While Saudi Arabia and the Islamic State (IS) are both based on pan-Islamic ideology, the former feels threatened by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s efforts to create a multi-ethnic military force where local culture, language and ethnicity are submerged in one Islamic identity and polity.

Source: www.al-monitor.com

A mish-mash of ideas here and there, but some powerful thoughts on the old constructs and the re-constructing of identities in the region. 

"The transnational connections at the heart of the caliphate in its ancient and contemporary IS aberration promise to unite territories and populations that had been divided by colonial powers and later cherished by post-colonial states. Even in those Arab republics that were allegedly nationalistic promising to unite all Arabs, such as Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, we find that populist leaders retained the rhetoric of unity against developing strong local nationalism. Those nationalistic leaders cherished and guarded the famous Sykes-Picot borders despite that they continued to denounce them in every inflammatory nationalistic speech they delivered to their enchanted audiences. Their history research centers celebrated local nationalism despite their commitment to pan-Arab variants of the same thing."

See on Scoop.it – Cultures, Identity and Constructs