Saudi Arabia
The birthplace of Islam and custodian of Mecca and Medina, the desert kingdom of the House of Saud, a land of deep faith, Bedouin heritage, tribal honour, and boundless hospitality, now in the midst of a sweeping transformation. The complete guide.
Saudi Arabia is a large desert country that covers most of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East, the largest nation in the region, home to about thirty-five million people. To understand it, begin with its place as the birthplace of Islam and the custodian of the two holiest cities of the faith, Mecca and Medina, which gives the kingdom a unique standing in the Muslim world; with the deep and pervasive religion, the strict tradition of Islam that has shaped its law, custom, and daily life; with the rule of the House of Saud, the royal family that founded and governs the kingdom; with the desert and the Bedouin heritage, the values of tribe, honour, and survival that run through the culture; with the boundless hospitality, expressed in coffee, dates, and the welcome of the guest; and with the sweeping transformation now under way, as a young society and an ambitious leadership remake the kingdom. From these flow the customs that follow: the warm greeting, the shared meal, the great festivals. This guide walks through each in turn.
Overview
Saudi Arabia is a vast country occupying most of the Arabian Peninsula, the largest nation in the Middle East, bordered by the Red Sea to the west and the Persian Gulf to the east, with Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north, and Yemen and Oman to the south. Almost the whole of this immense land is desert, including the great sand sea of the Empty Quarter, one of the largest deserts in the world, and the climate is among the hottest and driest on earth, so that life has always gathered around the oases, the few fertile highlands, and, in modern times, the cities raised by oil wealth. About thirty-five million people live there, a large share of them foreign workers drawn by the economy. The capital is Riyadh, in the central heartland of Najd.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, governed by the king and the royal House of Saud, with no elected parliament, and its law is founded on Islam, the Sharia, in a strict tradition. The kingdom takes its very name from the ruling family, and it was forged in the early twentieth century by the conquests of its founder, who united the tribes and regions of the peninsula. The official language is Arabic, the sacred language of Islam, and the kingdom is overwhelmingly Muslim, almost entirely so among its citizens, with a Sunni majority and a Shia minority in the east.
A few deep forces shape life in Saudi Arabia. There is its place as the birthplace of Islam and the custodian of Mecca and Medina. There is the deep and strict religion that orders law and life. There is the rule of the House of Saud. There is the desert and the Bedouin heritage of tribe and honour. There is the boundless hospitality. And there is the sweeping transformation now under way. The sections that follow trace these forces and then walk through the customs of daily life.
The birthplace of Islam
The deepest fact about Saudi Arabia is that it is the birthplace of Islam, the land where the faith was born in the seventh century, where the Prophet Muhammad lived and received, by Muslim belief, the revelation of the Quran, and from where Islam spread across the world to become one of the great religions of humanity. This gives Saudi Arabia a standing unlike that of any other nation in the Muslim world, for it is the very cradle and heartland of the faith, the place toward which more than a billion Muslims turn in prayer, and its identity, law, and daily life are bound to Islam more tightly than perhaps anywhere else on earth.
Religion is not one part of Saudi life but the foundation of all of it. The kingdom is governed by Islamic law, the Sharia, in a strict tradition long shaped by the conservative reform movement often called Wahhabism, which arose in the peninsula in the eighteenth century and allied with the House of Saud, and which has profoundly marked the kingdom's religious character. The five daily prayers order the day, called from every minaret; the holy day of Friday gathers the faithful; and Islamic values and rules run through law, custom, dress, food, and conduct. Almost all Saudi citizens are Muslims, the great majority Sunni, with a significant Shia minority concentrated in the Eastern Province.
This depth of faith shapes everything a visitor encounters. The practice of religion is woven into public and private life with a seriousness and a pervasiveness found in few other places, and the kingdom has long been among the most religiously conservative of societies, though the role and strictness of religion in public life have begun to change in recent years. The call to prayer, the closing of shops at prayer times, the rules of dress and conduct, the deep piety of the people, all flow from this. For a visitor, respect for Islam, its customs, and its sensibilities is essential, expected, and required by law. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand its place as the birthplace and heartland of Islam, the faith that is the foundation of the whole society.
