Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stunned people on Tuesday by announcing that Saudi Arabia, the hotbed of puritanical form of Islam called Wahabism, was returning to "moderate" Islam and intended to "eradicate" extremism.
"We are only returning to what we used to be, to moderate Islam, open to the world and all religions," the 32-year-old prince said at a conference of Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh. "We won't waste 30 years of our lives dealing with any extremist ideas. We will destroy extremism."
The remarks, aimed at ultra-conservatives, were the boldest statements to date by Prince bin Salman, who was appointed heir to the throne by his father King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud earlier this year. Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, is governed under a puritanical form of Sunni Islam known as Wahabism favoured by the likes of al-Qaeda and Isis.
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The 32-year-old is the main architect of of ‘Vision 2030’ – a longterm economic and social policy designed to sustain life after oil. His most feted decision was to allow women in Saudi Arabia the right to drive.
At the meet the prince also announced his plans to build a new uber luxury city called Neom on the Red sea coast with more than $500 billion in investments.
The latest attempt at an overhaul was triggered by a sharp drop in oil revenue in 2014 that hasn't reversed. To avoid what the prince and his advisers saw as a catastrophic rundown on savings, they canceled projects deemed unnecessary, cut costly subsidies and halted payments to contractors.
