Will the real Ibn Saud, please stand up!

[Fabregas]

 

 

 

Left Abd al_aziz ibn Saud (seated) with other male members of his family 1911

[FatB]

he looks black! and wats with the hair!!

[N.O.R.F]

Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia

 

Abd al-`Azīz Āl Sa`ūd (November 26 (?), 1880 - November 9, 1953) (Arabic: عبدالعزيز آل سعود) was the first monarch of Saudi Arabia. He is also known by several abbreviated forms of this name, including simply Ibn Sa`ūd[1]. He was born in Riyadh into the House of Sa'ūd (commonly transliterated Saud), which had historically maintained dominion over the interior highlands of Arabia known as the Najd. Ibn Saud died in Taif.

 

 

Loss and reclamation of power

 

Abdul Aziz was born in Riyadh, Arabia in 1876. In 1890, at the age of fourteen, Saud followed his family into exile in Kuwait following the conquest of the family's lands by the Rashidi. He spent the remainder of his childhood in Kuwait. Abd al-Rahman had a stipend from the Turkish government of 60 Turkish pounds a month and Abdul Aziz went on several profitable raids in Nejd as he grew to adulthood. He attended the daily majlis of the emir of Kuwait, Mubarak al Sabah, from whom he learned much about the world. However, the family's home in Riyadh was of the simplest and cramped by five sons and at least one daughter.

 

In the Spring of 1901 Ibn Saud and some relatives, including a half-brother Mohammed,and several cousins, set out on a raiding expedition targeting for the most part tribes associated with the Rashidis. As booty was abundant, with many camels stolen, the raiding party grew to around 200 as tribesmen loyal to the Sauds joined the party. In the Fall, with Ramadan approaching, the group, reduced in number by defections, holed up in the Jabrin Oasis. It may have been only then that Ibn Sa'ud decided to attack Riyadh and regain his family's heritage. On the night of January 15–16,1902, together with a party of some sixty, including seven relatives and some slaves, he recaptured Riyadh with only twenty; the rest were guarding the camels in an isolated oasis. They had been told to escape if the venture failed. The Rashidi governor of the city, Ajlan, was killed as he fled the attack by Ibn Sa'ud in front of the fort gate. Ibn Sa'ūd was considered a "magnetic" leader, and following the capture of Riyadh many former supporters of the House of Saud once again rallied to its support

 

In the two years following his dramatic seizure of Riyadh, Ibn Sa'ūd recaptured almost half of Nejd from the Rashidis. In 1904, however, Ibn Rashid appealed to the Ottoman Empire for assistance in defeating the House of Sa'ūd. The Ottomans sent troops to Arabia, setting Ibn Sa'ūd on the defensive. The armies of the House of Saud suffered a major defeat on June 15, 1904, but his forces soon regrouped and returned to the offensive as the Turkish troops left the country due to supply problems.

 

Ibn Sa'ūd finally consolidated control over the Nejd in 1912 with the help of an organized and well-trained army. In that year he founded the Ikhwan, a militant religious organisation which was to assist in his later conquests. More broadly, he revived his dynasty's traditional alliance with Wahhabism. During World War I the British government attempted to cultivate favor with Ibn Sa'ūd via their Political Agent Captain William Shakespear, but this was not seriously continued after Shakespear's unexpectedly early death at the Battle of Jarrab. Instead the British transferred support to Ibn Sa'ūd's rival Sherif Hussein ibn Ali, leader of Hejaz, with whom the Sa'ūds were almost constantly at war. Despite this, the British entered into a treaty in December 1915 which made the lands of the House of Sa'ūd a British protectorate. In exchange, Ibn Sa'ūd pledged to again make war against Ibn Rashid, who was an ally of the Ottomans.

 

Ibn Sa'ūd did not, however, immediately make war against Ibn Rashid, despite a steady supply of weapons and cash (£5,000 Sterling per month) from the British. He argued with the British that the payment he received was insufficient to adequately wage war against an enemy as powerful as Ibn Rashid. In 1920, however, Ibn Sa'ūd finally marched again against the Rashidis, extinguishing their dominion in 1922. The defeat of the Rashidis doubled the territory of the Ibn Sa'ūd, and he was able to negotiate a new treaty with the British at Uqair in 1922, abolishing the 1915 protection agreement in return for Ibn Saud's agreement not to attempt to expand his state's borders into British protectorates on the Gulf Coast. British subsidies continued until 1924.

 

In 1925 the Sa'ūds captured the holy city of Mecca from Sherif Hussein ibn Ali ending 700 years of Hashemite tutelage of the Islamic holy places. On 10 January 1926 Ibn Saud was proclaimed King of the Hejaz in the Great Mosque at Mecca.

 

In 1927, following the defeat of Husayn, the British government recognized the power of the Saud family, led by Ibn Saud, over much of what is today Saudi Arabia. The Treaty of Jedda was signed on May 20. At this point he changed his title from Sultan of Nejd to King of Nejd. Initially the two parts of his dominians (Nejd in the east and Hejaz in the west) were administered seperately.

 

From 1927 to 1932 Ibn Saud continued to consolidate power throughout the Arabian Peninsula. In March 1929 he defeated elements of the Ikhwan, which had disobeyed his orders to cease raiding and had invaded Iraq against his wishes, at the Battle of Sbilla. In 1932, having conquered most of the Peninsula, Saud renamed the area from the lands of Nejd and Hejaz to Saudi Arabia. He then proclaimed himself King of Saudi Arabia.

 

Ibn Saud in the white

 

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