Mecca, Medina, and the hajj
At the heart of Saudi Arabia's unique standing in the Muslim world are the two holiest cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina, both within the kingdom, and the king bears the proud title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the guardian of these sacred places. Mecca is the holiest city of Islam, the birthplace of the Prophet and the site of the Kaaba, the cube-shaped shrine toward which all Muslims turn in prayer five times a day, the very centre of the faith. Medina is the second holiest city, where the Prophet established the first Muslim community and where he is buried, in the great Mosque of the Prophet.
Every year these cities draw the hajj, the great pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam, which every Muslim who is able is called to make once in a lifetime. In the appointed season, millions of pilgrims from every nation on earth converge on Mecca, in one of the largest gatherings of humanity in the world, to perform the ancient rites of the pilgrimage, circling the Kaaba, standing on the plain of Arafat, and the rest, in a profound act of faith, unity, and devotion. The lesser pilgrimage, the umrah, can be made at any time of year and draws many millions more. The hosting of these pilgrimages is one of the central tasks and honours of the kingdom.
The holy cities and the pilgrimage give Saudi Arabia a religious centrality and a connection to the whole Muslim world found nowhere else, and the title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques is a cornerstone of the legitimacy and pride of the monarchy. Mecca and the Grand Mosque remain closed to non-Muslims, and the holy sites are places of the deepest reverence. The pilgrimage shapes the rhythm, the economy, and the identity of the nation, and the care of the pilgrims is a great national undertaking. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand Mecca, Medina, and the hajj, the holy heart of Islam that the kingdom guards and serves.
The desert and the Bedouin
Beneath the faith and the modern wealth lies an older foundation of Saudi culture: the desert and the Bedouin heritage, the way of life of the nomadic Arab tribes who for countless centuries roamed the harsh deserts of the peninsula with their camels, sheep, and goats, moving between the wells and the seasonal pastures, and whose values still run deep in the Saudi soul. Though settled life and the cities have all but ended the old nomadism, and most Saudis now live in towns, the Bedouin past is the romantic and moral heartland of the culture, the source of values the nation cherishes as its own.
From the desert and the Bedouin come the deepest Saudi values. There is the boundless hospitality to the stranger, born of the desert, where to refuse a traveller food and shelter could mean their death, and so the welcome of the guest became a sacred duty. There is the deep sense of honour, sharaf, the dignity and good name of a person and a family that must be upheld and defended. There is loyalty to kin and tribe, the strong bonds of blood and clan that order society. And there is the prizing of generosity, courage, endurance, and the spoken word, the poetry and eloquence treasured among the desert Arabs.
These Bedouin values endure as the moral core of Saudi identity even in a now overwhelmingly urban and modern society. The camel, the tent, the desert, the falcon, remain powerful symbols of the nation and of an idealised heritage, celebrated in festivals, poetry, and national pride. Tribal identity and affiliation remain meaningful, shaping relationships and standing, and the values of honour, hospitality, loyalty, and generosity are still held as the marks of a good person. For a visitor, understanding this desert and Bedouin heritage is the key to understanding the values beneath Saudi life. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand the desert and the Bedouin, the harsh land and the nomadic past from which its deepest values spring.
The House of Saud
Saudi Arabia is unique among the nations of the world in bearing the name of its ruling family, the House of Saud, and the kingdom and the dynasty are bound together as in few other places. The modern kingdom was forged in the early twentieth century by Abdulaziz, known in the West as Ibn Saud, the warrior-king who, over three decades, united the warring tribes and regions of the Arabian Peninsula by conquest and alliance into a single realm, proclaimed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, and founded the dynasty that has ruled ever since. Every king since has been one of his sons, and the family is vast and central to the life of the nation.
