In his lifetime, Ibn Sa’ud managed to consolidate the vast majority of the Arabian Peninsula to form the Nation of Sa’udi Arabia. He created a kingdom that followed the traditional tribal customs of their ancestors, such as patrilineal kingship and an authoritarian ruling style. His people had struck it rich with the vast amounts of oil discovered in the peninsula and the formation of ARAMCO, an American and Sa’udi oil venture co-operative. His kingdom ran as an inflated model of the tribal system, relying on family members to fill positions of authority and power. This was different though, rather than empowering you own family to rule over a small stretch of land and herd of goats and possibly a date field. This kingdom covered thousands of miles and enjoyed revenues in the millions of dollars. The tribal system that was in place was in no way capable of handling the raised stakes. This was made all too clear by the circumstances that followed the death of Ibn Sa’ud. His two eldest sons, Sa’ud and Faysal were intertwined in a fierce power struggle. They contended to influence the direction of Sa’udi Arabia. Although the years immediately following Ibn Sa’ud’s death were rife with turmoil, they are very important in the formation in what we see today. They were the transition years for an ancient nation to a more modern people. The transition is a slow one, and may be argued, is still happening today. We will look at the years immediately following Ibn Sa’ud death to the appointment of Faisal as King.

                To begin with, Ibn Sa’ud left the kingdom in a matter of confusion. He did not leave sufficient instruction or details surrounding the government. He did make clear that his eldest son Sa’ud, was to take his place as king, and that Faysal should be the Crowned Prince, or second in command. But he failed to lay out how their powers were to be divided and how any further succession should be carried out. He simply said, the monarchy should lay with the “eldest able”.[1] To complicate matters, he left thirty five sons, and thus thirty five potential candidates. One thing was clear to them, that the power was to remain in the family. It seems that Ibn Sa’ud say the family acting as a governing body over the nation as a whole.  The contention surrounding birthright and power proved to be a thorn that the Sa’udis’ would deal with for decades to come.

                The Sa’udi family had a tradition of misusing money. Ibn Sa’ud had entered into contracts with ARAMCO for huge sums of money, such that no Arab of his day had ever seen. In his lifetime Ibn Sa’ud had managed to accumulate or two hundred million dollars of personal debt, despite seeing oil revenues in the hundreds of millions annually. In 1953 oil revenues had reached two hundred and thirty six million dollars. However, by 1958 King Sa’ud had doubled his father debts, making the total well over four hundred million dollars. The Sa’udi Riyal had lost half of its official value to the American Dollar and ARAMCO and international banks refused to give Sa’ud anymore credit.[2] This is an unbelievable feat to be accomplished considering that by 1955 the Sa’udi government received in one days time twice the amount of money it used to receive during the 1930’s.[3] How did he do this? To understand this we must first understand the tribal mentality a little better. In the mind of a Bedouin Arab they protect theirs and their own.  The family unit is paramount for the Arab. This was true for Sa’udi’s. Each prince received an annual payment of over thirty thousand dollars. Each had their own place filled with luxurious amenities. This spending paled in comparison to Sa’ud himself. He built a giant palace complex in Riyadh, one of his ten, which cost thirty million dollars. It was thirteen hundred acres and had a pool scented with channel number five.[4] Sa’ud was merely continuing with the traditions of his forbearers, however not nearly on the same scale. Sa’ud adhered to a “traditional tribal government.”[5] His political vision was more one of tradition and one that would resist change. He felt that he, as his father did, should rule as a charismatic monarch. His brother Faysal was his stark opposite, according to opinion at the time Faysal was associated with “Sobriety, piety, puritanism, financial wisdom, and modernization”[6]

It is commonly misunderstood that the majority of the animosity between Faysal and Sa’ud was regarding who should be the heir to Ibn Sa’uds throne. In fact who was to be king was well understood even before Ibn Sa’ud’s death. The rift between the two brothers was much less trivial. The disputed issues were surrounding the creation of a sound government apparatus and the setting of priorities for the countries development.[7] They both had very differing opinions regarding the future of Sa’udi Arabia. They also clashed over differing opinions regarding the course of the Nations’ infrastructure. They disagreed on the need for financial reform specifically about the financial crisis. As was said before, Sa’ud was a man of tradition; he wanted to consolidate power in the hands of the King. Faysal was, by contrast a much more modern thinker.[8] Faysal wanted to expand the role of government and remove power from Sa’ud and disperse it within the nation’s cabinet, called the Council of Ministers. The council had been created prior to Ibn Sa’uds death and was composed almost entirely of family members. The council oversaw much of the internal agenda of the country. It was headed by a Prime Minister and this was, at the time of its creation, Sa’ud. It became a battleground between Faysal and Sa’ud because position of Prime Minister executed much power in the government. The debate was surrounding who was to be the Prime Minister now that Sa’ud was King. Sa’ud claimed that his father had personally appointed him to be Prime Minister and that despite the fact that he was King; he should maintain the role of Prime Minister. Faysal’s argument was that Sa’ud was appointed Prime Minister while he was fulfilling the role of Crowned Prince, and that whoever serves as Crowned Prince retains the title of Prime Minister as well. This way claiming that he, Faysal, was the Prime Minister. The dispute raged for some time, eventually ending in 1954 with Faysals appointment as Prime Minister.

