Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Power Struggle over ‘Muslimness’: Reification, Securitization, and Identification

Abstract

This paper questions the apparent hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia and highlights its discursive construction. It explores the centrality of ‘Muslimness’ in both countries’ discourses and how it both shapes and is shaped by their opposition. At the same time, it seeks to uncover how these discourses construct a specific regional and ‘Muslim’ dynamic. To do so, the paper draws on theories from both security and nationalism studies. The application of the theoretical framework was carried out over the 2010-2020 period through a discourse analysis of both primary and secondary sources. It is highlighted that Saudi Arabia resorts to a sectarian perspective, merging the ‘Muslim’ category with a ‘Sunni’ one, while Iran eludes the sectarian dimension and centers on the struggle against oppression and ‘arrogant powers.’ The paper concludes that, in the struggle over the definition of ‘Muslimness,’ both parties invest this label with different, but not opposing, attributes. While Saudi speeches express a closed and exclusive ‘identity’ defined by their understanding of religion and in direct opposition to Shias, Iranian speeches express an inclusive ‘identity’ based on ‘Muslimness,’ which is largely defined by the struggle against oppression.

Key Words:

• Identification
• Iran
• Muslimness
• Saudi Arabia
• Securitization

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare there is no Complete of Interest at this study.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Elena Aoun, Thierry Balzacq and Christophe Wasinski for their comments and suggestions on previous versions of this article.

Notes

1 See Paul Vallely (2014) The Vicious Schism between Sunni and Shia Has Been Poisoning Islam for 1,400 years - and it's Getting Worse, The Independent (February 19). Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-vicious-schism-between-sunni-and-shia-has-been-poisoning-islam-for-1-400-years-and-it-s-getting-worse-9139525.html, accessed April 29, 2022; Adam Taylor (2016) 5 facts about Sunnis and Shiites that Help Make Sense of the Saudi-Iran Crisis, The Washington Post (January 5). Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/05/5-facts-about-sunnis-and-shiites-that-help-makes-sense-of-the-saudi-iran-crisis/, accessed April 29, 2022.

2 See Vali Nasr (2007) The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: W.W. Norton); Nathan Gonzalez (2009) The Sunni-Shia Conflict: Understanding Sectarian Violence in the Middle East (Mission Viejo: Nortia Press); Helle Malmvig (2014) Power, Identity and Securitization in Middle East: Regional Order after the Arab Uprisings, Mediterranean Politics, 19(1), pp. 145–148.

3 Asad A. Ahmed (2010) The Paradoxes of Ahmadiyya Identity: Legal Appropriation of Muslim-ness and the Construction of Ahmadiyya Difference, in Navida Khan (ed) Beyond Crisis: Re-evaluating Pakistan (Abingdon: Routledge), pp. 273–314; Mohamed Sulaiman (2020) Muslimness as a Political Formation: An Inquiry into Muslim Presence, Social Identities, 26(1), pp. 31–7.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Shahram Chubin & Charles Tripp (2004) Iran–Saudi Arabia Relations and Regional Order (Abingdon: Routledge); Simon Mabon (2015) Saudi Arabia and Iran: Power and Rivalry in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris); Fatiha Dazi-Héni (2016) L’Arabie saoudite dans le contexte du retour en grâce de l’Iran [Saudi Arabia in the context of Iran’s return to favor], Confluences Méditérranée, 97(2), pp. 53–62; Banafsheh Keynoush (2016) Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes? (Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave MacMillan); Afshon Ostovar (2017) Sectarianism and Iranian Foreign Policy, in Frederic Wehrey (ed) Beyond Sunni and Shia: The Roots of Sectarianism in a Changing Middle East, pp. 87–111 (Oxford: Oxford University Press); Hassan Ahmadian (2018) Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Age of Trump, Survival, 60(2), pp. 133–150; Dilip Hiro (2018) Cold War in the Islamic World: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Struggle for Supremacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press); Simon Mabon (2018b) Muting the Trumpets of Sabotage: Saudi Arabia, the US and the Quest to Securitize Iran, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 45(5), pp. 742–759; Vrushal T. Ghoble (2019) Saudi Arabia–Iran Contention and the Role of Foreign Actors, Strategic Analysis, 43(1): pp. 42–53; Simon Mabon (2019) Saudi Arabia and Iran: Islam and Foreign Policy in the Middle East, in: Shahram Akbarzadeh (ed) Routledge Handbook of International Relations in the Middle East, pp. 138–152 (Abingdon: Routledge); Fahrad Rezaei (2019) Iran’s Foreign Policy After the Nuclear Agreement: Politics of Normalizers and Traditionalists (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan); Mohammad Soltaninejad (2019) Iran and Saudi Arabia: Emotionally Constructed Identities and the Question of Persistent Tensions, Asian Politics and Policy, 11(1), pp. 104–121; Ibrahim Fraihat (2020) Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming a Chaotic Conflict (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).

