The “Muslim Vatican”? How the Mecca Defense Pact Could Redefine the Middle East

By Dr. Najwa AlSaeed

AI image of the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan

This summer, while travelling through Italy, I spent a day in Vatican City. Standing in St Peter’s Square, surrounded by pilgrims from every continent, I began to wonder whether Saudi Arabia could one day follow a comparable path: separating the holy cities of Mecca and Medina institutionally from the political apparatus of the state, much as the Vatican ultimately became sovereign and distinct from Italy.

The historical parallel is imperfect, but illuminating. Italian unification ended the pope’s territorial rule over the Papal States in 1870, when Italian forces took Rome. That created the long-running “Roman Question”: the pope refused to recognise the new Italian state and considered himself a “prisoner in the Vatican.” The dispute was resolved in 1929 through the Lateran Treaty, which created the independent Vatican City State and defined the legal relationship between Italy and the Holy See. That relationship was revised in 1984, when a new concordat ended Catholicism’s status as Italy’s official state religion.

The result was not a complete separation of religion and public life. It was, however, a durable institutional distinction between a sovereign spiritual authority and a modern nation-state. That history offers a provocative lens through which to view current debates in the Middle East—especially after Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement in Islam’s holiest city.

Why Mecca matters: the symbolism of political Islam

One of the most significant yet underexamined aspects of the Mecca Agreement is where it was signed: not Riyadh, Ankara or Islamabad, but Mecca. The choice was not incidental. The official statement itself invokes both “Islamic solidarity” and shared strategic interests.

By anchoring the pact in Islam’s holiest city, the signatories gave a conventional security arrangement a powerful religious frame. That symbolism makes it easier for Islamist movements and other advocates of transnational Islamic solidarity to associate the agreement with their wider political vision, particularly on Palestine and Al-Aqsa.

For such actors, the agreement can be presented as more than a defence pact. It can be cast as evidence that Muslim states are able to coordinate security and strategy under the banner of Islamic unity. That narrative resonates with constituencies that favour an explicitly Islamic framework for regional cooperation—one that reaches beyond the Westphalian state system and places religious identity closer to the centre of political legitimacy.

Yet symbolism should not be mistaken for proof of intent. As a recent Mideast Journal analysis of the Saudi-Pakistani-Turkish pact notes, signing an agreement in Mecca gives it Muslim symbolism but does not automatically make it a religious alliance. The tension between those two interpretations is precisely what makes the location so consequential.

A departure from the “Atatürk of Saudi Arabia” narrative?

This development complicates what many observers initially expected from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Vision 2030. Some imagined that he might become an “Atatürk of Saudi Arabia,” leading the country towards greater secularisation, modernisation and separation between religious and political authority.

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 programme has undeniably produced major social and economic changes, including the expansion of entertainment and tourism and greater participation by women in public life. But the Mecca Agreement is a reminder that the kingdom’s strategic identity remains inseparable from its role as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

That does not necessarily mean Saudi Arabia is reversing its reforms or embracing political Islam. It does mean that modernisation and religious symbolism are advancing simultaneously. The central question is whether the state can continue to use sacred legitimacy without further politicising the religious identity it claims to protect.

The transformative potential of separating Mecca and Medina

Now imagine a different course: Saudi Arabia establishes for Mecca and Medina an autonomous or internationally guaranteed status that is, in limited institutional respects, comparable to the Vatican’s relationship with Italy.

The analogy has obvious limits. Mecca and Medina are home to large populations, embedded in Saudi territory and infrastructure, and central to the religious lives of nearly two billion Muslims. Nor does Islam have a pope or a single clerical hierarchy that could assume sovereignty over them. Any such arrangement would therefore require a model of governance entirely different from that of Vatican City.

Even so, separating custodianship of the holy cities from ordinary state power would have enormous symbolic and political consequences—not only for Saudi citizens, but for the entire Muslim world. It would signal a shift towards a more civic conception of the Saudi state, in which sacred authority is institutionally distinct from political rule.

