In 2018, not long after Mohammed bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s crown prince with an unabashed reformist agenda, social media users circulated claims that Saudi Arabia was erecting a “white palace” on a hill overlooking Medina, in the very place where Muslims believe a false messiah (al-Dajjal) will emerge one day. Though experts dismissed the idea that the palace would be the Dajjal’s fortress, puritanical Saudis not comfortable with Vision 2030’s calls for moderation and tolerance spread this conspiracy theory.
In online environments, eschatology no longer disseminates merely as belief but instead has political overtones. Influential online fundamentalists and hardline clerics have significant numbers of followers. Many opponents to modernization and reform market Vision 2030 as fulfilling apocalyptic revelations. However, state-sponsored social media networks sought to counter such conspiracies online.
As reactionaries and conservatives seek to brake or reverse Saudi reforms, many online interpretations about apocalyptic discourse circulate.
The online battle ongoing in Saudi Arabia replicates throughout the Persian Gulf. During the 2017-18 Arab Quartet blockade, coordinated Twitter networks amplified sensational religious claims. Washington’s Brookings Institution, at the time funded by Qatari largesse, described how “massive disinformation efforts” sought to delegitimize both Qatar and Turkey against the backdrop of the 2017 Arab Quartet blockade. Iran, too, disseminated “disinformation through the use of fake websites and automated Twitter accounts” to delegitimize Saudi Arabia. Repetition builds credibility among intended audiences.
As reactionaries and conservatives seek to brake or reverse Saudi reforms, many online interpretations about apocalyptic discourse circulate, spreading misinformation for political aims. Such “Dajjal’s palace” narratives seek to lower the cost of opposition by replacing policy critique with moral absolutes. By casting politics as cosmic struggle, these narratives remove the need for evidence, leadership, or policy alternatives. First, the Dajjal’s palace conspiracy delegitimizes reform by equating it with devilish schemes. Traditional clerics can invoke it as a fatwa of resistance: Anyone supporting the new projects is aiding the Dajjal. Second, it rallies Islamists across borders. The Salafi jihadist or conservative Salafi critics of Riyadh all share a mistrust of the Saudi state’s secularizing agenda. Third, it shifts debate from political to spiritual. Rather than discuss economics or women’s rights, debates turn on prophecy and faith. The delegitimization narrative thus fosters cynicism toward official messaging: Followers may start to dismiss any positive news out of Riyadh as cover for eschatological evil. As Brookings scholar Daniel Byman notes, a deluge of such content makes “the outlandish seem believable,” undermining trust in all information.
Iran’s clerical regime supports media outlets in Arabic, Persian, and English that report supposed Saudi “violations” of sacred law.
Iran and Turkey, Saudi Arabia’s two greatest adversaries, exploit religious symbolism against it. Iran’s clerical regime supports media outlets in Arabic, Persian, and English that report supposed Saudi “violations” of sacred law. These outlets co-opt apocalyptic themes when convenient, and have flooded social media with anti-Saudi narratives under the mantle of defending Islam. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has championed Islamist causes, promoted the Muslim Brotherhood, and sought ideological influence in the Persian Gulf. Ankara and Doha provided sympathetic platforms to critics of Riyadh, including Jamal Khashoggi, a former intelligence officer turned Muslim Brotherhood activist and writer. After years of Saudi support, the MuslimBrotherhood itself has turned on the kingdom. Disaffected Islamists consider the Saudi regime to be apostate; they are thus receptive to any digital whisper of Dajjal. Delegitimization narratives spill across borders—they are tools in the Saudi-Iranian sectarian conflict, the Saudi-Turkish/Qatari power struggle, and the Riyadh-Muslim Brotherhood ideological battle.
“Dajjal’s palace” is more of a mobilizing frame than an issue of belief that looks at reform as blasphemy and treason. Digital platforms have turned eschatology into a scalable instrument of political opposition.
Within the West, there is growing frustration at Mohammed bin Salman’s reluctance to join the Abraham Accords, even as he pursues a generational transformation in the Saudi mindset. His slow pace is deliberate, however, because it is not Western ire that he most fears but, rather, the last-ditch effort by religious reactionaries to depict him as a deceiver seeking to subvert Islam.
