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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Saudi Arabia
Index
Door of Al Mismak Palace, Riyadh, site of Abd al Aziz's
attack in 1902 that began his recovery of the kingdom
Courtesy Saudi Arabian Information Office
The capture of the Hijaz complicated the basis of Abd al
Aziz's authority. The Al Saud ruler was fundamentally a
traditional Arab clan leader who held the loyalty of various
tribes because of his spectacular successes. But Abd al Aziz was
also a Wahhabi imam who held the intense loyalty of the Ikhwan.
When he became the ruler of Mecca and Medina as well, Abd al Aziz
took on the responsibilities of Khadim al Haramayn (servant of
the two shrines) and so assumed an important position in the
wider Muslim world. Finally, by maintaining his authority under
pressure from the Western powers, Abd al Aziz had become the only
truly independent Arab leader after World War I. Thus, he had a
role to play in Arab politics as well.
In establishing his state, Abd al Aziz had to consider the
various constituencies that he served. He made some effort to
gain world Muslim approval before he moved into the Hijaz. Once
the Hijaz was under his control, he submitted to the world Muslim
community, even if only rhetorically, the question of how the
area should be ruled. When he received no response, he held an
informal referendum in which the notables of the Hijaz chose him
as their king. In the Hijaz, Abd al Aziz restrained the more
fanatical of his Wahhabi followers and eventually won the support
of the local religious authorities, or ulama.
Other Muslim countries were not at the time in a position to
challenge Abd al Aziz. Most of the states lived under foreign
rule or mandate, and two of the countries that did not, Iran and
Turkey, were in the midst of secular reforms.
Abd al Aziz had problems at home, however. The first and most
serious of these was the Ikhwan. The Ikhwan had no tolerance for
the concessions to life in the twentieth century that Abd al Aziz
was forced to make. They objected to machines, particularly those
used for communication, such as the telegraph, as well as to the
increasing presence of non-Muslim foreigners in the country. They
also continued to object to some of the practices of non-Wahhabi
Muslims.
Most important, the Ikhwan remained eager to force their
message on whomever did not accept it. This led them to attack
non-Wahhabi Muslims, and sometimes Wahhabi Muslims as well,
within Saudi Arabia and to push beyond its borders into Iraq.
Whereas the first sort of attack challenged Abd al Aziz's
authority, the second caused him problems with the British, who
would not tolerate the violation of borders that they had set up
after World War I. It was largely because of this second concern
that Abd al Aziz found himself obliged to take on the Ikhwan
militarily. When the Wahhabi forces continued to ignore his
authority, he waged a pitched battle and defeated them in 1929.
The way that Abd al Aziz put down the Ikhwan demonstrated his
ability to assemble a domestic constituency. Throughout their
history, the Al Saud had no standing army; when the family had a
military objective it had simply assembled coalitions of tribes
and towns, or such groups as the Ikhwan. In facing the Ikhwan Abd
al Aziz did the same thing. He went out into the country and made
his case in what resembled large and small town meetings. He
talked not only to the people who would be fighting with him, but
also to the religious authorities, seeking their advice and
approval. If the ruler wished to battle the Ikhwan, could this be
sanctioned by Islam? Or might the Ikhwan's demand to continue
their jihad have greater justification?
In the late 1920s the majority sided with Abd al Aziz,
setting the foundation of the modern state. The ruler built on
this foundation by taking into account the interests of various
groups. He continued to consult the ulama and, if he disagreed
with them, to work to change their opinion. The best example was
the battle Abd al Aziz fought to set up radio communications.
Like the Ikhwan, the ulama first opposed radio as a suspect
modern innovation for which there was no basis in the time of the
Prophet. Only when Abd al Aziz demonstrated that the radio could
be used to broadcast the Quran did the ulama give it their
approval.
Abd al Aziz was careful not to make more enemies than
necessary--and he tried to make those enemies he had into
friends. One can see this clearly in his handling of his two
rivals from World War I, the Rashidi of Hail and the Sharif of
Mecca. After conquering Hail, Abd al Aziz reestablished the
marriage links that his ancestor, Turki, had first forged between
the two families by marrying three of the Rashidi widows into his
family. He made a similar effort to gain the favor of the
Hashimites after taking the Hijaz. Rather than expelling the
family as a future threat, Abd al Aziz gave some of its members
large tracts of land, enabling them to stay in the area and
prosper.
Abd al Aziz also assured himself the continued loyalty of
those who had been allied with him by granting them what favors
he could. This was difficult, however, because the new Saudi
kingdom had little money in its first twenty years. Najd had
never been prosperous, and during the previous century its
leaders had become almost dependent on the British to help them
through recurring periods of famine. The British had been helpful
throughout World War I, but when the political situation in
Arabia stabilized, they became less inclined to support Abd al
Aziz.
The conquest of the Hijaz and the pilgrimage revenues that
went with it made Abd al Aziz considerably better off. With the
recession in the 1920s and 1930s, however, pilgrimage traffic
dropped, and Saudi income from the pilgrimage was reduced by more
than half. Accordingly, there was little that Abd al Aziz could
do in the 1920s and 1930s except to dole out what money he had in
the traditional tribal manner. As many as 2,000 people would eat
daily at Abd al Aziz's table, but this was the extent of the
services that his government could provide.
The event that was to change all this was the discovery of
massive oil reserves in the kingdom. Oil was first found on the
Persian side of the Gulf before World War I and then in Bahrain
shortly afterward. Geologists suspected that they would find oil
in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia as well; so in the early
1930s, British and United States companies competed for the
rights to develop that oil. The firm, Standard Oil of California
(Socal), won and struck small pockets of oil fairly quickly. By
the end of the decade, Socal discovered enormous deposits that
were close to the surface and thus inexpensive to extract
(see Brief History
, ch. 3).
Mountain outcropping in the southwest
Courtesy Aramco World
Beduin with their flocks and traditional tents
Courtesy Aramco World
Data as of December 1992
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