Faisal Of Saudi Arabia Quotes

MODERN SAUDI HISTORY IN FIVE EASY LESSONS If you did not go hungry in the reign of King Abdul Aziz, you would never go hungry. If you did not have fun in the reign of King Saud, you would never have fun. If you did not go to prison in the reign of King Faisal, you would never go to prison. If you did not make money in the reign of King Khaled, you would never make money. If you did not go bankrupt in the reign of King Fahd . . .

Every king had tried to put his imprint on the city and the mosque; some were worse than others. King Faisal had been a parsimonious man and the expansion works reflected as much—measured and reasonable, nothing too ostentatious. The current ruler, King Fahd, was a spender who disliked all that was old. He loved glitz and gold. More ancient neighborhoods were being torn down, and Mecca’s classical Islamic architecture was vanishing rapidly. Ugly modern buildings were rising, and more chain hotels were being built to accommodate yet more pilgrims.

From that bitter defeat, the Al Saud learned another strategic lesson: above all else, do not use force against each other; keep family disputes peaceful and private; and unite quickly and firmly against anyone who violates this rule. Modern-era Kings Faisal, Khalid, Fahd, and Abdullah all respected this stabilizing principle. King Salman and his ambitious Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, have not.

In 1891, Imam Faisal bin Turki’s last surviving son, Imam Abd al-Rahman, supported a failed effort to drive the Al Rasheed from the southern Nejd. The Al Rasheed’s victory at the Battle of Mulayda forced him to flee from Riyadh, and the second Saudi State came to an end.

Only Abdulaziz’s half-brother, Mohammed, would not swear allegiance to Crown Prince Saud. Mohammed did not dispute his older brother’s right to rule, but he had been part of the band that took Riyadh in 1902 and had fought in many campaigns during the Wars of Unification. Mohammed felt that he or his eldest son, Khalid, had a legitimate right to be considered Abdulaziz’s successor. It was the future King Faisal who finally persuaded his uncle to pledge allegiance to Crown Prince Saud—thus playing a role very similar to the one his own son, Khalid al-Faisal, would play sixty years later in resolving another succession dispute.

King Salman appears to have engineered a peaceful handover of power from the sons of King Abdulaziz to his grandsons. Third-generation princes now serve not only as crown prince but in nearly all provincial governor, deputy governor, and royal cabinet positions. Like the young team of brothers that King Faisal assembled in the 1960s, the grandsons of King Abdulaziz installed by King Salman and MBS expect to govern Saudi Arabia into the foreseeable future.

Faisal had appointed Mohammed’s younger full brother, Khalid (1913–1982), deputy prime minister in 1962. That implied, but did not confirm, that Khalid would become crown prince. Only in 1965 did King Faisal officially decree that Khalid would be his successor

King Faisal is often credited with saving the Saudi monarchy. He certainly centralized and institutionalized it.

King Faisal was assassinated in March 1975 by his nephew, Prince Faisal bin Musa’id bin Abdulaziz.

within hours of Faisal’s death the Council of Senior Princes declared Crown Prince Khalid the new king. As expected, the Second Deputy Prime Minister Fahd became the new crown prince.12 In what had become an established pattern, the new king became prime minister and the new crown prince became deputy prime minister. The putative third in line, Abdullah, became the new second deputy prime minister.

After several failed attempts to negotiate a settlement, Abdulaziz invaded Yemen. One Saudi column led by his eldest son, Prince Saud, captured Najran and advanced to Sa’dah, the center of today’s Houthi movement. Facing tremendous difficulties with mountainous terrain and tribesmen, he subsequently had no more success than the Roman General Gallus had had 2,000 years earlier or the Royal Saudi Air Force would have eighty years later. A second column led by the second son, Prince Faisal, was more successful. Using motor transport and modern weapons paid for with a loan from the newly arrived Standard Oil of California (today’s Chevron), Faisal advanced rapidly down the flat Red Sea coast.38 The Yemeni coastal tribes—notably, the Zaraniq—are Shafi Sunnis and were happy to join the war against the Zaydi Shia. They facilitated the surrender of the coastal city of Hodeidah without a fight.

King Saud never intended to quietly fade away. Now he saw a chance to mobilize discontented clerics, merchants, tribal leaders, and some mid-ranking princes. He began blocking Faisal’s appointments for judges and governors. In November 1960, King Saud refused to approve Prime Minister Faisal’s proposed budget. A frustrated Faisal submitted a letter stating that “As I am unable to continue, I shall cease to use the powers vested in me as from tonight.”26 Faisal did not use the word resign, but that was how Saud chose to read it. King Saud used Faisal’s letter as the pretext to reclaim his role as prime minister, and then created a new cabinet in an alliance with the so-called free princes.

