From Clerical Authority to Ethical Administration: The Bureaucratization of Islam in Saudi Arabia After 2016

This paper discusses the bureaucratization of Islam in Saudi Arabia after 2016 and explores how the kingdom has recast clerical power into an administrative structure that regulates religious, legal, and ethical living. It examines the debate on the centralization and codification of religious organizations, the high art of using fatwas as a policy tool, and the creation of ethical beings that support the state’s objectives, based on recent scholarship, legal reforms, and institutional analyses. The paper illustrates that Saudi Arabian reforms are not just another iteration of traditional secularization binaries and Islamism; instead, it reveals the integration of Islamic precepts within the administrative framework to ensure social adherence, civic responsibility, and modernization. Through a critical approach to institutional, legal, and moral aspects of governance, the study demonstrates how the state exercises control over religious authority to maintain normative legitimacy. This paper argues that moral management, uniform law, and centralized control represent a new form of Islamic governance, offering a perspective on the relationship between religion, bureaucracy, and social change in modern Muslim-majority states.