Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

68
country heralding a promising future. However, it was not until May 1,1939, that oil
revenues finally reached an annual share of about 200,000 pounds in royalties from
SOCAL. The discovery of oil was the deus ex machina that relieved Abdul-Aziz's
financial impasse.
As oil was struck in 1938, construction work for the industrial infrastructure started
immediately and exports began in 1938. With the admission of American oil companies,
the oil industry and further explorations required the mustering of skilled labor, modern
technology, oil processing and heavy equipment and machinery, advanced construction
methods, transportation and, communication networks, and other supporting facilities. A
rudimentary road network and shipping facilities were first laid to facilitate the increasingly
expanding oil activities. The placid and bucolic agrarian and pastoral communities of the
Eastern Province were gradually transformed into a boisterous hive of oil exporting
industry.
The Saudi population first met the new technology with a somber attitude. Change
was too fast and dramatic to be comprehended by the traditional society. The religious
ranks of Ulama (religious scholars) especially, reacted with caution as they were perplexed
over what to permit as consistent with their understanding of Islam and what was
consistent with local traditions. Nevertheless, the guarding of traditions became secondary
to Abdul-Aziz's progressive ideals as oil revenues started to pour into the state treasury and
allocation in modernizing the government and the traditional society was a matter of time.
For the discovery of oil in the late 1930s strengthened Abdul-Aziz's aplomb over the
Kingdom during its formative decades. Politically, oil revenues complemented King
Abdul-Aziz's adroitness and proved helpful and timely in placating and lubricating the
demanding, contumacious political factions. Economically, oil income has engaged the
population in modernization programs for the last forty years.
The flaring of World War n caused a pause of oil exportation and struck the callow
national economy with imminent depression. So in the first dozen years of the concession,
the Saudi exchequer received, in addition to token annual rentals, a total of $6.8 million in
loans from the oil company against future royalties. The depleting treasury of the Kingdom
was compounded by a severe drought that caused livestock to perish and the already
meager agricultural productions to dwindle. In the face of a glaring famine, tribal powers
stepped up efforts to break the new centralizing order while the old centrifugal tendencies