“Whenever we think of him, we think he’s something holy,” said al-Ghamdi, her almost ­awestruck eyes peeking out from the slit in her full-face niqab.

Her reverence for MBS, as the crown prince is known, has not been diminished by the international outrage over his rash of jailings of political enemies, nor by the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post…

“It is difficult to do everything perfectly 100 percent of the time,” said Khalid Tamimy, 42, a human resources specialist visiting the mall with his wife and three young children.

He said he was uncertain of the details of the Khashoggi case. Saudi media, largely controlled by the state, present a pro-government version of events dramatically at odds with what the rest of world’s media is reporting.