AS THE HOUSE OF SAUD TRANSFORMED
Arabia from a
"huge desert hodgepodge" to a fabulously wealthy and internationally strategic country, TIME reported on the changes and conflicts within the kingdom. Some highlights from our coverage over the years:
In a vast uncharted Arabian desert are sixteen different states. Some of these countries move whenever their inhabitants decide to strike tents.... In a country of this nature, where whole states are moved on the backs of camels, lies the cradle of Islam, and that cradle was rocked last week by the terrible hand of Emir Faisal Ibn Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud.
From Religious War
Oct. 13, 1924
Because non-Moslems are barred from Mecca during the pilgrim season upon pain of death; because Ibn Saud and his personal followers are so strict that they might be called Moslem Fundamentalists; and because few Christians care a whoop what happens in Arabia, news from the Land of Saud is always scarce, usually untrustworthy.
From Kingdom Christened
Oct. 17, 1932
Ibn Saud is a strict adherent of the fanatically strict Wahabi sect of Islam. He neither practices nor permits smoking, drinking, or dancing. His justice is swift and sure: thieves have their hands chopped off; murderers, their heads. But he has his pleasures, the chief of which he considers a national duty. He once said: 'In my youth and manhood, I made a nation. Now in my declining years, I make men for its population.' Nobody knows just how many sons he has sired; the usual estimate is 40. In masculine Arabia, daughters are not counted.
From Desert Wind
Mar. 5, 1945
Reasonably dispassionate guessers figure the royal household plus retainers and courtiers in the neighborhood of 10,000 persons.... Much of the King's spending is an unavoidable legacy of tradition to which he is bound whether he enjoys it or not. Every night the royal board seats from 80 to 200 guests and retainers, where the King, a huge man, big of bone and body in his father's mold, presides with courtly grace.
From Alchemy in the Desert
Apr. 11, 1955
Saud knows that without U.S. skills and capital, there are not enough technicians and engineers in the whole Moslem world to get Saudi Arabia's oil out of the ground.
From The King Comes West
Jan. 28, 1957
Saudi Arabia last week had the added distinction of possessing two monarchs. Profligate King Saud, 62, who had reigned for eleven years, sulked in his ultra-modern Naziriyah Palace in the capital city of Riyadh. Just down the road in the Red Palace was Saud's half brother Feisal who two weeks ago was summoned to the throne by a fatwa, or religious edict....
From A Brace of Kings
Nov. 20, 1964
One reason for the enduring success of the House of Saud is that in moments of crisis its members stand together. Last week the princes demonstrated family solidarity when, in accordance with a prearranged plan, they named Crown Prince Khalid, 62, successor to the assassinated King Faisal and his half brother Fahd, 53, the new Crown Prince and heir apparent.
From Quiet King, Strong Prince
Apr. 7, 1975
For all its wealth, Saudi Arabia is a very vulnerable nation.... Over the next decade, U.S. military strategists believe, the primary threat to Saudi Arabia may come from Iraq, with which the Saudis share 400 miles of a common but ill-defined desert border, enormous oil wealth and little else. Iraq, which is expected to surpass Iran in oil production by the mid-1980s is a power of the future. But even today, the radical Ba'ath regime in Baghdad has nearly three times the air capability of the Saudis, more than twice as many tanks, armored personnel carriers and helicopters, and five times as many men under arms.
From The Desert Superstate
May. 22, 1978
The House of Saud had a powerful revival at the beginning of the 20th century, when its leader was the great Abdul Aziz, generally known as Ibn Saud.... All told, it is estimated that at least 2,000 Saudi princes, including sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, are descended from Abdul Aziz.
From The House of Saud: Solidarity Forever
May. 22, 1978
Said one Western intelligence official in the Middle East: 'This was a direct attack against the House of Saud. You can be sure that the end of the battle of the Sacred Mosque is not the last we will hear of trouble in Saudi Arabia.'
From Struggle for the Sacred Mosque
Dec. 10, 1979
The Arabian American Oil Co., or Aramco, is the Delaware-based firm that is jointly owned by Exxon, Mobil, Texaco and Standard Oil Co. of California. Under a geographic concession nearly as large as the state of Oklahoma, Aramco pumps almost all the oil that flows from the Croesus-rich fields of Saudi Arabia.
From Aramco's Stormy Petrol
Dec. 24, 1979
At the heart of Saudi Arabia's problem is the unfinished task of creating a modern state out of a cluster of Bedouin tribes that were unified by Abdul Aziz (Ibn Saud) under the present kingdom in 1932. The royal leadership is worried by the growing polarization of Saudi society; thousands of young Saudis return from the West every year with university degrees, only to chafe under a puritanical, semifeudal system designed to appease the disparate desert tribes.
From Change in a Feudal Land
Feb. 18, 1980
A first it looked like a shrewd way to expand U.S. influence in oil-rich, pro-Western Saudi Arabia, without unduly roiling its troubled near neighbor Israel. But by last week the prospective deal had turned into something of an Arabian nightmare. By spelling out just what would be included in $5 billion worth of modern weaponry, which he intends to sell to the Saudis, Ronald Reagan set a time bomb ticking toward an explosive congressional battle over his foreign policy. At issue are five E-3A AWACS.
From Flying into Trouble
By George J. Church
May 4, 1981
Asked what constituted the greatest threat to Saudi Arabia's security, Abdullah answered, 'American aid to Israel.'
From Americans: "The Greatest Danger"
Nov. 9, 1981
Although its bountiful oil reserves and strategic location make Saudi Arabia vital to the West, the country can be exasperatingly difficult for a foreigner to read. Today the kingdom seems to deserve closer scrutiny than usual: the past year's drop in oil production has diminished Saudi Arabia's income, while rumors of dissension within the ruling House of Saud have proliferated.
