Ibn Saud

Early life and family origins

The Al Saud family had been a power in central Arabia for the previous 130 years. Under the influence and inspiration of Wahhabism, the Saudis had previously attempted to control much of the Arabian Peninsula in the form of the Emirate of Diriyah, the first Saudi state, until its destruction by an Ottoman army in the Ottoman–Wahhabi war in the early nineteenth century.

Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman, also known as Ibn Saud, was born on 15 January 1876 in Riyadh.{{cite book|title=Government Leaders, Military Rulers, and Political Activists|year=2001 |access-date=23 January 2021|format=Master's Project}} Ibn Saud was taught Quran by Abdullah Al Kharji in Riyadh.{{cite thesis

Exile and recapture of Riyadh

In 1891, the House of Saud's long-term regional rivals led by Muhammad bin Abdullah Al Rashid conquered Riyadh. Ibn Saud was 15 at the time.{{cite web|author=Wallace Stegner|title=Discovery! The Search for Arabian Oil|url=http://selwapress.com/images/rg_disco.pdf

On 14 November 1901 Ibn Saud and some relatives, including his half-brother Muhammad and several cousins (amongst them Abdullah bin Jiluwi), set out on a raiding expedition into the Nejd, targeting mainly tribes associated with the Rashidis. On 12 December they reached Al Ahsa and then proceeded south towards the Empty Quarter with the support from various tribes. Upon this Abdulaziz Al Rashid sent messages to Qatari ruler Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani and to the Ottoman governor of Baghdad asking their help to stop Ibn Saud's raids on the tribes loyal to Al Rashid. These events led to a decrease in the number of Ibn Saud's raiders, and his father also asked him to cancel his plans to capture Riyadh. However, Ibn Saud did not cancel the raid and managed to reach Riyadh. On the night of 15 January 1902, he led 40 men over the city walls on tilted palm trees and took the city.{{cite book|author=William Ochsenwald|author-link=William L. Ochsenwald|title=The Middle East: A History

Following Ibn Saud's victory the Kuwaiti ruler Mubarak Al Sabah sent him an additional seventy warriors commanded by Ibn Saud's younger brother Saad. Upon settling in Riyadh, Ibn Saud took up residence in the palace of his grandfather, Faisal bin Turki.{{cite journal|author=Douglas Carruthers|title=Captain Shakespear's Last Journey (Continued)|journal=The Geographical Journal|date=June 1922|doi=10.2307/1780633|jstor=1780633|volume=59|issue=6|page=402|bibcode=1922GeogJ..59..401C

Rise to power

Following the capture of Riyadh, many former supporters of the House of Saud rallied to Ibn Saud's call to arms. He was a charismatic leader and kept his men supplied with arms. Over the next two years, he and his forces recaptured almost half of the Nejd from the Rashidis.

In 1904, Abdulaziz bin Mutaib Al Rashid appealed to the Ottoman Empire for military protection and assistance. The Ottomans responded by sending troops into Arabia. On 15 June 1904, Ibn Saud's forces suffered a major defeat at the hands of the combined Ottoman and Rashidi forces. His forces regrouped and began to wage guerrilla warfare against the Ottomans. Over the next two years, he was able to disrupt their supply routes, forcing them to retreat. However, in February 1905 Ibn Saud was named qaimmaqam of southern Nejd by the Ottomans which he held until 1913 when an Anglo-Ottoman agreement was signed. Ibn Saud's victory in Rawdat Muhanna, in which Abdulaziz Al Rashid died, ended the Ottoman presence in Nejd and Qassim by the end of October 1906. This victory also weakened the alliance between Mubarak Al Sabah, ruler of Kuwait, and Ibn Saud due to the former's concerns about the increase of Saudi power in the region.{{cite thesis|author=Abdulkarim Mohamed Hamadi|title=Saudi Arabia' Territorial Limits: A Study in Law and Politics

Ibn Saud completed his conquest of the Nejd and the eastern coast of Arabia in 1912. He then founded the Ikhwan, a military-religious brotherhood, which was to assist in his later conquests, with the approval of local Salafi ulema. In the same year, he instituted an agrarian policy to settle the nomadic pastoralist bedouins into colonies and to replace their tribal organizations with allegiance to the Ikhwan.