7 Fraihat, “Iran and Saudi Arabia”.

8 Dazi-Héni, “L’Arabie saoudite dans le contexte du retour en grâce de l’Iran”.

9 Ghoble, “Saudi Arabia-Iran Contention”.

10 Keynoush, “Saudi Arabia and Iran”; Ahmadian, “Iran and Saudi Arabia”.

11 Mabon, “Muting the trumpets of sabotage”.

12 See, among others, Mabon, “Saudi Arabia and Iran”, p. 139.

13 Éva Ádám (2021) Popular Sentiments and Elite Threat Perception in the Gulf: Iran in the Public Discourse in Saudi Arabia, in: Mahjoob Zweiri, Md Mizanur Rahman & Arwa Kamal (eds) The 2017 Gulf Crisis: An Interdisciplinary Approach, p. 145 (Singapore: Springer).

14 See Frederic Wehrey (2013) Sectarian politics in the Gulf: From the Iraq war to the Arab uprisings (New York: Columbia University Press); Geneive Abdo (2017) The New Sectarianism: The Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Shi’a-Sunni divide (Oxford: Oxford University Press); Nader A. Hashemi & Danny Postel (2017) Introduction: The Sectarianization Thesis, in: Nader A. Hashemi & Danny Postel (eds) Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East, pp. 1–22 (London: Hurst Publishers); Fanar Haddad (2020) Understanding ‘Sectarianism’: Sunni-Shi’a Relations in the Modern Arab World (London: Hurst Publishers).

15 See Morten Valbjørn (2021) Observing (the debate on) Sectarianism: On Conceptualizing, Grasping and Explaining Sectarian Politics in a New Middle East, Mediterranean Politics, 26(5), pp. 612–634.

16 Rogers Brubaker (2002) Ethnicity Without Groups, European Journal of Sociology, 43(2), pp. 163–189.

17 See Malmvig, “Power, Identity and Securitization in Middle East”; Mabon, “Saudi Arabia and Iran”; Ric Neo (2020a) Religious Securitisation and Institutionalized Sectarianism in Saudi Arabia, Critical Studies on Security, 8(3), pp. 203–222.

18 David Campbell (1993) Politics Without Principle: Sovereignty, Ethics, and the Narratives of the Gulf War (Boulder: Lynne Reinner), p. 8.

19 Thierry Balzacq (2011) Constructivism and Securitization Studies, in Myriam Dunn Cavelty & Victor Mauer (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Security Studies, pp. 56–72 (Abingdon: Routledge); Thierry Balzacq (2016) Le constructivisme [Constructivism], in: Thierry Balzacq (ed) Théories de la sécurité. Les approches critiques [Security Theories: Critical Approaches], pp. 165–249 (Paris: Les presses de SciencesPo).

20 Brubaker, “Ethnicity without groups”.

21 Rogers Brubaker & Frederick Cooper (2000) Beyond ‘Identity’, Theory and Society, 29(1), pp. 1–47.

22 See Malmvig, “Power, Identity and Securitization in Middle East”; Neo, “Religious Securitisation”; Raffaella A. Del Sarto (2021) Sectarian Securitization in the Middle East and the Case of Israel, International Affairs, 97(3), pp. 759–778.

