The area that is currently Saudi Arabia was originally part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire during the 16th century, after the capture of Mecca by the Turks in 1517, but local rulers were allowed a great deal of autonomy and ruled their relative territories unhindered. (CountryReports.org 3) Under Turkish supervision, different Sherifs of Mecca governed the territory of Hejaz. Furthermore, this covered the western part of the peninsula including the Red Sea coast, including the holy places of Mecca and Medina, until the onset of World War I.
Saudi Arabia was one of the Arab states that emerged from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Between the years 1919 to 1926, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud defeated a series of rivals to unify about 80 percent of the Arabian Peninsula under his rule in what was called the Kingdom of the Hejaz and Nejd. (Kort 194) The last unsuccessful challenger was the leader of the Hashemite family, Hussein Ibn Ali who was the great-grandfather of Jordans King Hussein. (Kort 194)
Several important factors distinguish Saudi Arabia from its neighbors. Unlike other states in the area, Saudi Arabia has never been under the direct control of a European power. (CountryReports.org 2) It is during the period just prior to and following World War I that the West imparts the greatest impact on the formation of the current Saudi state. Tribal loyalties also play an important role in these countries and one of the leading tribal leaders in this period, Abdul Aziz, proved to be quite adept at playing the great powers of Britain and the Turkish Ottoman Empire against one another to suit the needs of his cause.
The founder of the modern state of Saudi Arabia lived much of his early life in exile. In the end, however, he not only recovered the territory of the first Al Saud empire, but also made a state out of it. Abdul Aziz accomplished this by maneuvering among a number of forces. The first was the religious fervor that Wahhabi Islam continued to inspire. His Wahhabi army, the Ikhwan, for instance, represented a powerful tool, but one that was to prove so difficult to control that the he ultimately had to destroy it. (Lacey 219) At the same time, Abdul Aziz had to anticipate how all these actions would be viewed abroad and to handle the great foreign powers, particularly the British.
Abdul Aziz managed to complete the establishment of the Saudi state in three ways, by retaking Najd in 1905, defeating the Rashidi clan at Hail in 1921, and conquering the Hijaz in 1924. (CountryReports.org 1) To the first point of retaking the Najd, Abdul did what tribal leaders had been doing for centuries. He raised a small force from the surrounding tribes and began to raid areas under Rashidi control, which was north of his birthright of Riyadh. Then in early 1902, he led a small party in a surprise attack on the Rashidi stronghold in Riyadh in order to oust the tribe.
The successful attack gave Abdul Aziz a good start in Najd. But first he had to establish himself in Riyadh as the Al Saud leader and the Wahhabi Imam or political and religious leader. Abdul Aziz obtained the support of the religious establishment in Riyadh, and this relatively quick recognition proved the political force of the Wahhabi authority. Despite his relative youth, Abdul Aziz showed he possessed the qualities the tribes valued in a leader by taking Riyadh. Leadership in these countries did not necessarily follow age, but it respected lineage and, particularly, action.
By 1905 the Ottoman governor in Iraq recognized Abdul Aziz as an Ottoman client in Najd. The Al Saud ruler accepted Ottoman suzerainty because it improved his political position. All the while he courted the British for recognition and protection in order to rid Arabia of Ottoman influence. (www.CountryReports.org 3) Finally, in 1913, Abdul Aziz’s armies drove the Ottomans out of Al Hufuf in eastern Arabia and without British assistance. This helped to strengthen his position in Najd.
In 1914, as the war was escalating and it looked as if the Ottoman Empire would enter the war, there was concern by Britain. It was a common British concern that if the Ottoman Empire entered the war, they would launch an attack against the Suez Canal. (Fromkin 100) Due to this concern there were several of the British agents stationed in Egypt at the time who determined to arouse the Arabians against the Turks.
In 1914 the British armed forces chief, Lord Kitchener, offered the Sherif of Mecca a deal in which the Hijaz would acquire independence, guaranteed by the UK, on condition that the Sherif support the British in the war and oppose the Turks. (Columbus World Travel Guide 1) The Sherif accepted and, after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Hijaz was recognized as independent in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres.
However, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, the British government officials in India recognized Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud as possessor of the Najd and some other territories along the Persian Gulf. In 1916, Abdul Aziz concluded another treaty with Britain, which recognized him as the sole ruler of Najd and Al Hasa. This agreement gave him the right to oust the remaining members of the Rashidi family. He did so and by 1918 his authority would reach the outskirts of Hail to the north and the capital of the Rashidi family. (www.saudinf.com 1)
Britains allegiances to two tribal leaders represent how disunited and deceiving the British had become in their affairs with the Arabian people. British government officials in Cairo and in India were making promises to tribal leaders on each coast. The ultimate goal for the British was not to occupy Arabia or to incorporate them into the empire but to keep others from doing so. They did, however, see their assistance as critical in keeping the Ottomans down. A further goal was to keep other powers such as Russia out of the area as well. They were ignorant to what resources might be there as were its inhabitants.
When Lord Kitchener made his promises to the Sherif of Mecca, promising to make him Caliph or religious leader over all Arabia they had no idea the impact this would have in the Muslim world. The British saw this as equal to making him Pope of the Arab world. They did not understand that for Muslims, the only law was Islamic or religious law and therefore the Caliph was not merely the religious leader but the political leader and the central figure. This action called for all Muslims to recognize the authority of Sherif Hussein. For his chief rival, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, a puritanical Wahhabi, this would be impossible.
Throughout the 1920s, military clashes between Ibn Sauds troops and forces loyal to the Hashemite King of Hijaz, Hussein, grew more frequent as the struggle for decisive control of the Arabian Peninsula took place. Additionally, weak administration by the Ottoman Empire was making it easy for the Arab tribal leaders to use this weakness to their advantage and playing Britain against the Turks. To expand their influence the leaders would tell tales to the British and the Ottomans to force attacks on their rivals, win support or escape retribution. (Anscombe 172)
Furthermore, in the 1920s, the Ikhwan movement began to emerge among the Bedouin, or nomadic tribes. The Ikhwan movement spread Wahhabi Islam among the nomads. Stressing the same strict adherence to religious law of the Wahhabi sect, Ikhwan Bedouin abandoned their traditional way of life in the desert and move to an agricultural settlement called a hijra. (Lacey 143) The word hijra was related to the term for the Prophet’s emigration from Mecca to Medina in the year 622, conveying the sense that one who settles in a hijra moves from a place of unbelief to a place of belief. By moving to the hijra, the Ikhwan intended to take up a new way of life and dedicate themselves to enforcing a rigid Islamic orthodoxy. (Fromkin 425)
Once in the hijra the Ikhwan became extremely militant. Enforcing upon themselves what they believed to be correct custom of the Prophet, enjoining public prayer, mosque attendance, gender segregation and condemning music, smoking, alcohol, and technology unknown at the time of the Prophet. (CountryReports.org 3) They attacked those who refused to conform to Wahhabi interpretations of correct Islamic practice and tried to convert Muslims by force to their version of Wahhabism.
The Ikhwan looked eagerly for the opportunity to fight non-Wahhabi Muslims and non-Muslims as well and they looked at Abdul Aziz as their leader. By 1915 there were nearly 100,000 Ikhwan waiting for a chance to fight. This provided Abdul Aziz with a powerful weapon, but his situation demanded that he use it carefully. In 1915 Abdul Aziz had various goals: he wanted to take Hail from the Al Rashidi, to extend his control into the northern deserts in present-day Syria and Jordan, and to take over the Hijaz and the Persian Gulf coast. (CountryReports.org 4) The British, however, had become more and more involved in Arabia because of World War I, and Abdul Aziz had to adjust his ambitions to British interests.
The British prevented the Al Saud from taking over much of the gulf coast where they had established protectorates with several ruling dynasties. They also opposed Abdul Aziz’s efforts to extend his influence beyond the Jordanian, Syrian, and Iraqi deserts because of their own imperial interests. To the west, the British were allied with the Sherif family who ruled the Hijaz from their base in Mecca. The British actually encouraged the Sherif family to revolt against the Ottomans, which opened a second front against them in World War I. The British and other Western powers switched their support between the two sides as it suited them. Eventually, Ibn Saud pushed out the Hashemites, and in 1926 was recognized as ruler of the Kingdom of Hijaz and Najd.
