Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening
a file that feels less like a geopolitical history
and more like a, well, a high -stakes Shakespearean
tragedy. It really has all the elements, doesn't
it? Oh, absolutely. It's got everything you'd
expect from a prestige drama. A spare heir who
wasn't supposed to rule. A bitter brotherly feud
that almost caused a civil war. A modernization
drive that dragged a society kicking and screaming
into the 20th century. And an assassination that,
in hindsight, feels disturbingly inevitable.
It really is one of the most dramatic arcs in
modern history. We are talking about a figure
who quite literally stopped the industrialized
world in its tracks and forced the global superpowers
to blink. We're talking about King Faisal of
Saudi Arabia. To understand the sheer magnitude
of this man's life, I want to start with a single
moment that I guarantee listeners or certainly
their parents remember vividly. We have to start
in October 1973. The oil crisis. Yeah. The moment
the world changed. Right. If you were driving
a car in the U .S., the U .K., Canada or Japan
during that time, your life suddenly ground to
a halt. I mean, we're not just talking about
higher prices. No, no, this is different. We're
talking about gas lines stretching for blocks,
people abandoning their cars on the side of the
highway because they ran dry waiting in line.
Panic at the pumps. Exactly. Panic at the pumps.
Even daylight savings time was extended in the
U .S. just to save electricity. It was a complete
societal shock. It was a complete psychological
shock. You have to remember, prior to October
1973, the West operated on the assumption of
cheap, infinite energy. Of course. It was the
foundation of the entire post -war economic boom.
Then, overnight, the price of oil jumps nearly
300%. 300%. It went from $3 a barrel to nearly
$12. Which, admittedly, sounds like a bargain
today. I mean, I wish they could pay $12 a barrel.
But in 1973 dollars, that was an economic heart
attack. It was. And for the first time, you know,
the West realized that its massive industrial
engine ran on fuel controlled by people who might
not always agree with them. And this wasn't an
accident, right? It wasn't a hurricane or a supply
chain glitch. No, this was a calculated political
weapon wielded by one man, King Faisal. He targeted
the industrialized world specifically because
of their support for Israel in the Yom Kippur
War. And the result wasn't just economic pain.
It was a total tectonic shift in global power.
Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1974.
He effectively forced the world to acknowledge
Saudi Arabia not just as a, you know, a gas station,
but as a superpower. He did. But here is the
mission for today's deep dive. If you only know
Faisal for the oil embargo, you are missing 90
% of the story. Oh, easily. The man himself was
a massive contradiction. He was a modernization
reformist who introduced television and world's
education to a deeply, deeply conservative society.
But at the same time, he was this incredibly
pious, ascetic figure who was militantly anti
-communist and anti -Zionist. A total paradox.
And our goal today is to unpack how this spare
air The third son, never really meant to be King
Rose to power through a family coup, modernized
his country against, well, violent internal resistance,
and then was killed in a way that is, the irony
of his death is just haunting. It really is.
We have a massive stack of sources today. Historical
records, biographical details, military accounts.
Let's go back to the beginning. Where does the
story of Faisal actually start? It starts in
Riyadh, 1906. Now, you have to picture Riyadh
in 1906. This isn't the city of glass skyscrapers
we see today. Not even close. Right, this is
the middle of the desert. It was a mud brick
fortress town, completely isolated from the outside
world. Faisal was the third son of King Abdulaziz,
the legendary founder of modern Saudi Arabia.
But right from birth, there is a detail that
sets Faisal apart from his brothers. Okay, what
was that? It's his mother, Tarfa. She wasn't
just from any prominent tribe. She was from the
Al -Ashshaykh family. Okay, so for those of us
who aren't experts in Saudi genealogy, let's
unpack that. Why is the Al -Ashshaykh family
so significant? It's absolutely crucial. The
al -Ash 'aq are the direct descendants of Mohammed
bin Abdul Wahab. The founder of the strict interpretation
of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia. Exactly. The
entire Saudi state is built on this pact, right?