King Faisal established a Council of Senior Princes to advise him on succession issues and to supervise succession in the event of his death. This Council initially included two of Abdulaziz’s brothers, Abdullah and Musa’id, as well as five of his sons: Khalid, Fahd, Abdullah, Sultan, and Nawwaf.

King Abdulaziz had selected his next two successors informally with a pact between his two eldest sons. King Faisal sought to make this process more secure, transparent, and predictable. Prince Fahd (1921–2005) was the seventh of Abdulaziz’s surviving sons. He had strongly supported Saud’s abdication, and as the oldest of the Sudairi Seven brothers had thrown their considerable political weight behind Faisal.9 Thus in 1967, Faisal selected Fahd to fill the newly created position of “second deputy prime minister.

Having abandoned the free princes, dismissed the liberal technocrats, frightened the ulama, alienated merchants, and cooled relations with the United States, King Saud had few friends left. In October 1962, the Al Saud family and the ulama again pressured him into accepting the return of Crown Prince Faisal as prime minister. Faisal immediately removed Saud’s sons from the cabinet and installed the team of brothers and half-brothers that would govern Saudi Arabia for the next fifty years.

King Saud abdicated formally and peacefully in November 1964. With the Minister of Defense Prince Sultan and the Commander of the National Guard Prince Abdullah aligned with Faisal, Saud had little choice.

Of his thirty-four living sons, only Faisal was with him at the end. When Saud arrived from Jeddah, Faisal rose to greet him and immediately swore allegiance to his older brother as the new king. Faisal then took a ring off their dead father’s finger and presented it to his brother in a gesture of loyalty.12 As his father had instructed him to do, King Saud publicly proclaimed Faisal his crown prince and confirmed his appointment as Viceroy to the Hejaz.

Saud was also devoted to his father. In 1936, when a knife-wielding Yemeni assassin attacked King Abdulaziz in Mecca, the crown prince spontaneously stepped in front of his father and took the blade in his own shoulder. Many believe it was this incident that compelled Abdulaziz not to sideline Saud for his more able half-brother, Faisal.

In Riyadh, King Saud’s brothers became convinced that his foreign policy bungling, combined with his economic mismanagement, was putting their family at risk. The elder brothers agreed that Saud should keep his throne but relinquish all executive authority to Faisal. King Saud accepted this arrangement in March 1958. Crown Prince Faisal became prime minister, appointed himself finance minister, and began to balance the kingdom’s budget. He cut spending across the board, suspended development projects, canceled agriculture subsidies, delayed payments to contractors and tribal sheikhs, imposed import controls on luxury goods, and devalued the riyal. He reduced stipends for royal family members and obtained new loans from Aramco as well as leading merchants, including Osama bin Laden’s father Mohammed.24 At the same time, oil production increased by more than 50 percent from 1 million barrels a day in 1957 to 1.6 million barrels a day in 1962.25 The kingdom’s budget was balanced and its currency stabilized. The inflation rate fell sharply. By 1960, Faisal’s austerity had reduced not only the national debt, but also his own popularity with the tribes, merchants, and princes.

King Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995, which left him increasingly weak and unable to govern during the last decade of his life. When he died in August 2005, his younger half-brother, Abdullah (1924–2015), who had been crown prince for twenty-three years and effective regent for ten, was immediately declared king. Fahd’s younger full brother, Prince Sultan (1928–2011), remained minister of defense and became crown prince and deputy prime minister. The number-three post of second deputy prime minister, which King Faisal had created, was left vacant for the first time in thirty-eight years. Many had expected this third position to go to Sultan’s full brother, Interior Minister Naif (1934–2012), but King Abdullah baulked at the prospect of two full Sudairi brothers becoming king one after the other. In fact, from the beginning of his reign, King Abdullah sparred with the six remaining Sudairi brothers, who still firmly controlled the Ministries of Defense and Interior as well as the governorship of Riyadh. Only in 2009, when Crown Prince Sultan’s health had deteriorated to the point at which it became clear that he would never be king, did King Abdullah declare Prince Naif second deputy prime minister.

In March 1964, King Saud’s health had improved, and he wrote to Prime Minister Faisal demanding the full restoration of his authority. Neither Faisal nor the Al Saud family would agree. Instead, the third eldest brother, Mohammed bin Abdulaziz, marshaled family support for a religious ruling or fatwa that would permanently reduce King Saud to a respected head of state. Faisal would remain prime minister and no longer need to consult King Saud on any internal or external matters

Then Abdulaziz did something revolutionary. He dismissed the leaders of two major Ikhwan tribes. He announced that Abdulaziz Daweesh would replace Faisal Daweesh as chief of the Mutair, and Ibn Ruba’yan would replace Sultan ibn Bijad as paramount sheikh of the Utaibah.20 This was unprecedented. Abdulaziz was the imam of the Wahhabis, just as King Salman is today. As such he was the community’s supreme political and spiritual leader, but no existing tradition allowed him to depose tribal chiefs. It was not at all clear that Abdulaziz could enforce such changes, but it was very clear that he intended to limit tribal independence and create a strong central government.