Winston Churchill conceded that certain promises had been made to the Hussein tribe during the war. In the Cairo conference in 1922, they decided on a solution. Churchills solution was, in effect, to buy off Abdullah Hussein and to offer him a position in Transjordan, later to become Jordan and to his brother Feisal came the governance of Iraq. At the same time, Britain is imposing boundaries on Ibn Saud by establishing the boundaries of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait.
Abdul Aziz was largely successful in balancing the Ikhwan’s interests with his own limitations. In 1919, the Ikhwan completely destroyed an army that Hussein had sent against them near the town of Turabah, which lay on the border between the Hijaz and Najd. The Ikhwan so completely devastated the Sherifs troops that there were no forces left to defend the Hijaz, and the entire area withdrew under the threat of a Wahhabi attack.
In spite of the fact there were no forces left to defend the hijaz, Abdul Aziz restrained the Ikhwan and managed to direct them toward Hail, which they took easily in 1921. The Ikhwan went beyond Hail, however, and pushed into central Transjordan where they challenged Hussein’s son, Abdullah, whose rule the British were trying to establish after the war. At this point, Abdul Aziz again had to rein in his troops to avoid further problems with the British.
There continued to be local opposition to the settlement of 1922. Whether this was on religious or the fundamental assumptions upon which they based their decisions, it never the less helps to explain the politics of the region. In the Middle East, there is no sense of legitimacy-no agreement on rules of the game-and no belief, universally shared in the region, that within whatever boundaries, the entities that call themselves countries or the men who claim to be rulers are entitled to recognition as such. (Fromkin 564) So at the end of this period there has not been a permanent successor to the Ottoman rule put in place, even though that is exactly what the British and Allies had thought they were doing. Fromkin puts forth that one day there may be challenges to the very existence of Jordan, Israel, Iraq and Lebanon. (564).
Through this, Abdul Aziz had to restrain the Ikhwan from attacking the holy cities of Mecca and Medina where they felt real reform was needed. In 1920, he decided instead to look to conquer further south in the area of Asir. The following year, 1921, he took his band of Ikhwan to complete the ousting of the Rashidi in Hail which now fell under his control. (www.saudinf.com 3) The last time his family had invaded the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in the 19th century, disaster had followed and they had angered many of the Muslims. This time Abdul Aziz would wait for them to accept him.
Abdul Aziz even played his own Ikhwan army in that while they were besieging the holy city of Medina. Abdul Aziz was smuggling food supplies to the inhabitants. Earlier in the year of 1925, Abdul Aziz had been wise enough to have the Wahhabi Ulema or religious leaders of the Nejd meet with the religious sheikhs of the Holy City to settle the differences between the religious factions. Abdul Aziz had proven, after this meeting, to not be the fanatical they had feared. Instead he offered the religious authorities a chance to occupy the same sort of pre-eminence in their own community that the Ulema possessed in the Nejd. (Lacey 194)
The only point of contention was that Abdul Aziz was calling for an Islamic Conference to incorporate the Muslims from Egypt and India. The intention was to come to consensus on how best to administer the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The leaders of the Hijaz did not want foreign Muslims to have a say in the regulation of the Holy Places. So in 1925, after no response from Egypt or India, Abdul Aziz proposed the formation of the Majlis al Shura, or local consultative committee that would rule with him. (Lacey 194) This committee incorporated the heads of the principal Meccan families, the chief religious sheikhs and the more successful merchants joined together.
The end of 1925 accomplished the final consolidation of the Arabian Kingdom. In the prior three years, the Sherif had not been able to maintain good relation with Britain or to competently administer the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Responding now to popular demand from the people of Mecca, Abdul Aziz became the King of Hijaz and the Sultan of Nejd. Abdul Aziz was very adept at his dealings with not only the Western influences and quickly learned to play one against the other, but had learned how to appease the Arab world he would come to rule.