It dates back to the 1700s between the political
leadership, the al -Saud, and the religious leadership,
the al -Ash 'aq. So by having a mother from the
religious nobility and a father from the political
royalty, Faisal is... He's physically the bridge
between these two pillars of power. Precisely.
And this wasn't just symbolic. His mother died
when he was just a baby, so he was actually raised
by his maternal grandparents. He grew up in a
very strict, intensely religious household. I
read he had memorized the entire Quran by age
nine. Age nine. And he was studying Sharia law.
This background explains so much about his later
life. Right, because when he eventually pushed
for controversial reforms like TV or girls' education,
he had this built -in armor. The religious scholars,
the Ulema, they couldn't just dismiss him as
some westernized secularist. They couldn't. They
knew he was one of them. That credibility was
his single most valuable political asset. He
spoke their language probably better than they
did. But he wasn't just a religious scholar.
King Abdulaziz saw something sharp in him very
early on. He did. There's this incredible story
from 1919. Faisal is just 13 years old. 13. I
mean, at 13, I think I was struggling to organize
a group project in middle school. Well, at 13,
Faisal is sent on a high stakes diplomatic mission
to London. He becomes the first ever Saudi royal
to visit England. Why on earth would you send
a 13 year old to negotiate with the British Empire?
That seems like a massive gamble. It was tragic
circumstances, actually. His older brother, Turkey,
was supposed to go. He was the heir apparent's
brother and a real rising star, but he died during
the Spanish flu pandemic that swept the world.
Wow. So Abdulaziz looks at his sons and picks
Faisal, the spare. Imagine the culture shock.
He's coming from the deserts of Nedj, which,
as he said, was completely isolated, no electricity,
no cars to speak of, and he lands in post -World
War I London. It had to be jarring. There are
photos of this tour. You see this young teenager
looking so serious and dignified in his traditional
robes, headdress, and dagger, surrounded by all
these European dignitaries in top hats and tails.
Who did he even meet? He met Lord Curzon, the
foreign secretary. He went to the House of Lords.
Then he went on to France and toured the battlefields
of World War I. That has to shape your worldview.
Seeing the sheer industrial scale of the West,
the weaponry, the organization, but also the
devastation. They absolutely did. He saw the
power of modernization up close. But interestingly,
he wasn't intimidated by it. He didn't come back
wanting to be British. He came back wanting to
make Saudi Arabia powerful enough to stand on
its own. He realized that to survive, his country
needed the tools of the West, but to keep the
soul of the East. And his father clearly recognized
that potential. There's that famous quote King
Abdulaziz used to say about him. I really wish
I had three Faisals. That is some high praise.
But also a bit of a dig at the other sons, isn't
it? A little bit, yes. But Abdulaziz backed it
up with real responsibility. He gave Faisal military
command very, very early. In 1922, Faisal led
6 ,000 fighters to take control of the Azir region
in the south. At 16 years old. 16. Later, he
commanded the entire campaign in the Saudi -Yemeni
War in 1934. So he's a diplomat and a general
before he's even 30. And a viceroy. He was appointed
viceroy of Hejaz in 1926, which is the western
part of the country containing Mecca and Jeddah.
Then, and this is key, he became foreign minister
in 1930. And he basically held that job for the
rest of his life. Virtually continuously, with
only one brief break. For decades, he was the
face of Saudi Arabia to the world. He met FDR
on the USS... Quincy in 1943. He helped found
the UN in San Francisco in 45. But despite that
incredible resume general, diplomat, viceroy,
foreign minister, when his father died in 1953,
Faisal didn't become king. No. The succession
laws or traditions really favored the eldest
son. So his older half -brother Saud became king.
Faisal became crown prince and prime minister.
And this sets the stage for what I think is the
most tense period in Saudi domestic history.
The feud between King Saud and Crown Prince Faisal.
This wasn't just a disagreement over dinner.
No. This was a struggle for the soul of the country.
It was existential. And you have to understand
the context of the 1950s in the Middle East.
