9:06:00 PM
Riwayat tentang Ashhabu Rayati Suud yang sampai pada darjat hasan adalah sebagaimana yang diriwayatkan oleh sahabat Tsauban :
“Akan berperang tiga orang di sisi perbendaharaanmu. Mereka semua adalah putera khalifah. Tetapi tak seorang pun di antara mereka yang berhasil menguasainya. Kemudian muncullah bendera-bendera hitam dari arah timur, lantas mereka membunuh kamu dengan suatu pembunuhan yang belum pernah dialami oleh kaum sebelummu.” Kemudian beliau saw menyebutkan sesuatu yang aku tidak hafal, lalu bersabda: “Maka jika kamu melihatnya, berbai’atlah walaupun dengan merangkak di alas salju, karena dia adalah khalifah Allah Al-Mahdi.
[Sunan Ibnu Majah, Kitabul Fitan Bab Khurujil Mahdi 2: 1467: Mustadrak Al-Hakim 4: 463-464. Dan dia berkata, “Ini adalah hadits shahih menurut syarat Syaikhain.” (An-Nihayah fit Firan 1:29 dengan tahqiq DR. Thana Zaini).]
Next up in the Middle East mess? Saudi Arabia’s succession fight
By ,
From afar, the kingdom of Saudi
Arabia appears immune from the turmoil and uncertainty engulfing nations
such as Syria, Egypt and Libya. But rather than being an oasis of stability in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is nearing its own crisis point.
The elderly sons of Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdul Aziz ibn
Saud, who have ruled sequentially since his death in 1953, are
approaching the end of the line. And as that happens, the future of this
kingdom on which the world depends for oil has never been more
precarious.
King Abdullah is nearly 90 and ailing. Crown Prince Salman is 76. The
royal family can continue to pass the monarchy to remaining brothers and
half-brothers, but even the youngest of those is already in his late
60s. None is likely to have the acumen and energy — or even the time —
to usher in an era of reform to solve the kingdom’s mounting problems:
poor education, high unemployment, a corrupt bureaucracy, a sclerotic
economy and an increasingly young and frustrated society. These domestic
challenges are compounded by external ones including Middle East
turmoil, the nuclear ambition of the radical regime in Iran and a
fraying alliance with the United States.
The three historic pillars of Saudi stability are cracking. Massive
oil revenue, which has bought public passivity, is threatened by peaked
production and sharply increased domestic energy consumption. A
supportive Wahhabi Islamic establishment that bestowed legitimacy on the
House of Saud is increasingly fractious and is losing public
credibility. And now, the royal family is in danger of division as it is
forced to confront generational succession.
Whether by the choice
of the royal family sooner, or by the will of Allah a bit later, the
crown is going to pass to the new generation. This entails risk as well
as opportunity.
The opportunity is obvious. In theory at least, a
new-generation royal — educated, more open-minded and above all more
energetic — could begin to tackle the country’s manifold problems by
relaxing political and economic controls and by providing more efficient
and accountable government to relieve the frustrations of a sullen
populace.
Given the stakes involved, however, the risk is that the diffuse and
divided royal family will dither or, worse yet, splinter. The issue is
not merely which new prince would wear the crown, but the fear among the
royals that his branch of the family would pass it on to its sons and
grandsons in perpetuity, precluding other branches from ever ruling
again.
For nearly 60 years, the crown has passed by family consensus from one
brother to the next, occasionally skipping one deemed incapable or
unsuitable for leadership, but otherwise following the tradition of
seniority. Whoever reigned might favor his sons with particularly plum
jobs, but he understood that the crown would go next not to his sons but
to his brothers. It is a system unlike that of any other monarchy. But
in a kingdom where princes often marry multiple wives and thus produce
dozens of progeny each — now adding up to nearly 7,000 princes — it is a
system that has largely worked.
