The Saudis

There are currently unconfirmed reports that King Faud of Saudi Arabia is dead. This is not as momentous as it seems since he's effectively been out of power for several years.

This leads me to wonder: How much of modern Islam is just Saudi quirks?

In comparison, if you gave one of the more radical environmental groups, say Earth First, 200 billion dollars a year starting in 1985 to spend on the "Movement" what would environmentalism be like now? I would imagine it would be more extreme, and much, much weirder since there would be no idea competition or moderating influences.