The region was on fire. Monarchy was going out
of style. Very much so. You have Gamal Abdel
Nasser in Egypt who had overthrown the king there.
And he was preaching this secular pan -Arabism.
He was actively calling for the overthrow of
reactionary regimes like Saudi Arabia. So you
have this massive external threat. And how is
King Saud handling it? Poorly. To put it mildly,
Saud was seen as, well, let's say diplomatically
challenged compared to Faisal. But the bigger
problem was his spending. It was out of control.
The famous palaces. Massive royal palaces, luxury
cars, just handing out cash to tribes to buy
their loyalty. All while the country was financially
unstable, bordering on bankruptcy. So the treasury
is empty and there is a revolutionary wave next
door just waiting to sweep them away. The family
must have been panicking. They were. By 1958,
the pressure was too much. The senior princes
and the ulema stepped in. They essentially forced
King Saud to hand over all executive powers to
Faisal to save the economy. It was a soft coup.
Here, Faisal, you fix the mess, but let your
brother keep the crown and the title. Exactly.
And Faisal went to work. He slashed the budget.
He stabilized the currency. He started getting
things in order. But Saud did not take this lying
down. He resented being a figurehead. So he starts
pushing back. He starts rallying tribes, using
his own money to build support. And in 1960,
Faisal actually resigned in protest because Saud
kept obstructing his reforms. He just walked
away. He did. He went to his retreat in Taif
and said, fine, you run it. But of course, the
situation just got worse without him. By 1962,
the family was begging him to come back as prime
minister. And that leads us to 1964, the climax
of this feud. This part of the story, it really
plays out like an action movie. It does. Faisal
had had enough. He started consolidating power
for real this time. He removed Saud's loyalists
from key military posts. And crucially, he put
his half -brother, Prince Abdullah, who would
later become king himself, in charge of the National
Guard. And King Saud threatens to use his own
force, the Royal Guard, to take power back. It
was a standoff. A terrifying standoff. Faisal
ordered the National Guard to surround Saud's
palace. So you literally had two military forces
loyal to two different brothers facing off in
the streets of Riyadh. It was moments away from
a civil war. Absolutely. One wrong move and the
whole thing could have turned into a bloodbath.
So how do they stop it? What de -escalated the
situation? The religious scholars. The Grand
Mufti, remember, Faisal's cousin from the Al
-Ashshaykh family intervened. The Ulema got together
and issued a fatwa. Or religious ruling. Yes,
declaring Saud unfit to rule due to his health
and his ineptitude. And Faisal's reaction to
this is really interesting. The sources say he
was reluctant to take the throne. He was. He
had sworn an oath to his father to support Saud.
He really struggled with the decision. But ultimately,
the consensus of the family and the Ulema was
that Saud had to go for the kingdom to survive.
So in November 1964, Saud abdicated and went
into exile. Basil became king. And his first
speech really sets the tone for his entire reign.
He said, I beg of you, brothers, to look upon
me as both brother and servant. Majesty is reserved
to God alone. That humility was genuine, but
it was also incredibly savvy politics. He was
signaling that he wasn't going to be the lavish,
distant monarch his brother was. He was a servant
of the state and of the faith. So Faisal is now
in charge. He's got the throne. and he immediately
shifts gears into what I'd call hyper -modernization.
He had actually laid the groundwork for this
even before he became king. That's right. In
1962, while he was essentially running the show
as prime minister, he issued something called
the Ten Point Program. It was a roadmap for building
a modern state. And the biggest item on that
list, which I think often gets overlooked, is
the abolition of slavery. Wait, 1962? Slavery
was legal in Saudi Arabia until 1962. It was.
It was deeply entrenched in the social structure.
Now, it wasn't the industrial chattel slavery
of the American South, but it was slavery. That
is startlingly recent. It is. But Faisal knew
it had to end. There was external pressure. Sure,
JFK and the U .S. were pushing for it, but Faisal
was the one who had to execute it domestically.
And he did it in a very pragmatic way. Right.