The kingdom is an absolute monarchy, with no elected parliament and no political parties, ruled by the king and the royal family in a system that blends modern government with older traditions of tribal and personal rule. The king holds great power, governs with the senior princes and a council of ministers, and his legitimacy rests on the twin pillars of the family's historic role and its guardianship of Islam and the holy cities. By old custom, the ordinary subject has the right to petition the king or the princes directly, a tradition of access that reaches back to the desert. The throne has passed among the sons of the founder, and a new generation of his grandsons is now rising to power.
The wealth that transformed the kingdom came from oil, discovered in the Eastern Province in the twentieth century, which in a few decades turned a poor desert land of nomads and oasis farmers into one of the richest nations on earth and a power in the world, the leading oil producer and a major force in global energy. This sudden wealth remade Saudi society with astonishing speed, building modern cities, schools, hospitals, and roads where there had been desert, and giving the monarchy the means to provide for its people. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand the House of Saud, the dynasty that forged the kingdom, bears its name, and rules it still.
Qahwa and dates
If any one quality defines the Saudi people, it is their hospitality, a warmth and generosity toward guests that is legendary, born of the desert and the values of Islam, and expressed above all in the ritual of coffee and dates. To welcome a guest, even a stranger, with the best one has, to feed and care for them generously, is among the deepest of Saudi values and duties, a matter of honour rooted in the old desert code where hospitality could mean survival. The guest is honoured and made the centre of attention, and no effort is spared in the welcome.
The heart of Saudi hospitality is the serving of Arabic coffee, qahwa, the pale, lightly roasted, cardamom-spiced coffee poured from a long-spouted pot into small handleless cups, offered to every guest as the first and essential gesture of welcome, together with dates, the sweet fruit of the desert palm that has nourished Arabia for millennia. The coffee and dates are pressed upon the guest with insistence, the cup refilled until one signals enough by tilting it, and to share them is to enter into the bond of hospitality. This ritual is among the most cherished and recognisable of all Saudi customs, performed in the home, the office, and on every social occasion.
The hospitality extends far beyond the coffee. A guest in a Saudi home will be fed generously, often with great platters of food, urged to eat their fill and more, and treated with a warmth and attentiveness that can be overwhelming, for the giving is a point of honour and pride. To refuse the offered hospitality, the coffee, the food, the welcome, can give offence; the gracious way is to accept warmly. So strong is the custom of generosity that a guest is wise not to admire a possession too openly, for a hospitable Saudi may feel bound to give it. For a visitor, to receive Saudi hospitality graciously is to meet the warm heart of the culture. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand the welcome of coffee and dates, the legendary hospitality born of the desert.
The majlis and the open door
Central to Saudi social and political life is the majlis, a word that means both a place and a gathering: the sitting room where guests are received, and the assembly of people who gather there to talk, to socialise, and to seek favour or justice. In the home, the majlis is the formal reception room, often furnished with cushions or seating around the walls, where the host receives his guests and serves them coffee and dates, kept separate from the private family quarters, for in traditional Saudi life the spaces of hospitality and of family are distinct, and guests do not enter the inner home.
The majlis is also an institution of access and governance reaching from the humblest home to the palace of the king. By long tradition, leaders, tribal sheikhs, princes, and the king himself hold a majlis, an open assembly where ordinary people may come to greet them, to present a petition, to seek help or redress, or simply to pay respects, a custom of direct access between the ruler and the ruled that descends from the old ways of the desert tribes. This tradition of the open door, of the accessible leader who hears his people directly, remains a meaningful part of Saudi political culture.
The majlis expresses much that is deep in Saudi culture: the centrality of hospitality, the importance of gathering and talking, the bonds of family, tribe, and community, the relationship between leader and people, and the separation of the spheres of guest and family. It is the setting for the rituals of welcome, for the conduct of social and business life, and for the maintenance of the dense web of relationships that order Saudi society. For a visitor received in a majlis, the customs of greeting, of coffee, and of respectful conversation are the keys. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand the majlis, the place of welcome and the tradition of the open door at the heart of its social and political life.
