|pm-raw =
|area =829,996 sq mi
|pop =2435,000,000(2020)
|pop-basis =
|gdp =$446 billion800,000,000,000 (2020)|gdp-year =2007|gdp-pc =$2122,200857 (2020)
|currency =Riyal
|idd =
'''The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia''' (''al-Mamlaka al-ʻArabiyya as-Suʻūdiyya'', '''المملكة العربية السعودية''', also '''Saudi Arabia''' or '''KSA''') is a large country on the [[Arabian Peninsula]]. Ruled by The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the country is one of the few absolute monarchies left in the world. [[Shari'a]] (Islamic jurisprudence) is the official law of the Kingdom. The Kingdom was first declared on 8 January 1926 by [[Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud]], and was brought together on 22 September 1932.
[[Barack Obama]] pandered to this tyrannical regime while he was president, even deeply bowing to its dictator in a subservient gesture that offended many [[American|Americans]]s. Despite homosexuality being illegal in Saudi Arabia, there is a large amount of men who are secretly gay.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-kingdom-in-the-closet/305774/</ref>
==People==
[[File:Young Saudi Arabian woman.jpg|left|170px]]
Most Saudis are ethnically [[Arab]]. Some are of mixed ethnic origin and are descended from Turks, Iranians, Indonesians, Indians, Africans, and others, most of whom immigrated as pilgrims and reside in the Hijaz region along the Red Sea coast. Many Arabs from nearby countries are employed in the kingdom. There also are significant numbers of Asian expatriates mostly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines. There are less than 100,000 Westerners in Saudi Arabia.
{{Anchor|House of Saud}}
==Government==
===Religion===
As an [[Islam]]ic country under strict [[Shari'a]] law (Islamic law), Saudi Arabia has little of the religious freedom common in the West. Bringing a [[Bible]] or religious symbols such as a cross or a [[Star of David]] into the country , even for personal use only, will risk confiscation. Although Christianity is permitted, preaching to Muslims or attempting to convert them in public or private is a criminal offense, as is the production or distribution of Bibles.<ref>''Christian Examiner'', Sept. 2007, Vol 25, No 9, Pg. 20</ref>
[[File:Madina Haram at evening .jpg|center|800px|thumb|Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (the Mosque of the Prophet) in [[Medina]], Saudi Arabia, the site of [[Muhammad|Muhammad's]] tomb.]]
===Apes and Pigs dehumanuzation - in education===
As of 2006, Christians still 'swine' and Jews 'apes' in Saudi schools. Despite its claims of these texts being taken out.<ref>Harry de Quetteville, "[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/1522286/Christians-still-swine-and-Jews-apes-in-Saudi-schools.html Christians still 'swine' and Jews 'apes' in Saudi schools]" Daily Telegraph, June 25, 2006 .
<blockquote>
Saudi Arabia has been accused of continuing to foster religious hatred in its schools, despite its repeated assurances since the September 11 attacks that it would rewrite textbooks that refer to Jews as "apes" and Christians as "swine".
The charges come after Freedom House, a non-partisan American research group which monitors civil rights worldwide, examined textbooks that it smuggled out of Saudi Arabia. The group found that despite promises of change from leading Saudi officials, including Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, and Turki al-Faisal, the ambassador to America, schoolbooks in the kingdom still promote hatred of those who do not practise its strict form of Wahhabi Islam.
The report also alleged that some of the textbooks are used in official Saudi schools around the world. Senior staff at the King Fahd Academy in Acton, west London, which has 750 pupils, said that it was not for the school to comment.
"Even if only a small percentage of the people who are exposed to this take it to heart and act on it, that's still a lot of people," said Nina Shea, Freedom House's director, after the release of the 39-page report, Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance.
The report cites extracts from textbooks used in religious education classes for children aged between five and 16. It quotes the following exercise for the youngest children: "Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ------- is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters -------."
It claims that older students are taught: "It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour (of judgment)."
The report is an embarrassment for the Saudi government, which has made great efforts to restore its image since being painted as a bastion of extremism after September 11. When it emerged that 15 of the 19 hijackers that day were Saudi, many blamed the kingdom's education system for breeding hatred...
