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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Saudi Arabia
Index
The founder of the modern state of Saudi Arabia lived much of
his early life in exile. In the end, however, he not only
recovered the territory of the first Al Saud empire, but made a
state out of it. Abd al Aziz did this by maneuvering among a
number of forces. The first was the religious fervor that Wahhabi
Islam continued to inspire. His Wahhabi army, the
Ikhwan
(brotherhood--see Glossary), for instance, represented a powerful
tool, but one that proved so difficult to control that the ruler
ultimately had to destroy it. At the same time, Abd al Aziz had
to anticipate the manner in which events in Arabia would be
viewed abroad and allow foreign powers, particularly the British,
to have their way.
Abd al Aziz established the Saudi state in three stages,
namely, by retaking Najd in 1905, defeating the Rashidi clan at
Hail in 1921, and conquering the Hijaz in 1924. In the first
phase, Abd al Aziz acted as tribal leaders had acted for
centuries: while still in Kuwait, and only in his twenties, Abd
al Aziz rallied a small force from the surrounding tribes and
began to raid areas under Rashidi control north of Riyadh. Then
in early 1902, he led a small party in a surprise attack on the
Rashidi garrison in Riyadh.
The successful attack gave Abd al Aziz a foothold in Najd.
One of his first tasks was to establish himself in Riyadh as the
Al Saud leader and the Wahhabi imam. Abd al Aziz obtained the
support of the religious establishment in Riyadh, and this
relatively swift recognition revealed the political force of
Wahhabi authority. Leadership in this tradition did not
necessarily follow age, but it respected lineage and,
particularly, action. Despite his relative youth, by taking
Riyadh Abd al Aziz had showed he possessed the qualities the
tribes valued in a leader.
From his seat in Riyadh, Abd al Aziz continued to make
agreements with some tribes and to do battle with others. He
eventually strengthened his position so that the Rashidi were
unable to evict him. By 1905 the Ottoman governor in Iraq
recognized Abd al Aziz as an Ottoman client in Najd. The Al Saud
ruler accepted Ottoman suzerainty because it improved his
political position. Nevertheless he made concurrent overtures to
the British to rid Arabia of Ottoman influence. Finally, in 1913,
and without British assistance, Abd al Aziz's armies drove the
Ottomans out of Al Hufuf in eastern Arabia and thereby
strengthened his position in Najd as well.
About this time, the Ikhwan movement began to emerge among
the beduin. The Ikhwan movement spread Wahhabi Islam among the
nomads. Stressing the same strict adherence to religious law that
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab had preached, Ikhwan beduin abandoned
their traditional way of life in the desert and move to an
agricultural settlement called a hijra (pl.,
hujar). The word hijra was related to the term for
the Prophet's emigration from Mecca to Medina in 622, conveying
the sense that one who settles in a hijra moves from a
place of unbelief to a place of belief. By moving to the
hijra the Ikhwan intended to take up a new way of life and
dedicate themselves to enforcing a rigid Islamic orthodoxy. Once
in the hijra the Ikhwan became extremely militant in
enforcing upon themselves what they believed to be correct
sunna (custom) of the Prophet, enjoining public prayer,
mosque attendance, and gender segregation and condemning music,
smoking, alcohol, and technology unknown at the time of the
Prophet. They attacked those who refused to conform to Wahhabi
interpretations of correct Islamic practice and tried to convert
Muslims by force to their version of Wahhabism.
The Ikhwan looked eagerly for the opportunity to fight nonWahhabi Muslims--and non-Muslims as well--and they took Abd al
Aziz as their leader in this. By 1915 there were more than 200
hujar in and around Najd and nearly 100,000 Ikhwan waiting
for a chance to fight. This provided Abd al Aziz with a powerful
weapon, but his situation demanded that he use it carefully. In
1915 Abd al Aziz had various goals: he wanted to take Hail from
the Al Rashid, to extend his control into the northern deserts in
present-day Syria and Jordan, and to take over the Hijaz and the
Persian Gulf coast. The British, however, had become more and
more involved in Arabia because of World War I, and Abd al Aziz
had to adjust his ambitions to British interests.
The British prevented the Al Saud from taking over much of
the gulf coast where they had established protectorates with
several ruling dynasties. They also opposed Abd al Aziz's efforts
to extend his influence beyond the Jordanian, Syrian, and Iraqi
deserts because of their own imperial interests. To the west, the
British were allied with the Sharif family who ruled the Hijaz
from their base in Mecca. The British actually encouraged the
Sharif family to revolt against the Ottomans and so open a second
front against them in World War I.
In this situation, Abd al Aziz had no choice but to focus his
attentions on Hail. This caused problems with the Ikhwan because,
unlike Mecca and Medina, Hail had no religious significance and
the Wahhabis had no particular quarrel with the Rashidi clan who
controlled it. The Sharif family in Mecca, however, was another
story. The Wahhabis had long borne a grudge against the Sharif
because of their traditional opposition to Wahhabism. The ruler,
Hussein, had made the situation worse by forbidding the Ikhwan to
make the pilgrimage and then seeking non-Muslim, British help
against the Muslim Ottomans.
In the end, Abd al Aziz was largely successful in balancing
the Ikhwan's interests with his own limitations. In 1919 the
Ikhwan completely destroyed an army that Hussein had sent against
them near the town of Turabah, which lay on the border between
the Hijaz and Najd. The Ikhwan so completely decimated the
Sharif's troops that there were no forces left to defend the
Hijaz, and the entire area cowered under the threat of a Wahhabi
attack. In spite of this, Abd al Aziz restrained the Ikhwan and
managed to direct them toward Hail, which they took easily in
1921. The Ikhwan went beyond Hail, however, and pushed into
central Transjordan where they challenged Hussein's son, Abd
Allah, whose rule the British were trying to establish after the
war. At this point, Abd al Aziz again had to rein in his troops
to avoid further problems with the British.
In the matter of the Hijaz, Abd al Aziz was rewarded for his
patience. By 1924 Hussein had grown no stronger militarily and
had been weakened politically. When the Ottoman sultan, who had
held the title of caliph, was deposed at the end of World War I,
the Sharif took the title for himself. He had hoped that the new
honor would gain him greater Muslim support, but the opposite
happened. Many Muslims were offended that Hussein should handle
Muslim tradition in such cavalier fashion and began to object
strongly to his rule. To make matters worse for Hussein, the
British were no longer willing to prop him up after the war. Abd
al Aziz's efforts to control the Ikhwan in Transjordan as well as
his accommodation of British interests in the gulf had proved to
them he could act responsibly.
The Al Saud conquest of the Hijaz had been possible since the
battle at Turabah in 1919. Abd al Aziz had been waiting for the
right moment and in 1924, he found it. The British did not
encourage him to move into Mecca and Medina, but they also gave
no indication that they would oppose him. So the Wahhabi armies
took over the area with little opposition.
Data as of December 1992
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