23 For an exception, see Simon Mabon (2018a) Existential Threats and Regulating Life: Securitization in the Contemporary Middle East, Global Discourse, 8(1), pp. 42–58.

24 Jennifer Milliken (1999) The Study of Discourse in International Relations: A Critique of Research and Methods, European Journal of International Relations, 5(2), 225–254.

25 Raihan Ismail (2016) Saudi Clerics and Shi’a Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

26 Ole Waever, Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup & Pierre Lemaitre (1993) Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe (London: Palgrave McMillan); Barry Buzan, Ole Waever & Jaap de Wilde (1998). Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers).

27 Ole Waever (1995) Securitization and Desecuritization, in: Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed) On Security, p. 55 (New York: Columbia University Press).

28 Holger Stritzel (2007) Towards a Theory of Securitization: Copenhagen and Beyond, European Journal of International Relations, 13(3), pp. 357–383; Holger Stritzel (2011) Security, the Translation, Security Dialogue, 42(4–5), pp. 343–355.

29 Felix Ciuta (2009) Security and the Problem of Context: A Hermeneutical Critique of Securitisation Theory, Review of International Studies, 35(2), pp. 301–326.

30 Balzacq, “Constructivism and securitization studies”; Balzacq, “Le constructivisme”.

31 Strizel, “Security, the translation”.

32 Balzacq, “Le constructivisme”.

33 Ibid, p. 199. Every quote originally in French has been translated by the author.

34 Stritzel, “Towards a Theory of Securitization”, p. 367.

35 Balzacq, “Constructivism and securitization studies”; Balzacq, “Le constructivisme”.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Balzacq, “Le constructivisme”, p. 195.

39 Balzacq, “Constructivism and securitization studies”, p. 3.

40 Mabon, “Existential threats and regulating life”.

41 Martin Holbraad & Morten Axel Pedersen (2012) Revolutionary Securitization: An Anthropological Extension of Securitization Theory, International Theory, 4(2), pp. 165–197; Maja Touzari Greenwood & Ole Waever (2013) Copenhagen-Cairo on a Roundtrip: A Security Theory Meets the Revolution, Security Dialogue, 44(5–6), pp. 485–506.

42 See Laura A. Bray, Thomas E. Shriver & Alison E. Adams (2019) Framing Authoritarian Legitimacy: Elite Cohesion in the Aftermath of Popular Rebellion, Social Movement Studies, 18(6), pp. 682–701; Andrew J. Nathan (2020) The Puzzle of Authoritarian Legitimacy, Journal of Democracy, 31(1), pp. 158–168.

43 Saloni Kapur (2018) From Copenhagen to Uri and across the Line of Control: India’s ‘Surgical Strikes’ as a Case of Securitisation in Two Acts, Global Discourse, 8(1), pp. 62–79.

44 Brubaker & Cooper, “Beyond Identity”; Brubaker, “Ethnicity without groups”.

45 Brubaker, “Ethnicity without groups”, p. 169.

46 Brubaker & Cooper, “Beyond Identity”, p. 14.

47 Ulrik Pram Gad (2017) What Kind of Nation State will Greenland be? Securitization Theory as a Strategy for Analyzing Identity Politics, Politik, 20(3), p. 108.

48 Brubaker & Cooper, “Beyond Identity”, pp. 4–5.

49 Ric Neo (2020b) Securitization of the President: Trump as a National Security Threat, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, p. 10, doi: 10.1080/09557571.2020.1816900.

50 Thierry Balzacq (2010) Securitization Theory: How Security Problems Emerge and Dissolve, p. 3 (Abingdon: Routledge).

51 Rogers Brubaker (1996) Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe, p. 21 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

52 Barry Buzan & Ole Waever (2009) Macrosecuritisation and Security Constellations: Reconsidering Scale in Securitisation Theory, Review of International Studies, 35(2), p. 257.

53 Neo, “Securitization of the President”, p. 3.

54 Jack Holland (2013) Selling the War on Terror: Foreign Policy Discourses After 9/11, pp. 11–12 (Abingdon: Routledge).

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57 Balzacq, “Securitization Theory”, p. 39.

