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<\/a>The territory that now constitutes Saudi Arabia was the site of several ancient cultures and civilizations. The prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of human activity in the world. The world’s second-largest religion, Islam, emerged in modern-day Saudi Arabia. In the early 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad united the population of Arabia and created a single Islamic religious polity. Following his death in 632, his followers rapidly expanded the territory under Muslim rule<\/a> beyond Arabia, conquering huge and unprecedented swathes of territory (from the Iberian Peninsula<\/a> in the West to modern-day Pakistan<\/a> in the East) in a matter of decades. Arab dynasties originating from modern-day Saudi Arabia founded the Rashidun<\/a> (632\u2013661), Umayyad<\/a> (661\u2013750), Abbasid<\/a> (750\u20131517) and Fatimid<\/a> (909\u20131171) caliphates as well as numerous other dynasties in Asia, Africa and Europe.<\/p>\n The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of mainly four distinct historical regions: Hejaz<\/a>, Najd<\/a> and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa)<\/a> and Southern Arabia (‘Asir)<\/a>. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by King Abdulaziz<\/a> (known as Ibn Saud in the West). He united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh<\/a>, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud<\/a>. Saudi Arabia has since been a totalitarian absolute monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamist lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi<\/a> religious movement within Sunni Islam<\/a> has been called “the predominant feature of Saudi culture”, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called “the Land of the Two Holy Mosques” in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram<\/a> (in Mecca) and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi<\/a> (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. The state’s official language is Arabic.<\/p>\n Petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the world’s second largest oil producer (behind the US) and the world’s largest oil exporter, controlling the world’s second largest oil reserves and the sixth largest gas reserves. The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a very high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies.<\/p>\n However, the state has attracted criticism for a variety of reasons, including its role in the Yemeni Civil War<\/a>, alleged sponsorship of Islamic terrorism and its poor human rights record, which has been characterized by the excessive and often extrajudicial use of capital punishment, failure to adopt adequate measures against human trafficking, state-sponsored discrimination against religious minorities and atheists, and antisemitism, and its strict interpretation of Shari’a law. However, Saudi Arabia recently introduced new reforms under the orders of Mohammed bin Salman<\/a>, which includes improving women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, banning child marriage, removing anti-Semitic and misogynistic passages in school education, pushing the codification of the legal system, reduction in the use of capital punishment, as well as newly enforced protections for migrant workers to prevent mistreatment. However, many human rights organizations point out that Saudi Arabia must continue to introduce new reforms in order to be considered sufficient towards the improvement of its human rights record.<\/p>\n The kingdom spends 8% of its GDP on the military (highest in the world after Oman), which places it as the world’s third biggest military spender behind the United States and China<\/a>, and the world’s largest arms importer from 2015 to 2019, receiving half of all the US arms exports to the Middle East. According to the BICC, Saudi Arabia is the 28th most militarized country in the world and enjoys the region’s best military equipment qualitatively, after Israel. However, in recent years, there have been continuous calls for halting of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, mainly due to alleged war crimes in Yemen and especially following the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Saudi Arabia is considered both a regional and middle power. The Saudi economy is the largest in the Middle East and nineteenth-largest in the world. Saudi Arabia also has one of the world’s youngest populations, with approximately 50 percent of its population of 34.2 million being under 25 years old. In addition to being a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council<\/a>, Saudi Arabia is an active and founding member of the United Nations<\/a>, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation<\/a>, Arab League<\/a>, and OPEC<\/a>.