Inside the Kingdom (77 page)

Many Saudis reject being described as “Wahhabis,” since they see themselves as followers of true Islam, not members of a particular sect (see chapter 1, page 10, “The First ‘Wahhabi’ ”).

Mohammed’s recitations of the revelations he received over twenty-two years and five months were memorized by professional remembrancers (
huffaz
). They were written down by his secretary Zaid ibn Thabit and were finally compiled into one volume around A.D. 644, about a dozen years after the Prophet’s death.

The other “badge” is a shortened thobe, because the Prophet did not let his clothes brush the ground.

The screening of
Death of a Princess
on British television provoked the expulsion of the British ambassador from Jeddah in 1980. See
The Kingdom
, chapter 48. The romantic legend has subsequently developed that the ill-starred couple were not murdered—reports of their deaths were confused—and that they were smuggled out of the country to start a new life elsewhere. This seems far-fetched.

See family tree, page xxiv.

Mecca, Medina, Dammam, Buraydah, Hail, Abha, Tabuk, and Riyadh—to cover every corner of the Kingdom.

Azzam would later travel to Afghanistan. Mohammed Qutub lives in Mecca to this day.

The USSR was the first major nation to recognize Ibn Saud, establishing diplomatic relations on February 16, 1926, ahead of the British on March 1, 1926—and the United States in 1931. But the Soviet representative was recalled from Jeddah during Stalin’s purges in 1938 and was never replaced.

Popular shorthand for the Arabian Peninsula—
Al-Jazeera Al-Arabiya
means the “Island of the Arabs.” Based in Riyadh,
Al-Jazeera
newspaper is not connected with the Qatar-based TV news network of the same name.

It is often said that Bin Baz issued a fatwa asserting that the earth was flat. After extensive research I have only been able to discover his fatwa “On the Possibility of Going into Orbit,” in which he does not state this in so many words and in which he appears, to this author at least, to weigh the available scientific evidence contradicting his beliefs with more open-mindedness than many a modern “creationist” in the West.

Mohammed bin Fahd’s Bin Jaluwi heritage is another example of the Al-Saud’s “tribal way.” A number of regional governors are related to local magnates and dynasties through their mothers. Prince Saud bin Abdul Muhsin, governor for many years of the northern province of Hail, is descended, via his mother, from the Rasheeds, who ruled Hail before being ousted by the Al-Saud.

In 2007, estimates based on the latest census figures showed a total population in the Eastern Province of 3,400,157, made up of: native Sunni, 1,541,379; native Shia, 914,765; and foreign, 944,013. In Al-Hasa, Shia composed some 40 to 45 percent of the 908,366 inhabitants, and some 87 percent of the 474,573 registered inhabitants of Qateef.

A U.S. official based in the Kingdom offers a more prosaic explanation. He says that the base was stumbled on by accident when a young U.S. diplomat took his girlfriend camping in the desert south of Riyadh.

At the emergency Arab League summit convened in Cairo on August 9, 1990, the motion condemning Saddam and approving the dispatch of Arab troops to free Kuwait was opposed by Iraq, Libya, and the PLO; Algeria and Yemen abstained; Jordan, Sudan, and Mauritania expressed reservations, while Tunisia failed to attend. The twelve members approving the resolution were Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.

The “Free Princes” were Talal, Fawwaz, and Badr bin Abdul Aziz, plus a cousin, Saad ibn Fahd. Abdul Muhsin bin Abdul Aziz expressed support for their protest, but did not go into exile himself.

In December 2007 the
Washington Post
reported that the Saudi royal family contributed about $10 million to Bill Clinton’s presidential library—“roughly the amount it gave to the presidential library of George W. Bush, according to people directly familiar with the contributions.” It is believed that the Al-Saud routinely contributed to the libraries of retiring U.S. presidents from Jimmy Carter onward, if not earlier. However, the size of all donations remains confidential, owing to the status of the libraries as charitable foundations.

There were three Al-Ghamdis (unrelated to one another), three Al-Shehris (a pair of brothers and one unrelated), and two Al-Hazmis (unrelated).

American figures show that some 759 prisoners were detained in Guantánamo from January 2002 to May 2006. The seven largest groupings by country of origin were: Afghanistan 219; Saudi Arabia 139; Yemen 109; Pakistan 70; Algeria 25; China 22; Morocco 15.

In Qateef the Shia won handsomely, thanks to a grassroots campaign organized by Jaffar Shayeb and the other veterans of exile with Sheikh Hassan Al-Saffar.

The eighteen surviving sons of Abdul Aziz were headed by King Abdullah (b. 1923) and Crown Prince Sultan (b. 1924), who are not members of the Allegiance Council (but are represented by their sons—see below). The council chairman was Mishaal bin Abdul Aziz, with fifteen council-member sons, in order of birth: Abdul Rahman, Miteb, Talal, Badr, Turki (living in Egypt), Nayef, Fawwaz, Salman, Mamduh, Abdul Elah, Sattam, Ahmad, Mashhur, Hadhlul, and Migren bin Abdul Aziz. Not present were three ailing brothers—Bandar, Musaed, and Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz—who have delegated their council places and votes to their sons. Fawwaz died in 2008 without any sons, bringing the number of council members down to thirty-four. The nineteen grandson members of the council were: Mohammed bin Saud, Khaled bin Faisal, Mohammed bin Saad, Turki bin Faisal bin Turki the first (Abdul Aziz had two sons named Turki, the elder of whom died in 1919), Mohammed bin Nasser, Faisal bin Bandar, Saud bin Abdul Muhsin, Mohammed bin Fahd, Khaled bin Sultan, Talal bin Mansour, Khaled bin Abdullah, Mohammed bin Mishari, Faisal bin Khaled, Badr bin Mohammed, Faisal bin Thamer, Mishaal bin Majed, Abdullah bin Musaed, Faisal bin Abdul Majeed, and Abdul Aziz bin Nawwaf. In February 2009 the death was announced of Prince Turki bin Faisal bin Turki the first. As this book went to press, in May 2009, his replacement was still to be selected.