National name: Al-Mamlaka al-'Arabiya as-Sa'udiya

King and Prime Minister: King Fahd bin 'Abdulaziz (1982)

Area: 865,000 sq. mi. (1,960,582 sq. km)

Population (2000 est.): 22,023,506 (average annual rate of natural increase: 3.1%); birth rate: 37.5/1000; infant mortality rate: 52.9/1000; density per sq. mi.: 25

Capital: Riyadh

Largest cities (1993): Riyadh, 3,000,000; Jeddah, 2,500,000; Makkah (Mecca) (1994 est.), 550,000

Monetary unit: Riyal

Languages: Arabic, English widely spoken

Ethnicity/race: Arab 90%, Afro-Asian 10%

Religion: Islam, 100%

Geography

Saudi Arabia occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula, with the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba to the west, the Arabian Gulf to the east. Neighboring countries are Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Sultanate of Oman, Yemen, and Bahrain, connected to the Saudi mainland by a causeway. Saudi Arabia contains the world's largest continuous sand desert, the Rub Al-Khali, or Empty Quarter. Its oil region lies primarily in the eastern province along the Arabian Gulf.

Government

Saudi Arabia was an absolute monarchy until 1992, at which time the Sa'ud royal family introduced the country's first constitution. The legal system is based on the Sharia (Islamic law).

History

Saudi Arabia is not only the homeland of the Arab peoples—it is thought that the first Arabs originated on the Arabian peninsula—but the homeland of Islam, the world's second largest religion. Muhammad founded Islam there and it is the location of the two holy pilgrimage cities of Mecca and Medina. The Islamic calendar begins in 622, the year of the hegira, or Muhammad's flight from Mecca. A succession of invaders attempted to control the peninsula, but by 1517 the Ottoman Empire dominated, and in the middle of the 18th century, it was divided into separate principalities. In 1745 Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab began calling for the purification and reform of Islam, and the Wahhabi movement swept across Arabia. By 1811, Wahhabi leaders had waged a jihad—a holy war—against other forms of Islam on the peninsula, and succeeded in uniting much of it. By 1818, however, the Wahhabis had been driven out of power again by the Ottomans and their Egyptian allies.

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is almost entirely the creation of King Ibn Saud (1882–1953). A descendant of Wahhabi leaders, he seized Riyadh in 1901 and set himself up as leader of the Arab nationalist movement. By 1906 he had established Wahhabi dominance in Nejd and conquered Hejaz in 1924–25. Hejaz and Nejd were merged to form the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, which was an absolute monarchy ruled by sharia, Islamic law. A year later the region of Asir was incorporated into the kingdom.

Oil was discovered in 1936, and commercial production began during World War II. Its wealth allowed the country to provide free health care and education while not collecting any taxes from its people. Saudi Arabia was neutral until nearly the end of the war, but it was permitted to be a charter member of the United Nations.

The country joined the Arab League in 1945 and took part in the 1948–49 war against Israel. Saudi Arabia still does not recognize the state of Israel. On Ibn Saud's death in 1953, his eldest son, Saud, began an 11-year reign marked by an increasing hostility toward the radical Arabism of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. In 1964, the ailing Saud was deposed and replaced by the premier, Crown Prince Faisal, who gave vocal support but no military help to Egypt in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Faisal's assassination by a deranged kinsman in 1975 shook the Middle East, but failed to alter his kingdom's course. His successor was his brother, Prince Khalid. Khalid gave influential support to Egypt during negotiations on Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Desert. King Khalid died of a heart attack in 1982, and was succeeded by his half-brother, Prince Fahd bin 'Abdulaziz, who had exercised the real power throughout Khalid's reign. King Fahd chose his 58-year-old half-brother, Abdullah, as Crown Prince.