The Religious-Dynastic Alliance of Saudi Arabia

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian 

How did a dynasty allied to a religious movement come to acquire control over most of the Arabian Peninsula?

Near the end of the 18^th century the central part of the peninsula, known as Najd, fell under the control of a militant fundamentalist Sunni Islamic movement founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

After 1744 he and his followers were being supported by the Saud family governing the town of Dariyya, and what we now call Wahhabi Islam was born.

By 1802 the Wahhabis were strong enough to capture the holy Shi’ite city of Karbala, in present-day Iraq, from the Ottoman Turks, resulting in 5,000 deaths and the plundering of the Imam Husayn Shrine Three years later, they had wrested control of Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holiest cities, from the Ottoman Empire.

At its height, this first Saudi state included most of the territory of modern-day Saudi Arabia, and raids by its allies and followers reached into present-day Yemen, Oman, Syria, and Iraq.

The loss of Mecca was a significant blow to the prestige of the Ottomans, who had exercised sovereignty over the holy city since 1517. The Saudi-Wahhabi alliance denounced the Ottoman sultan himself and called into question the validity of his claim to be the caliph and guardian of the sanctuaries.

The attack on Karbala, too, had convinced the Ottomans that the Saudis were a threat. An Ottoman counterattack retook Mecca and Medina in 1811 and by 1819 had also captured Dariyya itself, destroying the new state.

But this did not put an end to the Wahhabi-Saud alliance. A few years after the fall of Dariyya, the Saudis were able to re-establish their authority in Najd, establishing an emirate, with its capital in Riyadh.

Throughout the rest of the 19th century, they fought for control of the interior of what was to become Saudi Arabia with another family, the Rashids. The latter were temporarily victorious and by the beginning of the 20^th century had ousted the Saudi ruling house from the peninsula.

However, the Saudi fortunes turned beginning in 1902, when Abdulaziz Ibn-Saud regained Riyadh, the start of three decades of campaigns that made him the ruler of nearly all of central Arabia.

He took advantage of the political vacuum in much of the Middle East following the defeat and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War.

Ibn-Saud consolidated his control over all of Najd by 1922, then conquered the Hejaz in 1925. With further gains in eastern and southern regions of the peninsula, he proclaimed his new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.

One intriguing footnote is the role played by Harry St. John Philby, the British writer and colonial intelligence officer. Philby was a convert to Islam and, as one of Ibn-Saud’s principal advisers, played a key role in the emergence of the Saudi state.

Ibn-Saud presided over the discovery of petroleum in 1938 and the beginning of large-scale oil production after the Second World War. By the time he died in 1953, he had fathered 45 sons, and all six of the subsequent rulers of the kingdom. 

Saudi Arabia has had its setbacks as well as successes over the succeeding 63 years, but the kingdom remains a major player in the Middle East. Its Wahhabi form of Islam is promoted throughout the world using the kingdom’s oil wealth.