WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.260 All right. I want you to close your eyes for 00:00:01.260 --> 00:00:04.259 a second. Just for a second. Picture the absolute 00:00:04.259 --> 00:00:07.780 dead of night. Total darkness. It's January 15th, 00:00:07.780 --> 00:00:12.000 1902. We are deep, deep in the heart of the Arabian 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:16.600 Peninsula. And the silence is just heavy. It's 00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:19.079 that suffocating cold silence you only get in 00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:21.420 the desert right before dawn. And we are standing 00:00:21.420 --> 00:00:23.809 outside the walls of Riyadh. Now, you need to 00:00:23.809 --> 00:00:25.809 forget everything you think you know about Riyadh 00:00:25.809 --> 00:00:28.809 today. Forget the skyscrapers, the superhighways, 00:00:28.829 --> 00:00:31.030 all of it. Oh, yeah. This is not that Riyadh. 00:00:31.089 --> 00:00:33.710 This Riyadh is a fortress. It is a mud brick 00:00:33.710 --> 00:00:36.350 citadel ringed by these high imposing walls. 00:00:36.649 --> 00:00:40.070 And it is locked down tight for the night. Exactly. 00:00:40.189 --> 00:00:42.409 And crouching in the shadows, probably shivering 00:00:42.409 --> 00:00:43.969 because, you know, desert nights are brutally 00:00:43.969 --> 00:00:46.579 cold, is this small group of men. 40 of them. 00:00:46.619 --> 00:00:48.600 That's it. Just 40. It's nothing. It's a raiding 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:51.039 party. And leading them is this young guy. He's 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:53.299 tall, broad -shouldered. He's only in his 20s. 00:00:53.320 --> 00:00:56.679 His name is Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud. 00:00:57.119 --> 00:00:59.079 But history is going to know him as Ibn Saud. 00:00:59.299 --> 00:01:01.780 And he is staring up at those walls. Staring 00:01:01.780 --> 00:01:05.280 up at those walls, knowing that if he makes a 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:08.560 single wrong move, if a dog barks, if a guard 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:11.040 just happens to glance down at the wrong moment, 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:15.409 he's dead. And not just him. His entire family's 00:01:15.409 --> 00:01:18.209 dream, their entire future, it dies right there 00:01:18.209 --> 00:01:20.609 with him. It really is an unbelievable setup. 00:01:20.709 --> 00:01:22.209 Yeah. It feels like it's pulled from a movie 00:01:22.209 --> 00:01:25.650 script. By any conventional military logic, what 00:01:25.650 --> 00:01:28.010 they're attempting is, well, it's just pure insanity. 00:01:28.370 --> 00:01:30.230 It's a suicide mission. Totally. They aren't 00:01:30.230 --> 00:01:31.750 an army. Like you said, they're a raiding party. 00:01:31.950 --> 00:01:34.530 Right. And Ibn Saud, at this point, he's in exile. 00:01:35.079 --> 00:01:37.659 He has no kingdom, no treasury. He has barely 00:01:37.659 --> 00:01:40.200 any followers to his name. He is betting absolutely 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:42.760 everything on this one single night. And the 00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:44.680 plan itself, I mean, it's not exactly a sophisticated 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:46.819 military operation. It feels like something a 00:01:46.819 --> 00:01:48.459 screenwriter would come up with because it's 00:01:48.459 --> 00:01:50.879 so audacious. They didn't have siege engines. 00:01:51.019 --> 00:01:53.500 They didn't have cannons. They had palm trees. 00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:55.659 That's right. It's almost comical if it wasn't 00:01:55.659 --> 00:01:58.659 so deadly serious. They had cut down palm trunks 00:01:58.659 --> 00:02:02.400 from a nearby oasis to use as like crude ladders. 00:02:02.439 --> 00:02:04.620 So leaning them against the wall. just tilting 00:02:04.620 --> 00:02:06.780 them up against these sheer clay walls in the 00:02:06.780 --> 00:02:09.699 pitch black. And just imagine the physical tension 00:02:09.699 --> 00:02:12.659 of that. You're climbing a shaky, splintery palm 00:02:12.659 --> 00:02:15.479 trunk, hand over hand, trying not to let your 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:17.419 sword scrape against the wall and make a sound. 00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:19.539 A sound that would get you all killed. Right. 00:02:19.860 --> 00:02:22.219 Knowing that the Rashidi governor, a man named 00:02:22.219 --> 00:02:24.879 Adjalan, is asleep inside that fortress just 00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:27.099 a few hundred yards away. So they get over the 00:02:27.099 --> 00:02:29.819 wall, but they don't attack right away. This 00:02:29.819 --> 00:02:32.300 is the part that just... It stresses me out just 00:02:32.300 --> 00:02:34.759 reading about it. They find a house near the 00:02:34.759 --> 00:02:36.699 governor's fortress. They infiltrate it, and 00:02:36.699 --> 00:02:40.340 they just wait. For hours. They effectively take 00:02:40.340 --> 00:02:43.539 the family hostage, but quietly. They sit there 00:02:43.539 --> 00:02:45.580 in the dark, listening to the sounds of the city 00:02:45.580 --> 00:02:48.340 starting to wake up. The smell of coffee brewing. 00:02:48.439 --> 00:02:50.180 They're just waiting for their moment. Because 00:02:50.180 --> 00:02:52.400 they knew his routine. They knew Aslan's routine 00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:55.139 perfectly. He would leave the fortress at dawn 00:02:55.139 --> 00:02:58.099 to go and inspect his horses. He was a man of 00:02:58.099 --> 00:03:00.580 habit, and they were counting on that. And sure 00:03:00.580 --> 00:03:03.939 enough, just as the sun cracks the horizon, the 00:03:03.939 --> 00:03:08.080 fortress gates creak open. Ajalon steps out and 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:11.000 all hell breaks loose. Absolute, total chaos. 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:13.879 Ibn Saud and his men, his cousins, they just 00:03:13.879 --> 00:03:15.639 burst out of the house. They're shouting the 00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:18.120 clash of swords. It's not a battle. It's a brawl. 00:03:18.139 --> 00:03:21.400 It's brutal close quarters fighting in the dust. 00:03:21.560 --> 00:03:24.680 And his cousin. Right. Abdullah bin Jaloui. Yes. 00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:26.919 He chases the governor back towards the fortress 00:03:26.919 --> 00:03:30.139 gate as Ajlan tries to retreat, and he cuts him 00:03:30.139 --> 00:03:32.259 down right there in the entryway. Just like that. 00:03:32.360 --> 00:03:34.819 The governor is dead. The garrison inside loses 00:03:34.819 --> 00:03:38.259 its nerve. They surrender. The city falls. And 00:03:38.259 --> 00:03:41.300 with that one desperate bloody morning, everything 00:03:41.300 --> 00:03:44.599 changes. That is the spark. That raid is the 00:03:44.599 --> 00:03:47.439 singular moment that ignites the flame of what 00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:50.169 becomes the third Saudi state. It's the dramatic 00:03:50.169 --> 00:03:52.430 return of the Al Saud family from the political 00:03:52.430 --> 00:03:54.830 wilderness. It's an incredible story. But what's 00:03:54.830 --> 00:03:56.449 really fascinating to me, and I think to you 00:03:56.449 --> 00:03:58.810 as well, isn't just the action movie