Muhammad bin Abdulaziz

Muhammad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (4 March 1910 – 25 November 1988) (Arabic: محمد بن عبدالعزيز أل سعود‎) was a member of the House of Saud. Briefly Crown Prince from 1964 to 1965, he was among the wealthiest and most powerful members of the Saudi royal family. His advice was sought and deferred to in all matters by his brothers. Until his death in 1988, he was a close and powerful confidant and senior adviser to his younger full brother, King Khalid (r. 1975–1982), and his younger half-brother, King Fahd (r. 1982–2005).[1]

For the airport, see Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz International Airport.

Muhammad bin Abdulaziz
A picture of Prince Muhammad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his relative Prince Muhammed bin Saud Al Kabeer Al Saud.
Governor of Al Madinah Province
In office1926–1965
SuccessorAbdul Muhsin bin Abdulaziz
MonarchIbn Saud
King Saud
King Faisal
Born(1910-03-04)4 March 1910
Riyadh, Emirate of Nejd and Hasa
Died25 November 1988(1988-11-25) (aged 78)
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Burial25 November 1988
Al Oud cemetery, Riyadh
IssuePrince Fahd
Prince Abdul Rahman
Prince Bandar
Prince Badr
Prince Sa'ad
Prince Abdullah
Prince Abdulaziz
Full name
Muhammad bin Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Saud
HouseHouse of Saud
FatherIbn Saud
MotherAl Jawhara bint Musaed Al Jiluwi

Early life

Prince Muhammad was born the fourth son of Ibn Saud.[2] His birth date is, according to different sources, either 1909[3] or 1910.[4] Indeed, one source (William A. Eddy) also states that he was the third son (not fourth son) of Ibn Saud.[5]

Prince Muhammad's mother was Al Jawhara bint Musaed Al Jiluwi.[6][7] She was born into the important Al Jiluwis family,[8][9] which was in fact a cadet branch of the Al Saud family itself. She was a second cousin of her husband (their paternal grandfathers had been brothers). This was in keeping with long-standing traditions in Arabia of marriage within the same lineage, and members of the Al Jiluwi family frequently intermarried with the members of Al Saud family.[10]

Prince Mohammad was one of three children born to his mother and Ibn Saud. King Khalid was his full brother,[4] and he had a full sister, Al Anoud, who married successively two sons of Saad bin Abdul Rahman. Al Anoud was first given in marriage to Saud bin Saad. After Saud died, she was married to his brother Fahd bin Saad.[11]

Royal duties

Prince Muhammad and Prince Faisal were given the responsibility for the Ikhwan in mid-1920s.[12][13] In 1926 Prince Muhammad was named governor of Madinah.[14]

Prince Muhammad participated in fights during the formation years of the Kingdom with his older brothers and cousins. In 1934, Ibn Saud ordered his forces to attack Yemen's forward defences.[15] Then, Faisal bin Sa'd, the son of the Saudi king's brother Saad, advanced to Baqem and the son of his other brother Mohammed, Khaled bin Muhammed, advanced to Najran and Saada. King's son Prince Faisal assumed command of the forces on the coast of Tihama and Mohammed bin Abdulaziz had advanced from Najd at the head of a reserve force to support his brother Saud.[15]

Prince Muhammad together with then Crown Prince Saud represented Ibn Saud at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in London in 1937.[16] Prince Muhammad and Prince Mansour accompanied Ibn Saud in the latter's meeting with the then US president Franklin D. Roosevelt on 14 February 1945.[5][17] They together with their uncle Prince Abdullah also attended the meeting between Ibn Saud and British premier Winston Churchill in Egypt in February 1945.[18] Prince Muhammad also accompanied King Saud during his visit to the US in January 1962.[19]

Prince Muhammad was known as king-maker.[1][20] He was head of royal family council. The council expressed its allegiance to Crown Prince Fahd after the death of King Khalid on 13 June 1982.[21]

Renunciation of the succession

Muhammad bin Abdulaziz was Crown Prince during the first few months (November 1964 – March 1965) of the reign of King Faisal. He then voluntarily stepped aside from the succession to allow his younger and only full brother, Prince Khalid, to become heir apparent to the Saudi throne.[1]

He was a key prince in the coalition against King Saud.[22] His nickname, Abu Sharayn or "the father of two evils" (bad temper and drinking). In addition, Prince Muhammad was a frequent visitor to the parties in Beirut which he himself did not consider a proper act for a royal.[13] All such traits were the reasons for not being selected as the king by his brothers.[23][24]

It is also argued that Prince Muhammad, the oldest surviving son of Ibn Saud after Faisal, either declined the role of crown prince or was passed over because of his close association with King Saud during the latter's reign.[25]

Controversy

Prince Muhammad's granddaughter, Misha'al bint Fahd, was convicted of adultery in Saudi Arabia; she and her lover were sentenced to death on the explicit instructions of her grandfather, Prince Muhammad, who was a senior member of the royal family, for the alleged dishonour she brought on her clan and defying a royal order calling for her to marry a man selected by the family, and were subject to public execution. Western media criticized the event as a violation of women's rights. A British TV channel presented a dramatized documentary, Death of a Princess, which was based on this incident. The broadcast hurt Saudi–UK relations significantly.[26]