When asked about offensive language in textbooks, he said: "This is taken out." But, according to Miss Shea, this is not true. "Teaching methods that ask kindergarten children to give examples of 'false religions', like Judaism and Christianity, add up to an ideology that runs throughout," she said. "It is not hate speech here and there. It adds up to an argument, an ideology of us versus them."
In the Saudi capital, Riyadh, the accusations are being investigated. "We do think some things need to be changed," Abdullah al-Obeid, the Saudi education minister, admitted. "There is some misunderstanding of some of the texts."
But according to Tanya Hsu, a political analyst in Riyadh with close ties to the education ministry, there is anger behind the scenes at an alleged propaganda campaign designed to make the government look bad.
"The charges are absolutely not true," she said. "We're really just looking at a few sentences and a few words. I don't know of any country in the world that doesn't have a few mischosen words in textbooks."
The report comes as the Saudi royal family walks a fine line between external pressure to reform and internal conservative pockets that could shake its grip on power.
But Turki al-Faisal insists that change is happening. "We admit we have people in our midst who are bigots, who are intolerant and who see the world through a prism of 'us and them'," he wrote in a recent newspaper article.
"Are we working hard to change mindsets that encourage prejudice and intolerance? Yes, absolutely."</blockquote></ref>
And on Oct 9, 2021, Saudi children's cartoon depicted Quranic "story" in which Allah "transforms..."
<ref>[https://www.memri.org/reports/saudi-childrens-cartoon-depicts-quranic-story-which-allah-transforms-jews-apes Saudi Children's Cartoon Depicts Quranic Story In Which Allah Transforms Jews Into Apes], Memri, October 14, 2021
<blockquote>
On October 9, 2021, an animated video for children depicting a Quranic story about Jews being transformed into apes was uploaded to the Ibtikar Media channel on YouTube.</blockquote></ref>
===Women===
Saudi oil reserves are the largest in the world, and Saudi Arabia is the world's leading oil producer and exporter. Oil accounts for more than 90% of the country's exports and nearly 75% of government revenues. Proven reserves are estimated to be 263 billion barrels, about one-quarter of world oil reserves.
More than 95% of all Saudi oil is produced on behalf of the Saudi Government by the parastatal giant [[Saudi ARAMCO]]. In June 1993, Saudi ARAMCO absorbed the state marketing and refining company (SAMAREC), becoming the world's largest fully integrated oil company. Most Saudi oil exports move by tanker from Gulf terminals at Ras Tanura and Ju'aymah. The remaining oil exports are transported via the east-west pipeline across the kingdom to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
Due to a sharp rise in petroleum revenues in 1974 following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Saudi Arabia became one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. It enjoyed a substantial surplus in its overall trade with other countries; imports increased rapidly; and ample government revenues were available for development, defense, and aid to other Arab and Islamic countries.
[[File:Saudi Aramco.jpg|left]]
But higher oil prices led to both reduced consumption and development of more oil fields around the world and reduced global consumption. The result, beginning in the mid-1980s, was a worldwide oil glut, which introduced an element of planning uncertainty for the first time in a decade. Saudi oil production, which had increased to almost 10 million barrels per day (b/d) during 1980-81, dropped to about 2 million b/d in 1985. Budgetary deficits developed, and the government drew down its foreign assets. Responding to financial pressures, Saudi Arabia gave up its role as the "swing producer" within OPEC in the summer of 1985 and accepted a production quota. Since then, Saudi oil policy has been guided by a desire to maintain market and quota shares and to support stability in the international oil market. The stability has been further threatened by technology, such as hydraulic fracturing (or "fracing" as it is commonly known) which has allowed reduction in the cost to produce oil as well as redevelopment of older oil fields (such as the Permian Basin in west Texas).
Saudi Arabia was a key player in coordinating the successful 1999 campaign of OPEC and other oil-producing countries to raise the price of oil to its highest level since the Gulf War by managing production and supply of petroleum. That same year, Saudi Arabia established the Supreme Economic Council to formulate and better coordinate economic development policies in order to accelerate institutional and industrial reform.
