The Rise and Fall of the Saudi Elite

The Saudi elite, do they dedicate themselves to pursuing the Salafists vision of Islam? No, they pursue themselves to hedonistic luxury, because that's what money does. The big wake up call was the seizure of the grand mosque in 1979. And it helped lead to this project of political Islam being exported and turned into a projection of Saudi state power. They were aided by the United States, whose interests completely coincided on that point. It meant undermining secular, socialist, nationalist political movements in the rest of the Muslim world.