14BEFORE OILthe fighting was done, Ibn Saud melded four disparate territories into a
country that he named for himself. Ibn Saud’s Arabia was recognized
as a sovereign and independent state in 1932.
The al- Saud rulers imposed the Nejdi’s austere brand of Sunni Salafi
Islam on all inhabitants, whether minority Shia in the east or the more
liberal Hijazis in the west. Salafi, or Wahhabi, Islam remains a key pil-
lar of the al- Saud’s claims of religious legitimacy, stemming from state
enforcement of conservative principles and its seizure and guardianship
of holy places in Mecca and Medina. Like their counterparts in neigh-
boring Gulf monarchies, Ibn Saud’s sons continued to rule the Saudi
kingdom based on indigenous institutions that evolved from long- held
traditions.
For the Saudis, this singularity is a matter of pride. No outside power
ever colonized the Nejd, the al- Saud heartland. Ottoman imperial-
ists, also Muslim, made inroads, but considered the Nejd and much of
Arabia a “hornets’ nest.” For non- Muslims, Arabia’s holy cities have
always been off- limits.^7 Chas Freeman, a former US ambassador to
Saudi Arabia, maintains that Saudi Arabia’s never- colonized status still
shapes relations with its neighbors and the West.^8 “Saudi Arabia is
the only society on the planet never to have experienced coercive intru-
sion by Western militaries, missionaries, or merchants. The kingdom
has never compromised its independence. When the West finally came
here, it came not as a conqueror, spiritual tutor, or mercantile exploiter,
but as hired help.”^9
Saudi Arabia modernized more gradually than the other Gulf states.
While its early independence and discovery of oil gave it a head start,
the kingdom’s larger area and its ultraconservative religious and social
preferences slowed development. The rise of the modern Saudi state owes
much to its oil- derived friendship with the United States.
The Americans capitalized on the strategic importance of a sparsely
populated land endowed with so much oil. The 1945 meeting between
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ibn Saud, aboard the USS Quincy
in the Suez Canal, established the core principles of the relationship: US
diplomatic and military backing in exchange for a commitment to oil