part of 00:03:58.810 --> 00:04:01.650 it. It's what happens next. Exactly. Because 00:04:01.650 --> 00:04:03.870 conquering a city with 40 men is one thing. It's 00:04:03.870 --> 00:04:06.189 legendary stuff. But building a nation state 00:04:06.189 --> 00:04:08.389 where there wasn't one before, from scratch, 00:04:08.710 --> 00:04:11.270 that is an entirely different skill set. And 00:04:11.270 --> 00:04:14.090 that is exactly the mission for this deep dive. 00:04:14.619 --> 00:04:17.360 We're going to try and understand how this guy, 00:04:17.540 --> 00:04:20.480 this tribal raider with 40 men and a palm tree 00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:23.259 for a ladder, transforms into the monarch sitting 00:04:23.259 --> 00:04:26.139 on the deck of a U .S. warship meeting with President 00:04:26.139 --> 00:04:28.339 Franklin D. Roosevelt. It's an incredible arc. 00:04:28.500 --> 00:04:31.819 How does he go from a refugee in Kuwait to the 00:04:31.819 --> 00:04:34.879 founder of a global energy superpower? It's a 00:04:34.879 --> 00:04:37.899 journey from really the medieval world to the 00:04:37.899 --> 00:04:40.879 modern world, all within a single lifetime. And 00:04:40.879 --> 00:04:42.459 the central theme, the thing you have to keep 00:04:42.459 --> 00:04:45.180 in your head to understand him, is balance. Balance 00:04:45.180 --> 00:04:48.040 between what? Ibn Saud was a master of balancing 00:04:48.040 --> 00:04:51.100 ancient tribal traditions, the old ways of raiding 00:04:51.100 --> 00:04:55.139 in honor with ruthless modern 20th century geopolitics. 00:04:55.220 --> 00:04:57.439 He knew when to use the sword, but crucially, 00:04:57.500 --> 00:04:59.459 he also knew when to put it away and sign a contract. 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:01.699 Well, let's rewind a bit from that raid, because 00:05:01.699 --> 00:05:03.939 to really get why it was such a monumental gamble, 00:05:04.120 --> 00:05:06.459 we have to understand just how low the Al Saud 00:05:06.459 --> 00:05:08.420 family had fallen. You said they were exiles. 00:05:08.680 --> 00:05:10.660 How did they lose? Who's Riyadh to begin with? 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:13.339 The Al Saud family wasn't new to this game. Not 00:05:13.339 --> 00:05:15.779 at all. They had been a dominant power in Central 00:05:15.779 --> 00:05:19.459 Arabia for over 130 years. There was a first 00:05:19.459 --> 00:05:22.360 Saudi state, then a second Saudi state. But politics 00:05:22.360 --> 00:05:25.019 in Arabia at that time was incredibly volatile. 00:05:25.319 --> 00:05:27.540 Think of it like a constant series of shifting 00:05:27.540 --> 00:05:29.680 alliances. A tough neighborhood. The toughest. 00:05:29.959 --> 00:05:32.560 And by the time Ibn Saud is a teenager, around 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.920 1891, the second state is completely collapsing. 00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:39.459 Their chief rivals. the Rashidi dynasty who were 00:05:39.459 --> 00:05:41.639 based in the north in Hale. And they had powerful 00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:44.139 friends. They did. They were backed by the Ottoman 00:05:44.139 --> 00:05:47.459 Empire. And this Ottoman -Rashidi alliance just 00:05:47.459 --> 00:05:49.480 crushed the Al Saud. They effectively wiped them 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:52.100 off the map, politically speaking. So at 15 years 00:05:52.100 --> 00:05:55.259 old, Ibn Saud isn't some prince living in a palace. 00:05:55.360 --> 00:05:58.879 He is on the run. He is a refugee. And I really 00:05:58.879 --> 00:06:00.959 want to emphasize what that exile looked like. 00:06:01.019 --> 00:06:03.519 This wasn't a comfortable political asylum in 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:06.540 London or Paris. No five -star hotels. No. In 00:06:06.540 --> 00:06:09.540 1891, the family flees Riyadh and goes straight 00:06:09.540 --> 00:06:12.850 into the desert. They take refuge with the Almura, 00:06:13.029 --> 00:06:15.829 a Bedouin tribe deep in the Rub al -Khali. The 00:06:15.829 --> 00:06:18.910 empty quarter. The name alone tells you everything. 00:06:19.329 --> 00:06:21.129 It's one of the harshest desert environments 00:06:21.129 --> 00:06:23.290 on the entire planet. We're talking endless sand 00:06:23.290 --> 00:06:27.089 dunes, unimaginable heat, almost no water. And 00:06:27.089 --> 00:06:29.730 Ibn Saud spent his formative teenage years there, 00:06:29.870 --> 00:06:32.850 living in a tent, moving with the camel herds, 00:06:32.870 --> 00:06:35.410 eating dates and camel milk. So this is where 00:06:35.410 --> 00:06:37.750 he learns to be tough. This period stripped away 00:06:37.750 --> 00:06:40.100 any softness he might have had. It connected 00:06:40.100 --> 00:06:43.259 him viscerally to the Bedouin way of life, to 00:06:43.259 --> 00:06:45.360 their honor codes, their dialects, their poetry. 00:06:45.839 --> 00:06:48.399 He learned their incredible resilience because 00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:51.600 he had to. It was survival. And after a desert, 00:06:51.639 --> 00:06:53.920 they move around a bit, right? Qatar, Bahrain, 00:06:54.139 --> 00:06:57.459 and then they finally land in Kuwait. Yes. And 00:06:57.459 --> 00:06:59.959 Kuwait is the next phase of his education. If 00:06:59.959 --> 00:07:02.180 the desert was his boot camp, you could say Kuwait 00:07:02.180 --> 00:07:04.540 was his. Yeah. Well, his grad school in statecraft. 00:07:04.699 --> 00:07:07.839 How so? Because in Kuwait, the ruler was Sheikh 00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:10.269 Mubarak al -Sabah. Also known as Mubarak the 00:07:10.269 --> 00:07:12.629 Great. And he was a master politician, a real 00:07:12.629 --> 00:07:15.189 operator. Ibn Saud spent countless hours just 00:07:15.189 --> 00:07:17.649 sitting in Mubarak's Machiavelli's daily court 00:07:17.649 --> 00:07:21.410 and just watching. Just absorbing it all. Absorbing 00:07:21.410 --> 00:07:23.910 everything. He watched how Mubarak handled tribal 00:07:23.910 --> 00:07:26.250 disputes, how he played the Ottomans against 00:07:26.250 --> 00:07:28.610 the British, how he dealt with foreign merchants 00:07:28.610 --> 00:07:31.550 and diplomats. It was a masterclass in pragmatism 00:07:31.550 --> 00:07:34.129 and power politics. But I read that Ibn Saud's 00:07:34.129 --> 00:07:37.029 father, Abdul Rahman, he hated this. He was this 00:07:37.029 --> 00:07:39.990 very pious, very religious guy, and he did not 00:07:39.990 --> 00:07:42.829 approve of Mubarak at all. That's a key tension 00:07:42.829 --> 00:07:45.470 in Ibn Saud's life right there. You have his 00:07:45.470 --> 00:07:48.209 father, Abdul Rahman, who represented the strict, 00:07:48.350 --> 00:07:51.459 uncompromising Wahhabi faith. the religious conscience. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:55.139 He saw Mubarak's court as worldly, maybe even 00:07:55.139 --> 00:07:57.720 a bit immoral and corrupt. But Ibn Saud saw something 00:07:57.720 --> 00:08:00.759 else. Ibn Saud saw the utility of it. He realized 00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:03.139 that to rule effectively, you couldn't just pray 00:08:03.139 --> 00:08:05.699 and be pious. You had to negotiate. You had to 00:08:05.699 --> 00:08:07.720 make deals. You had to be pragmatic. He learned 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:09.560 you could be a devout man in your heart, but 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:12.300 a shrewd politician in the Majlis. So he's got 00:08:12.300 --> 00:08:14.120 the toughness from the desert. He's got the political 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:17.600 savvy from Kuwait. But who actually lights the 00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:20.449 fire under him? Who pushes him? to go back and 00:08:20.449 --> 00:08:23.350 risk everything to take Riyadh. Because honestly, 00:08:23.550 --> 00:08:26.610 staying in Kuwait seems a lot safer. This is 00:08:26.610 --> 00:08:28.550 where we have to talk about one of the most important 00:08:28.550 --> 00:08:31.550 and often overlooked figures in Saudi history, 00:08:31.769 --> 00:08:36.610 his paternal aunt, Jawara bint Faisal. Tell me 00:08:36.610 --> 00:08:38.470 about her, because in a lot of these histories, 00:08:38.549 --> 00:08:40.990 women tend to be in the background, but she seems 00:08:40.990 --> 00:08:43.730 to be front and center. She was a force of nature. 00:08:44.220 --> 00:08:46.159 From all accounts, she was the keeper of the 00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:48.539 family's honor. While some of the men were, you 00:08:48.539 --> 00:08:50.480 know, resigned to their fate in exile, feeling 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:53.500 defeated, Jawara was the fire. She had this terrifying 00:08:53.500 --> 00:08:56.340 amount of pride in the Al Saud lineage, and she 00:08:56.340 --> 00:08:58.279 wouldn't let it die. So what was she telling 00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:01.100 him? What was her message? She was essentially 00:09:01.100 --> 00:09:04.399 challenging his manhood, his destiny. She would 00:09:04.399 --> 00:09:06.299 sit with him and recount the glorious stories 00:09:06.299 --> 00:09:08.820 of their ancestors of the first and second states. 00:09:09.379 --> 00:09:11.659 She would say things like, are you going to be 00:09:11.659 --> 00:09:14.519 content living on the charity of others? Or are 00:09:14.519 --> 00:09:16.320 you going to reclaim what is rightfully yours? 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:19.399 Wow. She instilled this sense of inevitability 00:09:19.399 --> 00:09:21.600 in him. She made him believe that it wasn't a 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:24.759 choice. It was his duty, his destiny. That's 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:27.379 incredibly powerful. It's like she was the architect 00:09:27.379 --> 00:09:30.419 of his ambition. Absolutely. And it wasn't just 00:09:30.419 --> 00:09:32.879 a youthful influence. Even after he became king, 00:09:33.080 --> 00:09:35.220 he visited her almost every single day until 00:09:35.220 --> 00:09:37.960 she died in 1930. She was his most trusted advisor, 00:09:38.220 --> 00:09:40.399 his confidant. And while we're on the subject 00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:42.860 of the powerful women who shaped him, we can't 00:09:42.860 --> 00:09:45.740 forget... His sister, Nora. No, you can't. They 00:09:45.740 --> 00:09:47.379 were incredibly close. She was just a year older 00:09:47.379 --> 00:09:50.019 than him. And in a society where men's names 00:09:50.019 --> 00:09:52.440 and lineage usually dominate everything, Ibn 00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:54.960 Saud's personal battle cry, his public boast 00:09:54.960 --> 00:09:57.940 when he was charging into combat, was Ana Aku 00:09:57.940 --> 00:10:00.919 Nora. Which means... I am the brother of Nora. 00:10:01.179 --> 00:10:03.039 That tells you everything you need to know about 00:10:03.039 --> 00:10:05.620 the respect and love he had for her. Her name 00:10:05.620 --> 00:10:09.220 was his source of pride. So, fueled by his aunt, 00:10:09.340 --> 00:10:11.340 backed by his sister, armed with the lessons 00:10:11.340 --> 00:10:14.110 of the desert and Kuwait, He takes Riyadh. We've 00:10:14.110 --> 00:10:16.330 covered that incredible raid. But taking one 00:10:16.330 --> 00:10:18.110 city doesn't make a kingdom. He's surrounded 00:10:18.110 --> 00:10:20.809 by enemies. How does he actually expand from 00:10:20.809 --> 00:10:24.110 there? It was a long, hard grind. That's the 00:10:24.110 --> 00:10:26.350 only way to describe it. 1902 right up until 00:10:26.350 --> 00:10:30.009 the 1920s. It's just constant low -level warfare, 00:10:30.250 --> 00:10:32.789 a series of raids and counter raids. He's fighting 00:10:32.789 --> 00:10:34.830 the Rashidis in the north. He's fighting Ottoman 00:10:34.830 --> 00:10:37.230 proxies. He's trying to bring other tribes into 00:10:37.230 --> 00:10:40.129 his fold. So it's a slow process. Very slow. 00:10:40.309 --> 00:10:42.350 Yeah. And he ran into a fundamental problem with 00:10:42.350 --> 00:10:45.710 his army. The traditional Bedouin tribal levy, 00:10:45.730 --> 00:10:48.710 the way wars had been fought for centuries, it 00:10:48.710 --> 00:10:50.710 just wasn't built for state building. Why not? 00:10:50.789 --> 00:10:52.350 I mean, there are legendary fighters, right? 00:10:52.490 --> 00:10:55.350 They were incredible individual fighters, fearless. 00:10:55.990 --> 00:10:59.110 But they were unreliable as soldiers in a long 00:10:59.110 --> 00:11:01.970 -term campaign. Their loyalty was to their sheik, 00:11:01.970 --> 00:11:04.960 to their tribe. not to some abstract idea of 00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:07.220 a state. So if things got boring. Or if it was 00:11:07.220 --> 00:11:09.940 time to harvest the dates, they went home. If 00:11:09.940 --> 00:11:12.419 they captured enough loot from a raid, they considered 00:11:12.419 --> 00:11:14.960 the job done and they went home. You can't conquer 00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:16.960 a continent with an army that clocks out whenever 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:19.159 they feel like it. So he needs a standing army, 00:11:19.320 --> 00:11:21.779 a professional army. But he doesn't have the 00:11:21.779 --> 00:11:25.340 money to pay mercenaries. Exactly. And this is 00:11:25.340 --> 00:11:28.840 where we see Ibn Saud's real genius and also 00:11:28.840 --> 00:11:31.600 where he creates his most dangerous weapon. Enter 00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:33.700 the Ikhwan. The Brotherhood. The Brotherhood. 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:36.399 Around 1912, he starts this movement. And it's 00:11:36.399 --> 00:11:38.720 so much more than just a military force. It's 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:40.779 not just about fighting. No. It was a massive 00:11:40.779 --> 00:11:43.580 piece of social engineering. Ibn Saud realized 00:11:43.580 --> 00:11:45.860 he needed to fundamentally break the old tribal 00:11:45.860 --> 00:11:48.480 cycle of loyalty. So he established these agricultural 00:11:48.480 --> 00:11:51.600 colonies called shahr, or settlements. And what 00:11:51.600 --> 00:11:53.740 was the pitch? He went to the nomadic Bedouin 00:11:53.740 --> 00:11:56.549 and said, stop wandering. This life of constant 00:11:56.549 --> 00:11:59.029 movement is un -Islamic. Settle down here in 00:11:59.029 --> 00:12:01.110 these villages. I will give you land. I will 00:12:01.110 --> 00:12:02.950 give you wells. I will give you religious teachers. 