The Culprit of Jannatul Baqi

Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdul-Rahman al Faisal al Saud known as Ibn Saud was the founder of Saudi Arabia. Ibn Saud was born on 15 January 1876 in Riyadh in the region of Najd in central Arabia. He was the son of Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, last ruler of the "Second Saudi State", a tribal sheikhdom centered on Riyadh. Ibn Saud's family, the House of Saud, had been a power in central Arabia for the previous 130 years.

The family has had conflicts with the Ottoman Empire, theSharif of Mecca, the Al Rashid family of Ha'il, and numerous Islamist groups both inside and outside Saudi Arabia. Under the influence and inspiration of Wahhabi Islam, the Saudis had previously attempted to control much of the Arabian peninsula in the form of the "First Saudi State", until its destruction by an Egyptian army in the early 19th century. In 1802, his great grandfather Abdulaziz led ten thousand Muslim soldiers into an attack on Karbala, Led by Abdulaziz, the Muslim soldiers killed more than two thousand people, including women and children. The soldiers plundered the city, demolishing the massive golden dome above Hussein's tomb and loaded hundreds of camels with weapons, jewelry, coins and other valuable goods. The attack on Karbala convinced the Ottomans and the Egyptians that the Saudis were a threat to regional peace.

In 1890, the House of Saud's long-term regional rivals, the Al Rashid conquered Riyadh. Abdulaziz was 15 at the time. He and his family initially took refuge with the Al Murrah, a Bedouin tribe in the southern desert of Saudi Arabia. Later, the Al Sauds moved to Qatar and stayed there for two months. Their next stop was Bahrain where they stayed briefly. Their final destination was Kuwait where they lived for nearly a decade.

In the spring of 1901, he and some relatives set out on a raiding expedition into the Najd, targeting for the most part tribes associated with the Rashidis. In the autumn while observing Ramadan, he decided to attack Riyadh and retake it from the Al Rashidi. On the night of 15 January 1902, he led 40 men over the walls of the city on tilted palm trees and took the city. The Rashidi governor of the city, Ajlan, was killed in front of his own fortress. The Saudi recapture of the city marked the beginning of the Third Saudi State. Following the capture of Riyadh, many former supporters of the House of Saud rallied to Ibn Saud's call to arms. He was a charismatic leader and kept his men supplied with arms. Over the next two years, he and his forces recaptured almost half of the Najd from the Rashidis. In 1904, Ibn Rashid appealed to the Ottoman Empire for military protection and assistance. The Ottomans responded by sending troops into Arabia. 

On 15 June 1904, Ibn Saud's forces suffered a major defeat at the hands of the combined Ottoman and Rashidi forces. His forces regrouped and began to wage guerrilla warfare against the Ottomans. Over the next two years he was able to disrupt their supply routes, forcing them to retreat. He completed his conquest of the Najd and the eastern coast of Arabia in 1912. He then founded the Ikhwan, a military-religious brotherhood which was to assist in his later conquests, with the approval of local Salafi ulema. Ikhwan beduin abandoned their traditional way of life in the desert and move to an agricultural settlement called a hijra. The word hijra was related to the term for the Prophet's emigration from Mecca to Medina in 622, conveying the sense that one who settles in a hijra moves from a place of unbelief to a place of belief. By moving to the hijra the Ikhwan intended to take up a new way of life and dedicate themselves to enforcing a rigid Islamic orthodoxy. Once in the hijra the Ikhwan became extremely militant in enforcing upon themselves what they believed to be correct sunna (custom) of the Prophet, enjoining public prayer, mosque attendance, and gender segregation and condemning music, smoking, alcohol, and technology unknown at the time of the Prophet. They attacked those who refused to conform to Wahhabi interpretations of correct Islamic practice and tried to convert Muslims by force to their version of Wahhabism. The Ikhwan looked eagerly for the opportunity to fight non Wahhabi Muslims--and non-Muslims as well--and they took Abd al Aziz as their leader in this. By 1915 there were more than 200 hujar in and around Najd and nearly 100,000 Ikhwan waiting for a chance to fight. During World War I, the British government established diplomatic relations with Ibn Saud to unify and stabilize the region. The British entered into a treaty in December 1915 which made the lands of the House of Saud a British protectorate and attempted to define the boundaries of the developing Saudi state. In exchange, Ibn Saud pledged to again make war against Ibn Rashid, who was an ally of the Ottomans. He stockpiled the weapons and supplies which the British provided him, including a 'tribute' of £5,000 per month. After World War I, he received further support from the British, including a glut of surplus munitions. He launched his campaign against the Al Rashidi in 1920; by 1922 they had been all but destroyed.
 

