Salafism and Saudi Arabia’s Middle East Policy Towards Iran

This article has chosen the theoretical framework of ontological security to explain the impact of Salafism on Saudi Arabia's Middle East policy. The question is why Saudi Arabia has moved towards more support for the Taqlidi Salafist movement over the past decade, and what the identity and security implications of this support have been? The argument of the article is that the role and position of Salafism in Saudi Arabia's Middle East policy should be considered as a continuation of the historical alliance between Al-Saud and Al-Sheikh, which has played an important role in maintaining the identity and security of this actor. But the internal dynamism of the Salafi discourse, the emergence of regional rivalries, and the emergence of the so-called global counter-terrorism literature have shifted the discourse into Saudi Arabia's Middle East policy, leading to differences in identity and security with other Salafi, Sunni, and Islamism currents. The findings of the article show that between ۲۰۱۱ and ۲۰۲۰, Saudi Arabia placed Taqlidi Salafism as a pragmatic current with a conservative reading and close to the official institution of Wahhabism at the center of its Middle East policy, especially in Yemen and Libya. The present article is based on explanatory-analytical approach and the required information has been collected by library method and internet sources.

Keywords:

Salafism , Taqlidi Salafism , Saudi Arabia , Foreign Policy , Middle East