Said al-Saud
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Early life
Said bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud (in Arabic: سعيد بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود) was born in 1902 at an unknown location deep in Arabian Desert. He was the first son of Abdul Aziz, future king of Saudi Arabia.
On that same year Abdul Aziz conquered the semi-independent state of the Rashidi Arabia, an emirate ruled by the Rashidi royal house (loyal to the Ottoman Turks) in Central Arabia, and proclaimed the Saudi Emirate of Nefd. Then moved with his family to their new capital city, Riyadh, abandoning their nomadic life.
Said grew up with the expectation of one day becoming the future emir of Nefd as he was the emir’s eldest son. But the emir hadn’t decided yet who would succeed him and things wouldn’t be so simple to Said.
Route to power
In 1923 the now Sultan Abdul Aziz announced that he would chose his successor among the most capable sons and not according their age. Such disliked Prince Said, who saw in risk what he considered as his right, and pleased his brothers and half-brothers.
This caused a strong rivalry and competition among the young princes and several of them died in strange circumstances during the next years.
Said was always a flattering son to his father, the sultan, and was able to be given responsibility positions within Saudi government notably the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for two periods (1928-1933 and 1943-1952) so was ambassador of Saudi Arabia in Hijaaz (1927-28) and in Turkey (1938-1943). During these years Prince Said was able to get a certain reconciliation between the Hashemite and Saudi royal houses which permitted both to be founding partners in the Arab Community (1949) and COPEN (1951).
Since the beginning Said found on his younger half-brother Faisal the most dangerous competitor and was pleased that his military campaign against Hijaaz (in 1926) failed. But Abdul Aziz, now titled king, always gave important positions to Prince Faisal which made Prince Said to feel annoyed.
The crown prince was finally chosen in 1943. Although everyone was expecting Prince Faisal as crown prince the choice went to Prince Said, which was a surprise to everyone. Since then this is one of the greatest mysteries in Saudi history. All historians are unanimous in considering Faisal as the King’s favourite son, so why wasn’t he the chosen one? Some say that Abdul Aziz committed an evaluation mistake, others say the King’s mind was starting to be damaged with age (by then he was 63 years old) and finally a third theory tells that there were pressures from the wahhabi clergy to favour Prince Said as Faisal was considered by them as too influenced by foreign ideas and they disliked his European manners.
When King Abdul Aziz passed away, on the 9th November 1953, Said became the new king without any surprises or incidents.
King Said
Power consolidation
With the King and Father of the Nation dead, Said considered that the other princes might not respect Abdul Aziz’s will and might try something against him. He needed to consolidate his power.
King Said staged a self-coup and dismissed the entire government, composed by brothers and sons of the deceased King. In replacement he gave all the ministries to his own sons. Such annoyed the royal family who considered the King’s sons as too young and inexperienced to hold government positions. Muhammad, Said’s oldest son, also became new crown prince and prime minister, a newly created position in government.
Said also instituted the Royal College, in 1954, on which all the sons of the princes should study. In fact this college, located by side of the royal palace, was in reality a place where the King could have near their sons in order to pressure the royal family not to attempt any action against his rule. Here the princes’ sons were easily reachable and any action would be paid by their death.
Kleptocracy
During the next years the king and his sons ruled over Saudi Arabia as real kleptocrats and spent most of national wealth in luxury goods and building palaces. They acted like if their country was their own private property.
Their wastes became well known so as their extremely expensive vacations in Monaco and Xliponia. Rumours often told that they made lots of huge parties full of gambling, women and alcohol. The wahhabi clergy, initially neutral to the government matters, started to be upset with the King’s and his sons' behaviour.
The rule of the kingdom was often neglected and by 1956 Saudi Arabian economy was near to bankruptcy. Economy was saved by the Suez Crisis, when oil prices reached historical maximums. But this didn’t mean any change of behaviour to King Said and his sons and during their rule there were only two really improvements for Saudi development, the founding of the first Saudi university, King Said University (1957), and the abolishment of slavery (1962).
The Hajji War
See main article: Hajji War
In 1958 General Abdul Karim Qassim deposed the Hashemite rule in Iraaq in a bloody coup on which most of that royal family was executed. The new Hashemite King, Hussayn I, instituted the Iraaqi Government in Exile but such wasn’t recognised by the Saudi government.
