The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the most closed states in the world. You can visit it at the invitation or for the purpose of pilgrimage to Muslim shrines. The rulers of this country are also shrouded in a halo of mystery, and their wives are a kind of mythical figures about whom nothing is known except for the mean biographical data.
King of saudi arabia
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, where there is a special order of succession to the throne, different from the European model of the transfer of power from father to eldest son. The first ruler of the kingdom was Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, who gradually seized power in certain regions in order to unite them in a new state in 1932. For brevity, in Western sources it is usually called Ibn Saud. According to some reports, the king had more than 20 wives and about 100 children, including 45 sons. During his lifetime, he established the principle of the inheritance of power according to agnatic seniority, that is, between representatives of one generation.
Therefore, the eldest son of Ibn Saud appointed his brother after the death of his father in 1953. And all subsequent monarchs were sons of the first king of Saudi Arabia. By 2015, when King Abdullah died, only 12 direct descendants of Ibn Saud survived. One of them, Salman ibn Abdul-Aziz al Saud, previously named the crown prince, took the place of his half-brother on the throne. At that time, the new king was 79 years old.
Salman was born on December 31, 1935. With his mother, Hussa Sudairi, the ruler of Saudi Arabia was born the most joint sons - seven siblings. The heirs, connected by close kinship, supported each other in matters of transfer of power and government. They were nicknamed "The Seven of Sudairi." Before Salman, the eldest of the brothers, Fahd, managed to visit the ruler. He was in power for more than 20 years (1982-2005). The princes Sultan and Nayef until their death were heirs of King Abdullah, but in the end, only their younger brother Salman survived until the change of ruler.
The future king attended the school of princes, which Ibn Saud built in Riyadh specifically for his children. Since 1963, Salman served as governor of the capital region. In this post, he helped transform the main city of Saudi Arabia into a modern metropolis. In particular, he actively established relations with Western countries, attracted foreign capital and advocated the development of tourism.
Features of the reign of King Salman
Given the old age of the surviving heirs of Ibn Saud, King Salman cannot boast of excellent health. In August 2010, he spent a long time in the United States, where he underwent spinal surgery and went through a recovery period. In addition, he had a stroke, after which the left side of the body works noticeably worse than the right. And to top it all off, King Salman suffers from the initial form of Alzheimer's disease. Knowing full well that his reign would not last long, from the first days the new monarch began a company to change the order of succession to the throne. First, he appointed Prince Mukrin, the youngest of the sons of Ibn Saud, born of a Yemeni concubine, as his successor.
A few months later, Salman revised the candidacy of the crown prince, replacing his nephew, Muhammad ibn Nayef. For Saudi Arabia, the appearance in the succession of heirs of a representative of the next generation of the royal family was a huge, but inevitable breakthrough. After all, there are almost no direct descendants of Ibn Saud, and the whole struggle for power will unfold when his grandchildren begin to rule.
As it turned out, the king’s ultimate goal was to secure inheritance for one of his sons - Prince Mohammed ibn Salman. First, he became the official deputy of his uncle as crown prince, and then, as a result of a fierce struggle, he became the second person in Saudi Arabia after the king. Now Muhammad ibn Salman holds the post of Minister of Defense, heads the Council on Economic Affairs and the Royal Court. They say that he restricted access to his father, and no one can get to Salman without the consent of the crown prince. The young ruler, who is just over 30 years old, is called the de facto "power beyond the throne."