00:12:03.289 --> 00:12:06.049 Farm the land and dedicate your lives to the 00:12:06.049 --> 00:12:08.970 pure, strict worship of God. Wait a minute. He 00:12:08.970 --> 00:12:11.669 took nomads, people whose culture had been defined 00:12:11.669 --> 00:12:14.330 by roaming for thousands of years, and told them 00:12:14.330 --> 00:12:17.049 to become farmers. That sounds like an incredibly 00:12:17.049 --> 00:12:19.450 hard sell. It was. It went against everything 00:12:19.450 --> 00:12:21.950 they knew. But he offered them something more 00:12:21.950 --> 00:12:26.179 powerful than tradition. salvation and a new 00:12:26.179 --> 00:12:29.299 identity. A religious identity. Precisely. He 00:12:29.299 --> 00:12:32.120 replaced their old identity. I am from the Anaza 00:12:32.120 --> 00:12:35.320 tribe or I'm from the Muter tribe with a new 00:12:35.320 --> 00:12:38.580 unifying identity. I'm an Ikhwan. I am a soldier 00:12:38.580 --> 00:12:41.679 of God. He convinced them that loyalty to him 00:12:41.679 --> 00:12:44.600 as their imam was a religious duty. And if they 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:46.919 died fighting for him, they were martyrs who 00:12:46.919 --> 00:12:50.529 would go straight to paradise. That is... A terrifyingly 00:12:50.529 --> 00:12:53.070 effective tool. You're taking guys who are already 00:12:53.070 --> 00:12:54.669 some of the toughest fighters on Earth and you're 00:12:54.669 --> 00:12:56.429 giving them a cause they are willing to die for, 00:12:56.529 --> 00:12:58.970 no questions asked. It weaponized their faith. 00:12:59.519 --> 00:13:02.320 The Ikhwan became his shock troops. They were 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:04.679 utterly fearless. They were fanatical. They would 00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:07.159 charge machine guns armed only with swords, believing 00:13:07.159 --> 00:13:09.419 they were invincible. They terrified every one 00:13:09.419 --> 00:13:11.379 of their enemies. And with this new force, he's 00:13:11.379 --> 00:13:13.580 finally able to push out of the central desert, 00:13:13.740 --> 00:13:17.059 the Nej. Yes. And by 1924, he's ready for the 00:13:17.059 --> 00:13:20.460 big move, the prize jewel, the conquest of the 00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:22.899 Hejaz. Which is the western coastal region. We're 00:13:22.899 --> 00:13:25.399 talking about Mecca, Medina, the port city of 00:13:25.399 --> 00:13:28.240 Jeddah. This is the real turning point. Before 00:13:28.240 --> 00:13:30.899 this, he's a powerful desert chieftain, maybe 00:13:30.899 --> 00:13:33.960 a king of Central Arabia. But if he takes the 00:13:33.960 --> 00:13:36.899 Hejaz, he becomes something else entirely. He 00:13:36.899 --> 00:13:39.419 becomes the custodian of the holy cities. He 00:13:39.419 --> 00:13:42.120 enters the global stage. And the Hejaz was ruled 00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:44.720 by a different dynasty. It was ruled by the Hashemites, 00:13:44.860 --> 00:13:48.279 led by Sharif Hussein bin Ali. And his family 00:13:48.279 --> 00:13:51.159 had held power there for 700 years. They were 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:53.019 the traditional guardians of the holy places. 00:13:53.200 --> 00:13:55.379 And the Ikhwan just rolled over them. Pretty 00:13:55.379 --> 00:13:58.039 much. The Hashemite forces were no match for 00:13:58.039 --> 00:14:00.840 the religious fervor of the Ikhwan. They captured 00:14:00.840 --> 00:14:04.919 Mecca in 1924. Sharif Hussein abdicated and fled. 00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:08.539 Suddenly, Ibn Saud is ruling two completely different 00:14:08.539 --> 00:14:11.070 worlds. You've got the Nedged. rugged, tribal, 00:14:11.269 --> 00:14:13.470 insular, fanatically religious. And now you've 00:14:13.470 --> 00:14:16.169 got the Hejaz. Cosmopolitan, full of pilgrims 00:14:16.169 --> 00:14:18.529 from all over the world, merchants, foreign diplomats, 00:14:18.570 --> 00:14:21.389 a much more moderate version of Islam. That sounds 00:14:21.389 --> 00:14:23.830 like a management nightmare. How do you possibly 00:14:23.830 --> 00:14:26.149 govern those two very different places with the 00:14:26.149 --> 00:14:29.350 same set of laws? You don't. And this shows his 00:14:29.350 --> 00:14:32.169 pragmatism again. For years, he actually ran 00:14:32.169 --> 00:14:33.750 them as two separate countries in a personal 00:14:33.750 --> 00:14:36.610 union. He's the king of Hejaz and the sultan, 00:14:36.809 --> 00:14:40.919 later king, of Nejd. A dual monarchy. So Saudi 00:14:40.919 --> 00:14:43.480 Arabia didn't exist yet. Not yet. It wasn't until 00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:46.919 September 23, 1932, that he formally merged the 00:14:46.919 --> 00:14:49.379 two realms and declared the unified kingdom of 00:14:49.379 --> 00:14:51.700 Saudi Arabia. But before he could even get to 00:14:51.700 --> 00:14:54.000 that point, he had to face the terrible consequences 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:56.559 of his own creation. And in the Ikhwan. Yes. 00:14:56.679 --> 00:14:59.600 This is the classic Frankenstein's monster moment 00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:02.659 of his story. The Ikhwan were built for one thing. 00:15:03.100 --> 00:15:07.570 Holy war. For jihad. And their worldview... Anyone 00:15:07.570 --> 00:15:10.269 who wasn't a strict Wahhabi Muslim was an infidel, 00:15:10.409 --> 00:15:13.070 a kafir, who deserved to be attacked and converted 00:15:13.070 --> 00:15:16.149 or killed. Which was a very useful belief when 00:15:16.149 --> 00:15:18.330 they were attacking Ibn Saud's enemies inside 00:15:18.330 --> 00:15:21.009 Arabia. Exactly. But now the conquests are basically 00:15:21.009 --> 00:15:23.309 over. Ibn Saud is trying to be a statesman. He's 00:15:23.309 --> 00:15:25.110 signing treaties with the British. He's drawing 00:15:25.110 --> 00:15:27.210 official borders with the new states of Iraq 00:15:27.210 --> 00:15:29.450 and Transjordan. And the Ikhwan don't care about 00:15:29.450 --> 00:15:33.330 borders. To them, a border on a map is a blasphemy. 00:15:33.740 --> 00:15:36.200 They look across into Iraq and Jordan and say, 00:15:36.299 --> 00:15:38.639 the people on the other side are Shia infidels. 00:15:38.679 --> 00:15:41.279 God wants us to raid them. They don't care about 00:15:41.279 --> 00:15:43.980 some line on a map drawn by a British diplomat. 00:15:44.019 --> 00:15:46.240 So they start launching raids across these new 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:49.019 international borders into British protected 00:15:49.019 --> 00:15:51.240 territories. They do. They raid into Iraq. They 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:53.740 massacre civilians. And the British are absolutely 00:15:53.740 --> 00:15:55.559 furious. They have the Royal Air Force there. 00:15:55.659 --> 00:15:58.500 They tell Ibn Saud, control your men or we will 00:15:58.500 --> 00:16:01.299 bomb them back to the Stone Age. So Ibn Sa'd 00:16:01.299 --> 00:16:04.059 is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Completely 00:16:04.059 --> 00:16:06.639 stuck. He tries to reason with the Ikhwan leaders, 00:16:06.899 --> 00:16:09.960 men like Faisal al -Dawash and Sultan bin Bajad. 00:16:10.139 --> 00:16:12.940 He tries diplomacy, but they turn on him. They 00:16:12.940 --> 00:16:15.159 call him a traitor. They accuse him of going 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:18.039 soft, of bowing to the Christian British infidels. 00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:21.220 So it's leading to a civil war? It is the ultimate 00:16:21.220 --> 00:16:24.279 test of his rule. He has to make a choice. Is 00:16:24.279 --> 00:16:26.600 he a tribal raider leading a religious movement? 