MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Saudi Arabia
Index
Abd al Aziz ibn Abd ar Rahman Al Saud, founder of Saudi
Arabia
ABD AL AZIZ ibn Abd ar Rahman Al Saud rose to prominence in
the Arabian Peninsula in the early twentieth century. He belonged
to the Saud family (the Al Saud), who had controlled most of
Arabia during the nineteenth century. By the time of Abd al Aziz,
however, the rival Al Rashid family forced the Al Saud into exile
in Kuwait. Thus, it was from Kuwait that Abd al Aziz began the
campaign to restore his family to political power. First, he
recaptured Najd, a mostly desert region in the approximate center
of the peninsula and the traditional homeland of the Al Saud.
During the mid-1920s, Abd al Aziz's armies had captured the
Islamic shrine cities of Mecca and Medina. In 1932, he declared
that the area under his control would be known as the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia.
At first Abd al Aziz's realm was a very poor one. It was a
desert kingdom with few known natural resources and a largely
uneducated population. There were few cities and virtually no
industry. Although the shrines at Mecca and Medina earned income
from the Muslim pilgrims who visited them every year, this
revenue was insufficient to lift the rest of the kingdom out of
its near subsistence level.
All this changed, however, when United States geologists
discovered oil in the kingdom during the 1930s. Saudi Arabia's
exploitation of its oil resources transformed the country into a
nation synonymous with great wealth. Wealth brought with it
enormous material and social change--so much change that Saudi
Arabia became an exaggerated paradigm of possibilities for
development in the Third World. The transformation was
staggering: in a few years the Saudis had gone from herding
camels to moving billions of dollars around the world with
electronic transfers.
Perhaps because of the great upheaval of the last half
century, history and origins were very important to Saudi Arabia.
Although the country owed its prominence to modern economic
realities, Saudis tended to view life in more traditional terms.
The state in 1992 remained organized largely along tribal lines.
The Muslim religion continued to be a vital element in Saudi
statecraft. Moreover, many Muslims considered the form of Islam
practiced most widely in Saudi Arabia,
Wahhabi (see Glossary)
Islam, to be reactionary because it sought its inspiration from
the past.
The tendency to draw inspiration from the past was an
essential part of the Saudi state. The historical parallels
between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its Arab and Islamic past
were striking. In conquering Arabia, for instance, Abd al Aziz
brought together the region's nomadic tribes in much the same way
that his great-grandfather, Muhammad ibn Saud, had done a century
earlier.
Data as of December 1992
|
|