Saudi Arabia

Overview

For centuries Arabia has appealed to travelers all over the world, inspired by travel reports and of course the tales of 1001 nights and the romanticism. Today's Saudi Arabia is still a land of mystery largely due to its fundamentalist Islam state form and its rigid admission policy. Saudi Arabia is incredibly difficult to visit, there's no tourist visa in this country. Best way to get in is by invitation of a Saudi person or company, or, if you're a Muslim, on a pilgrimage to one of the holy cities. Even if until 20 years ago local autorities were really strict with Cristians and Jewish, nowadyas they are much more tolerant. So to carry a Bible with you shouldn't a problem anymore and women are well treated. To get more information it is strongly suggested to contact the local Saudi Embassy.

About half of Saudi Arabia consists of uninhabitable desert. Here there are no permanent rivers and lakes and the average temperature in July is about 40ºC. These unfriendly circumstances have deeply influenced the Arab way of life. Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the Middle East. The Saudi Arabian state was first established in the central region of the Arabian Peninsula in the early 18th Century, but king Abdul Aziz Bin Abdul Rahman Al-Saud founded the present day state only in 1932.

Saudi Arabia is a fairly rich country, due to its vast oilfields, but this wealth is not evenly divided. The royal family effectively owns the country. There is...more

History

Except for a few major cities and oases the harsh climate historically prevented much settlement of the Arabian Peninsula. People of various cultures have lived there over a span of more than 5 000 years. The Dilmun culture along the Gulf coast was contemporaneous with the Sumerians and ancient Egyptians and most of the empires of the ancient world traded with the states of the peninsula.

The Saudi state began in central Arabia in about 1750. A local ruler Muhammad bin Saud joined forces with an Islamic reformer Muhammad Abd Al-Wahhab to create a new political entity. Over the next 150 years the fortunes of the Saud family rose and fell several times as Saudi rulers contended with Egypt the Ottoman Empire and other Arabian families for control on the peninsula. The modern Saudi state was founded by the late King Abdul Aziz Al-Saud (known internationally as Ibn Saud). In 1902 Abdul Aziz recaptured Riyadh the Al-Saud dynasty's ancestral capital from the rival Al-Rashid family. Continuing his conquests Abdul Aziz subdued Al-Hasa the rest of Nejd and the Hijaz between 1913 and 1926. In 1932 these regions were unified as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Boundaries with Jordan Iraq and Kuwait were established by a series of treaties negotiated in the 1920s with two "neutral zones"--one with Iraq and the other with Kuwait--created. The Saudi-Kuwaiti neutral zone was administratively partitioned in 1971 with each state continuing to share the petroleum resources of the former zone equally. Tentative agreement on the partition of...more