Ibn Saud

Abdulaziz ibn Abdul Rahman ibn Faisal ibn Turki ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al Saud (Arabic: عبد العزيز بن عبد الرحمن آل سعود‎, ‘Abd al-‘Azīz ibn ‘Abd ar-Raḥman Āl Sa‘ūd; 15 January 1875 – 9 November 1953), usually known within the Arab world as Abdulaziz and in the West as Ibn Saud, was the first monarch and founder of Saudi Arabia and the House of Saud, the "third Saudi state".

He reconquered his family's ancestral home city of Riyadh in 1902, starting three decades of conquests that made him the ruler of nearly all of central Arabia. He consolidated his control over the Najd in 1922, then conquered the Hejaz in 1925. He extended his dominions into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. As King, he presided over the discovery of petroleum in Saudi Arabia in 1938 and the beginning of large-scale oil production after World War II. He fathered many children, including 45 sons, and all of the subsequent kings of Saudi Arabia.

Early life and family origins

Ibn Saud was born on 15 January 1875 in Riyadh in the region of Najd in central Arabia. He was the son of Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, last ruler of the Emirate of Nejd, the "Second Saudi State", a tribal sheikhdom centered on Riyadh. His family, the House of Saud, had been a power in central Arabia for the previous 130 years. Under the influence and inspiration of Wahhabi Islam, the Saudis had previously attempted to control much of the Arabian peninsula in the form of the Emirate of Diriyah, the "First Saudi State", until its destruction by an Egyptian army in the early 19th century. Ibn Saud's mother was a member of the Sudairi family, Sarah Al Sudairi. She died in 1910.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia (ⁱ/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbiə/, ⁱ/ˌsaʊ-/), officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is an Arab state in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately 2,150,000 km² (830,000 sq mi), Saudi Arabia is geographically the second-largest state in the Arab world after Algeria. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen to the south. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid inhospitable desert or barren landforms.

The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia ('Asir). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud. He united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. The country has since been an absolute monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultra-conservative Wahhabism religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called "the predominant feature of Saudi culture", with its global spreading largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. The Kingdom has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners.

Saud of Saudi Arabia

Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (/sɑːˈuːd/;Arabic: سعود بن عبد العزيز آل سعود‎ Su'ūd ibn 'Abd al-'Azīz Āl Su'ūd; 15 January 1902 – 23 February 1969) was King of Saudi Arabia from 1953 to 1964.

Early life

Prince Saud was born on 15 January 1902 in Kuwait City. The second son of Ibn Saud, he was born in the home of Amir Abdul Rahman bin Faisal. They lived in Sikkat Inazza where the family was staying after their exile from Riyadh. When his father Abdulaziz conquered Riyadh in 1902, Saud followed him with his mother and brothers.

Prince Saud had one full brother, Turki I. and a sister, Mounira. Their mother was King Abdulaziz's second wife Wadhah bint Muhammad bin 'Hussein Al-Orair, who belonged to the Qahtan tribe.