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:29.480 Or is he the head of a state? He has to choose 00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:31.539 between the religious zealots who built his throne 00:16:31.539 --> 00:16:34.220 and the stability and future of the state itself. 00:16:34.600 --> 00:16:37.120 And he chooses the state. He chooses the state. 00:16:37.460 --> 00:16:41.259 In 1929, at the Battle of Sibylla, he rides out 00:16:41.259 --> 00:16:43.820 with his loyalists. And this time, he brings 00:16:43.820 --> 00:16:45.759 modern weapons that the British had supplied 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:48.679 him. He brings machine guns. Against his own 00:16:48.679 --> 00:16:51.559 brotherhood. Against the men who conquered the 00:16:51.559 --> 00:16:54.379 kingdom for him. It was a slaughter. The Ikhwan 00:16:54.379 --> 00:16:56.740 cavalry charged with their swords and rifles 00:16:56.740 --> 00:16:59.519 just like they always had. And Ibn Saud's machine 00:16:59.519 --> 00:17:02.200 gunners just mowed them down. It was brutal, 00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:04.619 and it must have been incredibly personal. These 00:17:04.619 --> 00:17:06.599 were men he had fought alongside for decades. 00:17:06.819 --> 00:17:09.079 But it sent a message. It sent the clearest possible 00:17:09.079 --> 00:17:12.519 message to the entire world. Saudi Arabia is 00:17:12.519 --> 00:17:14.960 not a rogue religious movement anymore. It is 00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:18.019 a country. It has borders, and it will respect 00:17:18.019 --> 00:17:20.930 them. The days of endless jihad are over. That 00:17:20.930 --> 00:17:22.869 really does feel like the moment the kingdom 00:17:22.869 --> 00:17:25.430 became real. It wasn't just a personal conquest 00:17:25.430 --> 00:17:27.470 anymore. It was a functioning government with 00:17:27.470 --> 00:17:30.089 rule. Precisely. And that brings us right to 00:17:30.089 --> 00:17:32.569 the geopolitical tightrope he had to walk. Because 00:17:32.569 --> 00:17:35.210 you can't survive, let alone build a nation in 00:17:35.210 --> 00:17:37.990 the Middle East in the early 20th century, without 00:17:37.990 --> 00:17:39.750 dealing with the dominant power in the region, 00:17:39.930 --> 00:17:42.930 the British Empire. The British seem to be everywhere 00:17:42.930 --> 00:17:45.289 in this story, pulling the strings behind the 00:17:45.289 --> 00:17:48.680 scenes. But... Ibn Saud seems to play them differently 00:17:48.680 --> 00:17:51.460 than other local leaders did. He's never really 00:17:51.460 --> 00:17:54.140 their puppet. No, he's far too clever for that. 00:17:54.299 --> 00:17:56.819 He's always very transactional with them. You 00:17:56.819 --> 00:17:58.960 can see it in the Treaty of Deren, which he signed 00:17:58.960 --> 00:18:02.380 back in 1915. What was the deal there? It was 00:18:02.380 --> 00:18:05.720 a classic protectorate agreement. He agrees to 00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:08.160 make his lands a British protectorate, meaning 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:10.519 he won't deal with any other foreign power without 00:18:10.519 --> 00:18:13.819 their consent. In exchange... They gave him a 00:18:13.819 --> 00:18:16.759 subsidy of 5 ,000 pounds a month and, more importantly, 00:18:16.980 --> 00:18:19.940 a shipment of modern rifles. 5 ,000 pounds a 00:18:19.940 --> 00:18:21.920 month. That's a huge amount of money back then. 00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:24.380 So he's essentially on the British payroll. He 00:18:24.380 --> 00:18:27.400 is. But listen to how he justified it. He essentially 00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:29.599 said, I'll take their gold and I'll take their 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:32.119 guns to fight my enemies, but I will never, ever 00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:35.160 give them my soul or my land. He used the British 00:18:35.160 --> 00:18:37.079 to help him finally defeat the Rashidis, who 00:18:37.079 --> 00:18:39.000 were backed by Britain's enemy, the Ottomans. 00:18:39.539 --> 00:18:41.559 But he always kept them at arm's length. He never 00:18:41.559 --> 00:18:44.630 let them get too close. Never. He refused to 00:18:44.630 --> 00:18:46.869 let them station troops in his capital. He refused 00:18:46.869 --> 00:18:48.670 to let them run his administration like they 00:18:48.670 --> 00:18:51.809 did in Egypt or Iraq. He took the money, but 00:18:51.809 --> 00:18:53.670 he kept his sovereignty. And as soon as he becomes 00:18:53.670 --> 00:18:56.369 strong enough, he renegotiates the entire deal. 00:18:56.529 --> 00:18:59.670 Right. By 1927, he's conquered the Hejaz. He 00:18:59.670 --> 00:19:02.210 controls Mecca and Medina. He's the most powerful 00:19:02.210 --> 00:19:04.490 man in Arabia. He doesn't need their protection 00:19:04.490 --> 00:19:07.210 anymore. So he signs the Treaty of Jeddah. And 00:19:07.210 --> 00:19:09.759 in that treaty... Britain formally recognizes 00:19:09.759 --> 00:19:12.980 his complete and total independence. No more 00:19:12.980 --> 00:19:15.480 protectorate. He is a sovereign king on the world 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:18.779 stage. OK, fast forward to World War II. And 00:19:18.779 --> 00:19:20.200 this is the part of the story that just blew 00:19:20.200 --> 00:19:22.420 my mind when I was reading the notes. Saudi Arabia 00:19:22.420 --> 00:19:24.940 is officially neutral. But there's this bizarre 00:19:24.940 --> 00:19:28.359 story about a German diplomat. Fritz Kraube, 00:19:28.480 --> 00:19:31.059 a fascinating character. He was the Nazi ambassador 00:19:31.059 --> 00:19:34.049 to Iraq. When the British cracked down on a pro 00:19:34.049 --> 00:19:36.890 -German government in Iraq in 1941, Graba had 00:19:36.890 --> 00:19:39.150 to flee for his life. Where does he go? He runs 00:19:39.150 --> 00:19:41.730 to Ibn Saud. And Ibn Saud gives him refuge. He 00:19:41.730 --> 00:19:44.210 hides him. Wait a second. This is in the middle 00:19:44.210 --> 00:19:47.049 of World War II. The British are his main allies. 00:19:47.069 --> 00:19:48.970 They're fighting a life -or -death struggle against 00:19:48.970 --> 00:19:52.730 Nazi Germany. And Ibn Saud is sheltering a Nazi 00:19:52.730 --> 00:19:55.450 ambassador. That seems incredibly reckless. Why 00:19:55.450 --> 00:19:58.160 would he poke the bear like that? It was a calculated 00:19:58.160 --> 00:20:01.299 risk. It was his way of signaling to the British 00:20:01.299 --> 00:20:03.839 and to the world, I am not your colonial subject. 