Family, honour, and the tribe
The family lies at the very heart of Saudi life, the deepest and most important of all bonds, and Saudi families are large, close, and extended, reaching far beyond parents and children to embrace grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and the wider clan and tribe. The extended family is the foundation of society, the first source of love, support, identity, and security, and its bonds carry deep obligations of mutual help and loyalty. Family ties are strengthened through frequent gatherings and visits, and the elderly are honoured and cared for within the family, several generations often living close together.
Bound up with the family is the deep value of honour, sharaf, the dignity and good name of the person and, above all, of the family, which all its members must uphold and protect, for the conduct of one reflects on all, and the honour of the family, including the modesty and reputation of its women, is a matter of the greatest importance. Beyond the family stands the tribe, the larger kin group of common descent, which remains a meaningful source of identity, belonging, and standing in Saudi society, shaping relationships, marriages, and influence, a living inheritance of the Bedouin past.
Traditional Saudi society has long kept a strong separation of the worlds of men and women, with much of public and social life divided by gender, men and women socialising largely apart, and the spheres of the two kept distinct, a custom rooted in religion and tradition, though one that has been relaxing in recent years. Respect for elders and for the head of the family, deference of the young to the old, and the careful observance of family duty and honour run through Saudi life. The individual is understood always within the family and the tribe, owing loyalty and drawing identity from them. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand the central place of the extended family, the deep value of honour, and the enduring bonds of the tribe.
The manner of men
Saudi greetings are warm, elaborate, and important, for the greeting is a valued ritual of respect and relationship, not a quick formality. The universal greeting is the Islamic as-salamu alaikum, peace be upon you, with its reply, followed among men by a handshake, often warm and lingering, and frequently, between men who know one another, by an embrace and a touch of the cheeks or noses, and a string of warm inquiries after one's health, family, and affairs that may go on at some length. To rush the greeting or move too quickly to business is impolite; the proper way is to greet fully, warmly, and at leisure.
The customs of greeting differ sharply between the sexes, in keeping with the traditional separation of men and women. Men greet men, and women greet women, with warmth, but between unrelated men and women the customs are reserved: a foreign man should not offer to shake hands with a Saudi woman unless she extends hers first, and physical greeting across the sexes is often avoided, with a polite nod or hand to the heart instead. These customs, long strict, have been easing somewhat, but caution and respect for the other person's lead remain the wise course.
Respect and courtesy shape the whole manner of greeting and address. Elders and those of higher status are greeted first and with special deference, respectful titles and forms are used, and the giving and receiving of greetings, like all dealings, is done with the right hand. Saudi men in particular are known for a notable warmth and physical affection in greeting one another, even between strangers, a legacy of the desert welcome. For a visitor, the keys are to return the warmth, to greet fully and patiently, to use the right hand, to show clear respect to elders, and to follow the other's lead carefully across the lines of gender. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand the warmth and the careful customs of its greetings.
Kabsa and the Saudi table
Saudi food is hearty, generous, and built around the staples of Arabia, rice, meat, bread, and dates, flavoured with the spices of the region and shaped by the traditions of the desert and the wider Gulf and Arab world. The great national dish is kabsa, a fragrant dish of spiced rice cooked with meat, usually chicken, lamb, or goat, perfumed with cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, saffron, and dried lime, served on a great communal platter and eaten together, the centrepiece of family meals and celebrations. Beside it stand mandi, a similar dish of rice and meat slow-cooked in a pit, and the old festive dish of a whole stuffed lamb roasted and laid upon a mountain of rice.
Around these are arrayed the other beloved foods: flat unleavened bread at nearly every meal; jareesh and other dishes of crushed wheat; the grilled meats and kebabs; the shawarma, the spit-roasted meat in bread, beloved as street food along with falafel and samosas; the dips and salads; and the sweet things, above all the luqaimat, the little fried dough balls in date syrup, and a wealth of dates in every form, the fruit that is the symbol of Saudi hospitality and a food eaten daily. As a strict Muslim country, Saudi Arabia observes the rules of halal food, pork is entirely forbidden, and alcohol is wholly banned throughout the kingdom.
