Crazy Clerics Who Rule the World’s Oil

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The reality is that the religious scholars in Saudi Arabia number in the thousands. Jonathan Schanzer, co-author of “Facebook Fatwa: Saudi Clerics, Wahhabi Islam and Social Media” and vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, estimates there are 7,000 to 10,000 members of the clerical class but only about 40 of them are considered the most senior scholars. Some of the most prominent are appointed to the Council of Senior Ulema by the government; they are considered “official clergy.” There are just as many independent clerics.

“The Saudi royal family wants to use the official clergy to reinforce barbaric laws so they can reinforce draconian rule,” Schanzer said. “The danger becomes the unofficial clergy, those who don’t want to cooperate with the royal family and call for policies different from what the regime wants.”

Which is not to say any of Saudi Arabia’s three most popular clerics—Mohamed Al-Arefe, 44, who has more than 10 million Twitter followers, Aiedh Alqarni, 55, or Salman al-Awdah, 58, both of whom have about six million followers each—are liberal by western standards. Al-Arefe, who also had a popular TV show for years in which people (mainly women) called him up for religious advice on the air, is very conservative.
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