Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

58
The enlistment of large sums of national financial resources and man power in the
consolidation of the new nation-state resulted in a tremendous allocation cities and
indirectly resulted in an increase in urban living standards of the population. In the civil
domain, the Saudi government has tried to create a stable, modern economy centered
around a central bureaucracy heavily dependent on oil revenues. Government intervention
in the national urban process, which goes back to the Hijar settlement program of 1912,
was seen as a necessary measure to defuse centrifugal tendencies that prevailed for
millennia as well as to convey legitimacy on the Saudi Monarchy.
The economically impoverished and politically fragmented character of the society has
changed due to the dramatic events during the early part of this century. By utilizing
power, diplomacy, religious legitimacy and ancestral claims to dynastic inheritance, Abdul-
Aziz Bin Abdul-Rahman Faisal A1 Saud succeeded in his campaign to unify the various,
isolated parts of the Arabian Peninsula. 10 Felicitous political changes both worldwide and
on the local level, gave Abdul-Aziz an opportunity to reclaim his forebears' control over
vast parts of Arabia. A watershed event occurred in 1902/1319 when Abdul-Aziz, with a
mere forty of his acolytes, invaded Riyadh killing its Rashidi viceroy and brought the preindustrial
settlement of approximately five thousand inhabitants under his family control.
This incident was followed by a series of battles between the rival dynastic powers in
Arabia which culminated in 1926 by the ceding of Jeddah to Abdul-Aziz. In 1932 the
country was officially named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a hereditary monarchy
appealing to traditions and committed to modernity.
Saudi Arabia's sociopolitical system is based on traditional principles and practices
heavily rooted in Islam. Legitimacy of the ruling A1 Saud family is based on a combination
of tribal-dynastic roots and appeal to Islamic orthodoxy. Although an absolute monarchy
not bound by a written constitution and a representative body of citizens, its absolutism is
tempered by, first, the supremacy of Islamic Shariy'ah which presses for equality and
rapport between the governor and the governed (the ruling system considers its application
of Shariy'ah as the main source of legitimacy), secondly, by widespread tribal
interrelatedness through conjugal ties between the royal family and the major tribes and
leading families of the country; and, finally, by the presence of the informal majlis (which
literally means a place to sit), touted by the Saudi officials as a substitute for the Western
democratic system as well as being "consistent" with Saudi culture. The majlis is a Saudi
invention par excellence. It is an informal institution in the sense that it does not adhere to a