There's a story told in the hadith that the Prophet Muhammad once saw a boy with a partly-shaved head – and disapproved. "Shave all of it or leave all of it," he is reported to have said.
Fourteen centuries later, this little incident is causing ructions on Saudi Arabia's...
Blog archive: Saudi Arabia
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13th April 2016
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29th March 2016This year's Riyadh Book Fair, held in the Saudi capital earlier this month, acknowledged the war in Yemen with a military theme. Hala Aldosari writes: Guests browsing publishers’ stalls passed through “barracks row” honouring the Saudi troops camped on the...
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10th March 2016After waging war in Yemen for almost a year, Saudi Arabia is gradually beginning to realise what many said at the outset: that military victory is impossible. A few days ago the Saudis took the previously unthinkable step of engaging in direct talks with the Houthis, their...
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9th March 2016As Saudi Arabia's economic problems worsen, thousands of construction workers are complaining about unpaid wages. Among those affected are 38,000 employees of Saudi Oger – the kingdom's second-largest construction firm – who have not been paid for four months. Saudi Oger is chaired by...
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17th February 2016Saudi Arabia's recent claim that it is preparing to send ground troops into Syria is either a transparent (and therefore ineffective) piece of psychological warfare or the latest step towards the collapse of the House of Saud. In an article for the American website, National Interest,...
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11th January 2016Faced with falling oil revenue and an alarming budget deficit, Saudi Arabia is pinning some of its economic hopes on nationalising the production and sale of miswak, according to local media reports. Ibrahim al-Muaiqil, director-general of the kingdom's human resources fund, is quoted...
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9th January 2016Is Saudi Arabia's Prince Muhammad bin Salman a reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady who reshaped Britain's economy in the 1980s? Or is he, perhaps, a reincarnation of Charles I, the seventeenth-century English monarch who lost his head in a civil war? In an interview for...
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16th December 2015Five "top engineering and technical officials" are expected to go on trial in Saudi Arabia in connection with the world's worst crane accident last September, according to local media. More than 100 people died and several hundred were injured when a crawler crane toppled backwards...
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16th December 2015Pakistan's foreign minister, Aizaz Chaudhry, was taken by surprise yesterday when he read in the newspapers that his country has joined the new Saudi-led
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15th December 2015Prince Mohammed bin Salman addresses a news conference on Saudi Arabia's "anti-terrorism" initiative. Amid widespread derision, Saudi Arabia has announced that it will lead a new military coalition to protect "the Islamic world" against terrorism. Speaking at a news conference in Riyadh,...
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1st December 2015Magna Carta, Philip Hammond and the Saudi businessman Did foreign secretary help sheikh meet the Queen? Last summer Britain's foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, received a gift from a Saudi businessman – an Ebel watch priced at almost £2,000. Although government ministers are...
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26th November 2015Last September Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote a column disputing the claim by a retired American general that Iranians are the world's leading "purveyors of radical Islam". That title, he said, belongs to America's friend, Saudi Arabia. Friedman was right. There are plenty...