Given the royal family’s aversion to risk, perpetuation of the status
quo — several more aged and infirm brothers ascending to the throne —
is the most likely choice of senior Saud royals. But what may seem safe
to them is dangerous for the country. Saudi Arabia these days is all too
reminiscent of the dying decade of the Soviet Union, during which one
decrepit leader succeeded another, from Leonid Brezhnev to Yuri Andropov
to Konstantin Chernenko, before a younger and more open-minded Mikhail
Gorbachev arrived too late to save a stagnant society and economy. As
President Ronald Reagan famously said of those old Soviet leaders, and
as the next U.S. president may say of the Saudis, “They keep dying on
me.”
In Saudi Arabia, there are some potential Gorbachevs — or
better — among the grandsons of the founder. Ten of the 13provincial
governors are grandsons, all with administrative experience, some with
genuine talent and almost all sons of kings. Similarly, there are
grandsons holding prominent positions in some key Saudi ministries. A
short list of third-generation princes who could be king includes Khalid
al-Faisal, governor of Mecca and son of the respected late King Faisal;
Muhammad bin Fahd, governor of the oil-producing Eastern Province and
son of the late King Fahd; Khalid bin Sultan, deputy minister of defense
and son of the late Crown Prince Sultan; and Muhammad bin Nayef, deputy
minister of interior for security and son of the late Crown Prince
Nayef.
How would a new-generation monarch be selected? Recognizing how large
and divided the royal family had become, in 2006 King Abdullah
established an Allegiance Council comprising each of his remaining
brothers or, in the case of deceased brothers, each one’s eldest son.
This council of 35 princes is intended to represent the entire Saud
family in the selection of a crown prince to succeed the one who
automatically ascends to the throne upon Abdullah’s death. Each member
of the council would have one vote; in a country that has no democracy,
it would at least be a form of family democracy. Abdullah, who exempted
selection of his own successor from this process, already is on his
third crown prince, each of whom he personally chose and two of whom
died. As a result, the council has met only once: at its formation, when
it swore fealty to king and country. Many Saudis fear that the
Allegiance Council process will die with King Abdullah — and with it the
hope of a smooth generational succession.
Family feuds are not an
idle worry. The Sauds have ruled Arabia on and off for more than 250
years. Infighting among several brothers ended their rule in 1891 and
forced into exile a teenage Abdul Aziz, who later returned and founded
the current kingdom. On his deathbed in 1953, the long-reigning Abdul
Aziz forced his two eldest sons, Saud and Faisal, to swear to avoid a
repetition of this history.
The admonition fell on deaf ears. The two brothers quickly began
quarreling, and their feud continued for more than a decade before
Faisal, with the backing of family members and religious leaders, forced
his elder brother into exile.
Aware of this history, Saudis can
only watch and wait, exerting no influence on succession decisions but
aware that rivalries could break out and a royal house divided might not
stand.
Saudi society now bears little resemblance to the passive
populace of even a decade ago. Thanks to the Internet, Saudis know about
life inside their kingdom and in the wider world, and they resent the
disparities they see. Fully 60 percent of Saudis are under 20 years old.
They know that 40 percent of Saudis live in poverty; 70 percent can’t
afford to own a home; and 90 percent of workers in the private sector
are foreigners, even while unemployment among 20- to 24-year-olds is
nearly 40 percent. Saudi men won’t take the lower-skilled jobs for which
they are qualified, and even well-educated Saudi women are not allowed
to take jobs for which they are qualified.
Most ordinary Saudis
aren’t demanding democracy, but merely a more efficient government and a
more equitable distribution of the oil riches that they believe belong
to the country, not just to the royal family. It is far from certain
that a ruler from the new generation could meet these demands, however
modest they may seem. What is more certain is that the diminishing line
of elderly brothers cannot.
So for the foreseeable future, the
royal Saudi 747, richly appointed but mechanically flawed, flies on, its
cockpit crowded with geriatric pilots. The plane is losing altitude and
gradually running out of fuel. On board, first class is crowded with
princely passengers, while frustrated Saudi citizens sit crammed in
economy. Among them are Islamic fundamentalists who want to turn the
plane around, as well as terrorists who aim to hijack it to a
destination unknown. Somewhere on board there may be a competent new
flight team that could land the plane safely, but the prospects of a
capable pilot getting a chance at the controls seems slim. And so the
747 remains in the sky, perhaps to be hijacked or ultimately to crash.