The Saudi meal is a deeply social and generous occasion, traditionally eaten seated on the floor around great communal platters, with the food taken by hand, always the right hand, from the shared dish, and hospitality centring on feeding the guest abundantly, pressing more and more upon them. Coffee and dates open and close the welcome, and tea is drunk throughout. The traditional separation of the sexes has meant that men and women often eat separately on social occasions. For a visitor, to share a Saudi meal, the kabsa from the common platter, the dates and the coffee, eaten with the right hand, is to taste the generosity of the culture. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand kabsa, dates, and the generous communal table.
The kingdom in Ramadan
The holy month of Ramadan is the great event of the Saudi year, observed with a depth and strictness fitting the birthplace of Islam. Through Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, taking neither food nor drink through the daylight hours, and in Saudi Arabia the fast is observed by all and required of all in public, so that eating, drinking, or smoking in public during the daylight hours is forbidden and unlawful, even for non-Muslims. The rhythm of the nation transforms: the days grow quiet and slow, much work pauses, and the nights come alive after the breaking of the fast, the iftar, with feasting, family, prayer, and sociability stretching late into the night.
The end of Ramadan brings the first of the two great festivals, Eid al-Fitr, the feast of the breaking of the fast, a joyful celebration of several days marked by special prayers, family gatherings, feasting, new clothes, gifts and money for children, and the visiting of relatives and friends. It is one of the high points of the year, a time of happiness, generosity, and reunion. The second great festival is Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice, the greater of the two, which falls in the season of the hajj and commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son in obedience to God, marked by the sacrifice of an animal whose meat is shared with family, neighbours, and the poor, and by prayer, feasting, and family gathering.
These two Eids are, in the strict tradition of the kingdom, the only religious festivals publicly celebrated, for the conservative form of Islam long dominant in Saudi Arabia has not recognised the other festivals kept in much of the Muslim world. Beside the religious feasts, the kingdom marks two national days, the founding of the Saudi state and the unification of the kingdom, the only holidays kept by the Western calendar, and in recent years a new array of cultural festivals and entertainment seasons has arisen as part of the kingdom's transformation. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand the deep observance of Ramadan and the two great Eids that crown the Muslim year.
The thobe and the abaya
Saudi dress is among the most distinctive and uniform in the world, traditional, modest, and bound to religion and custom, and it remains the everyday wear of most Saudis even amid great change. The Saudi man wears the thobe, also called the dishdasha, a long, loose, ankle-length robe, usually of white cotton in the heat, simple and elegant, worn by nearly all Saudi men in daily life. On the head he wears the ghutra or shemagh, the cloth head covering, white or red-and-white checked, folded and held in place by the iqal, the black cord, a dress that is at once practical in the desert sun and a proud mark of Saudi and Arab identity.
The Saudi woman traditionally wears, in public, the abaya, the long, usually black, loose cloak that covers the body over her other clothes, and many also cover the hair with a scarf and the face with a veil, the niqab, in keeping with the strict customs of modesty long observed in the kingdom. These customs of women's covering, once strictly required and enforced, have eased in recent years, so that the face veil and even the abaya are no longer legally compulsory, though most Saudi women continue to wear the abaya in public by custom and choice. Modesty in dress, for both men and women, remains a deep value.
For visitors, the rules of dress have relaxed but modesty is still expected and important. Foreign women are no longer required to wear the abaya, but modest dress covering the shoulders, arms, and legs is expected, and a scarf is useful for some settings; foreign men should dress modestly too, with covered legs. In the holy cities and at religious sites, strict modesty is required. The traditional dress, the white-robed men and the black-cloaked women, remains one of the most recognisable images of Saudi Arabia and a powerful mark of its identity. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand the thobe and the abaya, the modest and distinctive dress of the kingdom.
From birth to burial
The great milestones of life in Saudi Arabia are marked with deep ceremony, the gathering of the extended family and tribe, and the customs of Islam and tradition. Birth is welcomed with great rejoicing, especially the birth of a son, and the arrival of a child is celebrated by the family, with the Islamic customs of naming and, for boys, circumcision. The raising of children is a family affair, deeply shaped by religion, respect, and the values of honour and hospitality, within the close world of the extended family.