He didn't just sign a piece of paper. He put
money behind it. Yes. The government paid compensation
for every enslaved person freed. About $2 ,000
per person. Around 1 ,682 people were freed officially.
It was a massive social shift, and he pushed
it through despite very strong conservative resistance
from the tribes who viewed owning slaves as a
status symbol. And that was just the start. Once
the oil revenue really started flowing, especially
after he renegotiated the agreements with the
Ramco to get a fairer share, he just poured that
money into infrastructure. The five -year plan
started in 1970. We're talking roads, ports,
airports, but the most critical thing you can
build in a desert. Water. Water. The Jizun Dam.
Completed in 1970. Exactly. Dams in Abha, Wadi
Hanifa. He established the agricultural bank
to give interest -free loans to farmers. He understood
that food and water security were national security.
It was foundational. But the reform that probably
caused the most friction, the most pushback,
was education. Specifically, women's education.
This is where we have to mention Queen Ifat.
Yes, let's talk about her. She wasn't a typical
Saudi royal wife from a local tribe. No, not
at all. She was born and raised in Turkey. She
was highly educated. Faisal met her in Istanbul
on a diplomatic visit. She was the driving force
behind a lot of these social reforms. So it was
a partnership. Very much so. Together, they started
Dar al -Hanan in 1956, which was the first...
Proper girls' school. Then in 1960, they established
the General Presidency for Girls' Education.
I can only imagine this did not go over well
with the hardliners. It absolutely did not. There
were protests. Fathers refused to send their
daughters. But here is where Faisal's unique
background, remember that religious upbringing
came in handy. He could debate them on their
own terms. Exactly. He didn't say we're doing
this to be like the West. He said we are doing
this because Islam requires all Muslims, men
and women, to seek knowledge. He used their own
logic to persuade them. It was a master class
in political maneuvering. But there was one innovation.
that he couldn't just debate his way through.
One piece of technology that became a flashpoint.
Television. Television. Yes. In 1965, Faisal
introduced national TV broadcasts. The religious
zealots were furious. They believed that images
of humans were forbidden, a form of idolatry.
And this leads to a specific... And very tragic
incident that, in hindsight, is just haunting.
It is. A group of protesters decided to attack
the new TV station headquarters in Riyadh. And
leading the attack was a prince, Prince Khalid
bin Musaid. Faisal's own nephew. His nephew led
the attack. And in the chaos, as they tried to
storm the building, the police shot and killed
Prince Khalid. Wow. So the king introduces TV,
his nephew attacks the station, and the police
kill the nephew. Faisal was reportedly devastated,
but he stood by the decision to have the station.
He believed the country couldn't remain in the
dark ages, cut off from the world. But that death,
that death. planted a seed of vengeance that
would sit dormant for 10 years. And we'll definitely
put a pin in that because that is going to come
back in a big way. But first, we have to look
at the global stage. We mentioned the oil embargo
at the top, but Faisal's foreign policy was about
so much more than just oil. It was an ideological
war. In one corner, you had Nasser in Egypt promoting
pan -Arabism, secular, socialist, leaning towards
the Soviet Union. And in the other corner, you
had Faisal promoting pan -Islamism. What was
the core difference there? Pan -Arabism was about
uniting people based on Arab ethnicity and language.
Pan -Islamism was about uniting people based
on a shared Islamic faith. Faisal founded institutions
like the Muslim World League to push this idea
and counter Nasser's influence. And Faisal was
strictly anti -communist. Militantly so. He refused
to have any diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union.
He saw communism as godless and fundamentally
incompatible with Islam. In his mind, he often
lumped communism and Zionism together as two
sides of the same coin foreign aggressive ideologies
invading the region. This rivalry with Nasser
played out in a literal war, didn't it? The Yemen
Civil War. It was a classic proxy war. In the
1960s, a coup in Yemen overthrew the king there.
Egypt sent tens of thousands of troops to support
the new Republicans. Saudi Arabia sent money
and weapons to support the royalists who were
fighting a guerrilla war in the mountains. It
dragged on for years. But then 1967 happens.