What follows is a heated conflict of power grabbing and political chess. Sa’ud started placing his own sons in governmental jobs and positions. He appointed his son Fahd as minister of Defense and placed three others as leaders of the Royal Guard, National Guard and Special Guard.[9] Faysal used his position as Prime Minister to enact various reforms binding the power of Sa’ud. For instance, Faysal passed legislation that adopted a annual budget, and made clear and legal distinction between the national treasury and the personal finances of the royal family. In the past every penny earned by ARAMCO was available to the King and his lavish expenses. This gave fiscal responsibility to the family and prevented the accumulation of anymore national debt. Both of these changes were vital to the life of the new nation, and would, undoubtedly never made it into law without the advocacy by Faysal and the inability of Sa’ud to stop him.

Meanwhile, Sa’ud continued to appoint his immediate family, and those who were supporters to political office. He did this at the expense of his other brothers and more distant family members. What emerged from this was a third faction within the house of Sa’ud. There was Sa’ud and his supporters, Faysal and those loyal to his call for reform and change, and then there were those who followed a man named Talal.  Talal represented those princes who were at ‘the bottom of the food chain’ so to speak. These princes were younger, and more educated. They would when appropriate pander to Sa’ud or Faysal, depending on who had the upper hand in the conflict at the time, in order to gain political weight. They eventually proposed to King Sa’ud, to form a National Council, which was to be a consultative instead of a legislative assembly. In essence they were advocating a constitutional monarchy. They wanted to overhaul the entire system. This of course did not resonate with the King. As their efforts availed little and their patience grew thinner, they became more radical in approach. This eventually led to their exile in 1961. They settled in Beirut where they formed a group called the “Free Princes” which continued to call for a constitutional monarchy in Sa’udi Arabia.[10]The Free Princes would remain active in Sa’udi Arabia more so in principal than in any actual physical way. They used the popular revolutionary talk of the day surrounding “Arab Nationalism” or “Pan-Arabism” and “Naserism”. They were better at scare tactics than actual political change. It worked well; Sa’ud was during this time keenly aware of the recent military coups in Iraq, Yemen and Libya and dreaded the possibility of a coup at home.

Despite the political uneasiness across the middle east, or maybe, because of it, Sa’ud continued on with his agenda to curtail the Council of Ministers and appoint his sons to political positions. He, by 1957 had managed to water the cabinet down with his own appointees that he had more or less taken control of its goings on. In fact, in 1957 Faysal left Sa’udi Arabia to go to the United States for some time in order to receive on going medical treatments. While absent the Council of Ministers stopped meeting completely, “the country’s central executive body virtually came to an end.”[11] In order for Sa’ud to consolidate his power further, he needed to enlist those who ardently supported him. These people were becoming fewer and fewer, because either he had previously alienated them, or all his followers were already in office. He began to fill offices with people were not directly related or were not at all related. He filled some minor positions with close friends at the expense of the family. This caused his family support to narrow even further. He was beginning to burn one too many bridges.

Sa’ud eventually found himself in position to cripple Faysal completely. It was rumored in mid 1957 that he was going to replace Faysal with his Fahd, as Crowned Prince and Prime Minister. This proved to be the breaking point for the Sa’udi family. Sa’ud lost his support base almost entirely. He had taken things too far; he had consolidated too much power. He was become too much of an absolute monarch for the taste’s of the family. Fewer and fewer princes sided with him, either because he acted against their own personal interests or because they “resented the circumvention of the cabinet-and institution they regarded as the symbol of modernization of government.”[12] Although it took many more months to fully remove Sa’ud, his policies and agendas came to an almost screeching halt. He no longer ruled as an absolute monarch, the Council was reinstated and in 1964, he abdicated the throne to Faysal.

Although the time that followed the death of the Sa’udi Arabia’s first modern King was a time of much confusion and political turmoil. It was a time that almost seems necessary for a country such as Saudi Arabia. They are a people steep in tradition and principles. They had been following a strict tribal and Islamic custom for centuries; it dictated their habits, opinions, government and way of life. Almost overnight, they were thrust into the twentieth century.  They needed time to adjust, to realign their moral and political compasses. Sa’ud and Faysal were two very important figureheads in the history of Saudi Arabia. Without them, the historical timeline might look very different. They were key components in the time of history that was Saudi Arabia, becoming a nation.