The wedding is the supreme celebration, and Saudi weddings are large, lavish, and joyful affairs that gather the wider family, tribe, and community in festivity, often at great expense and over more than one occasion. In keeping with the separation of the sexes, the celebrations are traditionally held separately for men and women, with the women's gathering a splendid affair of fine dress, music, and feasting in private, and the men's its own celebration, the two sometimes joining at the end. Marriage is a union of families as much as individuals, often arranged or guided by the families, and the wedding, with its feasting and its gathering of the kin, is among the most important events of Saudi life, the foundation of the family that is the heart of society.
Death is marked according to Islamic custom, swiftly, simply, and with deep communal support. The body is washed, wrapped in a plain white shroud, and buried, without a coffin and traditionally in an unmarked grave, before sunset on the day of death if possible, facing Mecca, in the Muslim way that stresses humility and equality before God. The family receives condolences and gathers in mourning, supported by the wider community and tribe. Through the milestones of life run the enduring threads of Saudi culture: family, faith, honour, tribe, and the customs of Islam. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand these milestones, where family and faith mark the passage of every Saudi life.
Lines not to cross
Saudi life is governed by a deep and detailed sense of courtesy bound to religion, honour, and tradition, and a visitor who understands the key customs will be warmly received and avoid serious offence. The most important rules concern the hands and feet, as across the Muslim and Arab world: the left hand is considered unclean and is never used for eating, giving, or receiving, all done with the right; and the feet are the lowest part of the body, so one never shows the soles of the feet or shoes to another, never points them at a person, and is careful how one sits. Shoes are removed before entering homes and the majlis.
Respect for Islam and its customs is paramount and required. One must be careful never to criticise the faith, the royal family, or the country; one should be quiet and respectful around prayer times and mosques, and observe the Ramadan fast in public; and one must honour the strict separation of the sexes, avoiding any improper behaviour or contact between unrelated men and women, for public displays of affection are forbidden and offensive. The privacy of Saudis, especially of women and families, is deeply valued: one must never photograph people, above all women, without permission, nor pry into family matters. Alcohol and drugs are wholly illegal, drugs gravely so.
In manner, the keys are warmth, patience, respect, and dignity. Saudis value generosity, courtesy, and honour, and dislike rudeness, arrogance, public anger, and the causing of embarrassment or loss of face, which must always be avoided; criticism is given gently, privately, and never before others. The full and warm greeting, the gracious acceptance of hospitality, respect for elders and for religion, and a modest, courteous, patient manner open every door. For a visitor willing to show this respect, Saudis are exceptionally warm and welcoming hosts. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand its courtesy, the rules of hand and foot, the respect owed to faith, family, and honour, and the care taken to preserve dignity.
Poetry, the sword dance, and the arts
The arts of Saudi Arabia are rooted in the heritage of the desert and the traditions of Islam, and the most treasured of all is poetry, for the Arabs of the peninsula have prized the spoken and sung word above all arts since before the coming of Islam. The Bedouin poetry called nabati, composed in the everyday Arabic of the people and rich in musical quality, remains immensely popular and beloved across the kingdom, recited and sung and celebrated, the living heir of the ancient odes for which Arabia was famed, and the poet holds a place of honour in the culture. Eloquence, proverb, and the well-turned phrase are deeply admired.
Among the most striking of Saudi traditions is the ardha, the sword dance, the stirring martial line dance in which rows of men, often bearing swords, move and chant to the beat of drums and the rhythm of poetry, a proud expression of heritage, courage, and unity performed at national celebrations and great occasions, descended from the war dances of the tribes. To this are joined the traditional music, sung with poetry to the rhythm of the drum and the strings of the rababah, the simple fiddle of the desert; the folk dances and songs of the regions; and the crafts of weaving, pottery, and metalwork.