00:20:03.960 --> 00:20:06.859 I am the master in my own house. I make my own 00:20:06.859 --> 00:20:09.619 decisions about who enters my tent. It showed 00:20:09.619 --> 00:20:12.599 that streak of fierce independence. He was always, 00:20:12.680 --> 00:20:15.160 always hedging his bets, making sure no single 00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:17.160 foreign power ever thought they owned him. But 00:20:17.160 --> 00:20:19.279 as the war comes to an end, it's clear the British 00:20:19.279 --> 00:20:22.519 influence is fading. And a new player is entering 00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:25.089 the chat. The United States. Yes, and this all 00:20:25.089 --> 00:20:27.289 culminates in one of the most famous and consequential 00:20:27.289 --> 00:20:30.190 meetings in modern history, February 14th, 1945, 00:20:30.650 --> 00:20:33.950 aboard the USS Quincy. You really have to visualize 00:20:33.950 --> 00:20:36.809 this scene. It's so improbable. You have an American 00:20:36.809 --> 00:20:39.670 heavy cruiser, a symbol of modern military power, 00:20:39.890 --> 00:20:42.369 anchored in the great bitter lake of the Suez 00:20:42.369 --> 00:20:44.930 Canal. And on the deck, the American sailors 00:20:44.930 --> 00:20:47.210 have set up a traditional Bedouin tent, complete 00:20:47.210 --> 00:20:49.430 with Persian carpets and cushions, because the 00:20:49.430 --> 00:20:51.509 king refused to sleep in a cramped cabin below 00:20:51.509 --> 00:20:55.539 deck. And on one side, you have FDR. Franklin 00:20:55.539 --> 00:20:58.819 Delano Roosevelt. He's visibly ailing at this 00:20:58.819 --> 00:21:01.420 point, exhausted from the Yalta conference, just 00:21:01.420 --> 00:21:03.700 months away from his own death, sitting in his 00:21:03.700 --> 00:21:06.559 wheelchair, the leader of the free world. And 00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:08.700 on the other, striding onto the deck, is Ibn 00:21:08.700 --> 00:21:13.119 Saud. This towering, scarred desert warrior dressed 00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:15.900 in his traditional robes. A man who built a kingdom 00:21:15.900 --> 00:21:17.980 with a sword. It could not be more different. 00:21:18.119 --> 00:21:19.960 A New York aristocrat who grew up with immense 00:21:19.960 --> 00:21:22.700 privilege and a Bedouin king who grew up a refugee 00:21:22.700 --> 00:21:25.319 in the desert. And yet they clicked. Instantly. 00:21:25.769 --> 00:21:27.670 By all accounts, there was a real genuine chemistry 00:21:27.670 --> 00:21:29.849 between them. They smoked together. Ibn Saud 00:21:29.849 --> 00:21:32.490 was a heavy smoker, they joked. FDR, with his 00:21:32.490 --> 00:21:34.809 famous charm, treated Ibn Saud not as a curiosity 00:21:34.809 --> 00:21:36.990 but as an equal. And he gave him that famous 00:21:36.990 --> 00:21:39.529 gift. He did. He gave Ibn Saud one of his spare 00:21:39.529 --> 00:21:41.809 wheelchairs as a gift because the king had severe 00:21:41.809 --> 00:21:44.230 arthritis and had trouble walking. And Ibn Saud, 00:21:44.450 --> 00:21:46.890 in return, gave him a diamond -crusted sword. 00:21:47.319 --> 00:21:49.240 Now contrast that meeting with his meeting with 00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:51.160 Winston Churchill just a few days later. Oh, 00:21:51.220 --> 00:21:53.660 the Churchill meeting was a complete disaster. 00:21:54.059 --> 00:21:57.099 It was a clash of cultures. Churchill tried to 00:21:57.099 --> 00:21:59.240 smoke a cigar and drink brandy in front of the 00:21:59.240 --> 00:22:01.759 king, which was deeply offensive to his strict 00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:04.279 Wahhabi values. Churchill lectured him about 00:22:04.279 --> 00:22:07.579 British imperial interests. It was formal and 00:22:07.579 --> 00:22:11.019 cold. Whereas FDR asked for his advice. Exactly. 00:22:11.549 --> 00:22:13.910 FDR treated him like a wise elder statesman. 00:22:13.950 --> 00:22:17.009 And that chemistry, that respect, it mattered 00:22:17.009 --> 00:22:19.849 enormously. It fundamentally shifted the entire 00:22:19.849 --> 00:22:21.869 center of gravity of the Middle East. Because 00:22:21.869 --> 00:22:24.730 Ibn Saud made a choice? He made a strategic decision 00:22:24.730 --> 00:22:27.309 right then and there. The future wasn't with 00:22:27.309 --> 00:22:29.789 the old declining British Empire. It was with 00:22:29.789 --> 00:22:32.130 the Americans. They were far away. They didn't 00:22:32.130 --> 00:22:33.849 have a history of colonialism in the region. 00:22:33.950 --> 00:22:36.009 And they just wanted to do business. And the 00:22:36.009 --> 00:22:38.089 business, of course, was oil. We've danced around 00:22:38.089 --> 00:22:40.309 the oil, but we need to set the context here. 00:22:40.410 --> 00:22:43.630 Before oil, Saudi Arabia was poor. Not just, 00:22:43.710 --> 00:22:47.509 you know, not rich, like truly deeply poor. Destitute 00:22:47.509 --> 00:22:50.089 is the word. Their entire national economy was 00:22:50.089 --> 00:22:53.410 based on three things. Dates, camel livestock, 00:22:53.750 --> 00:22:56.230 and the fees from the annual Hajj pilgrimage 00:22:56.230 --> 00:22:59.809 to Mecca. That was it. And if the pilgrims didn't 00:22:59.809 --> 00:23:02.329 show up? The country starved. Which is exactly 00:23:02.329 --> 00:23:03.890 what happened during the Great Depression and 00:23:03.890 --> 00:23:06.269 World War II. The pilgrimage traffic dried up 00:23:06.269 --> 00:23:08.910 and the state was literally bankrupt. So when 00:23:08.910 --> 00:23:11.369 American geologists from Standard Oil of California, 00:23:11.549 --> 00:23:13.589 what we now call Chevron, started digging around 00:23:13.589 --> 00:23:16.710 in 1933, it was a massive lifeline. A desperate 00:23:16.710 --> 00:23:18.690 one. And for years they found nothing. It looked 00:23:18.690 --> 00:23:21.269 like a total bust. But they finally struck commercial 00:23:21.269 --> 00:23:24.990 quantities of oil in 1938 at Damum Well No. 7. 00:23:25.190 --> 00:23:27.549 And that discovery changed the DNA of the country 00:23:27.549 --> 00:23:30.430 forever. It went from a subsistence economy to 00:23:30.430 --> 00:23:33.369 a petrostate almost overnight. Almost. And by 00:23:33.369 --> 00:23:36.569 1947, Ibn Saud had made it explicit. He told 00:23:36.569 --> 00:23:38.250 an American diplomat that he preferred American 00:23:38.250 --> 00:23:40.750 investment and loans over anyone else, over any 00:23:40.750 --> 00:23:43.710 international agency. He saw the U .S. as a straightforward 00:23:43.710 --> 00:23:46.970 business partner, not a colonial overlord. And 00:23:46.970 --> 00:23:49.170 that partnership would define the next 80 years. 00:23:49.430 --> 00:23:51.569 I want to pivot away from the maps and the oil 00:23:51.569 --> 00:23:53.529 concessions for a minute and talk more about 00:23:53.529 --> 00:23:56.069 the man himself. We keep calling him the Desert 00:23:56.069 --> 00:23:58.869 King. But what was he actually like to be around? 00:23:59.289 --> 00:24:01.549 Physically, as we said, he was overwhelming. 00:24:02.029 --> 00:24:05.390 Over six feet tall, which was gigantic for that 00:24:05.390 --> 00:24:08.109 time and place. He had this booming voice and 00:24:08.109 --> 00:24:10.089 apparently an incredibly magnetic personality. 00:24:10.190 --> 00:24:12.710 Very charming when he wanted to be. But his body 00:24:12.710 --> 00:24:15.549 was a map of his own history. Completely. Covered 00:24:15.549 --> 00:24:18.329 in scars from dozens of battles, bullet wounds, 00:24:18.569 --> 00:24:21.069 sword slashes. And you mentioned his eye earlier. 00:24:21.329 --> 00:24:23.650 Yeah, that he had poor sight in one eye. Yes. 00:24:24.299 --> 00:24:26.859 Reports from the 1920s describe a white film 00:24:26.859 --> 00:24:30.059 over one of his eyes. And the cause is just chilling. 00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:32.920 It wasn't a battle wound. It was a poisoning 00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:35.539 attempt, supposedly by one of his wives back 00:24:35.539 --> 00:24:38.279 in 1924. He survived, obviously, but it left 00:24:38.279 --> 00:24:40.599 its mark. A constant reminder that his enemies 00:24:40.599 --> 00:24:42.420 weren't just on the battlefield. That brings 00:24:42.420 --> 00:24:45.599 up his family life, which is, I mean, it's complex, 00:24:45.859 --> 00:24:48.400 to put it mildly. That's one way to put it. The 00:24:48.400 --> 00:24:52.210 numbers are staggering. He had 22 official consorts 00:24:52.210 --> 00:24:55.349 over his lifetime and fathered at least 45 sons 00:24:55.349 --> 00:24:57.750 who survived to adulthood. But we have to look 00:24:57.750 --> 00:24:59.569 at this through the lens of tribal politics, 00:24:59.829 --> 00:25:02.670 not modern romance. Every marriage was a treaty. 