In May 1914, Ibn Saud made a secret agreement with the Ottomans as a result of his unproductive attempts to get protection from the British. However, due to the outbreak of World War I, this agreement which would have made Ibn Saud the wali or governor of Najd did not materialize, and because of the Ottomans' attempt to develop a connection with Ibn Saud the British government soon established diplomatic relations with him. Similar diplomatic missions were established with any Arabian power who might have been able to unify and stabilize the region. The British entered into the Treaty of Darin in December 1915, which made the lands of the House of Saud a British protectorate and attempted to define the boundaries of the developing Saudi state. In exchange, Ibn Saud pledged to again make war against Ibn Rashid, who was an ally of the Ottomans.

During this period, Ibn Saud also sought to strengthen his position through regional alliances. Sheikh Khaz'al Emir of Arabistan advised the Ottoman authorities that Ibn Saud was more valuable to them than Al-Ahsa and Qatif, urging them to support him as a strategic asset. As part of his diplomatic engagements, Ibn Saud traveled to Mohammerah as a guest of Sheikh Khaz'al. The two leaders arrived in Basra on the evening of November 26. The next morning, the British senior political officer, accompanied by two high-ranking British military representatives of the stationed army commander in Basra, boarded Sheikh Khaz’al's ship and presented Ibn Saud with the Sword of Honor along with a welcome letter from the army commander. He spent the day inspecting the British military base camps, their organization, and the latest military equipment, including warplanes, which he showed great interest in.

The British Foreign Office had previously begun to support Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and Emir of the Hejaz, by sending T. E. Lawrence to him in 1915. The Saudi Ikhwan began to conflict with Hussein in 1917, just as his sons Abdullah and Faisal entered Damascus. The Treaty of Darin remained in effect until superseded by the Jeddah conference of 1927 and the Dammam conference of 1952, during both of which Ibn Saud extended his boundaries past the Anglo-Ottoman Blue Line. After Darin, he stockpiled the weapons and supplies which the British provided him, including a 'tribute' of £5,000 per month.{{cite web|author=Abdullah Mohammad Sind|title=The Direct Instruments of Western Control over the Arabs: The Shining Example of the House of Saud|access-date=10 January 2013

The defeat of the Al Rashidi doubled the size of Saudi territory because, after the war of Ha'il, Ibn Saud sent his army to occupy Al Jouf and the army led by Eqab bin Mohaya, the head of the Talhah branch of the Otaibah tribe. This allowed Ibn Saud the leverage to negotiate a new and more favorable treaty with the British in 1922, signed at Uqair. He met Percy Cox, British High Commissioner in Iraq, to draw boundaries{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160108124401/http://www.ibnsaud.info/main/3101.htm|archive-date=8 January 2016

In 1925, Ibn Saud's forces captured the holy city of Mecca from Sharif Hussein, ending 700 years of Hashemite rule. Following this he issued the first decree which was about the collection of zakat.{{cite journal|author=Anthony B. Toth|title=Control and Allegiance at the Dawn of the Oil Age: Bedouin, Zakat and Struggles for Sovereignty in Arabia, 1916–1955|journal=Middle East Critique|year=2012|page=66

Ibn Saud raised Nejd to a kingdom as well on 29 January 1927. On 20 May 1927, the British government signed the Treaty of Jeddah, which abolished the Darin protection agreement and recognized the independence of the Hejaz and Nejd, with Ibn Saud as their ruler. For the next five years, Ibn Saud administered the two parts of his dual kingdom as separate units. He also succeeded his father, Abdul Rahman, as Imam.{{cite thesis|author=Isadore Jay Gold|title=The United States and Saudi Arabia, 1933–1953: Post-Imperial Diplomacy and the Legacy of British Power|page=18|degree=PhD|location=Columbia University|id=|year=1984