<\/p>\n There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago.<\/p>\n At the end of the 4th millennium BC, Arabia entered the Bronze Age<\/a> after witnessing drastic transformations; metals were widely used, and the period was characterized by its 2 m high burials which were simultaneously followed by the existence of numerous temples, that included many free-standing sculptures originally painted with red colors.<\/p>\n The earliest sedentary culture in Saudi Arabia dates back to the Ubaid period<\/a>, upon discovering various pottery sherds at Dosariyah<\/a>. Initial analysis of the discovery concluded that the eastern province of Saudi Arabia was the homeland of the earliest settlers of Mesopotamia, and by extension, the likely origin of the Sumerians<\/a>.<\/p>\n Climatic change and the onset of aridity may have brought about the end of this phase of settlement, as little archaeological evidence exists from the succeeding millennium. The settlement of the region picks up again in the period of Dilmun<\/a> in the early 3rd millennium. Known records from Uruk<\/a> refer to a place called Dilmun, associated on several occasions with copper, and in later period it was a source of imported woods in southern Mesopotamia. A number of scholars have suggested that Dilmun originally designated the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, notably linked with the major Dilmunite settlements of Umm an-Nussi and Umm ar-Ramadh in the interior and Tarout on the coast. It is likely that Tarout Island<\/a> was the main port and the capital of Dilmun.<\/p>\n By 2200 BC, the center of Dilmun shifted for unknown reasons from Tarout and the Saudi Arabian mainland to the island of Bahrain.<\/p>\n By the late Bronze Age, a historically recorded people and land (Midian and the Midianites) in the north-western portion of Saudi Arabia are well-documented in the Bible. Centered in Tabouk, it stretched from Wadi Arabah in the north to the area of al-Wejh in the south.<\/p>\n Shortly before the advent of Islam, apart from urban trading settlements (such as Mecca and Medina), much of what was to become Saudi Arabia was populated by nomadic pastoral tribal societies. The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in about 571 CE. In the early 7th century, Muhammad united the various tribes of the peninsula and created a single Islamic religious polity. Following his death in 632, his followers rapidly expanded the territory under Muslim rule beyond Arabia, conquering huge and unprecedented swathes of territory (from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to modern-day Pakistan in the east) in a matter of decades. Arabia soon became a more politically peripheral region of the Muslim world as the focus shifted to the vast and newly conquered lands.<\/p>\n Arabs originating from modern-day Saudi Arabia, the Hejaz in particular, founded the Rashidun (632\u2013661), Umayyad (661\u2013750), Abbasid (750\u20131517) and the Fatimid (909\u20131171) caliphates.<\/p>\n From the 10th century to the early 20th century, Mecca and Medina were under the control of a local Arab ruler known as the Sharif of Mecca<\/a>, but at most times the Sharif owed allegiance to the ruler of one of the major Islamic empires based in Baghdad<\/a>, Cairo<\/a> or Istanbul<\/a>. Most of the remainder of what became Saudi Arabia reverted to traditional tribal rule.<\/p>\n In the 16th century, the Ottomans<\/a> added the Red Sea and Persian Gulf coast (the Hejaz, Asir and Al-Ahsa) to the Empire and claimed suzerainty over the interior. One reason was to thwart Portuguese attempts to attack the Red Sea (hence the Hejaz) and the Indian Ocean. Ottoman degree of control over these lands varied over the next four centuries with the fluctuating strength or weakness of the Empire’s central authority.<\/p>\n The emergence of what was to become the Saudi royal family, known as the Al Saud, began in Nejd in central Arabia in 1744, when Muhammad bin Saud<\/a>, founder of the dynasty, joined forces with the religious leader Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab<\/a>, founder of the Wahhabi movement, a strict puritanical form of Sunni Islam. This alliance formed in the 18th century provided the ideological impetus to Saudi expansion and remains the basis of Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today.<\/p>\n The first “Saudi state” established in 1744 in the area around Riyadh, rapidly expanded and briefly controlled most of the present-day territory of Saudi Arabia, sacking Karbala in 1802<\/a> and capturing Mecca in 1803<\/a>, but was destroyed by 1818 by the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali Pasha<\/a>. A much smaller second “Saudi state”<\/a>, located mainly in Nejd, was established in 1824. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, the Al Saud contested control of the interior of what was to become Saudi Arabia with another Arabian ruling family, the Al Rashid<\/a>, who ruled the Emirate of Jabal Shammar<\/a>. By 1891, the Al Rashid were victorious and the Al Saud were driven into exile in Kuwait.<\/p>\n At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire continued to control or have a suzerainty over most of the peninsula. Subject to this suzerainty, Arabia was ruled by a patchwork of tribal rulers, with the Sharif of Mecca having pre-eminence and ruling the Hejaz. In 1902, Abdul Rahman’s<\/a> son, Abdul Aziz<\/a>\u2014later to be known as Ibn Saud\u2014recaptured control of Riyadh bringing the Al Saud back to Nejd, creating the third “Saudi state”<\/a>. Ibn Saud gained the support of the Ikhwan<\/a>, a tribal army inspired by Wahhabism and led by Faisal Al-Dawish<\/a>, and which had grown quickly after its foundation in 1912. With the aid of the Ikhwan, Ibn Saud captured Al-Ahsa from the Ottomans in 1913.<\/p>\n In 1916, with the encouragement and support of Britain (which was fighting the Ottomans in World War I<\/a>), the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali<\/a>, led a pan-Arab revolt<\/a> against the Ottoman Empire to create a united Arab state. Although the Arab Revolt of 1916 to 1918 failed in its objective, the Allied victory in World War I resulted in the end of Ottoman suzerainty and control in Arabia and Hussein bin Ali became King of Hejaz<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ibn Saud avoided involvement in the Arab Revolt, and instead continued his struggle with the Al Rashid. Following the latter’s final defeat, he took the title Sultan of Nejd<\/a> in 1921. With the help of the Ikhwan, the Kingdom of Hejaz was conquered in 1924\u201325, and on 10 January 1926, Ibn Saud declared himself King of Hejaz. A year later, he added the title of King of Nejd. For the next five years, he administered the two parts of his dual kingdom<\/a> as separate units.<\/p>\n After the conquest of the Hejaz, the Ikhwan leadership’s objective switched to expansion of the Wahhabist realm into the British protectorates of Transjordan, Iraq and Kuwait, and began raiding those territories. This met with Ibn Saud’s opposition, as he recognized the danger of a direct conflict with the British. At the same time, the Ikhwan became disenchanted with Ibn Saud’s domestic policies which appeared to favor modernization and the increase in the number of non-Muslim foreigners in the country. As a result, they turned against Ibn Saud and, after a two-year struggle, were defeated in 1929 at the Battle of Sabilla<\/a>, where their leaders were massacred. On 23 September 1932, the two kingdoms of the Hejaz and Nejd were united as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and that date is now a national holiday called Saudi National Day.<\/p>\n The new kingdom was reliant on limited agriculture and pilgrimage revenues. In 1938, vast reserves of oil were discovered in the Al-Ahsa region along the coast of the Persian Gulf, and full-scale development of the oil fields began in 1941 under the US-controlled Aramco (Arabian American Oil Company)<\/a>. Oil provided Saudi Arabia with economic prosperity and substantial political leverage internationally.<\/p>\n In 1973, Saudi Arabia led an oil boycott against the Western countries that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War<\/a> against Egypt and Syria. Oil prices quadrupled. In 1975, Faisal was assassinated by his nephew, Prince Faisal bin Musaid<\/a> and was succeeded by his half-brother King Khalid<\/a>.<\/p>\n By 1976, Saudi Arabia had become the largest oil producer in the world. Khalid’s reign saw economic and social development progress at an extremely rapid rate, transforming the infrastructure and educational system of the country; in foreign policy, close ties with the US were developed. In 1979, two events occurred which greatly concerned the government, and had a long-term influence on Saudi foreign and domestic policy. The first was the Iranian Islamic Revolution. It was feared that the country’s Shi’ite minority in the Eastern Province (which is also the location of the oil fields) might rebel under the influence of their Iranian co-religionists. There were several anti-government uprisings in the region such as the 1979 Qatif Uprising<\/a>.<\/p>\n The second event was the Grand Mosque Seizure<\/a> in Mecca by Islamist extremists. The militants involved were in part angered by what they considered to be the corruption and un-Islamic nature of the Saudi government. The government regained control of the mosque after 10 days and those captured were executed. Part of the response of the royal family was to enforce the much stricter observance of traditional religious and social norms in the country (for example, the closure of cinemas) and to give the Ulema<\/a> a greater role in government. Neither entirely succeeded as Islamism continued to grow in strength.