House of Saud
The House of Saud is the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia. It is composed of the descendants of Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the Emirate of Diriyah, known as the First Saudi State,, and his brothers, though the ruling faction of the family is primarily led by the descendants of Ibn Saud, the modern founder of Saudi Arabia. It forms a subtribe of the larger prominent ancient Banu Hanifa tribe of Arabia, from which well known 7th century Arabian theologian Maslama ibn Ḥabīb originates. The most influential position of the royal family is the King of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarch. The family in total is estimated to comprise 15,000 members; however, the majority of power, influence and wealth is possessed by a group of about 2,000 of them. Some estimates of the royal family's wealth measure their net worth at $1.4 trillion. This figure includes the market capitalization of Saudi Aramco, the state oil and gas company, and its vast assets in fossil fuel reserves, making them the wealthiest family in the world and the wealthiest in recorded history.
The House of Saud has had four phases: the Sheikhdom of Diriyah ; the Emirate of Diriyah, marked by the expansion of Salafism; the Emirate of Nejd, marked with continuous infighting; and the current state, which evolved into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 and now wields considerable influence in the Middle East. The family has had conflicts with the Ottoman Empire, the Sharif of Mecca, the Al Rashid family of Ha'il and their vassal houses in Najd along with numerous Islamist groups both inside and outside Saudi Arabia and Shia minority in Saudi Arabia.
The succession to the Saudi Arabian throne was designed to pass from one son of the first king, Ibn Saud, to another. The monarchy was hereditary by agnatic seniority until 2006, when a royal decree provided that future Saudi kings are to be elected by a committee of Saudi princes. King Salman, who reigns currently, first replaced the next crown prince, his brother Muqrin, with his nephew Muhammad bin Nayef. In 2017, Muhammad bin Nayef was replaced by Mohammed bin Salman, King Salman's son, as the crown prince after an approval by the Allegiance Council with 31 out of 34 votes. The king-appointed cabinet includes more members of the royal family.
Title
House of Saud is a translation of ʾĀl Saud, an Arabic dynastic name formed by adding the word ʾĀl to the personal name of an ancestor. In the case of the Al Saud, the ancestor is Saud bin Muhammad bin Muqrin, the father of the dynasty's 18th century founder Muhammad bin Saud.The surname "Al Saud" is carried by any descendant of Muhammad bin Saud or his three brothers Farhan, Thunayyan, and Mishari. Al Saud's other family branches like Saud Al Kabir, the Al Jiluwi, the Al Thunayan, the Al Mishari and the Al Farhan are called cadet branches. Members of the cadet branches hold high and influential positions in government though they are not in the line of succession to the Saudi throne. Many cadet members intermarry within the Al Saud to re-establish their lineage and continue to wield influence in the government.
All male members of the royal family have the title of Emir. However, the sons and patrilineal grandsons of Kings are referred to by the style "His Royal Highness", differing from patrilineal great-grandsons and members of cadet branches who are called "His Highness", while the reigning king uses the additional title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.
History
Origins and early history
The earliest recorded ancestor of the Al Saud was Mani' ibn Rabiah Al-Muraydi, who settled in Diriyah in 1446–1447 with his clan, the Mrudah. The Mrudah are believed to be descended from the Banu Hanifa branch of the larger Rabi'ah tribal confederation. The Banu Hanifa played an important role in shaping the Middle East and Arabia from the 6th century.Mani' was invited to Diriyah by a relative named Ibn Dir, who was the ruler of a group of villages and estates that make up modern-day Riyadh. Mani's clan had been on a sojourn in east Arabia, near Al-Qatif, from an unknown point in time. Ibn Dir handed Mani two estates, called al-Mulaybeed and Ghusayba. Mani and his family settled and renamed the region Al Diriyah after their benefactor Ibn Dir.
The Mrudah became rulers of Al Diriyah, which prospered along the banks of Wadi Hanifa and became an important Najdi settlement. As the clan grew larger, power struggles ensued, with one branch leaving for nearby Dhruma, while another branch left for the town of az-Zubayr in southern Iraq. The Al Muqrin became the ruling family among the Mrudah in Diriyah.