With international recognition and support, Ibn Saud continued to consolidate his power. By 1927, his forces had overrun most of the central Arabian Peninsula, but the alliance between the Ikhwan and the Al Saud collapsed when Ibn Saud forbade further raiding. The few portions of central Arabia that had not been overrun by the Saudi-Ikhwan forces had treaties with London, and Ibn Saud was sober enough to see the folly of provoking the British by pushing into these areas. This did not sit well with the Ikhwan, who had been taught that all non-Wahhabis were infidels. In order to settle down the problems with the Ikhwan leaders, including Faisal Al Duwaish, Sultan bin Bajad and Dhaydan bin Hithlain, Ibn Saud organized a meeting in Riyadh in 1928, but none of them attended the meeting.{{cite journal|author=Abdulaziz Al Fahad|title=The 'Imama vs. the 'Iqal: Hadari-Bedouin Conflict and the Formation of the Saudi State

On 23 September 1932, Ibn Saud formally united his realm into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with himself as its king.{{cite thesis |archive-date=19 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130619024845/http://www.simbacom.com/riyadh-ksa/historic/murabba.html |url-status=dead}} and the palace remained his residence and the seat of government until his death in 1953.{{cite journal |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130807161001/http://www.saudiembassy.net/files/PDF/Publications/Magazine/1999-Spring/rebirth.htm |url-status=dead|archive-date=7 August 2013|journal=Saudi Embassy Magazine}}

Ibn Saud had to first eliminate the right of his own father in order to rule, and then distance and contain the ambitions of his five brothers, particularly his brother Muhammad, who had fought with him during the battles and conquests that gave birth to the state.{{cite journal|author=Mai Yamani|author-link=Mai Yamani|title=From fragility to stability: a survival strategy for the Saudi monarchy|volume=2

Oil discovery and his rule

Petroleum was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938 by Chevron Corporation, after Ibn Saud granted a concession in 1933.{{cite book|author=Daniel Yergin|author-link=Daniel Yergin|title=The Prize, The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power|year=1991|publisher=Touchstone

Ibn Saud's newly found oil wealth brought a great deal of power and influence that he would use to advantage in the Hejaz. He forced many nomadic tribes to settle down and abandon "petty wars" and vendettas. He began widespread enforcement of the new kingdom's ideology, based on the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. This included an end to traditionally sanctioned rites of pilgrimage, recognized by the orthodox schools of jurisprudence, but at odds with those sanctioned by al-Wahhab. In 1926, after a caravan of Egyptian pilgrims on the way to Mecca were beaten by his forces for playing bugles, he was impelled to issue a conciliatory statement to the Egyptian government. In fact, several such statements were issued to Muslim governments around the world as a result of beatings suffered by the pilgrims visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. With the uprising and subsequent suppression thereafter of the Ikhwan in 1929, the 1930s marked a turning point. With his rivals eliminated, Ibn Saud's ideology was in full force, ending nearly 1,400 years of accepted religious practices surrounding the Hajj, the majority of which were sanctioned by a millennium of scholarship.{{cite journal|year=2017

Ibn Saud established a Shura Council of the Hejaz as early as 1927. This council was later expanded to 20 members and was chaired by Ibn Saud's son, Prince Faisal.{{cite journal|author=Anthony H. Cordesman|author-link=Anthony Cordesman|date=30 October 2002

Foreign wars

Ibn Saud was able to gain loyalty from tribes near Saudi Arabia, such as those in Jordan. For example, he built very strong ties with Rashed Al-Khuzai from the Al Fraihat tribe, one of the most influential and royally established families during the Ottoman Empire. Prince Rashed and his tribe had dominated eastern Jordan before the arrival of Sharif Hussein. Ibn Saud supported Rashed and his followers in rebellion against Hussein.{{cite web|author=المجلة المصرية نون|url=http://www.noonptm.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=951 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110911013106/http://www.noonptm.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=951|url-status=usurped}}

In 1934 Saudi Arabia defeated Yemen in the Saudi-Yemeni War.{{Cite journal|author=May Darwich