<\/p>\n In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia spent $25 billion in support of Saddam Hussein<\/a> in the Iran\u2013Iraq War<\/a>. However, Saudi Arabia condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait<\/a> in 1990 and asked the US to intervene. King Fahd allowed American and coalition troops to be stationed in Saudi Arabia. He invited the Kuwaiti government and many of its citizens to stay in Saudi Arabia, but expelled citizens of Yemen and Jordan because of their governments’ support of Iraq. In 1991, Saudi Arabian forces were involved both in bombing raids on Iraq and in the land invasion that helped to liberate Kuwait.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia’s relations with the West began to cause growing concern among some of the ulema and students of sharia law and was one of the issues that led to an increase in Islamist terrorism in Saudi Arabia, as well as Islamist terrorist attacks in Western countries by Saudi nationals. Osama bin Laden<\/a> was a Saudi citizen (until stripped of his citizenship in 1994) and was responsible for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa<\/a> and the 2000 USS Cole bombing<\/a> near the port of Aden<\/a>, Yemen. 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in September 11 attacks<\/a> in New York City, Washington, D.C., and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania were Saudi nationals. Many Saudis who did not support the Islamist terrorists were nevertheless deeply unhappy with the government’s policies.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia occupies about 80 percent of the Arabian Peninsula (the world’s largest peninsula). Because the country’s southern borders with the United Arab Emirates and Oman are not precisely marked, the exact size of the country is undefined. The CIA World Factbook estimates 2,149,690 km2 (830,000 sq mi) and lists Saudi Arabia as the world’s 13th-largest state. It is geographically the largest country in the Middle East and the Arabian Plate<\/a>.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia’s diverse geography is dominated by the Arabian Desert, associated semi-desert, shrubland, steppes, several mountain ranges, volcanic lava fields and highlands. The 647,500 km2 (250,001 sq mi) Rub’ al Khali<\/a> (“Empty Quarter”) in the southeastern part of the country is the world’s largest contiguous sand desert. Though there are lakes in the country, Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the world by area with no permanent rivers. Wadis, non-permanent rivers, however, are very numerous. The fertile areas are to be found in the alluvial deposits in wadis, basins, and oases. The main topographical feature is the central plateau which rises abruptly from the Red Sea and gradually descends into the Nejd and toward the Persian Gulf. On the Red Sea coast, there is a narrow coastal plain, known as the Tihamah<\/a> parallel to which runs an imposing escarpment. The southwest province of Asir<\/a> is mountainous, and contains the 3,133 m (10,279 ft) Mount Sawda<\/a>, which is the highest point in the country.<\/p>\n As of October 2018, Saudi Arabia is the largest economy in the Middle East and the 18th largest in the world. Saudi Arabia has the world’s second-largest proven petroleum reserves and the country is the largest exporter of petroleum. It also has the fifth-largest proven natural gas reserves. Saudi Arabia is considered an “energy superpower”. It has the third highest total estimated value of natural resources, valued at US$34.4 trillion in 2016. Saudi Arabia’s command economy is petroleum-based; roughly 63% of budget revenues and 67% of export earnings come from the oil industry. It is strongly dependent on foreign workers with about 80% of those employed in the private sector being non-Saudi. Challenges to the Saudi economy include halting or reversing the decline in per-capita income, improving education to prepare youth for the workforce and providing them with employment, diversifying the economy, stimulating the private sector and housing construction, and diminishing corruption and inequality.<\/p>\n In addition to petroleum and gas, Saudi also has a significant gold mining sector in the ancient Mahd adh Dhahab<\/a> region and significant other mineral industries, an agricultural sector (especially in the southwest but not only) based on vegetables, fruits, dates etc. and livestock, and large number of temporary jobs created by the roughly two million annual hajj pilgrims.