The name of the clan comes from Sheikh Saud ibn Muhammad ibn Muqrin, who died in 1725.
Emirate of Diriyah
The First Saudi State was founded in 1727. This period was marked by conquest of neighboring areas and by religious zeal. At its height, the First Saudi State included most of the territory of modern-day Saudi Arabia, and raids by Al Saud's allies and followers reached into Yemen, Oman, Syria, and Iraq. Islamic scholars, particularly Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab and his descendants, are believed to have played a significant role in Saudi rule during this period. The Saudis and their allies referred to themselves during this period as the Muwahhidun or Ahl al-Tawhid. Later they were referred to as the Wahhabis, a particularly strict, puritanical Islamic sect, named for its founder.Leadership of Al Saud during the time of their first state passed from father to son without incident. The first imam, Muhammad bin Saud, was succeeded by his eldest son, Abdulaziz in 1765. In 1802, Abdulaziz's forces led 10,000 Wahhabi soldiers in an attack on the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala, in what is now southern Iraq and where Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad is buried. The Wahhabi soldiers killed more than 2,000 people, including women and children. They plundered the city, demolishing the massive golden dome above Hussein's tomb and loaded hundreds of camels with weapons, jewelry, coins and other valuable goods.
The attack on Karbala convinced the Ottomans and the Egyptians that the Saudis were a threat to regional peace. Abdulaziz was killed in 1803 by an assassin, believed by some to have been a Shi'ite seeking revenge over the sacking of Karbala the year before. Abdul-Aziz was in turn succeeded by his son, Saud, under whose rule the Saudi state reached its greatest extent. By the time Saud died in 1814, his son and successor Abdullah bin Saud had to contend with an Ottoman-Egyptian invasion in the Wahhabi war seeking to retake lost Ottoman Empire territory. The mainly Egyptian force succeeded in defeating Abdullah's forces, taking over the then-Saudi capital of Diriyyah in 1818. Abdullah was taken prisoner and was soon beheaded by the Ottomans in Constantinople, putting an end to the First Saudi State. The Egyptians sent many members of the Al Saud clan and other members of the local nobility as prisoners to Egypt and Constantinople, and razed the Saudi capital of Diriyyah.
Emirate of Nejd
A few years after the fall of Diriyah in 1818, the Saudis were able to re-establish their authority in Najd, establishing the Emirate of Nejd, commonly known as the Second Saudi State, with its capital in Riyadh.Compared to the First Saudi State, the second Saudi period was marked by less territorial expansion and less religious zeal, although the Saudi leaders continued to go by the title of imam and still employed Salafi religious scholars. The second state was also marked by severe internal conflicts within the Saudi family, eventually leading to the dynasty's downfall. In all but one instance, succession occurred by assassination or civil war, the exception being the passage of authority from Faisal ibn Turki to his son Abdullah ibn Faisal ibn Turki.
Present form
After his defeat at Mulayda, Abdul Rahman bin Faisal went with his family into exile in the deserts of eastern Arabia among the Al Murra bedouin. Soon afterward, however, he found refuge in Kuwait as a guest of the Kuwaiti emir, Mubarak Al Sabah. In 1902, Abdul Rahman's son, Abdulaziz, took on the task of restoring Saudi rule in Riyadh. Supported by a few dozen followers and accompanied by some of his brothers and relatives, Abdulaziz was able to capture Riyadh's Masmak fort and kill the governor appointed there by Muhammad bin Abdullah Al Rashid. Abdulaziz, reported to have been barely 20 at the time, was immediately proclaimed ruler in Riyadh. As the new leader of the House of Saud, Abdulaziz became commonly known from that time onward as "Ibn Saud" in Western sources, though he is still called "Abdulaziz" in the Arab world.Ibn Saud spent the next three decades trying to re-establish his family's rule over central Arabia, starting with his native Najd. His chief rivals were the Al Rashid clan in Ha'il, the Sharifs of Mecca in the Hijaz, and the Ottoman Turks in al Hasa. Abdulaziz also had to contend with the descendants of his late uncle Saud ibn Faisal, pretenders to the throne. Though for a time acknowledging the sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultans and even taking the title of pasha, Ibn Saud allied himself to the British, in opposition to the Ottoman-backed Al Rashidis. From 1915 to 1927, Abdulaziz's dominions were a protectorate of the British Empire, pursuant to the 1915 Treaty of Darin.