The Six -Day War. And everything changed. The
Six -Day War changed everything. Israel defeated
the combined Arab armies, Egypt, Syria, Jordan
in less than a week. Nasser was utterly humiliated.
His military was destroyed. And the Egyptian
economy was in ruins. And this is where Faisal
makes a really surprising move. He doesn't gloat.
He doesn't kick Nasser while he's down. Not at
all. He rescues him. At a summit in Khartoum
after the war, Faisal pledged huge subsidies.
I think it was around $154 million annually to
Egypt to help them rebuild. That's a fortune
at the time. It was. And there's this famous
moment where he and Nasser, these bitter rivals,
embraced at the airport and called each other.
brother. It's the keep your enemies closer strategy
or maybe just a pragmatic realization that a
collapsed Egypt was bad for everyone in the region.
It was pure pragmatism. And after Nasser died
and Anwar Sadat took over, Faisal found a partner
he could really work with. Sadat was moving away
from the Soviets and wanted to get closer to
the U .S. They formed a very close alliance.
Which brings us full circle to 1973, the Yom
Kippur War. Egypt and Syria attack Israel to
regain their lost territory. The U .S. steps
in with a massive airlift to resupply Israel,
and Faisal finally plays his trump card. The
oil embargo. We have to understand, Faisal had
warned the U .S. about this. He had told them
for years, he told Henry Kissinger directly,
that their unconditional support for Israel would
have consequences. And they just didn't believe
him. They didn't believe him. They thought, well,
Saudi Arabia needs us to buy their oil more than
we need to buy it. They severely underestimated
him. And when he cut production and banned exports
to the U .S. and other Western countries, the
market panic was instant. It wasn't just about
the price. It was the psychological shock. The
realization that the West's entire industrial
engine ran on fuel they did not control. This
was the moment Saudi Arabia truly realized its
leverage. Yes. It funded the massive development
boom in the kingdom that followed. But you're
right. It also put a target on Faisal's back.
There were plenty of conspiracy theories that
Western powers wanted him gone after that. Because
when you disrupt the global economy that severely,
you make some very powerful enemies. But before
we get to the end of his life, I want to touch
on who he was personally. We've talked about
him being pious and ascetic, but what was he
like day to day? By all accounts, he was a man
of integrity and extreme humility. He hated pomp
and ceremony. He was tall, gaunt, usually just
wore a simple Bedouin thob, even when meeting
foreign dignitaries. What did he do for fun?
Did he have any hobbies? His main passions were
falconry and hunting, very traditional Bedouin
pursuits. He also loved reading, especially poetry.
And his family life was interesting too. He had
multiple wives, which was standard for the time.
But we mentioned Queen Ifet earlier. Their children
weren't just sitting around in palaces. No, and
this is a key part of his legacy. He insisted
his children be highly educated. He sent his
sons to the best universities in the West Princeton.
Georgetown, Sandhurst, the RAF College at Cranwell.
Give us some examples. Well, Prince Saad al -Faisal,
who graduated from Princeton, went on to become
the foreign minister for 40 years. Prince Turki
al -Faisal, a Georgetown grad, became the intelligence
chief and later ambassador to the U .S. and the
U .K. His daughter, Princess Sarah, was a huge
activist for women's welfare. That's right. So
he was building a meritocratic generation within
the royal family. He wanted them to be competent,
not just titled. That's a huge shift. It was.
He spoke English and French fluently himself,
though he usually insisted on speaking Arabic
in formal meetings. There are stories of him
listening to his translators and then correcting
them when they got the nuance wrong. He was sharp
as a tack. Which makes the end of his life all
the more tragic. He wasn't senile. He wasn't
losing his grip on power. He was at the absolute
height of his power and influence. He was Time's
Man of the Year. He was arguably the leader of
the Islamic world. March 25th. 1975. Take us
to that day. It was a Tuesday morning. The king
was holding a majals in Riyadh. This is a traditional
open audience where citizens and officials can
come to petition the king directly. So it's an
open room, people coming and going, not a high
security situation. Exactly. The king was receiving
a delegation from Kuwait. And in the waiting
room, there was a young prince, his nephew, Faisal
bin Musaid. This is the nephew, the brother of
the prince who was killed at the TV station 10
years earlier. The very same. He had just returned
from the United States. He wasn't seen as a threat.
