The impact of Saudi Wahhabi soft power on the damage to world peace from the perspective of Peter Mandeville and its criticism from the perspective of the Islamic Revolution

Document Type : Original Article

Author

member of faculty of Institute for Research and Development of Humanities (SAMT Organization)

Abstract
This article analyzes Peter Mandeville's views and the criticisms raised by the Islamic Revolution regarding the role of Saudi Wahhabism in world peace. Mandeville is a prominent scholar in the field of politics and religion. He sees the promotion of Wahhabism under the financial and strategic support of Saudi Arabia as being based on a complex interaction between the Saudi government and religious institutions. From Mandeville's perspective, Saudi religious transnationalism, in the sense of "exporting Wahhabism," has affected dozens of countries and created risks for world peace. At the same time, the local context and environmental conditions have caused the entry of Wahhabism into each country to take on a specific form. In different countries, local factors have welcomed Wahhabism due to economic interests. These effects should be examined and their patterns extracted. By stopping the export of Wahhabism through Saudi support, it is hoped that the global effects resulting from the promotion of Wahhabism in that local context will stop and we will once again witness world peace in these regions. Mandeville specifically outlines some of these patterns. Here, we present these patterns and critique his views from the perspective of the Islamic Revolution. The results of this study show that the Saudi shift from Wahhabi extremism to secular Islam can reduce regional tensions. In the next section, the article addresses criticisms of the Islamic Revolution that see Wahhabism as a tool to counter Iranian and Shiite influence. This section emphasizes the destructive effects of Wahhabism on global peace and its role in promoting hatred and terrorism, as well as the spread of violence and division among the Muslim Ummah. The article emphasizes that recent changes in Saudi Arabia’s domestic and foreign policies can play an important role in reducing global tensions and promoting peace.

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