Following the execution, segregation of women became more severe,[27] and the religious police also began patrolling bazaars, shopping malls and any other place where men and women might happen to meet.[28] When Prince Muhammad was later asked if the two deaths were necessary, he said, "It was enough for me that they were in the same room together".[28]

Views

Prince Muhammad led the conservative members of the royal family.[29] They did not support the fast modernization of the society witnessed at the end of the 1970s and thought that modernization and the presence of too many foreign workers in the country would lead to the erosion of traditional Muslim values.[29]

Prince Muhammad later stated that he would not be a good king if he would have been chosen as the king.[13]

Personal life and death

Prince Fahd, the eldest son of Prince Muhammad, was one of the members of Al Saud Family Council established by Crown Prince Abdullah in June 2000 to discuss private issues such as business activities of princes and marriages of princess to individuals who were not member of House of Saud.[26] One of his grandsons, Muhammad bin Abdulaziz bin Muhammad, was named deputy governor of Jizan Province in May 2017.[30]

Prince Muhammad died and was buried in Riyadh on 25 November 1988,[1][3] at approximately 78 years of age.[31]

Legacy

Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz Airport is named after him. A hospital in Riyadh, Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Hospital, is also named after him.[32]

Ancestry
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References
  1. "Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia". The Palm Beach Post. AP. 26 November 1988. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
  2. Mouline, Nabil (April–June 2012). "Power and generational transition in Saudi Arabia" (PDF). Critique internationale. 46: 1–22. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
  3. "Reigning Royal Families". World Who's Who. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  4. Winberg Chai (22 September 2005). Saudi Arabia: A Modern Reader. University Press. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-88093-859-4.
  5. William A. Eddy (2005). FDR meets Ibn Saud (PDF). Vista: Selwa Press.
  6. "Personal trips". King Khalid Exhibition. Archived from the original on 22 October 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
  7. "Al Saud Family (Saudi Arabia)". European Institute for Research on Euro-Arab Cooperation. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  8. Chapin Metz, Helen (1992). "Saudi Arabia: A Country Study". Retrieved 9 May 2012.
  9. "The New Succession Law Preserves The Monarchy While Reducing The King's Prerogatives". Wikileaks. 22 November 2006. Archived from the original on 19 November 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  10. Joshua Teitelbaum (1 November 2011). "Saudi Succession and Stability" (PDF). BESA Center Perspectives. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
  11. "Family Tree of Al Anud bint Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud". Datarabia. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  12. Jennifer Reed (1 January 2009). The Saudi Royal Family. Infobase Publishing. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-4381-0476-8.
  13. Ellen R. Wald (3 April 2018). Saudi, Inc. Pegasus Books. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-68177-718-4.
  14. "Appendix 6. The Sons of Abdulaziz" (PDF). Springer. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  15. Yunan Labib Rizk (2004). "Monarchs in war". Al Ahram Weekly. Archived from the original on 28 February 2012. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  16. "Saudi Foreign Policy". Saudi Embassy Magazine. Fall 2001. Archived from the original on 7 August 2013. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
  17. Thomas W. Lippman (April–May 2005). "The Day FDR Met Saudi Arabia's Ibn Saud" (PDF). The Link. 38 (2): 1–12. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
  18. "Riyadh. The capital of monotheism" (PDF). Business and Finance Group. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 October 2009. Retrieved 22 July 2013.
  19. Charles Ralls (25 January 1962). "King Saud arrives here for convelescence stay". Palm Beach Daily News. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  20. Stig Stenslie (Summer 2016). "Salman's Succession: Challenges to Stability in Saudi Arabia". The Washington Quarterly. 39 (3): 117–138. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  21. "Crown Prince Fahd takes control of largest oil-exporting nation". Herald Journal. 14 June 1982. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
  22. William Quandt (1981). Saudi Arabia in the 1980s: Foreign Policy, Security, and Oil. Washington DC: The Brookings Institution. p. 79.
  23. Michael Herb (1999). All in the family. Albany: State University of New York Press. p. 102. ISBN 0-7914-4168-7.
  24. As'ad AbuKhalil (2004). The Battle for Saudi Arabia. Royalty, fundamentalism and global power. New York City: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1-58322-610-9.
  25. A. R. Kelidar (1978). "The problem of succession in Saudi Arabia,". Asian Affairs. 9 (1): 23–30. doi:10.1080/03068377808729875.
  26. Simon Henderson (August 2009). "After King Abdullah: Succession in Saudi Arabia". The Washington Institute. Retrieved 27 May 2012.
  27. "King Fahd". Telegraph.
  28. Mark Weston (28 July 2008). "Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present". John Wiley & Sons – via Google Books.
  29. Andrew J. Pierre (Summer 1978). "Beyond the "Plane Package": Arms and Politics in the Middle East". International Security. 3 (1): 148–161. doi:10.2307/2626647. JSTOR 2626647.
  30. John Duke Anthony (3 May 2017). "How the World Turns: Saudi Arabia in Transition". National Council on US-Arab Relations. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  31. Henderson, Simon (1994). "After King Fahd" (Policy Paper). Washington Institute. Retrieved 2 February 2013.
  32. "Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Hospital website". Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Hospital. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
Saudi Arabian royalty
Preceded by
Faisal		 Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
2 November 1964 – 29 March 1965		 Succeeded by
Khalid
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