In the 7th century the religion of Islam was founded by the Prophet Muhammad (PuH) who built Mosques in Mecca and Medina, which were territories in Arabia. These places had and have holy significance to Muslims (followers of the religion of Islam) all around the world, and would be the most important destinations for Islamic pilgrims.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (not related to the Prophet Muhammad) started a new, very radical strand of Islam called Wahhabism in the 18th century. He had extreme beliefs about the importance of going to battle, the rights of women, and the prohibition of technical innovation. Wahhabism’s central belief is that Muslims is that modernisation is sinful and so seek to live their lives as though they are still in the 7th century. Although this strand starkly contradicted the peaceful message of Islam, many people did adopt this belief system and are called Wahhabi’s. Wahhabis still believe that they hold the one true doctrine and recognise people belonging to other belief systems (including other Muslims) as their enemy.
One Bedouin tribe was the Saud family. In the mid 18th century, the visionary leader of the tribe, Muhammad ibn Suad, wanted to gain power over all the other tribes and conquer Arabia. To do this, they needed a military, but they had none. They needed the help of the Wahhabis.
The Wahhabis would give their military to the Saud family in exchange for political and religious influence when the family succeeded in ruling the area. An alliance was born.
Slowly but surely the Saud family conquered major parts of Arabia. In 1924, the leader of the tribe Abdul Aziz bin Rama al Saud (or ‘ibn Saud’ for short) took over Mecca and Medina. The family gained much of it’s wealth and power by charging pilgrims who came to visit these holy sites.
Now that lots of Arabia was conquered by the Saud family and the tribes who allied with them, the area is recognised as ‘The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’ meaning the parts of Arabia belonging to the Saudi family. The Wahabis now had more authority including control over the educational and legal systems.
A new source of revenue presented itself to the Saudi’s when oil was found in neighbouring countries. Ibn Saudi sought to take advantage of this and allowed the Oil Company of Souther California to find and drill oil reserves in Saudi Arabia.
This was at the time of the Great Depression where oil was scarce in America. President Roosevelt knew that he needed to make an alliance with Saudi Arabia in order to obtain its vast amounts of oil. The wealth of Saudi family boomed, and ties grew strong between the West and Saudi Arabia.
After Ibn Saud died, his brother Suad was appointed ruler of Saudi Arabia. Yet, it was suspected that he could not be trusted with money due to his extravagant lifestyle and the Kingdom would soon run into dept. The Wahhabis also disapproved of his relationship with the Egyptian president and socialist Gamal Nasser (who had Soviet connections). He was declared unfit to rule and was replaced by his brother Faisal, who became the regions most popular monarchs.
King Faisal worked to propel the Kingdom into the modern age, introducing better hospitals, opening schools for girls and the abolishing slavery with the help of John F Kennedy, all against the will of the Wahhabis. Furthermore, King Faisal did not support the state of Israel which meant that relations were damaged between Saudi and the United States. King Faisal was later assassinated.
The Wahhabis were angered by the Soviets invasion in neighbouring Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia and America’s mutual disapproval of the Soviet Union worked to re-strengthen their relationship and America supplied Saudi Arabia with weapons, money and military training to the Saudi troops to help defeat the Soviets. A young Osama Bin-Laden was one of Saudi fighters who fought in Afghanistan.
In 1990, the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussain, invaded Kuwait. The Saudi monarch invited American and foreign militaries to station themselves inside their Kingdom to help fight against Saddam Hussain. This was objected by the radical religious authorities since they did not want foreign forces on their lands. To satisfy the conservatives, King Fahad *directed more funds towards them.
This solution backfired since now that the radicals had more power, they sought to make Saudi Arabia a much more conservative place again. This involved removing women’s rights to study and work, and introducing more funding to conservative movements outside the Kingdom. Some American troops stayed after the Gulf war, which aggravated these groups even more, leading to a rise in terrorism against Americans living in Saudi Arabia. There are speculations that this triggered the horrific events of 9 11.
The UK’s Serious Fraud Office started an investigation to verify the claim that some Saudi officials took bribes from major arms manufacturer, BAE systems. The investigation was ordered to be stopped by then Prime Minister Tony Blair and many where upset by his unpecedented compromise of the UK’s judicial systems and ideals of democracy. This is just another example of how the West will readily break down their values just to keep Saudi Arabia happy, so that they can keep their profitable ties with the kingdom, such as selling them weapons.
The new King Abdullah wanted to modernise Saudi Arabia again and move away from the conservative religious establishments. He also sought to expand his economy by trading with other countries like India and China. Saudi Arabia is investing more money into education and sciences so that it can be less dependant on its finite natural resource and work to establish itself as a stable economy in the future. In 2009, King Abdullah announced that he was dismissing ultra-conservatives from their high positions.
By distancing themselves from their tribal Bedouin roots, progress is being made today. For example, female ministers are being appointed, there are many more career and business opportunities and international artists are invited to perform concerts inside the Kingdom. Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman has publicly promised to end Saudi extremism.
It is a shame that many people fail to educate themselves about the religion which is represented by one quarter of our worlds population. By lack of the want to learn more about the world around us, many people only see the radical strands of Islam, such as Wahhabism, and are quick to slur this mislead idea onto of the whole of Islam. I myself have met a shocking amount of non-Muslims who are certain that Islam is a violent, backward, women hating religion, even while the strong majority of Muslims support the Islamic ideals of peace, innovation and protection of human rights, just as the Prophet Muhammad tried to push for thousands of years before.
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