The visual arts of the kingdom have long been shaped by the Islamic tradition that turned away from the depiction of living figures, so that Saudi art has been dominated instead by the beauty of Arabic calligraphy, the elevation of the written word, above all the words of the Quran, to a high art, and by geometric and floral design, seen in the decoration of mosques, manuscripts, and buildings. The architecture ranges from the old mud-brick towns and forts to the great modern mosques and towers. In recent years, as part of the kingdom's transformation, a new world of cinema, music, festivals, contemporary art, and entertainment has opened with remarkable speed, where little existed before. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand its arts, the cherished poetry, the sword dance, the calligraphy, and the heritage of the desert and the faith.
The regions of the kingdom
Though Saudi Arabia is a vast and largely desert land, it has distinct regions, each with its own character, history, and culture, gathered into one kingdom by the House of Saud. At the centre lies Najd, the high desert heartland that holds the capital, Riyadh, and is the homeland of the ruling family and of the strict religious tradition; it is the political heart of the nation, conservative and central. To the west, along the Red Sea, lies the Hejaz, the most cosmopolitan and historically open region, home to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and to the great port and lively city of Jeddah, long a meeting place of pilgrims and peoples from across the Muslim world, and so the most diverse part of the kingdom.
To the east, along the Persian Gulf, lies the Eastern Province, the region of Al-Hasa, where the great oil fields lie that made the kingdom rich, and where most of the Shia minority of Saudi Arabia live, in the oases of Al-Hasa and Al-Qatif. To the southwest rise the highlands of Asir, a cooler, greener, mountainous region near Yemen, with its own distinctive culture, architecture, and traditions, unlike the deserts of the rest of the kingdom. And across the whole land stretch the great deserts, including the vast Empty Quarter of the south, one of the largest sand deserts on earth.
These regional differences, in culture, custom, dialect, and outlook, run beneath the strong unity of the kingdom and the shared faith and identity that bind it. The Hejaz with its diversity and openness, the conservative central Najd, the oil-rich and partly Shia east, the green highlands of the south, each adds its own colour to the nation. The great cities, Riyadh the modern capital, Jeddah the cosmopolitan port, the holy cities, the oil cities of the east, are now home to most Saudis, in a society transformed within living memory from desert nomadism to urban modernity. To understand Saudi Arabia is to understand its regions, the varied lands gathered into one desert kingdom.
The nation today
Saudi Arabia today is an absolute monarchy of about thirty-five million people, the largest country and a leading power in the Middle East, the heartland of Islam, the world's great oil exporter, and a nation in the midst of a sweeping and rapid transformation. It is ruled by the king, Salman bin Abdulaziz, and his son and heir, the powerful crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely seen as the day-to-day ruler and the driving force of change. Under his programme, known as Vision 2030, the kingdom is striving to remake its economy beyond its dependence on oil and to transform its society, with consequences felt in every part of national life.
The transformation has been startling in its speed. In recent years the powers of the religious police have been curtailed; women have gained the right to drive and far greater freedom in public life and work; cinemas, concerts, festivals, and entertainment, long forbidden, have opened across the kingdom; the strict rules of dress and the separation of the sexes have eased; the country has opened to tourism; and vast new projects, futuristic cities and resorts, are rising in the desert. This loosening of long-standing restrictions has remade daily life for a young population, most of whom are under thirty, even as the kingdom remains an absolute monarchy that strictly limits dissent and political freedom and draws criticism abroad over human rights.
Through all this change, Saudi Arabia holds firmly to the foundations of its identity. It remains the birthplace of Islam and the custodian of Mecca and Medina, its deepest pride and its unique role in the world; the faith, though its public role is shifting, remains central; the House of Saud rules still; the values of family, honour, hospitality, and the Bedouin heritage endure beneath the new modernity; and the welcome of coffee and dates still opens every door. To know Saudi Arabia is to meet a land of profound faith and ancient values now remaking itself with extraordinary speed, the desert heartland of Islam, proud, hospitable, and in the midst of a transformation that is reshaping the kingdom and drawing the eyes of the world.