The eighth plan (2005-2010) again focuses on economic diversification in addition to education and inclusion of women in society. The plan calls for establishing new universities and new colleges with technical specializations. Privatization as well as emphases on a knowledge-based economy and tourism will help promote the goal of economic diversification.
*GDP: $800 billion (2020)
*GDP per capita: $22,857 (2020)
==History==
In January 2015 King Abdullah died at the age of 90. His half-brother Prince Salman was appointed as successor.<ref>https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/powerful-saudi-arabia-king-abdullah-dies-age-90</ref>
===Attack on the Grand Mosque, 1979===
The Grand Mosque in Mecca (home of the [[Kaaba]]) was briefly taken over for a period of weeks by an obscure group led by a poorly educated ''Bedouin'' named Juhayman<ref>Review of ''[http://www.fsmitha.com/review/trofimov2.html The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al Qaeda]'', Yaroslav Trofimov, Doubleday, 2007.</ref> whose theology was an early manifestation of modern violent [[Salafi]]sm. These believers did not embrace many aspects of modern society. They opposed identity cards and passports because these denote loyalty to an entity other than [[Allah]]. They were against [[Idolatry|images of living beings]], not only on television and in photography but also on coins. The only previous violent encounter was when a group of young activists were caught smashing shop display windows showing female mannequins in the center of Medina in 1965. And they had peculiar views on ritual practices setting them apart from other religious communities and the religious establishment.
The incident revealed the Saudi state was thoroughly unprepared to deal with a challenge to its legitimacy from conservative religious believers.<ref>Thomas Hegghammer and Stephane Lacroix. [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=862184 Rejectionist Islamism in Saudi Arabia: The Story of Juhayman al-Utaybi Revisited.] International Journal of Middle East Studies, February 2007, pp 103-122, Cambridge University Press.</ref> After three days of fruitless negotiations, the Saudi's turned to external, non-Islamic "crusader" forces to dislodge the jihadis. Non-Muslims are not allowed within the city of Mecca, and bloodshed on the grounds of the temple is considered virtually an unpardonable sin; yet the Saudi state and its reigning religious establishment deputized, through a fatwa, the French Special Operations Forces to retake the mosque.<ref>Many details of the Mosque takeover remain officially classified Saudi state secrets. [http://cat-int.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/The-Makkah-Siege-In-defense-of-Juhayman-Sayyid-2004.pdf The Makkan Siege: In Defense of Juhayman], a collection of internet reports on the siege and excerpts of Juhayman's letters. Juhayman is considered to have provided more inspiration to the the modern jihadist movement than Osama bin Laden who left virtually no religious writings behind.</ref><ref>Peterson, J.E. “[http://www.jepeterson.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/APBN-003_Saudi_Arabia_Internal_Security_Incidents_Since_1979.pdf Saudi Arabia: Internal Security Incidents Since 1979.]” Arabian Peninsula Background Note, No. APBN-003. Published on www.JEPeterson.net, January 2004; updated 31 December 2007.</ref>
Official reports say that 255 fanatics, troops and pilgrims were killed, while 560 were injured. The rebels who survived were imprisoned or beheaded, with reports claiming 63 beheadings.
The respected imam Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, who abhorred violence, condemned Juhayman's attack; however one of his students, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, fell under the influence of Juhayman's thought. In coming years Maqdisi further developed the idea that the ruling Saudi clan were apostate Muslim infidels along with a rejection of the very idea of a [[nation state]].<ref>Maqdisi's ''Community of Abraham'' is a further expansion of Juhayman's ''Clarification Concerning the Community of the One God Designated as Guide of the People''; [https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0674049640 Awakening Islam], Stephane Lacroix & George Holoch, Harvard University Press, Aug 15, 2011, Page 101.</ref>
The year 1979 is also cited as the point in time when a member of the wealthy bin Laden clan (who made their fortune building stuff) began to develop his political ideology and one central piece of said ideology is the "humiliation" of French forces having to bail out the "Muslim" Saudi Arabia. [[Osama bin Laden]] later went to Afghanistan to throw out [[Soviet Union|another bunch]] of "infidels" from "Muslim land" and the Taliban regime his ilk helped establish gave him shelter and a safe haven, even though he was a wanted terrorist.
