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Saudi Arabia
NATION BUILDING: THE RULE OF ABD AL AZIZ, 1926-1953
The capture of the Hijaz complicated the basis of Abd al Aziz's
authority. The Al Saud ruler was fundamentally a traditional Arab
clan leader who held the loyalty of various tribes because of
his spectacular successes. But Abd al Aziz was also a Wahhabi
imam who held the intense loyalty of the Ikhwan. When he became
the ruler of Mecca and Medina as well, Abd al Aziz took on the
responsibilities of Khadim al Haramayn (servant of the two shrines)
and so assumed an important position in the wider Muslim world.
Finally, by maintaining his authority under pressure from the
Western powers, Abd al Aziz had become the only truly independent
Arab leader after World War I. Thus, he had a role to play in
Arab politics as well.
In establishing his state, Abd al Aziz had to consider the various
constituencies that he served. He made some effort to gain world
Muslim approval before he moved into the Hijaz. Once the Hijaz
was under his control, he submitted to the world Muslim community,
even if only rhetorically, the question of how the area should
be ruled. When he received no response, he held an informal referendum
in which the notables of the Hijaz chose him as their king. In
the Hijaz, Abd al Aziz restrained the more fanatical of his Wahhabi
followers and eventually won the support of the local religious
authorities, or ulama.
Other Muslim countries were not at the time in a position to
challenge Abd al Aziz. Most of the states lived under foreign
rule or mandate, and two of the countries that did not, Iran and
Turkey, were in the midst of secular reforms.
Abd al Aziz had problems at home, however. The first and most
serious of these was the Ikhwan. The Ikhwan had no tolerance for
the concessions to life in the twentieth century that Abd al Aziz
was forced to make. They objected to machines, particularly those
used for communication, such as the telegraph, as well as to the
increasing presence of non-Muslim foreigners in the country. They
also continued to object to some of the practices of non-Wahhabi
Muslims.
Most important, the Ikhwan remained eager to force their message
on whomever did not accept it. This led them to attack non-Wahhabi
Muslims, and sometimes Wahhabi Muslims as well, within Saudi Arabia
and to push beyond its borders into Iraq. Whereas the first sort
of attack challenged Abd al Aziz's authority, the second caused
him problems with the British, who would not tolerate the violation
of borders that they had set up after World War I. It was largely
because of this second concern that Abd al Aziz found himself
obliged to take on the Ikhwan militarily. When the Wahhabi forces
continued to ignore his authority, he waged a pitched battle and
defeated them in 1929.
The way that Abd al Aziz put down the Ikhwan demonstrated his
ability to assemble a domestic constituency. Throughout their
history, the Al Saud had no standing army; when the family had
a military objective it had simply assembled coalitions of tribes
and towns, or such groups as the Ikhwan. In facing the Ikhwan
Abd al Aziz did the same thing. He went out into the country and
made his case in what resembled large and small town meetings.
He talked not only to the people who would be fighting with him,
but also to the religious authorities, seeking their advice and
approval. If the ruler wished to battle the Ikhwan, could this
be sanctioned by Islam? Or might the Ikhwan's demand to continue
their jihad have greater justification?
In the late 1920s the majority sided with Abd al Aziz, setting
the foundation of the modern state. The ruler built on this foundation
by taking into account the interests of various groups. He continued
to consult the ulama and, if he disagreed with them, to work to
change their opinion. The best example was the battle Abd al Aziz
fought to set up radio communications. Like the Ikhwan, the ulama
first opposed radio as a suspect modern innovation for which there
was no basis in the time of the Prophet. Only when Abd al Aziz
demonstrated that the radio could be used to broadcast the Quran
did the ulama give it their approval.
Abd al Aziz was careful not to make more enemies than necessary--and
he tried to make those enemies he had into friends. One can see
this clearly in his handling of his two rivals from World War
I, the Rashidi of Hail and the Sharif of Mecca. After conquering
Hail, Abd al Aziz reestablished the marriage links that his ancestor,
Turki, had first forged between the two families by marrying three
of the Rashidi widows into his family. He made a similar effort
to gain the favor of the Hashimites after taking the Hijaz. Rather
than expelling the family as a future threat, Abd al Aziz gave
some of its members large tracts of land, enabling them to stay
in the area and prosper.
Abd al Aziz also assured himself the continued loyalty of those
who had been allied with him by granting them what favors he could.
This was difficult, however, because the new Saudi kingdom had
little money in its first twenty years. Najd had never been prosperous,
and during the previous century its leaders had become almost
dependent on the British to help them through recurring periods
of famine. The British had been helpful throughout World War I,
but when the political situation in Arabia stabilized, they became
less inclined to support Abd al Aziz.
The conquest of the Hijaz and the pilgrimage revenues that went
with it made Abd al Aziz considerably better off. With the recession
in the 1920s and 1930s, however, pilgrimage traffic dropped, and
Saudi income from the pilgrimage was reduced by more than half.
Accordingly, there was little that Abd al Aziz could do in the
1920s and 1930s except to dole out what money he had in the traditional
tribal manner. As many as 2,000 people would eat daily at Abd
al Aziz's table, but this was the extent of the services that
his government could provide.
The event that was to change all this was the discovery of massive
oil reserves in the kingdom. Oil was first found on the Persian
side of the Gulf before World War I and then in Bahrain shortly
afterward. Geologists suspected that they would find oil in the
Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia as well; so in the early 1930s,
British and United States companies competed for the rights to
develop that oil. The firm, Standard Oil of California (Socal),
won and struck small pockets of oil fairly quickly. By the end
of the decade, Socal discovered enormous deposits that were close
to the surface and thus inexpensive to extract (see Brief History
, ch. 3).
Data as of
December 1992
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