Ibn Saud won final victory over the Al Rashidis in 1921, making him the ruler of most of central Arabia. He consolidated his dominions as the Sultanate of Nejd. He then turned his attention to the Hijaz, finally conquering it in 1926, just months before the British protectorate ended. For the next five and a half years, he administered the two parts of his dual realm, the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd, as separate units.
By 1932, Ibn Saud had disposed of all his main rivals and consolidated his rule over much of the Arabian Peninsula. He united his dominions into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that year. His father, Abdul Rahman, retained the honorary title of "imam". In 1937, near Dammam, American surveyors discovered what later proved to be Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves. Before the discovery of oil, many family members were destitute.
Ibn Saud sired dozens of children by his many wives. He had at most four wives at a time, divorcing many times. He made sure to marry into many of the noble clans and tribes within his territory, including the chiefs of the Bani Khalid, Ajman, and Shammar tribes, as well as the Al ash-Sheikh. He also arranged for his sons and relatives to enter into similar marriages. He appointed his eldest surviving son, Saud as heir apparent, to be succeeded by the next eldest son, Faisal. The Al Saudi family became known as the "royal family", and each member, male and female, was accorded the title amir or amira, respectively.
Ibn Saud died in 1953, after having cemented an alliance with the United States in 1945. He is still celebrated officially as the "Founder", and only his direct descendants may take on the title of "his or her Royal Highness". The date of his recapture of Riyadh in 1902 was chosen to mark Saudi Arabia's centennial in 1999.
Upon Ibn Saud's death, his son Saud assumed the throne without incident, but his lavish spending led to a power struggle with his brother, Crown Prince Faisal. In 1964, the royal family forced Saud to abdicate in favor of Faisal, aided by an edict from the country's grand mufti. During this period, some of Ibn Saud's younger sons, led by Talal ibn Abdul Aziz, defected to Egypt, calling themselves the "Free Princes" and calling for liberalization and reform, but were later induced to return by Faisal. They were fully pardoned but were also barred from any future positions in government.
Faisal was assassinated in 1975 by a nephew, Faisal bin Musaid, who was promptly executed. Another brother, Khalid, assumed the throne. The next prince in line had actually been Prince Muhammad, but he had relinquished his claim to the throne in favor of Khalid, his only full brother.
Khalid died of a heart attack in 1982, and was succeeded by Fahd, the eldest of the powerful "Sudairi Seven", so-called because they were all sons of Ibn Saud by his wife Hassa Al Sudairi. Fahd did away with the previous royal title of "his Majesty" and replaced it with the honorific "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques", in reference to the two Islamic holy sites in Mecca and Medina, in 1986.
A stroke in 1995 left Fahd largely incapacitated. His half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, gradually took over most of the king's responsibilities until Fahd's death in August 2005. Abdullah was proclaimed king on the day of Fahd's death and promptly appointed his younger brother, Sultan bin Abdulaziz, the minister of defense and Fahd's "Second Deputy Prime Minister", as the new heir apparent. On 27 March 2009, Abdullah appointed Prince Nayef Interior Minister as his "second deputy prime minister" and Crown Prince on 27 October. Sultan died in October 2011 while Nayef died in Geneva, Switzerland on 15 June 2012. On 23 January 2015, Abdullah died after a prolonged illness, and his half-brother, Crown Prince Salman, was declared the new king.
Many princes and government officials were arrested in 2017 in an alleged anti corruption campaign by the king and crown prince. Then-United States President Donald Trump expressed support for the arrests.