1926, Abdulaziz appointed his second son, Faisal, Viceroy of the Hejaz, and returned to Riyadh. The geographic unification of what is today the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was largely complete. The political unification of the kingdom was, however, far from secure, for Abdulaziz’s most perilous challenge was still to come.

Unlike the Al Rasheed of Ha’il, the Al Saud had not traditionally engaged in commerce. Abdulaziz sought to promote the merchants’ prosperity because he relied on them for taxes, customs duties, and loans. He did not compete with them and instructed his sons to stay out of business. King Saud continued his father’s policy, and in 1956 and 1959 issued royal decrees prohibiting princes and civil servants from engaging in private business. King Faisal, however, recognized the need for change. With more and more princes coming of age, they could not all be given large stipends or senior government positions—nor could they be prohibited from earning a living. King Faisal’s own son, Abdullah, had served as minister of the interior but wanted to go into business. When a new decree was issued in 1976 allowing members of the royal family to engage in commerce, Prince Abdullah al-Faisal became Saudi Arabia’s Sony dealer.20 This fundamental legal change ensured that the Al Saud would eventually join the kingdom’s commercial, as well as its social and political, elite.

Salman was the sixth brother of the Sudairi Seven and the last survivor of the team that King Faisal had installed in the early 1960s. He was generally regarded as one of King Abdulaziz’s most intelligent and experienced sons.

Like King Faisal, but unlike Mustapha Kemal Ataturk in Turkey or Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran, Mohammed bin Salman would also make an effort to preserve the dignity, influence, and incomes of the clerics.

Of his thirty-four living sons, only Faisal was with him at the end. When Saud arrived from Jeddah, Faisal rose to greet him and immediately swore allegiance to his older brother as the new king. Faisal then took a ring off their dead father’s finger and presented it to his brother in a gesture of loyalty.12 As his father had instructed him to do, King Saud publicly proclaimed Faisal his crown prince and confirmed his appointment as Viceroy to the Hejaz. King Saud remained prime minister; Crown Prince Faisal became deputy prime minister and established the link between those two positions that continues today.

King Faisal formalized the Saudi Civil List, and while its details have never been made public, the broad outlines are known. Payments vary greatly based on lineage and age, with each generation receiving significantly less than the one before it. In each category a princess receives half of what a prince does, the difference being based on the view that women have husbands and are not the principal breadwinner of their household.

King Faisal’s Islamic initiative was a success. He transformed the status of Jerusalem from an Arab–Israeli issue into a pan-Islamic one. More importantly, he created an Islamic Block, based in Saudi Arabia and operating through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Muslim World League, which consistently supported Saudi foreign policy objectives. In 2005, the OIC adopted King Abdullah’s proposal for peace with Israel as the policy of fifty-six Muslim countries. In 2020, the organization has permanent delegations to the United Nations and the European Union. Although Jerusalem remained the OIC’s primary focus, Muslim foreign ministers have presented unified positions at the UN on issues ranging from Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the Syrian Civil War.

a third Oriental potentate, whose difficult name in Arabic was ’Abd-al-’Azīz ibn-’Abd-al-Rahmān al-Faisal ibn-Su’ūd, King of Saudi Arabia. He was a very important potentate indeed, for he owned what was perhaps the greatest oil pool in the world, and was being paid some fifteen million dollars a year in royalties—no pun intended. His oil was the lifeblood of the American defense forces in the Mediterranean area, ships, planes and tanks, and so Ibn Saud could have anything he wanted to make him happy.

It is worth remembering that in March 2015, Mohammed bin Salman was not the king of Saudi Arabia nor the crown prince or even the deputy crown prince. He was the newly appointed minister of defense. The experienced Saud al-Faisal, though ill, was still foreign minister. The popular view that 30-year-old Mohammed bin Salman recklessly took his country to war and that ten sovereign states, including Britain and the United States, blithely followed him, is a misreading of history. King Salman made the decision in order to stop the “Hezbollahization” of Yemen. Major Western powers supported the Saudis in order to prevent the expansion of Iranian influence into the Red Sea, especially in the strategically important Bab al-Mandeb strait, and to maintain Saudi support for then-ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.

In 2017, Saudi Arabia accidentally printed a textbook showing the Star Wars character Yoda sitting next to King Faisal as he signed the UN charter.

Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, minister of education and King Abdullah’s son-in-law, adds, “The king’s message is that oil is not our first wealth. Education is. We have to develop the people now.