In 1935 Prince Rashed supported Izz ad-Din al-Qassam's defiance, which led him and his followers into rebellion against Abdullah I of Jordan. In 1937, when they were forced to leave Jordan, Prince Rashed Al Khuzai, his family, and a group of his followers chose to move to Saudi Arabia where Prince Rashed lived for several years under Ibn Saud's hospitality.{{cite web|work=ANN TV|date=19 November 1935|url=http://anntv.tv/new/showsubject.aspx?id=17145|title=الشيخ عز الدين القسام أمير المجاهدين الفلسطينيين|access-date=25 October 2011 |archive-date=11 August 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811132850/http://anntv.tv/new/showsubject.aspx?id=17145|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://alrai.com/pages.php?news_id=284850|title=جريدة الرأي ; راشد الخزاعي.. من رجالات الوطن ومناضلي الأمة |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111008072744/http://alrai.com/pages.php?news_id=284850|archive-date=8 October 2011|work=Al Rai |access-date=25 October 2011|url-status=dead}}

Charity works

Ibn Saud's charity earned him respect among his people. The King would direct money to be handed to the impoverished whenever he saw them. This is why the poor would eagerly anticipate his appearance in villages, towns, and even the desert.

"O Abdul-Aziz, may Allah give you in the Hereafter as He has given you in the world!" an elderly woman once said to Ibn Saud's procession. The King ordered that she be given ten bags of money from his car. Ibn Saud noticed the old woman having trouble bringing the money back to her home, so he had his aid service deliver the money and accompany her back to her home. Ibn Saud was on a picnic outside of Riyadh when he came across an elderly man dressed in rags. The old man proceeded to stand up in front of the King's horse and said, "O Abdul-Aziz, it is terribly cold, and I have no clothes to protect me". Ibn Saud, saddened by the man's condition, removed his cloak and gave it to him. He also offered the elderly man a stipend to help him with his everyday costs.

Due to the abundance of the poor, Ibn Saud established a guest house known as the "Thulaim" or "The Host", where rice, meat, and several types of porridge were distributed to the poor. As the economy deteriorated, Ibn Saud began to increase his aid to the needy. He gave them "royal kits" of bread and "waayid", which were monetary gifts given to them on an annual basis. The King said, "I haven't obtained all this wealth by myself. It is a blessing from Allah, and all of you have a share in it. So, I want you to guide me to whatever takes me nearer to my Lord and qualifies me for His forgiveness."

Later years

Ibn Saud positioned Saudi Arabia as neutral in World War II, but was generally considered to favor the Allies. However, in 1938, when an attack on a main British pipeline in the Kingdom of Iraq was found to be connected to the German Ambassador, Fritz Grobba, Ibn Saud provided Grobba with refuge. It was reported that he had been disfavoring the British as of 1937.

In the last stage of the war, Ibn Saud met significant political figures. One of these meetings, which lasted for three days, was with U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt on 14 February 1945. The meeting laid down the basis of the future relations between the two countries. The other meeting was with British prime minister Winston Churchill in the Grand Hotel du Lac on the shores of the Fayyoun Oasis, fifty miles south of Cairo, in February 1945. Saudis report that the meeting heavily focused on the Palestine problem and was unproductive in terms of its outcomes, in contrast to that with Roosevelt.

After naming his son Saud as Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the King left most of his duties to him, and he spent most of his time in Taif.{{cite magazine|issue=20|title=King of the Desert|magazine=Time|date=16 November 1953

Ibn Saud participated in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, but Saudi Arabia's contribution was generally considered token. The Saudis deployed 800 to 1,200 troops against Israel, including volunteers, who were attached to the Egyptians. He actively attempted to resolve the dispute between the Kingdom of Egypt and the United Kingdom in the early 1952 and developed a proposal for a settlement between two countries.{{cite news|title=Saudi Arabian move for a settlement|issue=52217|date=24 January 1952