<\/p>\n Transport in Saudi Arabia is facilitated through a relatively young system of roads, railways and seaways. Most of the network started construction after the discovery of oil in the Eastern Province<\/a> in 1952, with the notable exception of Highway 40<\/a>, which was built to connect the capital Riyadh<\/a> to the economically productive Eastern Province, and later to the Islamic holy city of Mecca<\/a> and the port city of Jeddah<\/a>. With the arrival of petrodollars, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has initiated many infrastructure development projects across the country, and the extensive development of the transportation network has followed suit in support of various economic developments.<\/p>\n The roads of Saudi Arabia gradually became the defining feature of the kingdom’s road system as the main population centers are not only scattered all over the country but also because they faced a major challenge from the geography of the country itself; separated by deserts, valleys and mountains, among other landforms. Due to this, a reliable road network became more important and essential than other modes of transport in the kingdom.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia had encouraged road transport in the past by maintaining one of the lowest petrol prices in the world. Despite raising prices in 2018, it is worth noting that due to limited alternative passenger transport options in the country, the gasoline fuel demand is relatively inelastic to its prices; light-duty vehicles dominate the passenger transport landscape. Buses and other public transport options are limited, and walking or bicycles are hindered by the urban landscapes and harsh weather in most regions of the country.<\/p>\n The development of the Saudi road network can be divided into two major phases; i.e. the expansion of the modern road network from 1938 to 1970, preceding the initial development plans conceived by the Ministry of Transport, and the development and expansion after the introduction of the plans (after 1970). The two stages, pre-national planning and postnational planning, relate to the historical circumstances of the economic, political and social demands of the kingdom. The activity during the second stage greatly exceeds that during the first owing to the existence of coordinated plans, high investment and concentration of effort.<\/p>\n The first railway line in the kingdom predates the unification of Saudi Arabia. The 1,050 mm (3 ft 511\u204432 in) narrow-gauge Hejaz railway<\/a>, that ran from Damascus<\/a> to Medina<\/a>, began construction in 1900 under the Ottoman Hejaz Vilayet<\/a>, and was completed in 1908. A proposal to further extend the line to Mecca was made, but was never materialized. The southern portion of the line was mostly destroyed during the First World War<\/a>. A few sections of the track remain, with some sections in Jordan being used up to today. The stations in Mada’in Salih<\/a> and Medina have been converted into museums, each having some locomotives and rolling stock from the original railway.<\/p>\n The first railway line built and completed under Saudi rule was the 569 km (354 mi) Dammam-Riyadh line<\/a>, which began construction in 1947. It was inaugurated on October 20, 1951 by King Abdulaziz.<\/a> This was before the formation of the Saudi Railways Organization<\/a>, and the railway line was run and maintained by Saudi Aramco<\/a>, before being entrusted to the Ministry of Finance<\/a>. On May 13, 1966, a royal decree established the SRO, a public corporation that now runs the line. The main railway stations for passengers opened in Riyadh, Dammam, and Hofuf in 1981. The modern passenger line between Riyadh and Dammam measuring 449 km (279 mi) was completed in 1985.<\/p>\n The other conventional railway line in the kingdom is the North\u2013South line<\/a>, also known as the Riyadh-Qurayyat line, which runs from the capital Riyadh to border with Jordan at Hadithah via Buraidah, Ha’il and Qurayyat, with feeder lines to multiple phosphate mining and bauxite mining locations in the northern parts of the kingdom. The largest feeder line connects the main line to the port city of Ra’s Al-Khair, near Jubail, giving the line a total length of more than 2,750 km (1,710 mi). The only high-speed railway line in the kingdom, the Haramain high-speed railway<\/a> line, was completed in 2017, and connects the two Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina via the King Abdulaziz International Airport<\/a> in Jeddah and the King Abdullah Economic City near Rabigh.<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia is served by three major international airports: the King Khalid International Airport<\/a> in Riyadh, the King Abdulaziz International Airport<\/a> in Jeddah, and the King Fahd International Airport<\/a> in Dammam, which is also the largest airport in the world by area. In addition to these three major airports, several smaller airports, providing both domestic and international connections, are present throughout the kingdom, such as the Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz International Airport<\/a> in Medina and the Ta’if International Airport in Ta’if among others.