Titans of History

His personal ambition is boundless, but is tempered by great discretion and caution. He is a relentless enemy while opposition lasts, but in the hour of victory is one of the most humane Arabs in history. As for his system of rule … he keeps his own counsel even among his relatives, and essentially his rule is absolute.

Eldon Rutter

Abdul Aziz al Saud—known to Westerners as Ibn Saud—was a self-made king, a shrewd statesman, masterful diplomatist, tribal politician, religious ascetic and an athletic desert warrior. Over six foot four inches tall, he was famous for his prowess in battlefield, on camel-back and in the bedroom and created the new kingdom of Saudi Arabia, still a medieval dynastic autocracy well into the 21st century. Saudi Arabia remains a key player in the Middle East yet there is a contradiction at its heart: this ally of America is an Islamic autocracy in which opposition is repressed, women have few rights and the country is ruled by a strictly puritanical and anti-Western form of Islam—Wahhabism—which the Saudis export along with their oil riches.

Ibn Saud’s achievement was not the first blossoming of his dynasty but the third. In the 18th century a puritanical Islamic preacher named Muhammad al-Wahhab had attacked the superstitions and shrines of traditional Islam in Arabia, demanding a return to the fundamentalist asceticism that he claimed was the original way of the Prophet. Wahab allied himself with a local sheikh around Riyadh in the Najd region of Arabia named Muhammad ibn Saud. They formed a political and religious alliance cemented by dynastic marriages between the families. Wahhabism proved a powerful force and Arabians flocked to join Saud’s armies. The Ottoman empire nominally ruled Arabia, with the sultan-caliph in Istanbul serving as guardian of the Holy Places, Mecca and Medina. But the Ottoman empire was in crisis, struggling to control its heartlands, let alone the remote provinces of Arabia. Taking advantage of this, Saud and Wahhab founded a Saudi state around 1744 that terrorized more moderate Muslims, destroyed their shrines, conquered much of Arabia, raided up into the Ottoman provinces of Iraq and ultimately conquered Mecca and Medina, where they imposed their new puritanism. The Ottoman sultan repeatedly sent armies to destroy the Saudis but in vain until, in the early 19th century, Istanbul asked the semi-independent Pasha of Egypt, Mehmet Ali, to restore order. In 1818, Mehmet Ali and his son, Ibrahim Pasha, completed the defeat of the Saudis, the Saudi sheikh was sent to be beheaded in Istanbul and the sultan was back in charge. A few years later, the Saudis reestablished a small state in the Najd but it was not until Ibn Saud that the family restored its fortunes fully. In the meantime, Arabia was dominated by the al Rashid family that drove out the Sauds while the Ottomans appointed the sherifs of Mecca from the traditional Hashemite family.

As a child, Ibn Saud had to escape by night from the family seat in Riyadh to avoid the triumphant Rashid family, living with his father in Kuwaiti exile. But young Ibn Saud was determined to changed the family fortunes: backed by his elder ally Muburak al Sabah and the Sabahs, the ruling family of Kuwait, he pulled off a remarkable coup with a tiny army of Bedouins and tribesman when he seized Riyadh in 1902.

It was the beginning of a remarkable career of military adventure and diplomatic intrigue. Ibn Saud won victories against the Rashid and other rivals but the battles were small, the armies scarcely larger than a thousand fighters at a time. But the young prince was able to resuscitate and harness the vigorous fanaticism of the Wahhabis whom he mobilized into a new military-religious legion—the Ikhwan or the Brothers—who became the heart of his desert army. He built up a relationship with the British, and when the Ottomans and British started to bid for his favor during the First World War, Saud played them off against one another. But he was less aggressive in his promises than Sherif Hussain, the Hashemite amir of Mecca, who offered the British an Arab revolt from Arabia to Syria against the Ottoman sultan. Hussain was Saud’s sworn enemy and the two increasingly vied for control of the whole of Arabia. Declaring himself king of the Arabs, Sherif Hussain, backed by his sons Abdullah and Faisal, launched their attack against the Ottomans, funded by vast British financial grants. But their actions never delivered a mass Arab revolt and scarcely defeated the Ottomans, even around Mecca.