First inhabitants in the Arabian Peninsula Located between the two great centers of human civilization, the Nile

River and Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula was the crossroads of the ancient world. Trade was the basement of the areas development, and the caravan roues became trade arteries that made life possible in the sparsely populated peninsula. Of all the tribes and people that inhabit in the Arabian Peninsula, few have had as much importance for commerce as the Nabateans, a people of Bedouin origin who developed a specialized knowledge of the trade caravan routes.

The birth of Islam Around the year 610, Muhammad, who was born in Makkh, received a message from God (in Arabic, Allah) through the Angel Gabriel. As more revelations carry him to proclaim the oneness of God universally, Prophet Mumammads following grew. In 622, after discovering an assassination plot against him, the Prophet led his followers to the town of Yathrib, which was later named Madinat Al-Nabi (city of the Prophet) and nowadays is known as Madinah. This was the Hijrah, or migration, which marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. In the years following the Prophet Muhammads death in AD 632, the territory of what is now Saudi Arabia was nominally ruled by the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, and was saved from obscurity only by the spiritual significance of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

The first Saudi State In 1703, Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, began advocating a return to the original form of Islam. Abdul Wahhab was persecuted by local religious scholars and leaders who viewed his teaching as a threat to their power. Due to this, he sought protection in the town of Diriyah, which was ruled by Muhammad bin Saud and share his religious ideas. In the meantime, there was considerable anger throughout Arabia that the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah were under foreign (Ottoman) tutelage, and that was one of the reasons of the fast expansion of the Saudi-Wahhabi emirate. Upon his death, Al-Saud was succeeded by his son Abdul Aziz, who captured Riyadh in 1765. In 1792 Al-Wahhab died but the inexorable expansion of the Saudi-Wahhabi emirate continued. By the end of 18th century, the Saudi State ruled over the entire central plateau known as the Najd. By the early 19th century, its rule extended to most of the Arabian Peninsula, including Makkah and Madinah.

In 1818, the Ottomans, the dominant power in the Middle East and North Africa at that time, dispatched a large expeditionary force, which besieged Diriyah and made it uninhabitable by ruining the date palms.

Second Saudi State By 1824, the Al-Saud family had regained political control of central Arabia. The Saudi governor Turki bin Abdullah Al-Saud transferred his capital to Riyadh, 20 miles south of Diriyah, and established the Second Saudi State. Under Turki and his son Faisal, the Second Saudi State enjoyed a long period of peace, shattered in 1865 by the Ottoman empire again. Ottomans captured parts of the Saudi State, and forced Faisal Al-Saud to abandon the power. Faisal Al-Saud sought refuge with the Bedouin tribes in the vast sand desert of eastern Arabia known as the RubAlKhali or empty quarter. With him was his young son Abdulaziz, who was already making his mark as a leader and a fierce warrior for the cause of Islam.

The Modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia The young Abdulaziz was determined to regain his family patrimony. For this, in 1902, accompanied by only 40 followers, march one night into Riyadh to retake the Masmak Fortress. This legendary event marks the beginning of the formation of the modern Saudi State. After establishing Riyadh as his headquarters, Abdulaziz captured all of the Hijaz, including Makkah and Madinah, in 1924 to 1925. In the process, he united tribes into one nation. On September 23, of 1932, the country was named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Islamic state with Arabic as its national language and the Holy Qurn as its constitution.

Discovery of oil
The economic future of the new kingdom was almost instantly secured with the discovery of oil and the signing in 1933 of Saudi Arabias first oil concession. Four years later, the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) discovered commercial quantities of oil near Riyadh and in the area around Dammam in the east. In 1943 President Roosevelt established the Kingdoms political importance by stating grandly that the Kingdom was vital for the defence of the USA.

Upon Ibn Sauds death on 9 November 1953, his profligate son Saud became king. Saud endeared himself to the Arab in the street by supporting Egypt in the Suez Crisis of 1956, but, with the Kingdoms finances in deep trouble, Saud abdicated in 1964. His brother Faisal proved more willing to provide his citizens with a stake in the economic benefits of oil. He introduced, among other things, a free health service for all Saudis, and began the building boom that has transformed Saudi Arabia from an impoverished desert kingdom into a nation of modern infrastructure. In response to the USAs unconditional support for Israel, Saudi Arabia imposed an oil embargo on the USA in 1974, a move that quadrupled world oil prices, drew support from across the region and reminded the world of Saudi Arabias importance in a world economy dependent upon oil.

Growing pains
On 25 March 1975 King Faisal was assassinated by a nephew. Although the throne passed to Faisals brother Khaled, a man who was known for his piety, frugal lifestyle and closeness to his subjects, the real power behind the throne was another of Faisals brothers, Fahd. In November 1979 the Great Mosque of Mecca was overrun by 250 fanatical followers of Juhaiman ibn Saif al-Otai, a militant Wahhabi leader, who claimed that the Mahdi (Messiah) would appear in the mosque on that very day. During two bloody weeks of fighting, 129 people were killed. The conflict was a devastating blow to the credibility of a regime that had prided itself on being the inheritors of the Wahhabi legacy and the rulers best able to safeguard the holy places. During the following year, riots also broke out in the towns of the Qatif Oasis, the heartland of the Kingdoms 300, 000 Shiites, many of whom were inspired by the revolutionary fervour of their co-religionists in Iran and the exhortations of the Ayatollah Khomeini to export the Shiite revolution. The riots were brutally put down. On 14 June 1982 the figurehead King Khaled died aged 69. Fahd became king and set about reinforcing the twin pillars (and contradictions) of modern Al-Saud rule. He made a priority of proving himself a moderate and reliable friend of the West, while in 1986 he proclaimed himself the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.