Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud

Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Faisal Al Saud, known in the Western world as Ibn Saud and by his kunya Abu Turki (born at Riyadh on 15 January 1876 – died at Taif on 9 November 1953), was a Najdi war leader, statesman and religious leader who became the founder and first King of Saudi Arabia, reigning from 23 September 1932 until his death, as the English article describes him. ¹ He had ruled parts of the kingdom since 1902, having previously been Emir, Sultan and King of Nejd and King of Hejaz; his victory and his support for Islamic revivalists would greatly bolster pan-Islamism across the Islamic world. ^{1 2}

Ibn Saud was born on 15 January 1876 in Riyadh, the fourth child and third son of Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, one of the last rulers of the Emirate of Nejd, and of Sara bint Ahmed Al Sudairi, and he was taught the Quran by Abdullah Al Kharji in Riyadh, as the English article recounts. ¹ In 1891 the family's rivals the Al Rashid conquered Riyadh when he was fifteen; the family took refuge with the Al Murrah, then in Qatar and briefly Bahrain, until the Ottoman state allowed them to settle in Kuwait, where they lived nearly a decade, and where the young Abdulaziz developed a rapport with the Kuwaiti ruler Mubarak Al Sabah and frequently visited his majlis — visits his father did not endorse, perceiving Mubarak's lifestyle as immoral and unorthodox. ¹ The sources differ on his birth year, which the museum states rather than merges: the English and Arabic articles and Wikidata agree on 15 January 1876, the Urdu article gives 15 January 1877, and the harvest queue from which this record comes gives 1875; the Arabic article pairs the shared date with 19 Dhu al-Hijja 1293 AH, where tabular conversion gives 18 Dhu al-Hijja 1292. ^{1 2 3 4}

On the night of 15 January 1902 Ibn Saud led forty men over Riyadh's walls on tilted palm trees and took the city, its Rashidi governor Ajlan being killed by Abdullah bin Jiluwi before his fortress — the recapture that marked the beginning of the third Saudi state; the Arabic article dates his setting out from Kuwait to the night of 21 Ramadan 1319 AH, corresponding to 2 January 1902. ^{1 2} Within two years he had recaptured almost half of Nejd; defeated by combined Ottoman and Rashidi forces in June 1904, he waged guerrilla war until the victory of Rawdat Muhanna, in which Abdulaziz Al Rashid died, ended the Ottoman presence in Nejd and Qassim by October 1906. ¹ He completed his conquest of Nejd and the eastern coast by 1912, founded the Ikhwan, a military-religious brotherhood approved by local Salafi ulema, and settled nomadic Bedouin into colonies; the Treaty of Darin of December 1915 made his lands a British protectorate, the Rashidis were all but destroyed by 1922, and the Uqair treaty of that year saw Britain recognise many of his territorial gains. ¹ In 1925 his forces captured Mecca from Sharif Hussein, ending seven hundred years of Hashemite rule; on 8 January 1926 the leading figures of Mecca, Medina and Jeddah proclaimed him King of Hejaz, he raised Nejd to a kingdom on 29 January 1927, and the Treaty of Jeddah of 20 May 1927 recognised the independence of the Hejaz and Nejd under him. ¹ When he forbade the Ikhwan further raiding into lands holding treaties with London they rebelled, having been taught that all non-Wahhabis were infidels, and after two years of fighting he suppressed them at the Battle of Sabilla in March 1929; on 23 September 1932 he formally united his realm as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ¹ Petroleum was discovered in 1938 by Chevron after a concession of 1933, and large-scale production began after the Second World War; the brief Saudi-Yemeni War of 1934 ended with the Treaty of Taif confirming Asir, Jazan and Najran to him; Saudi Arabia stayed neutral in the Second World War while generally favouring the Allies, and his three-day meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard USS Quincy on 14 February 1945 laid the basis of Saudi-American relations, while his meeting with Winston Churchill at the Fayyum days later was, in Saudi accounts, unproductive on Palestine; Saudi participation in the 1948 war, 800 to 1,200 troops attached to the Egyptians, was generally considered token. ¹

In his final years Ibn Saud suffered heart disease, half-blindness and arthritis; on the night of 8 November 1953 he recited the shahada several times before sleeping, and died in his sleep of a heart attack at Shubra Palace in Taif on 9 November 1953 at the age of seventy-seven, Prince Faisal at his side; the funeral prayer was performed at Al Hawiyah in Taif, and his body was taken to Riyadh and buried in Al Oud cemetery beside his sister Noura, while the Arabic article pairs the date with 2 Rabi' al-Awwal 1373 AH, agreeing with tabular conversion. ^{1 2} He was succeeded by Saud, appointed crown prince in 1933, though he favoured Faisal's knowledge and experience — "I only wish I had three Faisals" — and kept Saud heir for fear that changing the succession would decrease stability; his last words to his two sons were "You are brothers, unite!" ¹ He fathered almost one hundred children, including forty-five sons, and all subsequent kings of Saudi Arabia as of 2026 are his sons. ¹

This section is read as a presentation of positions reported from the sources, not as a verdict of the museum.

The English article describes his religious policy in terms of his state and its movement: "concording with Wahhabi beliefs, he ordered the demolition of several shrines, the Al-Baqi Cemetery and the Jannat al-Mu'alla", and he began "widespread enforcement of the new kingdom's ideology, based on the teachings of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab", ending pilgrimage rites sanctioned by a millennium of scholarship — statements about the doctrine he enforced, which the data record explains are not a personal madhhab attestation. ¹ His recorded sayings include "Two things are essential to our state and our people... religion and the rights inherited from our fathers" and "The English are my friends, but I will walk with them only so far as my religion and honor will allow"; the article also records his encouragement of women's reading in conversation with St John Philby, his regulation of slavery in 1936 (abolished only under Faisal), his institutional charity of the Thulaim guest house, and his fierce opposition to Zionism alongside his condemnation of the 1929 Hebron massacre as a violation of Islamic principles. ¹ Two assassination attempts are recorded, in 1935 during Hajj and in 1951. ¹ His faith is recorded as unknown as to school in his data record: the Urdu article's infobox gives "Sunni Islam" and Wikidata gives Islam generically — each one structured value naming no school — the Arabic article names no madhhab for him, and no source names a school such as Hanbali for the man himself; his state's official doctrine and the movement he allied with are not a personal attestation, so the value stays unknown under the two-source rule and the doubt rule. ^{1 3 4 2}

• The defined sources cited above, registered in data/source/.
• Later translations and edits of this article need periodic review with clear update dates.