Abstract
It is characteristic of autocracies that leaders are constantly praised to excess in the works of sycophantic writers and official propaganda. In this, Saudi Arabia is no exception. Thus, in one account, the Kingdom became ‘among the most modern, and perhaps most progressive’ nations by virtue of ‘miraculous achievements’ made possible by great monarchs with no hint of human frailty. King Abdul Aziz (Ibn Saud) was ‘a giant of a man’, a ‘wonderful human being … Once he set his eyes on a goal he did the impossible to achieve it … The strength of his mind and the depth of his thoughts were fascinating … His marvelous depth of mind …’,3 and so on and so forth. King Fahd, in turn, ‘is a man of great wisdom … While Abdul Aziz was the father of the nation, Fahd … became the pioneer and founder of the Modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.’4
On June 13, 1982 Crown Prince Fahd Ibn Abdulaziz became the new King of Saudi Arabia. His policies and foresight … brought to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia great progress and development, the likes of which are unparalleled in the history of mankind.1
O believers! surely wine and games of chance … are an abomination of Satan’s work! … Only would Satan sow hatred and strife among you, by wine and games of chance … will ye not, therefore, abstain from them?
Koran, Sura 5, Verses 92–3.
How can Fahd, a gambler, a notorious womaniser … and a great lover of Scotch Whiskey, claim to be the Holy protector … of Makka and Madina? 2
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Notes
Nasser Ibrahim Rashid and Esber Ibrahim Shaheen, King Fahd and Saudi Arabia’s Great Evolution (Joplin, Missouri, USA: International Institute of Technology, 1987), p. 56.
Haroon M. Jadhakhan (ed.), The Thieves of Riyadh: Lives and Crimes of the Al Sauds and the Al Nahyans, essays from the Muslim Chronicle (London, 1992) p. 24.
See, for example, Peter W. Wilson and Douglas F. Graham, Saudi Arabia: The Coming Storm (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994);
Michael Field, Inside the Arab World (London: John Murray, 1994), Chapter 16 (‘The Problems of Saudi Arabia’).
Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981–1987 (New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 104.
Oliver L. North, Under Fire: An American Story (London: Fontana, 1992), p. 243.
William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History (London: Zed Books, 1986), p. 99.
Leonard Mosley, Dulles (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978), p. 348.
Quoted in H. V. F. Winstone and Zahra Freeth, Kuwait: Prospect and Reality (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972), p. 125.
Robert Lacey, The Kingdom (London: Fontana, 1982), p. 279.
Muhammad Iqbal Siddiqi, Model of an Islamic Bank (Lahore, Pakistan; Chicago, USA: Kazi Publications, 1986).
Al Sa’yed Hassan Kutbi, speech in South Korea, 1975; quoted in Fouad Al-Farsy, Modernity and Tradition: The Saudi Equation (London: Kegan Paul, 1990), pp. 40–41.
Robin Wright, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam (London: André Deutsch, 1986), p. 150.
Mohammed H. Siddiq, Agonies of a Native Son of Saudi Arabia (Lincoln, Nebraska, USA, 1990), p. 5.
Interview in Lebanese daily Al-Anwar, 13 August 1973, quoted in Walid Kazziha, Revolutionary Transformation in the Arab World: Habash and his Comrades from Nationalism to Marxism (London: Charles Knight, 1975), pp. 17–18.
R. T. Naylor, Hot Money and the Politics of Debt (London: Unwin, 1987), p. 415.
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© 1998 Geoff Simons
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Simons, G. (1998). The Gathering Clouds. In: Saudi Arabia. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-333-99467-2_7
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