00:25:02.869 --> 00:25:04.970 Every single one was the strategic alliance. 00:25:05.450 --> 00:25:07.910 He married the daughter of the powerful Suderi 00:25:07.910 --> 00:25:11.009 chief to lock down that clan's loyalty. He married 00:25:11.009 --> 00:25:14.109 into the Shamari tribe his old enemies to neutralize 00:25:14.109 --> 00:25:16.470 them. He literally knit the disparate tribes 00:25:16.470 --> 00:25:18.849 of the kingdom together. through the bonds of 00:25:18.849 --> 00:25:20.869 marriage. And the legacy of that strategy is 00:25:20.869 --> 00:25:23.450 still running the country today. Literally every 00:25:23.450 --> 00:25:25.690 single king of Saudi Arabia since his death, 00:25:25.829 --> 00:25:29.609 Saud, Faisal, Khalid, Fahd, Abdullah and the 00:25:29.609 --> 00:25:32.180 current king. Salman, they are all his direct 00:25:32.180 --> 00:25:34.859 sons. We are, as of today, still living in the 00:25:34.859 --> 00:25:37.359 era of the children of Ibn Saud. But for all 00:25:37.359 --> 00:25:39.319 this immense power and wealth that came later, 00:25:39.440 --> 00:25:41.859 there are all these stories of his extreme personal 00:25:41.859 --> 00:25:44.579 generosity. It's like he never forgot what it 00:25:44.579 --> 00:25:46.740 felt like to be hungry in the desert. He really 00:25:46.740 --> 00:25:49.440 didn't. In Riyadh, he established the Thulane 00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:52.240 Guesthouse. It was basically a massive royal 00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:55.220 soup kitchen that fed thousands of poor people 00:25:55.220 --> 00:25:59.029 every single day. Huge vats of rice, meat and 00:25:59.029 --> 00:26:01.769 porridge. Anyone who was hungry could go there 00:26:01.769 --> 00:26:03.950 and eat. And there's that famous story about 00:26:03.950 --> 00:26:06.549 his cloak. It's a great anecdote. He was out 00:26:06.549 --> 00:26:08.990 in the desert and saw an old man shivering in 00:26:08.990 --> 00:26:11.710 rags. Without a second thought, Ibn Saud took 00:26:11.710 --> 00:26:14.130 off his own expensive cloak, draped it over the 00:26:14.130 --> 00:26:16.109 man, and gave him a handful of gold coins from 00:26:16.109 --> 00:26:18.390 his purse. He had a quote about the oil wealth, 00:26:18.509 --> 00:26:20.490 didn't he? Something about sharing it. He did. 00:26:20.630 --> 00:26:22.950 He said, I haven't obtained all this wealth by 00:26:22.950 --> 00:26:25.970 myself. God has bestowed it upon me, and all 00:26:25.970 --> 00:26:28.369 of you have a share in it. At least initially, 00:26:28.410 --> 00:26:31.230 he really did view the oil money as God's provision 00:26:31.230 --> 00:26:33.369 to feed and care for his people. But we have 00:26:33.369 --> 00:26:35.990 to talk about the contradictions. because he 00:26:35.990 --> 00:26:38.630 was a man of massive, glaring contradictions. 00:26:38.650 --> 00:26:41.029 We can't ignore the darker side of his rule. 00:26:41.150 --> 00:26:43.670 For example, he's meeting with FDR, the leader 00:26:43.670 --> 00:26:45.990 of the free world, but he travels to that meeting 00:26:45.990 --> 00:26:48.630 with enslaved people in his entourage. That is 00:26:48.630 --> 00:26:50.450 the starkest and most difficult contradiction 00:26:50.450 --> 00:26:54.069 for us to understand. Slavery was a deeply ingrained 00:26:54.069 --> 00:26:56.890 part of the social fabric of Arabia at the time. 00:26:57.490 --> 00:27:00.609 Ibn Saud regulated it in 1936, trying to improve 00:27:00.609 --> 00:27:02.769 conditions and limit the trade, but he didn't 00:27:02.769 --> 00:27:04.650 abolish it. Why not? He either couldn't because 00:27:04.650 --> 00:27:06.569 it would have caused a massive social upheaval, 00:27:06.569 --> 00:27:09.210 or he wouldn't because he was still a man of 00:27:09.210 --> 00:27:11.970 his time and place. It wasn't formally abolished 00:27:11.970 --> 00:27:15.970 until 1967 by his son King Faisal. It just shows 00:27:15.970 --> 00:27:17.970 you that while he was a modernizer in some ways, 00:27:18.089 --> 00:27:20.789 he was still deeply, deeply traditional in others. 00:27:21.009 --> 00:27:23.609 And yet, speaking of modernizing, he pushed for 00:27:23.609 --> 00:27:25.849 technology that his own advisors thought was 00:27:25.849 --> 00:27:28.650 completely insane. The railway. The Daman to 00:27:28.650 --> 00:27:31.190 Riyadh Railway. A true passion project for him. 00:27:31.309 --> 00:27:33.970 His advisors called it an old man's folly. They 00:27:33.970 --> 00:27:36.049 said, Your Majesty, why do we need a train across 00:27:36.049 --> 00:27:38.750 the desert? It's a waste of money. But Ibn Saud 00:27:38.750 --> 00:27:41.450 was stubborn. He saw the bigger picture. He knew 00:27:41.450 --> 00:27:43.400 it would unite the kingdom. Right. It would move 00:27:43.400 --> 00:27:45.460 goods. It would move troops. It would connect 00:27:45.460 --> 00:27:47.839 the oil -rich coast to his capital in the heartland. 00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:50.839 So he used the first oil royalties to pay for 00:27:50.839 --> 00:27:53.839 it, cash down. He understood that a modern nation 00:27:53.839 --> 00:27:55.940 needs infrastructure. You can't run a kingdom 00:27:55.940 --> 00:27:58.779 on camelback forever. And he also had some surprisingly, 00:27:59.019 --> 00:28:02.039 well, progressive views for his time and place 00:28:02.039 --> 00:28:04.839 on women. He did. He famously told the British 00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:07.619 explorer St. John Philby, it is permissible for 00:28:07.619 --> 00:28:10.740 women to read. Now, to our modern ears, that 00:28:10.740 --> 00:28:13.240 sounds like... the barest of bare minimums. Right. 00:28:13.559 --> 00:28:16.059 But in the deeply conservative Nedged in the 00:28:16.059 --> 00:28:19.180 1930s, that was a radical statement. He believed 00:28:19.180 --> 00:28:22.240 in education for girls as well as boys, even 00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:24.460 if the society around him was extremely resistant 00:28:24.460 --> 00:28:26.980 to the idea. There's one more complex topic we 00:28:26.980 --> 00:28:29.559 need to touch on, his view on Zionism and Jewish 00:28:29.559 --> 00:28:31.799 people. The source material calls it complex, 00:28:32.059 --> 00:28:34.019 but what does that actually mean on the ground? 00:28:34.279 --> 00:28:36.500 It means he held two very different thoughts 00:28:36.500 --> 00:28:39.490 at the same time. Politically and religiously, 00:28:39.529 --> 00:28:42.569 he was fiercely and implacably anti -Zionist. 00:28:42.750 --> 00:28:45.509 He viewed the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine 00:28:45.509 --> 00:28:48.349 as an absolute catastrophe for the Arab and Muslim 00:28:48.349 --> 00:28:51.869 world. He used very harsh, very strong religious 00:28:51.869 --> 00:28:54.630 rhetoric calling the Zionists enemies of Islam. 00:28:54.829 --> 00:28:58.309 But he made a distinction between Zionism as 00:28:58.309 --> 00:29:00.609 a political movement and Jewish people in general. 