He was family. He was just another person in
line. So the doors open. The prince walks up
to the king. The king recognizes him. He leans
his head forward to kiss his nephew on the cheek,
a traditional Saudi greeting. And then? And then
the prince pulls out a pistol from his robes.
He shoots the king three times at point -blank
range. One shot hits the chin. One goes through
the ear. Oh, my God. Just absolute chaos. Bedlam.
A bodyguard strikes the prince with a sheathed
sword. The oil minister, Zaki Yamani, who was
standing right there, screams at the guards,
don't kill him. Don't kill him. Why? I mean,
in that moment, why did he want him alive? He
needed to know why. Was this a coup? Was it a
foreign plot? Was it the CIA, the Mossad, the
communists? They had to question him. The fate
of the country could have been hanging in the
balance. So what was the official finding? Well,
initially, there were claims he was insane. He'd
had some issues in the U .S. But the medical
experts, a panel of doctors, ruled that he was
perfectly sane when he committed the act. He
was tried and convicted of regicide. And the
motive. It almost certainly goes back to 1965.
Vengeance for his brother, Khalid, who was killed
attacking the TV station. That is, the irony
is just suffocating. The very technology Faisal
introduced to modernize the country television
led to the riots, which led to the brothers'
death, which, ten years later, led to Faisal's
own assassination. It is a perfect, horrible
Shakespearean tragedy. The very modernization
he championed created the backlash that killed
him. The aftermath must have been huge, both
domestically and internationally. It was. The
funeral was massive. Sadat was there. Yasser
Arafat, Idi Amin, leaders from all over the world
flew in. The assassin, Prince Faisal bin Musaid,
was publicly beheaded in Riyadh a few months
later. And the country itself, it didn't collapse
into a succession crisis. No, the system Faisal
built held up. was smooth. King Khalid, Faisal's
half -brother, took the throne. But the spirit
of the country changed. How so? Well, this brings
us to the legacy. Faisal left behind a modernized
state, a wealthy state, and institutions like
the King Faisal Foundation, which does a lot
of philanthropic work. Cities were named after
him. Lalpur in Pakistan was renamed Faisalabad.
But there's a sense of what if, isn't there?
A massive one. There is a massive what if. Faisal
was this unique figure who could balance the
religious conservatives and the modernizers.
He had the credibility to look the ulema in the
eye and say, no, this is good for Islam. We are
doing this. And look at what happened just a
few years after his death, 1979. 1979 is the
year everything changed again. You had the Iranian
Revolution, which put a Shia theocracy on their
border. And then you had the siege of Mecca,
where a religious extremist took over the Grand
Mosque. And the Saudi response to that siege
was to turn sharply, sharply conservative. Exactly.
To appease the religious base and prevent another
uprising, the government rolled back many social
freedoms. Cinemas were closed. Women's public
roles were severely restricted. A lot of the
modernizing spirit was put on ice. So the provocative
question to leave our listeners with is this.
If Faisal hadn't been assassinated, if he had
been the one on the throne to guide Saudi Arabia
through the storm of 1979, would he have handled
it differently? His grandson mentioned that after
the 1967 war, Faisal became very quiet and contemplative,
as if he felt the enormous weight of the era
to come. Perhaps he foresaw how difficult the
path ahead was. But if he had lived, it is very
possible that the extreme conservatism that defined
Saudi Arabia from 1980 until very recently, well,
it might never have happened. He might have been
able to keep that balance. He might have, and
the Middle East today could look very, very different.
A king who stopped the world with oil? and perhaps
could have stopped a tide of extremism just with
his presence. It's a fascinating and ultimately
tragic deep dive. Indeed. That's it for this
week. Thanks for listening to The Deep Dive.
We'll see you next time.