In January 2020, Saudi Arabia decided to open the country to tourism.[1] The country had always been visited by religious pilgrims, but the idea of bringing secular tourists to visit historical sights was new. It was also a political decision, as according to the classical Islamic ideology that shaped the legitimization of the Saudi regime, there was nothing worth seeing before the coming of Muhamad in the Arabian Peninsula, as everything was considered uncivilized, barbarian, and pagan. On the other hand, historians and archeologists knew all too well that the Saudi Peninsula had thousands of years of civilization as the archeological evidence was always there.
The Saudi decision was a new chapter in the attempt of the Saudi government to “appear” modern in the 21st century and to change its image as in the preceding decades, it had cultivated the appearance of being strictly religious, puritanical, and averse to secular cultural trends coming from the West, including social freedoms for women.
The Saudi move towards establishing archeological sites was part of remaking the image of the country for the sake of international relations and improved relations with the west, and what in time came to be normalization of diplomatic ties with Israel. This image-making was symptomatic of the dilemmas that radical Islamist states have had in coping with the visible evidence of a pre-Islamic past that challenges Islamic beliefs and or current ideological leanings. The case of Saudi Arabia should be seen in light of the dilemmas of the Shiite regime in Iran immediately after Khomeini’s 1979 revolution which denounced the pre-Islamic, imperial, and Zoroastrian past of Iran. By 2020, the vitriolic and constant denunciation and confrontation with the Israeli state saw an episode in Iranian domestic politics which seemed to be rather revealing with the connection between the regime and the connections to the archeological past. The Trump-designed American peace plan to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli issue came to be denounced by various groups in Iran, who in turn threatened to destroy or convert a Jewish religious shrine in Hamadan where according to tradition two Biblical figures, Esther and Mordechai, are buried. Radical Shiite authorities threatened to turn it into a Palestinian consulate.[2]
Sometime earlier during the takeover of Iraq and Syria by the Islamic state, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Sunni Islamist ideology called for the destruction of pre-Islamic archeological sites, Islamic sites, and Christian churches in an orgy of violence. One of the sites destroyed was the putative tomb of the Biblical figure Jonah, famous both in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions for having been swallowed by a whale.[3] As radical Salafist ideology called shrines examples of idolatry, in the Islamic State, anything thought to be idolatrous was subject to destruction. For example, in Syria the Islamic State destroyed pre-Islamic temples and statues in the city of Palmyra, an ancient Syro-Roman city, and capital of a kingdom in the Near East which attained prominence in the 3rd century.[4]
The Islamic State’s propensity to destroy archeological sites contrary to Koranic interpretations of its radical fundamentalist ideology, had a less violent counterpart in the Saudi aversion to publicizing any pre-Islamic presence on its territory. It was a dimension of the Wahhabi ideology that firmly believed that before the Prophet, the Arabian Peninsula was pagan land. Thus, it had been radically opposed since the inception of the Saudi state to even admitting that pre-Islamic Arabia was not a barbarian land but was rather full of archeological sites connected to Biblical and Greek-Roman history.
The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman, who came to power in 2015, embarked on a program of renovation of Saudi society. Some of his policies included the expansion of social and economic freedoms of Saudi women, including the permission to drive which had been denied. Interestingly enough, in order to wean the country off its reliance on oil revenues alone and to diversify the economy, he proposed to bring tourists to the country. This statement implied by definition a greater ideological tolerance in a rather traditional Islamic society not only of tourism, but also the promotion of pre-Islamic archeological sites. In fact, the Arabian Peninsula is incredibly rich in terms of ancient historical accomplishments. Some years earlier, the Saudis government did admit to the presence of Nabatean sites connected to a Pre-Islamic civilization that stretched from Jordan to all the way down south to our present day Saudi Arabia.[5] Saudi Arabia had been witness to an incredibly rich pre-Islamic range of cultures. By 2020, Saudi decision makers realized the idea of tourism was possible beyond traditional religious pilgrimage to Mecca. The Nabatean civilization was part of a range of ancient pre-Islamic cultures such as the Dedanite and Lihyanite kingdoms that began to be studied by Western archeologist at the beginning of the 20th century. These pre-Islamic people are mentioned in Biblical sources and certainly the trading routes of Yemen to the Levant tied the region through a network of routes. One of the elements that tied the areas together was the Frankincense trade, which played such a preeminent role in the cultures of the Middle East. The Saudi government interests in promoting these developments will certainly enhance systematic academic research on these pre-Islamic civilizations with, arguably political implications for the country’s establishment and formal government.
By 2023, Saudi Arabia had committed themselves to a complete renovation of the tourism industry with a goal of being one of the top five tourism destinations worldwide, with one in three jobs within the country in the Tourism sector. This was all part of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s pursuit of his goals for the social modernization of the Saudi Kingdom. He started first with the loosening of gender segregation rules, allowing women to enter the work force on a much more extensive basis. It was coming to compliment the expansion of tourism and the demand for labor in a business that was supposed to attract the world to the Kingdom.
As the Covid pandemic was receding in the world, tourism was supposed to be booming all over the world, and the Soccer World Cup events in Quatar and the interests of Saudi soccer teams to entice European players and stars was an indicator of social trends as Saudi authorities wanted to use tourism and sports and liberalization of social norms regarding women to enhance their status and reputation worldwide within the international system.
[1] Peter Beaumont, “Saudi Arabia to open itself up to foreign tourist for the first time,” Guardian, 27 September 2019.
[2] Samuel Smith, “Iran threatens to destroy tomb of Esther and Mordechai,” Christian Post, 22 February 2020.
[3] Sigal Samuel, Sara Farhan, & Atoor Lawandow, “ISIS Destroyed Jonah’s Tomb, but Not Its Message,” The Atlantic, 24 July 2017.
[4] Stuart Jeffries, “Isis’s destruction of Palmyra: ‘The heart has been ripped out of the city’”, The Guardian, 2 September 2015.
[5] Sylvia Smith, “Uncovering secrets of mystery civilization in Saudi Arabia”, BBC News, Saudi Arabia, 3 October, 2019.
Dr. Morris Mottale 
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