Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
followers successfully stormed Riyadh under cover of night and daringly captured the
fortress.
With deft diplomacy and the momentum of a successful military campaign, Ibn Saud
orchestrated a conference at which Arabia's Islamic clergy condemned Sherif Hussain
(ruler of Mecca) as a mere puppet of 'The Turk'. Sherif Hussain promptly responded by
proclaiming himself the King of the Arabs. In 1925 the Saudi-Wahhabis took Mecca and
Medina; the following year Ibn Saud proclaimed himself king of the Hejaz and sultan of
Najd, and on 22 September 1932, Ibn Saud announced the formation of the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia.
The Power of Oil
In 1933 Saudi Arabia signed its first oil concession. Four years later, the Arabian Americ-
an Oil Company (Aramco) discovered commercial quantities of oil near Riyadh and
around Dammam in the east. In 1943 President Roosevelt established the Kingdom's
political importance by grandly stating that the Kingdom was 'vital for the defence of the
USA'.
In 1964, King Faisal began to provide his citizens with a stake in the economic benefits
of oil. He introduced a free health service for all Saudi citizens and began a building boom
that has transformed Saudi Arabia from an impoverished desert kingdom into a nation of
modern infrastructure.
In response to the USA's unconditional support for Israel, Saudi Arabia imposed an oil
embargo in 1974, a move that quadrupled world oil prices and reminded the world of the
country's importance in an economy wholly dependent upon oil.
A Kingdom of Contradictions
On 25 March 1975 King Faisal was assassinated by a nephew and the throne formally
passed to Faisal's brother Khaled. Real power, however, lay with another of Faisal's
brothers, Fahd.
In November 1979 the Great Mosque of Mecca was overrun by 250 fanatical followers
of Juhaiman ibn Saif al-Otai, a militant Wahhabi leader, who claimed that the Mahdi
(Islamic Messiah) would appear in the mosque that very day. During two bloody weeks of
fighting, 129 people were killed. In 1980, riots broke out in the towns of the Qatif Oasis
(the heartland of the Kingdom's 300,000 Shiites). The riots were brutally repressed.
On 14 June 1982 the figurehead King Khaled died aged 69. Fahd became king and set
about reinforcing the twin pillars of modern Al-Saud rule. He made a priority of proving