While most of the royal family desired luxuries such as gardens, splendid cars, and palaces, Ibn Saud wanted a royal railway from the Persian Gulf to Riyadh and then an extension to Jeddah. His advisors regarded this as an old man's folly. Eventually, ARAMCO built the railway, at a cost of $70 million, drawn from the King's oil royalties. It was completed in 1951 and was used commercially after the King's death. It enabled Riyadh to grow into a relatively modern city. But when a paved road was built in 1962, the railway lost its traffic.{{cite journal

Personal life

Ibn Saud was very tall for a Saudi man of his time,{{cite news|author=Mohammed Leopold Weiss|title=My friend Ibn Saud|work=The Atlantic|issue=144

Ibn Saud had twenty-two consorts. Many of his marriages were contracted in order to cement alliances with other clans, during the period when the Saudi state was founded and stabilized. Aside from his legal wives, he also had concubines in his harem, who by definition were slaves (slavery in Saudi Arabia being legal). These included Baraka Al Yamaniyah. He was the father of almost one hundred children, including 45 sons. Muhammad Leopold Weiss reported in 1929 that one of Ibn Saud's spouses had poisoned the King in 1924, causing him to have poor sight in one eye. He later forgave her, but divorced her.

One of the significant publications about Ibn Saud in the Western media was a comprehensive article by Noel Busch published in Life magazine in May 1943 which introduced him as a legendary monarch.{{cite thesis|author=Paul Reed Baltimore|title=From the camel to the cadillac: automobility, consumption, and the U.S.-Saudi special relationship|location=University of California, Santa Barbara

Ibn Saud had a kennel for salukis, a dog breed originated in the Middle East.{{cite magazine|title=Greyhound of the Desert|url=https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/196105/greyhound.of.the.desert.htm|magazine=Aramco World|date=May 1961|volume=12|issue=5

Relations with family members

Ibn Saud was said to be very close to his paternal aunt, Jawhara bint Faisal. From a young age, she ingrained in him a strong sense of family destiny and motivated him to regain the lost glory of the House of Saud. During the years when the Al Saud family were living almost as refugees in Kuwait, Jawhara bint Faisal frequently recounted the deeds of his ancestors to Ibn Saud and exhorted him not to be content with the existing situation. She was instrumental in making him decide to return to Nejd from Kuwait and regain the territories of his family. She was well educated in Islam, in Arab custom and in tribal and clan relationships. She remained among the King's most trusted and influential advisors all her life. Ibn Saud asked her about the experiences of past rulers and the historical allegiance and the roles of tribes and individuals. Jawhara was also deeply respected by the King's children. The King visited her daily until she died around 1930.

Ibn Saud was also very close to his sister Noura, who was one year older. On several occasions, he identified himself in public with the words: "I am the brother of Noura."{{cite web|title=King Abdulaziz' Noble Character

Assassination attempts

On 15 March 1935, three armed men from Oman attacked and tried to assassinate Ibn Saud during his performance of Hajj.

Another assassination attempt occurred in 1951, when Captain Abdullah Al Mandili, a member of Royal Saudi Air Force, tried to bomb the King's camp from an airplane. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Al Mandili escaped to Iraq with the help of tribes.{{cite journal|author=Rosie Bsheer|title=A Counter-Revolutionary State: Popular Movements and the Making of Saudi Arabia|journal=Past & Present|date=February 2018|issue=238|page=247

Successor

Ibn Saud's eldest son Turki, who was the crown prince of the Kingdoms of Nejd and Hejaz, died at age 18, predeceasing his father. Had Turki not died, he would have been the crown prince. Instead, Ibn Saud appointed his second son, Prince Saud, heir to the Saudi throne in 1933. He had many quarrels with his brother Muhammad bin Abdul Rahman as to who should be appointed heir. Muhammad wanted his son Khalid to be designated the heir.

When the King discussed succession before his death, he favoured Prince Faisal as a possible successor over Crown Prince Saud due to Faisal's extensive knowledge, as well as his years of experience. Since Faisal was a child, Ibn Saud recognised him as the most capable of his sons and often tasked him with responsibilities in war and diplomacy. In addition, Faisal was known to embrace a simple Bedouin lifestyle. "I only wish I had three Faisals", Ibn Saud once said when discussing who would succeed him. However, he made the decision to keep Prince Saud as crown prince for fear that doing otherwise would lead to decreased stability.

