Watan-In a stunning religious and social shockwave, Western and Gulf media outlets have reported that Saudi Arabia is officially preparing to lift its long-standing ban on alcohol, a restriction in place since the kingdom’s founding. The changes will apply to select tourist zones, most notably the NEOM megacity and luxury Red Sea coastal resorts.
According to The Sun (UK), Riyadh is actively working to establish designated “alcohol consumption areas” for foreign tourists and expatriates, as part of its ambitious Vision 2030 economic reform plan and its bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
While framed in official rhetoric as a “purely commercial and tourism-driven decision”, the move has sparked a storm of outrage across social media, with many activists and citizens denouncing it as a religious retreat and an erosion of the Kingdom’s Islamic identity, once proudly presented as the spiritual heartland of Muslims and home of the Two Holy Mosques.
A Historic Shift from Prohibition to Permission
The shift from criminalizing alcohol to partially licensing it coincides with a notable absence of Saudi religious scholars and the silence of the Council of Senior Scholars, which, in previous years, issued firm fatwas labeling alcohol “the mother of all evils.”
The irony lies in the regime’s prior steps to weaken the religious police (the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue) and replace them with entertainment-focused ministries that promote “openness and fun.” These changes have been accompanied by the arrest of clerics and scholars critical of the new policies and a media narrative framing the shift as a “civilizational leap forward.”
An Identity in Question
Many now wonder:
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Is legalizing alcohol the start of Saudi Arabia abandoning its religious legacy?
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Is NEOM transforming from a “city of the future” into a “Middle Eastern Las Vegas”?
Both Saudis and the broader Muslim world are asking difficult questions: Where is Vision 2030 taking us?
Is this truly development, or is it an attempt to engineer a new identity by severing ties with the past—all in the name of “progress”?
As Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pushes forward with reforms under Vision 2030, the divergence between economic modernization and religious tradition appears to be deepening—raising profound concerns about the future identity of Saudi Arabia.
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