Saudi Power Rose From Interior Nejd

David Commins explains that modern Saudi Arabia was built from Nejd—the central, less cosmopolitan heartland tied to Wahhabism—while coastal Hejaz, though richer and more worldly, remained under outside Muslim empires and lacked autonomous power bases. The religious establishment was recruited largely from Nejd after older Sunni traditions there were purged, giving the interior ideological cohesion and state‑building leverage. — This reframes Middle Eastern state formation by showing how interior ideological cores can outcompete cosmopolitan coasts when coasts are externally integrated, informing analyses of regime stability and reform prospects.