It could also redefine the kingdom’s role: from a state that derives political legitimacy from exclusive custodianship into a guardian of sacred spaces operating through a more neutral and broadly representative mandate. In theory, that could reduce the use of the holy cities as instruments of national power, ease some sectarian tensions and create space for a more pluralistic regional order.

The Mecca Agreement appears, at least symbolically, to point in the opposite direction. Instead of distancing sacred authority from geopolitics, it brings a collective-defence commitment into the spiritual heart of the Muslim world.

Geopolitical implications: burden-sharing or a new order?

The debate over the Mecca Defense Pact reflects deep uncertainty about its long-term significance. Some Western scholars and policymakers interpret it as burden-sharing that complements rather than replaces the US-led security architecture. On this reading, regional partners assume more responsibility for deterrence while Washington continues to provide high-end capabilities and strategic backing.

This interpretation has merit. Türkiye is a NATO member, while Saudi Arabia and Pakistan retain longstanding security relationships with the United States. The pact’s collective-defence language may echo NATO’s Article 5, but the agreement does not publicly establish NATO-style integrated command, common doctrine or automatic military action.

Others see the pact as a possible foundation for a different regional order. A more ideological argument, advanced in FrontPage Magazine and similar commentary, portrays it as part of a global “Red-Green Alliance”: a convergence of Islamist movements and anti-Western powers.

That interpretation points to Pakistan’s close economic and strategic relationship with China, Saudi Arabia’s expanding ties with Beijing, and Türkiye’s increasingly independent foreign policy under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It also highlights Erdoğan’s support for Hamas and Ankara’s attempt to position itself as a leading champion of the Palestinian cause.

But this argument should be treated as a contested interpretation, not a settled description of the pact. The agreement’s three members have distinct interests, alliances and threat perceptions. Their cooperation may challenge aspects of US influence without forming a coherent anti-Western bloc.

Other analysts warn that the pact could weaken rather than strengthen Gulf security if it produces a parallel architecture with no clear relationship to the Gulf Cooperation Council or existing Western-backed arrangements. Gulf states already maintain extensive defence ties with the United States, France, Britain and other partners. The real question is not whether another agreement exists, but what makes this one operationally different.

Three questions dominate the debate:

1. Why do Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan need a new collective-defence arrangement when they do not publicly identify a common enemy?

2. What is the agreement designed to deter, and what would qualify as an attack on one of its members?

3. How will a Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani framework fit into the existing GCC and US-led security architecture?

For now, the pact’s symbolism may be more developed than its publicly disclosed mechanisms. Yet the combination of Saudi Arabia’s regional weight, Türkiye’s NATO membership and defence industry, and Pakistan’s nuclear status makes the agreement strategically significant even before its operational details are clear.

A question the Middle East cannot ignore

The Mecca Agreement forces the region to ask whether it is a defensive arrangement that complements the existing order or the beginning of a fundamentally different security and political architecture.

If it becomes the latter, it could accelerate a shift away from exclusive reliance on the United States and towards a more multipolar, ideologically charged system. If it remains the former, it may simply add another layer to an increasingly complex web of overlapping alliances—one intended to strengthen deterrence without replacing existing guarantees.

What is already clear is that the decision to sign the pact in Mecca gave it a weight that goes beyond its legal text. Whether that symbolism produces a lasting transformation—or remains a religious frame around a pragmatic defence agreement—will depend on how the signatories balance identity, power and strategic necessity.

But the uncomfortable question remains: if the Mecca Agreement is merely an exercise in burden-sharing, why sign it in Islam’s holiest city? And if it is the seed of a new order, who will shape its growth—the states that signed it, or the ideologies that claim it?

Dr. Najwa AlSaeed is an assistant professor at City University Ajman and a writer and researcher whose work appears in several prominent publications. She can be contacted at a.najwa@cu.ac.ae