Behind the Kingdom's Veil: Inside the New Saudi Arabia Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

by Susanne Koelbl, Karen Elliott House (Foreword by)

Overview

“A fascinating account of the significant changes underway in Saudi Arabia based on years of excellent reporting on the ground.” —Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Institution Intelligence Project, author of Kings and Presidents: Saudi Arabia and the United States Since FDR

Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most secretive countries. Now, Susanne Koelbl, award-winning journalist for the German news magazine Der Spiegel, unveils many secrets of this mysterious kingdom. For years she traveled the Middle East, and recently lived in Riyadh during the most dramatic changes since the country’s founding. She has cultivated relationships on every level of Saudi society and is equally at ease with ultra-conservative Wahhabi preachers, oppositionists, and women from all walks of life.

In this “piercingly powerful book” (Ahmed Rahid, New York Times-bestselling author of Taliban), you can have breakfast with Royal Highnesses; meet Osama bin Laden’s bomb-making trainer; enter palaces of secret service chiefs; listen to intimate conversations with women about their newly offered freedoms; learn about journalist Jamal Khashoggi; and view an in-depth portrait of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), as you learn about the not-so-obvious facts of the kingdom’s history, politics, customs, and hidden power relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642503456
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	07/22/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	412
Sales rank:	936,095
File size:	44 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Susanne Koelbl is an award-winning journalist and a military and foreign correspondent for the German news magazine Der Spiegel. Her stories highlight the intricate dynamics in conflict areas and wars around the world, including the Balkans, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Koelbl is known for her probing reports from Syria, Afghanistan and North Korea. Her highly acclaimed book Dark Beloved Country: People and Power in Afghanistan. was published in 2009.

Always close to the people, Koelbl uses their voices to make complicated political and societal contexts accessible. For her in-depth and thorough reporting she received several industry recognitions, including the Liberty Award and the Henry-Nannen-Price award. In her exceptional interviews with state leaders, intelligence-chiefs and Islamic extremists, Koelbl repeatedly challenges the powerful, including the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (wanted for genocide with an international arrest warrant), or the underground Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. Koelbl has excellent contacts in all political camps in the Middle East.

Koelbl is a fellow of the Bertelsmann Foundation's German-Israeli Young Leaders Program, a Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan and was named a Media Ambassador with the German-Chinese Exchange Program of the Bosch Foundation at Tsingua University in Beijing. As a Knight Wallace Fellow, Koelbl gave guest lectures in 2012 on the war in Syria and the forty-year Afghanistan crisis. As a Knight Wallace alumni Koelbl is connected and tied into top influential media outlets in the US.

The author has been travelling to Saudi Arabia since 2011. Most recently she lived in Riyadh during 2018-2019.

Page BreakKaren Elliott House (1947-) was born in Matador, Texas, population 900. She earned a BJ degree at UT Austin where she discovered the world of news reporting on the student newspaper. She was a reporter, foreign editor and finally publisher of The Wall Street Journal, where she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for her reporting on the Middle East. Her first book, "On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines--and Future," published by Knopf in 2012 is a portrait of Saudi society and culture and examines the fragility of the ruling regime. The book repesents three decades of reporting in this shrouded kingdom. She currently resides in Boston, MA.

Read an Excerpt

(Excerpt) Chapter 1: Welcome to the Salafists: How My Landlord Tries to Save Me from Satan

As a woman in Saudi Arabia, it is not as if you can’t go places. You can go wherever you like. You just never arrive anywhere.

I wander through the busy streets of Riyadh. Outside of the Bazi Baba Restaurant, known for its delicious food and fresh juices, the tables are packed with men. Women who want to eat or drink have to stand in front of a small window covered by a flap. They order and wait outside until their food is ready. Coffee shops have recently sprouted up on Tahlia Street, the capital’s most fashionable boulevard. Here, too, you will see only men. Even the fact that women can sit outside is considered progress.

In the new Saudi Arabia, change is occurring every day, often at a dizzying pace. But a society that has cultivated a certain lifestyle for many decades—actually for centuries—certainly does not shed its traditions and beliefs overnight.

During my first few days in Riyadh, I stay at a hotel, a red building adorned by ornamental arches. In the lobby, guests lounge in blue velvet armchairs with brocade trim, where golden chandeliers hang from the ceiling. Upon my arrival, the receptionist proudly shows me the pool and fitness studio. I inquire about the opening hours: Sorry, for men only. Massages are also available, but again, sorry, men only.

I retire to my darkened room. Outside, it is scorching hot. I probably won’t get used to the curtains being permanently drawn so that no one can look in. I phone Mazen, a realtor I found on the internet. My mood improves considerably when he says he can find me an apartment with windows.

Is a woman even allowed to rent property in Saudi Arabia? In theory, yes. A new law has made it possible. But in practice, it’s usually still the family who decide what a woman can and cannot do. Very few families would allow a grown woman to live alone without male protection. Likewise, single men are prohibited from renting an apartment in a building with female residents. However, as a Western woman, the local customs and family rules don’t apply to me.

One of the apartments Mazen offers me meets my criteria. It’s in the Olaya District and has plenty of light and a balcony with a view of the Al Faisaliyah Center, the second-tallest building in the city, as well as the highest, the thousand-foot Kingdom Center. It’s like having a view of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building at the same time.

My landlord, Colonel Hasan, is a former air force pilot. He lives with his wives and a lot of children on a large property at the end of the street. Colonel Hasan is without a doubt a shrewd businessman, a man of the world, and deeply religious.