===1987 Mecca massacre===
In 1987 more than four hundred persons, mostly Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims and about 85 Saudis and security personal, were killed during a demonstration against the "Enemies of Islam" (basically, the United States and Israel) in front of the Grand Mosque.<ref>http://web.archive.org/web/20091029204548/http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Hajj.htm#ref32 </ref> Iranian [[hajj]] pilgrims traditionally make up the largest single contingent from any single country.<ref>US Saudi Arabia Diplomatic and Political Cooperation Handbook, USA International Business Publications, 2007, [http://books.google.com/books?id=ob37QAVkGrgC&q=lunar%2BHijaz#v=snippet&q=lunar%2BHijaz&f=false p. 178.]</ref> Details about the incident and causes remain murky, with the official Saudi version contradicted by Iran's own investigation. <ref>The Muslim World League convened a conference in Mecca in October 1987 condemning Iran for the violence: Iran’s government--a government “accustomed to terrorism and a thirst for Muslim blood”--“solely bears the responsibility for the outrage in God’s holy mosque.” The conference endorsed the measures taken by the Saudi authorities “to quell the sedition and to contain the fires of wickedness.” Kramer, ''Khomeini’s Messengers''.</ref><ref>http://www.shiachat.com/forum/topic/234966843-saudi-propaganda-of-iranian-attack-on-kaabah-1987/ </ref>
Shock over violence just outside the Grand Mosque again sparked a debate across the Muslim world about the Saudis dual role as American ally and Custodian of the Two Holy Custodian of the Islamic Holy Places.<ref>http://introducingislam.org/info/carnage/carnage.php </ref> [[Ayatollah Khomeini]] condemned the "vile and ungodly Wahhabis" as "lackeys of the United States” and called for the overthrow of the House of Saud.<ref><small>"Iran convened an “International Congress on Safeguarding the Sanctity and Security of the Great Mosque,” under the auspices of the ministry of Islamic guidance and the foreign ministry. Rafsanjani, in addressing the three hundred participants from 36 countries, called for the “liberation” of Mecca and the establishment of an “Islamic International” which would govern Mecca as a free city."</small> Kramer, ''Khomeini’s Messengers''.</ref> The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) formed a group known as Hezbollah al-Hejaz, more commonly known as Saudi Hezbollah, for this purpose.<ref>https://www.aei.org/publication/saudi-arabias-forgotten-shiite-spring/ </ref>
It was in this atmosphere of anti-Saudi and anti-U.S. sentiment throughout the Muslim world that [[Saddam Hussein]] made his calculated gamble to challenge Saudi Arabia and the United States over Kuwait in 1990.<ref>
Political Islam, Edited by Fredric Volpi, Routledge, [https://wiki.zirve.edu.tr/sandbox/groups/economicsandadministrativesciences/wiki/b7907/attachments/b87f0/week6required1.pdf?sessionID=be1325d37a7c5f7b99f39de6da779933c272d74d p. 5-6 pdf], ''et seqq''.</ref>
==Notable Saudi Arabians==
*[[Osama Bin Laden]]: former leader of Al-Qaeda; died in 2011
*[[Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud]]: ranked 11th richest person in the world by USAToday in 2002.<ref>https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/02/28/forbes.htm</ref>
*[[Raif Badawi]]: Imprisoned blogger, winner of the Sakharov Prize in 2015 and nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.<ref name="Nobel">{{cite web|url=http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/02/150847/saudi-blogger-raif-badawi-nominated-nobel-peace-prize-2015/|title=Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize 2015|website=Morocco World News|date=2 February 2015}}</ref><ref name="EUparl">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34667260|title=Saudi blogger Raif Badawi awarded Sakharov human rights prize|website=BBC News|date=29 October 2015}}</ref>
{{Asian Countries}}
[[Category:Saudi Arabia]]
[[Category:Muslim-Majority Countries]]
[[Category:Terrorism]]
[[Category:Threats]]