King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud had by sheer force of personality become the dominant figure shaping Saudi Arabia’s society over the past two decades.

With an enthusiasm that defied his age – Abdullah was born in 1924, eight years before the kingdom was created – he built a substantive legacy of reform that has transformed the kingdom.

More than any other Saudi monarch, Abdullah made it his mission to modernise the kingdom’s society and institutions. His aim was to ensure that the world’s most powerful oil producer was not left shackled by a conservative establishment that was reluctant to confront the need for change. 

Strategic vision

That he could repeatedly outmanoeuvre the most entrenched conservative forces was in no small part due to his own hard-earned reputation for personal incorruptibility and his evident lack of interest in the trappings of wealth; not for him summers spent on luxury yachts in the Mediterranean.

Abdullah’s aptitude for strategic, decisive action was grounded in an ambitious, almost impatient personality. It was this quality that led to his ultimate anointment as king in 2005, in spite of a birthright that in the hierarchical constellation of the House of Saud should have put him behind others’ in the succession pecking order.

Sudairi Seven

Abdullah was the thirteenth son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. Unlike his seven half-brothers – the so-called Sudairi Seven – Abdullah, did not enjoy the favoured status that accrued to the full sons of Abdulaziz’s wife Hassa bint Ahmed al-Sudairi, such as his long-term rival, Crown Prince Sultan (who died in 2011).

Yet his evident capabilities saw him made crown prince and heir to the throne in 1982, having seven years earlier been appointed second deputy prime minister on the succession of King Khalid.

In the crude calculus of House of Saud power politics, Abdullah’s leadership of the powerful Saudi Arabian National Guard between 1962 and 2010, delivered him an influential fief that countered that of Sultan, who headed the kingdom’s armed forces, and the long-serving Interior Minister (later crown prince) Nayef, who oversaw the state security apparatus.

Reformer

Abdullah saw off potential challengers to the throne, outliving both Sultan and Nayef (who died in 2012). After King Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke in 1995, Abdullah spent 10 years as the kingdom’s de facto ruler while still crown prince. This era revealed the trace marks of Abdullah’s’ vision for Saudi Arabia. And from the start, it was clear that business as usual was not on his agenda.

These were difficult years for the conservative kingdom. By the late 1990s, the collapse in the global price of oil had eroded the financial cushion the kingdom had long enjoyed as the world’s largest oil exporter. The 1991 Gulf war had rattled the Gulf monarchies, and yielded a noxious legacy of terrorism as Saudi Arabia’s main Western allies were targeted by a dangerous new foe in the form of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaida.

War on Terror

Saudi Arabia was buffeted by a series of attacks on US military targets in the late 1990s, which were a precursor of the devastating 9/11 assault on the Twin Towers, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were of Saudi origin. All this placed severe strains on the US-Saudi alliance.

Despite having to deal with a security challenge that dramatically worsened in the early 2000s, amid an outbreak of Jihadist militancy, Abdullah ensured that the kingdom’s foundations were sufficiently solid to withstand the threat.

His formula was to strengthen the country’s intelligence and security apparatus, while ushering in a carefully prepared programme of social reforms designed to drain the poison of violent ideology out of Saudi Arabia’s conservative Wahhabi brand of Islam.

Tackling corruption

He took on the conservative clergy, particularly those promoting intolerant interpretations of Wahhabism. And unusually for a Saudi monarch, he reached out to pro-reform movements. When 880 Saudi intellectuals petitioned for political reforms in February 2004, Abdullah formally met their leaders to discuss their demands. This was not the usual toolkit of a Gulf leader.

Abdullah’s attempts to crack down on corruption and graft afforded greater leeway to embed his ambitious, though cautiously paced, reform programme. From the outset, Abdullah enjoyed a rare popularity on the Saudi “street”.

Economic development

Reforms gained serious traction in 2005, when Abdullah succeeded to the throne on the death of his brother Fahd. From then onwards, advised by his influential confidant Khalid al-Tuwaijri, Abdullah initiated a range of economic, social and political changes that dramatically altered the face of the kingdom.  