58 Milliken, “The Study of Discourse”.

59 Ibid, p. 229.

60 Ibid.

61 Ismail, “Saudi Clerics and Shi’a Islam”.

62 Ádám, “Popular Sentiments and Elite Threat Perception in the Gulf”.

63 Toby Matthiesen (2015) The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism, p. 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

64 Neo, “Religious securitisation”, p. 209.

65 Ádám, “Popular Sentiments and Elite Threat Perception in the Gulf”, p. 152.

66 Balzacq, “Securitization Theory”, p. 13.

67 Abdullah Alaoudh (2018) State-Sponsored Fatwas in Saudi Arabia. Carnegie. Available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/75971, accessed April 10, 2020.

68 Ibid; Jamal Khashoggi (2017) Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Wants to ‘Crush Extremists’. But He’s Punishing the Wrong People, The Washington Post (October 31). Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/10/31/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-wants-to-crush-extremists-but-hes-punishing-the-wrong-people/, accessed April 10, 2020.

69 Karim Sadjadpour (2009) Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace).

70 Mabon, “Existential threats and regulating life”, p. 4.

71 Shahram Akbarzadeh & James Barry (2018) Negotiating Popular Mandate and the Sovereignty of God in Iran, in: John L. Esposito, Lily Zubaidah Rahim & Naser Ghobadzadeh (eds) The Politics of Islamism: Diverging Visions and Trajectories, p. 160 (Cham: Springer).

72 Ibid, p. 162.

73 Ali Khamenei (2011b) Ayatullah Khamenei's Address to Arab Nations in Arabic (English Sub). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTLlGiqXuKY, accessed March 31, 2020.

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75 Khamenei: https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir?lang=fr

Rouhani: https://twitter.com/HassanRouhani

Zarif: https://twitter.com/JZarif

76 https://twitter.com/ar_khamenei

77 Balzacq, “Le constructivisme”, p. 200.

78 Ibid.

79 Juha A. Vuori (2008) Illocutionary Logic and Strands of Securitization: Applying the Theory of Securitization to the Study of Non-Democratic Political Orders. European Journal of International Relations, 14(1), p. 72.

80 Balzacq, “Securitization Theory”, p. 9.

81 Ismail, “Saudi Clerics and Shi’a Islam”, pp. 55; 59.

82 Ibid, p. 61.

83 Ibid, p. 144.

84 Ibid, p. 162.

85 Although analyzing this potential Persian factor would be of the greatest interest and the author entices students to undertake such a study, it would go out of the scope and limits of this article.

86 In Human Rights Watch (2017) They Are Not Our Brothers. Human Rights Watch, p. 33. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/saudi0917_web.pdf, accessed April 8, 2020.

87 In Oren Adaki & David Andrew Weinberg (2015) Preaching Hate and Sectarianism in the Gulf. Foreign Policy (May 5). Available at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/05/preaching-hate-and-sectarianism-in-the-gulf-saudi-arabia-qatar-uae-saad-bin-ateeq-al-ateeq/, accessed April 10, 2020.

88 Ola Salem & Abdullah Alaoudh (2019) Mohammed bin Salman’s Fake Anti-Extremists Campaign. Foreign Policy (June 13). Available at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/13/mohammed-bin-salmans-fake-anti-extremist-campaign/, accessed April 11, 2020.

89 In Alaoudh, “State-Sponsored Fatwas in Saudi Arabia”.

90 In Khashoggi, “Saudi Arabia’s crown prince”.

91 Human Rights Watch, “They Are Not Our Brothers”, p. 33.

92 Ismail, “Saudi Clerics and Shi’a Islam”, p. 148.

93 Human Rights Watch, “They Are Not Our Brothers”, pp. 50–61.

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96 Human Rights Watch, “They Are Not Our Brothers”, p. 29.

97 Ibid, p. 31.

98 Ibid, p. 51.

99 Brubaker, “Ethnicity without groups”, p. 172.

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