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Totally wouldn't dispute their support of Wahhabism, but can you elaborate on how Wahhabism helps them retain power? I've never really got that argument b/c it doesn't seem like there are moderate subversive elements. The subversive element seem to be all from the more extreme end.

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The royal family is really lacking in the pedigree department. They've married into the right families now, but originally the Sauds were a bunch of hicks. They allied themselves with religious outsiders on the understanding that the priests would legitimize the Saudis (vs. the much better pedigreed Hashemites [1] while the Saudis would give the priests preeminence over their rivals.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashemites

The royal family has an alliance with the clergy and basically the clergy helps the royal family maintain the support of the people while the royal family allows the clergy to spread Salafi (the nice way to say someone is a follower of Wahhabism) beliefs without much hinderance.

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