The Grand Mufti's Fatwa and the Return of Religious Legitimation in Middle East Conflict

<p>Saudi Arabia&#39;s Grand Mufti has explicitly sanctified the campaign against the Houthis as an &quot;act of devotion,&quot; days after Riyadh, Islamabad and Ankara mobilized under their new Mecca/Makkah mutual-defense pact. This is a genuinely under-covered angle: a modern, technocratic Gulf state reaching for classical religious legitimation language exactly when it needs Pakistani and Turkish publics — not just their governments — to accept the costs of a wider war. </p><p>For more content please follow on <a href="https://iqulture.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Substack</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/iqulture_talking" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Instagram</a>.</p>