Economic reforms actually prefigured the social changes. As crown prince, he saw the establishment of the Supreme Economic Council in August 1999, and the Supreme Petroleum Council in January 2000, later that year revising laws in order to attract greater foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into non-hydrocarbons sectors.

Economic cities

Later on that decade, with oil prices back in the Saud comfort zone, Abdullah launched four mega-economic cities, as well King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust) and the Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University for Girls in 2011.

The latter points to one of the abiding themes of Abdullah’s reign. Improving the lot of women in Saudi society was an issue close to his heart.

In 2002, he showed his capacity for decisive action to outwit conservative opponents on the sensitive issue of female education.  In March of that year, a fire took hold at a girls’ school in Mecca, forcing many of the pupils to flee the premises. The Saudi religious police, the mutaween, soon arrived on the scene, and discovering unveiled girls in public areas – the fire had spread so rapidly they had not had time to thoroughly cover themselves up – promptly pushed them back through the gate, leading many to perish or suffer burns.

Public fury

Sensing public fury at their actions, Abdullah seized the moment and removed the running of girls’ schools from the hands of the clerical establishment, handing it to the Ministry of Education. The bold action – impeccably timed – undermined the conservative establishment, and prefigured a raft of announcements over the following decade that enshrined more rights for women.

Thanks to Abdullah, women will take part as both voters and candidates in 2015 municipal elections, and since 2013 have been appointed to the Shura Council. A female higher education minister would have been unthinkable in previous years. In Abdullah’s Saudi Arabia, it was par for the course.

Changes were also felt in Saudi institutions, with Abdullah ushering in a reorganisation of the judicial system, and in 2006, a formalisation of royal succession, with the creation of the Allegiance Council – a body made up of sons of the King Abdulaziz that will decide on Abdullah’s heir. 

Balancing act

None of this is to paint Abdullah as an out-and-out reformist. His conservative instincts also revealed themselves. A robust response to the unrest that spread across the Arab world in early 2011 confirmed a deep scepticism over the motivation for popular protest. His dispatch of security forces to shore up the Bahraini royal family in the face of widespread anti-regime disturbances, drew criticism from many Shia populations of both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. 

The king was also wary of dissent taking root back home, and in February 2011 announced a slate of royal decrees that eventually saw more than $100bn in benefits, housing support and jobs handed out to Saudis citizens.

Foreign policy

In foreign policy, Abdullah’s most noteworthy intervention came in 2002 with the Arab Peace Initiative, an attempt to normalise Israeli-Arab relations by formalising the exchange of land for peace, based on the 1967 borders of Israel/Palestine. Despite its rejection by the Israelis, the initiative drew support from the Middle East Quartet group, as well as the Arab League, and it remains on the table as a viable basis for a future settlement of the region’s longest-running dispute.  

He was prepared to dispense with diplomatic protocol when need be. An impatience resurfaced in October 2013, the king was sufficiently riled by US president Barack Obama’s perceived unwillingness to take decisive action against President Assad’s regime in Syria, and his ill-conceived outreach to Iran on the nuclear issue, to reject Saudi Arabia’s non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council which was due to commence in January 2014. Western governments viewed this as a fit of diplomatic pique.  

WikiLeaks

Throughout, Abdullah viewed the Islamic Republic with particular suspicion. According a 2009 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, the king was quoted urging the US to “cut off the head of the snake” with an attack on Iran.

Succession planning

With time running out, Abdullah moved to install favoured candidates into prominent positions of power. In February 2013, he appointed the then 70-year old – youthful in House of Saud terms — Prince Muqrin to the role of second deputy prime minister, a post normally viewed as third in line to the throne. Grandsons of Abdulaziz began to be appointed to head key institutions, such as Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was named interior minister in 2012.  

Time will tell whether this “second generation” of princes will prove capable of filling Abdullah’s sizeable boots. A nonagenarian he may have been, but the Saudi king boasted energy levels that younger men could only envy.