The British Foreign Office had previously begun to support Sharif Hussein bin Ali, Emir of the Hejaz. He was the last inheriter of nearly 700 years of Hashemite rule. Ibn Saud gained confidence and friendship of top british agent Harry St John Philby. The Wahhabi chieftain and bitter enemy of Sherif Hussein was sending raids against the Hashemite ruler of the Hejaz, leader of the Arab Revolt. Philby secretly began to favour Ibn Saud over Sherif Hussein as "King of the Arabs", a difference with British policy, which was promising support for the Hashemite dynasty in the post-Ottoman world. In 1925 the forces of Ibn Saud captured the holy city of Mecca from Sharif Hussein bin Ali, ending 700 years of Hashemiterule.

On 8th Shawwal, Wednesday, in the year 1345 AH (April 21, 1925), mausoleums in Jannatul Al-Baqi (Madina) were demolished by him. In the same year (1925), he also demolished the tombs of holy personages at Jannat al-Mualla (Makkah) where the Holy Prophet (s)'s mother, wife, grandfather and other ancestors are buried. On 8 January 1926, the leading figures in Mecca, Madina and Jeddah proclaimed Ibn Saud the King of Hejaz.

With interational recognition and support, Ibn Saud continued to consolidate his power. By 1928, his forces had overrun most of the central Arabian Peninsula. However, the alliance between the Ikhwan and the Al Saud collapsed when Ibn Saud forbade further raiding. The few portions of central Arabia not under Saudi control had treaties with London. This did not sit well with the Ikwhan, who had been taught that all non-Wahhabis were infidels. Tensions finally boiled over when the Ikwhan rebelled in 1927. After two years of fighting, they were suppressed by Ibn Saud in the Battle of Sabilla in March 1929. Oil and the rule of Ibn Saud Petroleum was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938 by American geologists working Through his advisers St John Philby and Ameen Rihani, he granted substantial authority over Saudi oil fields to American oil companies in 1944, much to the dismay of the British who had invested heavily in the House of Saud's rise to power in hopes of open access to any oil reserves that were to be surveyed.

His newfound oil wealth brought with it a great deal of power and influence that, naturally, Ibn Saud would use to advantage in the Hijaz. He forced many nomadic tribes to settle down and abandon "petty wars" and vendettas. He also began widespread enforcement of the new kingdom's ideology, based on the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. This included an end to traditionally sanctioned rites of pilgrimage, recognized by the orthodox schools of jurisprudence, but at odds with those sanctioned by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. His principal enemies were not Christians or Jews, few of whom it encountered, but fellow Muslims who declined to accept its authority. In 1926, after a caravan of Egyptians on the way to Mecca were beaten by his forces for playing bugles, he was impelled to issue a conciliatory statement to the Egyptian government. In fact, several such statements were issued to Muslim governments around the world as a result of beatings suffered by the pilgrims visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. With the uprising and subsequent decimation thereafter of the Ikhwan in 1929 via British air power, the 1930s marked a turning point. With his rivals eliminated, Ibn Saud's ideology was in full force, ending nearly 1400 years of
accepted religious practices surrounding the Hajj, the majority of which were sanctioned by a millennia of scholarship.

The Curse – Corruption and Moral degradation

The rule that a man might have no more than four wives at a time, but could change them when he liked, also suited Ibn Saud, who had a prodigious appetite for women. He is said to have had minimum twenty two to about three hundred wives altogether. He was a good father to around forty and to an unknown number of daughters, whom no one seems ever to have counted. Most of his sons followed him suit. The kingdom passed on from Abdul Aziz (1902 – 1953) to his five sons Saud (1953 – 1964), Faisal (1964-75), Khalid (1975-82), Fahad (1982 – 2005) and Abdullah (2005 till date). His two younger sons who were appointed heir apparent during the reign of Abdullah but died before becoming king – Sultan and Nayef). The family is estimated to be composed of 15,000 members, but the majority of the power and wealth is possessed by a group of only about 2,000.

The oil deposits of Arabia proved to be among the richest in the world, and Ibn Saud used some of the income derived from them on national improvements. The greater part of his oil revenues, however, was spent on the royal family. They justify that an essential part of family wealth is the Kingdom in its physical entirety and its a totally owned family asset.

During the reign of Fahd, the financial impact may have exceeded 40% of the Kingdom's annual budget, through co-mingling of personal and state funds from lucrative government positions, huge land allocations, direct allotments of crude oil to sell in the open market, segmental controls in the economy, preferences for award of major contracts, cash handouts, and astronomical monthly allowances, all billed to the national exchequer.

Most importantly many of these individuals - all enjoying immunity from prosecution - excessively indulge in natural and unnatural sensual pleasures, crazy partying and wild night parties accompanied by music, alcohol and drugs. There is a massive flow of narcotics into Saudi Arabia and members of the governing regime are involved in smuggling and trade of illicit drugs in the country.

He was seventy-three when he died in his sleep of a heart attack, at his palace at Taif, a summer resort high in the mountains above the Red Sea. He did not live to see the current day corruption and moral degradation of his children and grand children but he could not have expected anything from the children of the culprit of Jannatul Baqi.