Understanding Saudi Arabia

The first thing to understand about Saudi Arabia is that the name does sort of tell all.  It's the Arabia owned by the Sauds.  Or rather that part of the Arabian Peninsula, i.e., most of it, that is controlled by the House of Saud.  And the Sauds are a family.

 King Abdulaziz ibn Abdul Rahman ibn Faisal ibn Turki ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al Saud, the first king of modern Saudi Arabia, circa 1927.  Saud united a small kingdom to re-expand it to regions that his family had controlled centuries earlier.

The Arabian peninsula, as the name would indicate, has been the home of the Arab people since ancient times.  The Arabs were definable as such well before they came to be identified with Islam and indeed at the time of the rise of Mohammad.  Indeed at the time of Mohammad's rise the Arabs practiced a variety of religions, including Catholicism, Gnostic Christianity, Judaism and various animist religions.  They were not a united people by any means, which played into Mohammad's favor as he sought to unite them by force, where necessary.  The peninsula, while it would become Islamic, did not tend to be united however, although there were occasional exceptions of a type.

Prior to World War One there were various fiefdoms stretching back for centuries that controlled various areas of the Arabian Peninsula, which by the early 20th Century all claimed fealty to the Ottoman Empire, which itself was ruled by a claimed Caliph. The various tribal chieftains, sultans and kings did not always get along by any means and never had.  And within the peninsula various tribes contested for areas and territories.  Going into World War One arguably the most significant of these groups were the Hashimites, monarchs who ruled from Mecca, who threw in the with the British in an effort to expel the Turks and claim monarchical control over the Arabs.  

At the same time and earlier, however, the House of Saud, had been working on consolidating its power through marriage and through allegiance to an extreme puritanical form of Islam, Wahhabism.  Just prior to the Great War the Sauds took a portion of the Persian Gulf Coast from the Ottoman Turks, a bold move under the circumstances.  Following that, however, the  Sauds basically sat World War One out, in spite of sponsorship from English India, and they concentrated on a contest with the El Rashid, who controlled part of the peninsula to their north. They prevailed in that struggle in the early 1920s.   Following that, the Sauds conquered the Hejaz, effectively expelling the Hashimites from their traditional kingdom.

 King ‘Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī al-Hāshimī, the last Hashimite King of the Hajaz and therefore the last non Saudi ruler of Mecca.  King Ali could have claimed the tile of Caliph by inheritance, but did not do so.

 Ikhwan, circa 1910.

Throughout this expansionist period the Sauds relied upon the Ikhwan, a Wahhabi militia. This cannot be overemphasized as the Ikhawan was a puritanical Islamic militia, conceived of by Islamic clerics who found elements of Bedouin life to be incompatible with Islam.  The relationship between the Ikhwan and the Sauds was not perfect, as the Ikhwan rebelled against the Sauds in part on at least two occasions, but overall the Sauds expansion was allowed due to their alliance with this hardcore Islamic militia, a group found around principals so strict that some Muslims regarded them as heretical early on.

Following the conquering of the Arabian Peninsula, outside of Yemen, the Ikhwan turned its attention to Transjordan, which lead to a conflict with the Sauds who feared that taking on the Jordanian Hashimite kingdom wold lead to combat with the British. This caused the Sauds to put the Ikhwan down, although it lives on to a degree in the form of the Saudi National Guard.  

The black flag of the Ikhwan, note the similarity to. . . 

the green flag of Saudi Arabia.

Following the defeat of the Ikhwan, the Sauds had possession of a dirt poor personal kingdom, but one which included the important city of Mecca, which they had dispossessed the Hashimites of.  To the extent it formed a consolation, the Hashimites possessed the wealthier kingdoms of Transjordan, Syria and Iraq, none of which they were native to.

In 1938 oil was discovered in the country, however, and it became the base of the economy, as well as making it one of the richest and most economically powerful countries in the world.  Almost half of its population now is foreign born, with Egyptians and Muslim Filipinos amongst the most significant aspect of the foreign population.  The country has struggled with Islamic fundamentalist, and essentially it has since the 1920s, even though its foundation is in  Wahhabism. The Country is, therefore, awash in ironies. As a modern country, it's an absolute monarchy.  It has struggled with Islamic fundamentalism, and yet it is essentially a fundamentalist state which is the only one in the world, expect perhaps arguably the Islamic State, to have made the Koran its constitution.  The monarch is subject only to Sharia law.  It funds mosques in the western world, but only those that comport with a Wahhabi theological view.

Well, so what, you may ask?

A kingdom is an odd anachronism in the modern world, particularly one that is loosely based as Saudi Arabia is.  Its Wahhabi roots remain very strong and its a puritanical state, of a type, that is influential if for no other reason than that its fantastically wealthy.  The country is stunningly repressive, not even allowing women to drive.  It bizarrely has the chair position of the United Nations Human Rights Commission presently, a really bizarre thing to realize when basic human rights are missing in the country.  Don't even think about freedom of religion in regards to that nation.  

And something about it has spawned Islamic terrorists, although what that is, is not clear.  Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian, with Yemeni roots.  Saudis were prominent in the 9/11 attackers.  

It was a country born out of tribal strife but united by Islamic extremist militias that it had to put down itself, but which it has remained close to in terms of origin.  With an unstable system of government in a region in which Islamic militancy has exploded, its fate is worrisome.

Postscript:

From an article in today's New York Times:

Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.