Transformations of contemporary religious discourse: from societal pluralism to contexts of exclusion and atonement

The path of the social ladder from the “Madina Document” to the horizon of the Saudi vision. Before the turn of the 1970s, the public space in the Arab and Islamic world witnessed a state of linguistic and civil stability in describing the social components. The official public, media and jurisprudential discourse was based on the duality of “Muslim and non-Muslim” as a flexible legal and humanitarian term that regulates the network of relations within the emerging national state. In that era, the word “infidel” remained confined to specialized jurisprudential texts as an abstract doctrinal ruling, and was not a tool for social separation or ostracism in the daily lives of citizens, before contemporary literature broke into a wave of crude exclusionary classifications that moved the language of dialogue from the shores of coexistence to platforms of movement and political infidelity. The Prophetic State and the Establishment of the First Contractual Citizenship The Messenger, peace and blessings of God be upon him, and the Rightly Guided Caliphs was built on the concept of “shared contractual citizenship and civil state authority,” an entity that was established under the “Document of Medina.” This prophetic decade changed the face of Arab history, declaring that the inhabitants of Medina were “one nation without the people.” It is a political nation that transcends tribe and sect, and even crosses religion, as the document clearly stated. The origin of the first Islamic state was based on a strong realism that adopted ethnic and religious pluralism as a fait accompli and accepted, and included immigrants, supporters, Jews, polytheists, and loyalists. Everyone is equal in rights and duties, such as defending the city and joint spending, while ensuring complete freedom of belief, limiting the authority to resolve disputes to the authority of the state, and establishingThe principle of “individual criminal responsibility”; As the newspaper decided, “No winner gains money except against himself.” This historical rooting proves that the first Sadr society was based on covenant and shared civil responsibility, and did not know sharp doctrinal division or exclusionary ostracism as long as everyone was committed to the security of society. The architecture of “contemporary ignorance” and the movement’s ideological roots. Contrary to the common concept that links the emergence of the crude language of takfir exclusively to the incidents of the late seventies, the historical and academic roots of this phenomenon go back to the middle of the twentieth century through the literature of movement and radical Islam. This intellectual engineering began with the theses of Abu al-Ala al-Mawdudi, who formulated the concept of “governance belongs to God,” considering the modern political and civil systems a clear return to “the first pre-Islamic era.” The movement theorist Sayyid Qutb seized upon these theses and included them in his book “Landstones on the Path” to create a structural shock in the dictionary of religious discourse. Qutb worked to divide the world sharply and crudely into two camps: the camp of absolute faith and the camp of pre-Islamic times (disbelief), moving the term from the circle of doctrinal difference with the religious other to the circle of infidelity of Muslim regimes and societies that accepted civil laws. From the womb of this crisis intellectual environment, secret cells of violence and takfir were born in the 1970s to practice open labeling against the state and society, bypassing the civil prophetic origin. The turning point of 1979 and the transformation of takfir into a mobilization strategy. If the Qutb and Mawdudi ideas had formed the “ideological theory” confined to the secret corridors, then the historical incidents of 1979 represented the geopolitical fuel that pushed this discourse into the open, and transformed it.To a tool for mass mobilization led by regional and international powers: - Revolutionary tide and ideological polarization: The success of the Iranian revolution in 1979 led to the introduction of a revolutionary model that charged the regional space with terms of arrogance and weakness, and adopted a strategy of delegitimizing doctrinal and political legitimacy from Arab regimes under the pretext of their subordination to the West. On the other hand, the weapon of the “doctrine of loyalty and disavowal” was activated, transforming it from its self-purifying context into a daily sorting tool that categorizes the street and violators into categories (believer, innovator, rejectist, infidel), and it became material for Friday sermons, curricula, and seminars. - Globalization of ideological combat: This coincided with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, an event that globalized combat literature under the slogan of fighting “atheist infidels,” while providing coverage and media information. They contributed to the normalization of the terminology of ideological war and their integration into popular culture. The structural shift of discourse from closed rooms to the public space. The sociological and political tracing of the path of atonement reveals a radical shift; The period of movement and polarization (from the 1950s to the mid-1970s) was characterized by secret and elite movements confined to prisons or exile, targeting the local ruler and society under the pretext of the absence of Sharia. As for the period after 1979, it jumped the discourse to the stage of geopolitical exploitation; Takfiri discourse became public, popular, supported by channels, platforms, and institutions, and spread through popular media and religious cassette tapes. The target was no longer just the local ruler, but it expanded to include the sectarian dissenter, external forces, and entire enlightenment movements, which made the word “blasphemy” a comprehensive political weapon in regional battles.Coexistence and the Kingdom’s pioneering role Restoring the spirit of coexistence and pluralism established by the Medina Document requires dismantling exclusionary discourses and rejecting the language of excommunication and sectarian separation that has disturbed the social peace for long periods. In this context, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is leading a comprehensive civilizational vision to build a future of social peace and harmony. At the local level, the Kingdom has established the concepts of comprehensive citizenship, the rule of law, combating extremist ideology, and promoting the values of tolerance and moderation. As for the regional and international levels, Saudi Arabia has emerged as a force supporting stability and a pivotal center for dialogue between religions and cultures, by launching influential initiatives and sponsoring international conferences and global institutions dedicated to coexistence, in a way that enhances the values of global peace and restores religious and humanitarian discourse its balance and tolerance away from ideologies of militancy and exclusion. Conclusion and outlook: From demolishing Bridges to building civilizational peace: Extrapolating recent history proves that the Iranian revolution and the conflicts of the late 1970s did not invent the idea of takfir from scratch, but rather found it formulated and rooted in advance in the texts of movement theorists, and the regional conflicts provided it with the ideal environment for it to emerge from the secret margins to the forefront of media and popular discourse, replacing the tolerance of the language of coexistence that historically expanded for “Muslim and non-Muslim” with a crude dictionary of exclusion and doctrinal betrayal. Today, It is confirmed that returning to the essence of the civil state and shared national responsibility, and establishing the pillars of citizenship and moderation, are the only way to overcome the effects of this crisis era, and establish a humanitarian horizon that accommodates all and in which human dignity and peace are preserved.Communities.