One evening, I join him on his terrace just behind the entrance gate, where he receives his guests. A cook brings soup, lamb with rice, spinach, and coffee. Colonel Hasan recounts his training to become a fighter pilot in the United States. He shows me around the house and introduces me to one of his four daughters, a nineteen-year-old studying at university to be a French and English translator.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Prologue
Foreword

Welcome to the Salafists: How My Landlord Tries to Save Me from Satan
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: Time of the Bulldozer
Life under the Abaya: Black or Black?
Complex Family Affairs
Car Cowboys
The Men’s Running Group, or How Mr. Zayd Lost His Groove
Brief Escapes: The Malls
We’ll Get You: Death of a Dissident
In the North: With the Proud Shammar, Where Men Can Still Be Men
In the East: With the Shia, Where Oil and Trouble Can Be Found
Alcohol: How the Buzz Gets into the Bottle
The Crown Jewels: Oil, Power, Money
Bandar, the Black Prince: Saudi Arabia’s Secret Weapon
Seven Dates a Day Keep the Devil Away
The Royals: A Terrifyingly Nice Family
The Faustian Pact of Diriyah
The Magic Scent of Wood and Sweat
Qatar: My Brother, My Foe
The Magic of Batha
How Little Karim Tried to Solve the Yemen Crisis
Richard of Arabia: Making the Desert Bloom
Blue Gold
Forbidden Love among the Wahhabis
Brave Women
Osama bin Laden’s Bomb-Making Instructor Reveals All
Birthday with Evil Spirits
Marriage, a Straitjacket
Room for a Single Woman, Please
Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing
Liberated Art
The Beauty of Al-Ahsa through the Eyes of Abdullah
The Revolution Comes Too Late for Pious Jamila

Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Timeline of Saudi History
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
​About the Author

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Koelbl’s book is an eye-opener. If you want to understand why Saudi Arabia is a key player in all of the conflicts of the region it is essential to understand the inner workings of this country. Behind the Kingdom’s Veil offers fascinating and often personal insights into everyday life of Saudi society. The kingdom’s population has grown, oil prices have sharply declined, money is tight. The young ruler, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman races from religious tradition into modernity with the help of authoritarian reforms. He eliminated his opponents among the large royal family, deprived the religious police of its power and appeals to the young generation by opening society to a modern way of life. What is it like to live there? As a woman, as a devout Arab, as guest worker or rebel? Koelbl explains it all and takes the reader along on this most unusual journey through this unprecedented part of the kingdom’s history.”
—Tim Guldiman, Advisor to the Geneva-based Conflict Mediation Foundation HD, former Swiss Ambassador to Iran, former member of the Swiss Parliament

"Through the close-up look at Saudi people she provides, Koelbl’s book will help readers gauge the depth and breadth of the challenge facing the kingdom’s attempt to reform."
—Karen Elliott House, author of On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines—and Future, Knopf 2012

“A fascinating account of the significant changes underway in Saudi Arabia based on years of excellent reporting on the ground in the Kingdom. The complicated role of the ruthless Crown Prince who is driving the often-drastic changes is exposed. A brilliant contribution to our understanding of the transformation in Saudi Arabia, especially among women.”
—Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution and author of Kings and Presidents: Saudi Arabia and the United States Since FDR

“Koelbl offers a fascinating array of acutely well-observed glimpses into what’s changing inside the Kingdom—and what isn’t. Behind the engaging style and lively scenes lie serious questions that challenge assumptions about where the Kingdom is heading. If you want to peek into the Kingdom, reading this captivating selection of first-hand snapshots feels like watching a movie, only more informative.”
—Dr. Elisabeth Kendall, Senior Research Fellow in Arabic & Islamic Studies, Pembroke College, University of Oxford.

"For nearly a century, Saudi Arabia has played a critical role in ensuring global economic stability and promoting regional security. Yet it remains an enigma to the vast majority of Westerners. In Behind the Kingdom's Veil, Susanne Koelbl provides an invaluable street-level perspective on the Kingdom's rulers and its people, the challenges they face today economically, politically, and socially, and the reforms they need to take tomorrow to prepare their country for the demands of the 21st century. There can be no doubt, in reading Koelbl's book, that the success or failure of that transition will affect the security and prosperity of all of us."
—Ambassador Gerald Feierstein, former Ambassador to Yemen, under the Obama Administration

“In Behind the Kingdom’s Veil: Saudi Arabia Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Susanne Koelbl offers very revealing insights into the complex, opaque and fast changing society that is Saudi Arabia today. She does this through personal encounters with a wide array of Saudis from different walks of life. This book is an excellent introduction to the Kingdom.”
—Dr. Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and director for the Institute of Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East

“To be at the cusp of societal change in the midst of conflict and tension is a rare but dangerous privilege. To watch from a ring side seat as an entire society somersaults from extremism to relative moderation is not often easy or permissible. Susanne Koelbl, a well-known foreign correspondent for Der Spiegel has been at such cusps of change before – in Afghanistan, Iran and Africa – but never before has she tackled such a difficult premise of change that she faces in Saudi Arabia – a society moving from obscurantist tribalism to modernity. Koelbl writes a marvelous book on the recent developments in Saudi Arabia, a book full of analysis, anecdotes and the tensions generated by the change of geo-politics in the Arabian Gulf. Her access to Saudi officials, princes, shop-keepers and to ordinary women and men struggling with jobs, school and bringing up children is unique because Koelbl lived in Saudi Arabia for some time. This is not a book made up of parachute journalism and anecdotes - the result of a few quick visits - but the result of someone who has lived in the country and has got to know the people. A piercingly powerful book Koelbl gives us insight into not just Saudi Arabia, but how the on-going experiment could help other Muslim societies change and move forward towards modernity.”
—Ahmed Rashid, bestselling author of Taliban and Descent into Chaos

“To sharpen and deepen your understanding of Saudi Arabia and how it impacts people in diverse ways, take the time to read this book. Time well spent.”
—International Policy Digest