00:29:00.769 --> 00:29:03.680 It seems so. For example, during the Hebron massacre 00:29:03.680 --> 00:29:06.839 in 1929, when Arab mobs killed Jews in Palestine, 00:29:07.019 --> 00:29:09.039 he publicly condemned it. He said it violated 00:29:09.039 --> 00:29:11.819 the principles of Islam. He had non -Zionist 00:29:11.819 --> 00:29:13.920 Jewish friends and business associates he spoke 00:29:13.920 --> 00:29:16.720 of highly. So his anger seems to have been very 00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:18.859 specifically directed at the political project 00:29:18.859 --> 00:29:20.880 of creating Israel, though he certainly used 00:29:20.880 --> 00:29:22.640 the anti -Semitic language and tropes of his 00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:25.400 time to express it. As we move into the 1950s, 00:29:25.400 --> 00:29:27.420 the king is getting old, the oil is flowing, 00:29:27.539 --> 00:29:29.579 the money is pouring in, but he seems more worried 00:29:29.579 --> 00:29:31.700 than ever. He was exhausted. You have to remember, 00:29:31.779 --> 00:29:33.880 this man had spent 50 years in near constant 00:29:33.880 --> 00:29:36.539 warfare and political struggle. He'd built the 00:29:36.539 --> 00:29:39.019 kingdom, but now he had to preserve it. And the 00:29:39.019 --> 00:29:41.880 new oil wealth was bringing a host of new problems. 00:29:42.119 --> 00:29:45.420 Corruption. Corruption, greed, his son spending 00:29:45.420 --> 00:29:48.099 lavishly. He was worried that the money would 00:29:48.099 --> 00:29:50.259 rock the soul of the nation, that it would destroy 00:29:50.259 --> 00:29:53.480 those simple, tough desert values that he cherished. 00:29:53.660 --> 00:29:55.440 And on top of all that, he was deeply worried 00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:58.740 about succession. Deeply. His eldest and... probably 00:29:58.740 --> 00:30:01.660 favorite son, Turkey, had died tragically back 00:30:01.660 --> 00:30:04.759 in the flu pandemic of 1919. So his two most 00:30:04.759 --> 00:30:08.799 senior remaining sons were Saad and Faisal. And 00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:10.640 they were polar opposites. Saad was the older 00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:12.920 one. Saad was the crown prince. He was charming, 00:30:13.160 --> 00:30:17.000 personable, very popular. But he wasn't. He wasn't 00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:19.779 very competent with money or governance. Faisal, 00:30:19.880 --> 00:30:22.240 the next in line, was brilliant. He was sharp, 00:30:22.400 --> 00:30:25.380 ascetic, a born diplomat and statesman. And Ibn 00:30:25.380 --> 00:30:28.019 Saad knew Faisal was the more capable son, didn't 00:30:28.019 --> 00:30:30.380 he? Oh, he knew. There's a famous quote attributed 00:30:30.380 --> 00:30:34.240 to him. I only wish I had three Faisals. But 00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:36.240 the tradition of primogeniture, of the eldest 00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:39.240 son inheriting, was strong. He couldn't skip 00:30:39.240 --> 00:30:41.640 over Saud to appoint Faisal without risking a 00:30:41.640 --> 00:30:43.720 massive family feud, maybe even a civil war. 00:30:43.859 --> 00:30:47.319 So he kept Saud as crown prince. And what were 00:30:47.319 --> 00:30:49.859 his last words to them? His final advice to his 00:30:49.859 --> 00:30:53.910 sons was simple. You are brothers. Unite. He 00:30:53.910 --> 00:30:56.390 knew, he absolutely knew, that if they fought 00:30:56.390 --> 00:30:58.029 amongst themselves, the kingdom he had spent 00:30:58.029 --> 00:31:00.390 his entire life building would crumble into dust. 00:31:01.750 --> 00:31:06.190 He died of a heart attack at his palace in Taif. 00:31:06.750 --> 00:31:09.170 And here's the final poetic and telling detail 00:31:09.170 --> 00:31:11.210 of his life. At the time of his death, he was 00:31:11.210 --> 00:31:13.089 one of the richest men in the world. He controlled 00:31:13.089 --> 00:31:16.250 a literal sea of oil. But in accordance with 00:31:16.250 --> 00:31:18.609 his strict Wahhabi faith, which forbids the idolization 00:31:18.609 --> 00:31:21.250 of the dead or building monuments, he was buried 00:31:21.250 --> 00:31:23.650 in an unmarked grave. Just a simple mound of 00:31:23.650 --> 00:31:26.009 dirt in the allowed cemetery in Riyadh. Right 00:31:26.009 --> 00:31:28.890 next to his sister, Nora. No headstone, no mausoleum. 00:31:28.890 --> 00:31:31.029 The founder of a kingdom buried like any other 00:31:31.029 --> 00:31:34.049 man. Wow. OK, so let's zoom out. We've covered 00:31:34.049 --> 00:31:36.990 a huge amount of ground here from that desperate 00:31:36.990 --> 00:31:41.130 raid to the meeting on the USS Quincy. What is 00:31:41.130 --> 00:31:44.190 the big takeaway? Why does Ibn Saud's story still 00:31:44.190 --> 00:31:47.130 matter so much to someone listening today? I 00:31:47.130 --> 00:31:49.730 think it matters because his story is the DNA 00:31:49.730 --> 00:31:52.410 of the modern Middle East. Ibn Saud did something 00:31:52.410 --> 00:31:54.750 that was thought to be impossible. He took a 00:31:54.750 --> 00:31:58.009 region of disparate, warring tribes, people who 00:31:58.009 --> 00:32:01.240 had no concept of a nation state. and he welded 00:32:01.240 --> 00:32:04.380 them by force and by faith into a unified country. 00:32:04.599 --> 00:32:07.660 He bridged centuries in a single lifetime. He 00:32:07.660 --> 00:32:09.900 literally bridged the gap between the 12th century 00:32:09.900 --> 00:32:12.640 and the 20th century. But, and this is the crucial 00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:14.460 part, he did it by creating this fundamental 00:32:14.460 --> 00:32:16.880 built -in tension. The tension between tradition 00:32:16.880 --> 00:32:19.740 and modernity. Exactly. He built the state using 00:32:19.740 --> 00:32:22.660 the most extreme, fervent religious zeal, the 00:32:22.660 --> 00:32:25.630 Ikhwan. But he sustained and secured that state 00:32:25.630 --> 00:32:28.809 using the most pragmatic modern tools, oil politics 00:32:28.809 --> 00:32:30.670 and treaties with the West. He had to crush the 00:32:30.670 --> 00:32:32.490 zealots when they threatened the state. But the 00:32:32.490 --> 00:32:34.289 state itself is still founded on that unique 00:32:34.289 --> 00:32:37.309 religious identity. So the tension we see in 00:32:37.309 --> 00:32:39.470 the region today, this constant push and pull 00:32:39.470 --> 00:32:42.009 between radical modernization and extreme religious 00:32:42.009 --> 00:32:45.309 tradition, that's not new. That was baked in 00:32:45.309 --> 00:32:46.970 from the very beginning by the founder himself. 00:32:47.390 --> 00:32:49.490 It is the fundamental paradox of the Saudi state. 00:32:50.109 --> 00:32:53.759 Given Saud, somehow managed to personally balance 00:32:53.759 --> 00:32:57.259 on that tightrope for 50 years. His sons and 00:32:57.259 --> 00:32:59.700 grandsons are still walking on that same tightrope 00:32:59.700 --> 00:33:01.619 today. And that leads to a final thought for 00:33:01.619 --> 00:33:04.430 you to chew on. Ibn Saud created a nation by 00:33:04.430 --> 00:33:07.450 first unleashing and then taming religious fanaticism 00:33:07.450 --> 00:33:10.269 for the sake of state stability. How does a nation 00:33:10.269 --> 00:33:12.630 founded on such a contradiction navigate the 00:33:12.630 --> 00:33:15.549 future? That tension he created is his most enduring 00:33:15.549 --> 00:33:18.630 and perhaps most challenging legacy. The image 00:33:18.630 --> 00:33:20.670 of that old lion sitting in his palace making 00:33:20.670 --> 00:33:22.490 men for his nation. That's gonna stick with me. 00:33:22.529 --> 00:33:23.690 A powerful legacy indeed.