Views

Ibn Saud said, "Two things are essential to our state and our people ... religion and the rights inherited from our fathers."{{cite journal|author=Joseph Nevo|title=Religion and National Identity in Saudi Arabia|issue=3|jstor=4283951|journal=Middle Eastern Studies

Amani Hamdan argues that the King's attitude towards women's education was encouraging since he expressed his support in a conversation with St John Philby in which he stated, "It is permissible for women to read."

Ibn Saud kept servants,{{cite news|author=Nicholas DeAntonis|title=Joe Biden is making clear that Saudi human rights violations won't be ignored

Ibn Saud repeated the following views about the British authorities many times: "The English are my friends, but I will walk with them only so far as my religion and honor will allow."{{cite thesis|author=Fahd M. Al Nafjan

Shortly before his death, the King stated, "Verily, my children and my possessions are my enemies."{{cite journal|author=Steffen Hertog

A staunch opponent of Zionism, Ibn Saud had a highly ambivalent opinion of the Jews. On the one hand he often expressed his dislike for the Jews by referring to the Quran and the Hadith. In 1937 he called them "a race accursed by God" who are "destined to final destruction and eternal damnation". For him they were "enemies of Islam and prophet Muhammad" and "enemies of the Muslims until the end of the world." In some instances he made use of antisemitic tropes, calling the Jews a "dangerous and hostile race" with an "exaggerated love of money", accusing them of "making trouble wherever they exist" or igniting conflicts between Muslims and Christians.

On the other hand, he thought of the Jews, at least those who were not Zionists, as "[g]ood friends of the Arabs", opposed declaring an anti-Jewish jihad and fiercely condemned the anti-Jewish 1929 Hebron massacre, which he considered a clear violation of Islamic principles. According to a Najrani Jew David Shuker now living in Israel, the King also had an associate, Yosef ben Aavetz, a Jew and the Jews of Najran were treated well.

Death and funeral

Ibn Saud experienced heart disease in his final years and also, was half blind and racked by arthritis. In October 1953, his illness became serious.{{cite news|title=Warrior King Ibn Saud Dies at 76|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52939653 |access-date=2 April 2013|newspaper=The West Australian|date=10 November 1953|via=National Library of Australia}} Before Ibn Saud slept on the night of 8 November, he recited the shahada several times, which were his last words. He died in his sleep of a heart attack in Shubra Palace in Ta'if{{cite book|editor1=Michael R. T. Dumper|title=Cities of the Middle East and North Africa: A Historical Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3SapTk5iGDkC&pg=PA344|year=2007|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-57607-919-5

The funeral prayer was performed at Al Hawiyah in Ta'if. next to his sister Noura.{{cite book|author=Jennifer Bond Reed|title=The Saudi Royal Family (Modern World Leaders)|year=2006|publisher=Chelsea House Publishers|pages=42–43|isbn=9780791092187|location=New York

U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a message on Ibn Saud's death on 11 November 1953. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles stated after the King's death that he would be remembered for his achievements as a statesman.{{cite news|title=Western tributes to King Ibn Saud|newspaper=The Canberra Times

Honors

• Netherlands: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (18 September 1936)
• Spain: Grand Cross with White Decoration of the Cross of Military Merit (22 April 1952)
• United Kingdom:
  • Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (GCB, 1 January 1935)
  • Knight Grand Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (GCIE, 1 January 1920)
  • Knight Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India (KCSI, 23 November 1916){{cite journal|author=Mohammed Al Mutari|title=Control of al-Hasa (Saudi Arabia) and direct contact with Britain, 1910 –1916|journal=Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences|date=August 2018|volume=5
  • Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE, 23 November 1916)
• United States: Chief Commander of the Legion of Merit (18 February 1947)

Notes

References

Sources

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• Karl S Twitchell. (1958) Saudi Arabia Princeton University Press.
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