From The Kingdom and the Power
By James Kelly
Aug. 22, 1983
The engagement signaled an important change in the 45-month-old war between Iran and Iraq. Until now, the Saudis have made every effort to stay out of the war, even though they have given Iraq billions of dollars for weaponry.
From Pushing the Saudis Too Far
By William E. SMith
Jun. 18, 1984
First-class medical care is free. So is education from kindergarten to postgraduate levels. Each Saudi family receives 750 sq. yds. of free land and a 30-year interest-free loan of $80,000 to build a house on it. Entrepreneurs get huge interest-free loans to start businesses. And no one pays taxes.
From Lifting The Veil
By Lisa Beyer
Sep. 24, 1990
Three months after the gulf war ended, Saudi Arabia seems to have returned to its placid ways. But the calm atmosphere is a mirage. Operation Desert Storm may be over, but it has unleashed powerful political and social crosswinds in the kingdom. Buffeted by the currents, King Fahd is struggling to preserve a precarious balance between secular moderates and religious conservatives while opening up the family-run government to his subjects.
From Saudi Arabia: Skirmishes Under the Veil
By Dean Fischer
Jun. 17, 1991
Any U.S. military response against Iran that is clearly elicited by the Saudi government will do little for the popularity of the 5,000 American troops in the kingdom. Already, many Saudis believe American troops act as the palace guard of the repressively autocratic Saud family, headed by ailing King Fahd and his half-brother Crown Prince Addullah. For fundamentalists, the U.S. is to Saudi Arabia what the Soviet Union was to Afghanistan: an infidel occupation force propping up a regime that persecutes true Muslims.
From Rebels in the Kingdom
By Howard Chua-Eoan
Dec. 23, 1996
Prince Alwaleed is not unknown to the investment world, but for the most part he is unseen. To find him you have to travel to the Arabian desert, where he often works from an outdoor office, linked via satellite to the money markets of New York and London.
From The Prince and the Portfolio
Scott MacLeod
Dec. 1, 1997
Abdullah is best known at home as a prince of the desert, who has a good handshake, speaks in velvety tones and can be aloof one minute and chuckling the next. Closely resembling the famed founder of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz (generally known as Ibn Saud), he is fond of camel racing and is tolerant toward human frailties.
From Saudi Arabia
By Dean Fischer and Scott MacLeod
Oct. 12, 1998
For several years, a new generation of Saudis, including Islamic militants and youths grumbling about corruption and economic decline, has increasingly challenged the al Saud clan's fitness to rule. Now, by hitting the U.S.--and by using as many as 15 apparent Saudi hijackers in daring suicide operations--bin Laden is the man of the hour for many.
From Inside Saudi Arabia
By Scott MacLeod
Oct. 15, 2001
While Saudis remain uninterested--or perhaps they're in a state of denial--in the level of Saudi participation in Sept. 11, the country seethes with open loathing for the U.S. and sympathy for bin Laden's cause. Signs of anti-Western militancy are rife throughout this vast kingdom
From Do We Still Need the Saudis?
By Romesh Ratnesar
Aug. 5, 2002
Increasingly, commentators, members of Congress and policymakers, including a minority within the Bush Administration, are questioning the closeness of the U.S.'s relationship with this backward, authoritarian, fundamentalist state.... Some critics of Saudi Arabia are even suggesting that the U.S. invaded the wrong country and seized the wrong oil wells in the spring. Champions of the U.S.-Saudi alliance say the Saudis are transforming themselves from financiers to fighters of terrorism.
From Inside the Kingdom
By Lisa Beyer with Scott MacLeod
Sep. 15, 2003
A year ago, a dozen prominent intellectuals who signed a petition calling for a constitutional monarchy were arrested for trying to hold a public meeting. All but three were released after pledging not to organize an opposition movement. The three who refused--a poet, an Islamist scholar and a political-science professor--are still in jail.
From The Camel That Came in Second
By Joe Klein
Mar. 7, 2005
Fears of a messy succession struggle subsided when immediately after announcing Fahd's death following a bout with pneumonia Monday morning, Saudi television also declared that Abdullah would become King and that he had named Prince Sultan, 77, the powerful head of the Saudi armed forces, who recently recovered from colon cancer, as his crown prince and heir apparent.
From Saudi Arabia's King Fahd Dies
By Scott MacLeod
Aug. 01, 2005
Fears of a messy succession struggle subsided when immediately after announcing Fahd's death following a bout with pneumonia Monday morning, Saudi television also declared that Abdullah would become King and that he had named Prince Sultan, 77, the powerful head of the Saudi armed forces, who recently recovered from colon cancer, as his crown prince and heir apparent.
From Troubles in the House of Saud?
By Elaine Shannon, Adam Zagorin
Dec. 15, 2006
Whatever internal differences the Saudis may have, it is a well-established fact that though there have often been disagreements on 9/11 policy, Afghanistan, Iraq and other difficult issues, the family has always quietly reached a consensus that then becomes national policy."
From The Saudi Arrests: How Big a Plot?
Apr. 27, 2007
The Saudi warning is a sign that those in Fatah such as President Mahmoud Abbas who are closest to the U.S. and Israel have lost support not only among Palestinians, but among Arab countries as well. Not coincidentally, Saudi Arabia is also the country with perhaps the biggest jihadi problem in the region -- a significant proportion of suicide bombers in Iraq are reported to be Saudi citizens.
From Can Arab Leaders Bring Peace?
By Andrew Lee Butters
Jul. 25, 2007
Home | 