Hussayn I, King of Hijaaz and pretender to the throne of Iraaq, reacted by forbidding the Saudi people to perform the pilgrimage to the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, the Hajj. For the wahhabi clergy and the conservative Saudi Arabians such was considered as a high insult. The clergy organised their Hajj for 1959 even if the Hashemite, the traditional keepers of the Holy Cities, wouldn’t allow it.
On the 23rd May 1959 Saudi pilgrims were arrested by Hijjazi forces and things got confuse. Over 200 Saudi pilgrims were killed. Five days later King Said declared war against Hijjaz by pressures of the wahhabi high leaders. It was a short war on which the Saudi expected to easily win. They were wrong. The war became a stalemate and Saudi Arabia was forced to accept peace as the kingdom was once again nearly bankrupted.
The King’s fall
The economical situation in Saudi Arabia gave place to generalised discontentment both among the common people so as among the royal family. King Said replied with terrible repression against the common people who were more and more embracing ideologies such as communism and Pan-Arabism.
King Said and his sons kept their wasteful life style and the clergy became openly critic to the political power. Their relations got worst when the King decided to celebrate, in 1963, his tenth anniversary in the throne. An impressive celebration was held in Riyadh and it is said that one fifth of the national budget for that year was spent there.
The King and his government was more and more isolated, without the support of the clergy, most of the royal family and the common people. Soon a coalition of clerics and princes started a conspiracy that should end Said’s rule.
The leader of such conspiracy was Prince Faisal, who stayed abroad during Said’s rule. On the 4th March 1964 King Said was finally deposed on a bloodless coup. Faisal became the new King of Saudi Arabia and Said so as his sons were forced to flee for exile.
Life on exile
Said and his sons left firstly to Lebanon and then to Xliponia where they had a palace.
Following the example of King Hussayn I of Hijaaz Said proclaimed the Saudi Government in Exile but such existence was brief. No state recognised his pretensions as former King Said did not have international sympathies. Also King Luc VII of Xliponia considered that such “exiled government” was against the traditional principles of Xliponian neutrality. Said had to give up his exiled government otherwise he would be expelled from Xliponia.
Said spent the last years of his life at his palace in Bovlai. He kept his wasteful life style as possible using the money he had in accounts in tax havens.
He died of heart attack on the 23rd February 1969 at his palace. He was buried at the Foreigners’ Quarter at Bovlai Cemetery and at his burial ceremonies there were no state ceremonials.
Trivia
- At the time of his rule King Said was the wealthiest ruler of the world. He also had the largest private aeroscrafts fleet, a total of eight built by Rolls-Royce Limited according to his commands. Some were huge and luxurious, real flying palaces. After his fall just two survived, the one which took him and his sons, wives and grandsons to exile, and another kept in Saudi Arabia for royal transportation. All other six were dismantled, sold as junk and the money made served to build schools. A real act of populism made by his successor, King Faisal I al-Saud.
- During Said’s rule more than twenty palaces were built for him or to his government members (that means his sons). After the king was deposed several of these palaces were used as government related buildings. At least eight were demolished and its stones used on public works. More populism from his successor.
- At the time of his deposition another palace was being built deep in the desert. After the fall the construction was abandoned and it took just two months to the desert sands swallow it.
- One of the passions of the king was automobiles. He had over 500 which are nowadays property of the Automotive Saudi Museum in Riyadh, the largest of its kind in the Middle East. Most of those cars were luxury or sporty models, some were unique which included several Rover-Royce, Mercedes Benz, Astra, Auto Guzzi and Beta Romeo built according to his commands and specifications. We mustn’t forget that few cities in the kingdom were connected by paved roads then and most even didn’t have paved streets.
- Said had a huge offspring. In total he had 45 sons and 50 daughters from several wives.
- In Arabic countries the word saidcracy, usually transliterate as saidqrati, is synonymous to kleptocracy. Outside Saudi Arabia King Said was almost forgotten although his life and excesses made much for the widespread idea of the wealthy oil arab with lots of wives and sons which exists in Europe or America.
