Issues

Gulf Arab Countries: Field of Confrontation with Terror

Elena Melkumian , Grigoriy Kosach

Religiia i obshchestvo na Vostoke, Issue II (2018), p. 47-88.

 
The article is describing the situation with terrorist activity in the Arab Gulf states. The authors analyzes the causes of the fact that this activity is not so big in Kuwait and United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is absent in Qatar and Oman. The situation in Bahrain is very specific taking into consideration that Shiite discriminated community constitutes the majority of country’s population, but it cannot be the reason for speculations about big terrorist activity of terrorist underground in this country. The authors are analyzing mainly the situation in Saudi Arabia, which political system with its differences from other states of Arab-Moslem world creates the wide possibility for confrontation between the state and the religion. The situation in Saudi Arabia is analyzing on the base of wide historical retrospective, formation and development of religious opposition and analysis of current terrorist activity. The authors describe the main periods of this confrontation, the role of Ulama corps, and current situation in it, which became more different under the influence of state’s policy of secularization and socio-economic and political reforms of “political class”. The authors draw the main conclusion that the absence of essential changes in political system of the country, which preserve the role of religion, will be in the future the base for new challenges of terrorism, which appears not only under the influence of destabilization of the situation in the Arab world, but the internal causes as well.

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Keywords: Arab Gulf states, terrorism, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi political system, socio-economic and political reforms of Saudi Arabia

Volume: 47-88