compared to some larger and less authoritarian Muslim states, where opposition and even resistance to public health measures have flared up, the Saudi state has so far been able to navigate the problematic area between religious sentiments and public health concerns without much turbulence. However, its solutions are probably not sustainable in the longer term. Minimizing the economic impact of Covid-19 for citizens with a long-nurtured sense of entitlement, while letting the foreign labor force bear the brunt of the crisis, is costly in the face of declining state revenues. Uncertainty hangs over state control over religious establishment and non-establishment Islamist voices, some of which have already challenged its religious legitimacy from outside the country.
