by Robert Lacey
Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz (Arab News)
Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz (Arab News)
Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, 1988 (SIPA Press/Rex Features)
King Fahd and General Norman Schwarzkopf, January 6, 1991 (SIPA Press/Rex Features)
Saudi troops in Al-Khafji, January 30, 1991 (Durand-Hudson-Langevin-Orban/Sygma/Corbis)
Insert 3
Bandar bin Sultan with George H. W. Bush, 1989 (AP/Topfoto)
Bandar bin Sultan with George W. Bush, 2001 (Rex Features)
Al-Watan (“The Nation”) reports 9/11 (Courtesy of Al-Watan)
Khalid Al-Hubayshi in Afghanistan (Khalid Al-Hubayshi, Private Collection)
Khalid Al-Hubayshi today (Khalid Al-Hubayshi, Private Collection)
Mansour Al-Nogaidan in 1995 (Mansour Al-Nogaidan, Private Collection)
Mansour Al-Nogaidan with his family, November 2008 (Mansour Al-Nogaidan, Private Collection)
Fifteen flying Saudis, the hijackers of 9/11 (AP/PA Photos)
Yasser Al-Zahrani’s letter to his father of December, 2002 (Talal Al-Zahrani, Private Collection)
Yasser Al-Zahrani in Guantánamo (Talal Al-Zahrani, Private Collection)
Frank Gardner shot in Riyadh, June 2004 (Internet screen grab—no credit)
Frank Gardner, October 2005, Buckingham Palace (Fiona Hanson/PA Archive/PA Photos)
Mohammed bin Nayef Extremist Rehabilitation Center, Riyadh (Hassan Ammar/AFP/Getty Images)
Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz in National Guard uniform (Arab News)
Fire in Mecca Girls’ School, March 2002 (Arab News)
Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz visits a poor man’s shack (Arab News)
King Abdullah at the G20 conference in New York, November 2008 (Getty Images)
King Abdullah at the April, 2008 National Dialogue convened in Abha to discuss women’s issues (http://www.sha6e.com/up/sha6e/images/sha6e-fdd72b93b5.jpg)
1
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’ ”).
2
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.
3
The other “badge” is a shortened thobe, because the Prophet did not let his clothes brush the ground.
4
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.
5
See family tree, page xxiv.
6
Mecca, Medina, Dammam, Buraydah, Hail, Abha, Tabuk, and Riyadh—to cover every corner of the Kingdom.
7
Azzam would later travel to Afghanistan. Mohammed Qutub lives in Mecca to this day.
8
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.
9
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.
10
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.
11
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.
12
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.
13
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.
14
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.
15
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.
16
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.
17
There were three Al-Ghamdis (unrelated to one another), three Al-Shehris (a pair of brothers and one unrelated), and two Al-Hazmis (unrelated).
18
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.
19
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.
20
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, Tal
al 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.
21
To oversimplify greatly, Sufi Muslims are mystics, Ismailis revere the Aga Khan, and Malikis are one of the four schools of Islamic thought; they have their own style of prayer, looking straight ahead at certain moments, for example, when other Muslims lower their eyes.
22
Al-Hayat means “life.” Since 1990 the newspaper has been owned by Prince Khaled bin Sultan.
23
Subsequently Abdullah presented the medal to George W. Bush and to King Juan Carlos of Spain.
24
The ten “most hated” included Hashim Yamani, the commerce minister who had told Saudis they were not compelled to eat expensive rice; Saleh Al-Laheedan, the chief justice, who would later call for the death sentence on the owners of satellite TV channels; and Prince Waleed bin Talal, the successful royal businessman whose plans for a kilometer-high skyscraper—potentially the world’s tallest building—had pushed up real estate prices in the north Jeddah area, making it impossible for Fouad to buy the house he had wanted there. (In February 2009 Al-Laheedan was dismissed by King Abdullah in the reform reshuffle that saw Norah Al-Faiz appointed Deputy Minister of Education.)