<\/p>\n The Saudi Arabian flag carrier, Saudia<\/a>, started out in 1945 a single twin-engine Douglas DC-3 Dakota gifted by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The airline now operates more than 140 aircraft, providing a means of transport to more than 34 million annual passengers to 95 destinations around the world. Other major airlines in the country include Flynas<\/a>, Flyadeal<\/a> and SaudiGulf Airlines<\/a>, among others. In addition to these public airlines, Saudi Aramco operates its own private airline, Saudi Aramco Aviation, with a fleet of 7 aircraft and their own terminals in several cases, which they use for the transportation of employees from several far-flung locations such as Shaybah, Yanbu and Tanajib.<\/p>\n The flag of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the flag used by the government of Saudi Arabia since 15 March 1973. It is a green flag featuring in white an Arabic inscription and a sword. The inscription is the Islamic creed, or shahada<\/a>: “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”.<\/p>\n The green of the flag represents Islam and the sword stands for the strictness in applying justice.<\/p>\n The flag is manufactured with identical obverse and reverse sides, to ensure the shahada reads correctly, from right to left, from either side. The sword also points to the left on both sides, in the direction of the script. The flag is sinister hoisted, meaning that when viewed from the obverse (front) side, it is hoisted to the left of the flagpole.<\/p>\n Because the shahada is considered holy, the flag is not normally used on T-shirts or other items. Saudi Arabia protested against its inclusion on a planned football to be issued by FIFA<\/a>, bearing all the flags of the participants of the 2002 FIFA World Cup<\/a>. Saudi officials said that kicking the creed with the foot was completely unacceptable. Similarly, an attempt by the U.S. military to win favor with children of the Khost Province<\/a> of Afghanistan by distributing footballs adorned with flags, including that of Saudi Arabia, ended in demonstrations.<\/p>\n The flag is never lowered to half-mast as a sign of mourning, because lowering it would be considered blasphemous. Similarly, the flags of Afghanistan<\/a>, and self-declared Somaliland<\/a> are also never at half-mast.<\/p>\n The normal flag cannot be hoisted vertically according to Saudi legislation. Special vertical flags are manufactured where both the inscription (the creed) and the emblem (the sword) are rotated, although this is rare, as most Arab countries traditionally do not hoist flags vertically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Because the shahada is considered holy, the flag is not normally used on T-shirts or other items. Saudi Arabia protested against its inclusion on a planned football to be issued by FIFA, bearing all the flags of the participants of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Saudi officials said that kicking the creed with the foot was completely unacceptable. Similarly, an attempt by the U.S. military to win favour with children of the Khost Province of Afghanistan by distributing footballs adorned with flags, including that of Saudi Arabia, ended in demonstrations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[36,59,5,6,7,49,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/09\/Expansion-of-the-Caliphate-from-622-750-300x138.png\" "\\"\\"")
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<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/09\/Mohammed-bin-Salman-247x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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<\/a>History:<\/h2>\n
Prehistory:<\/h3>\n
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<\/a>Pre-Islamic:<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>Middle Ages and Rise of Islam:<\/h3>\n
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<\/a>Ottoman Hejaz:<\/h3>\n
Foundation of the Saud Dynasty:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/09\/Muhammad-Ali-Pasha-237x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/09\/Abdulaziz-Ibn-Saud-244x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Post-Unification:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/09\/Aramco-Headquarters-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/09\/King-Khalid-220x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Geography:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Topographic-Map-of-Saudi-Arabia-300x265.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Economy:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Treemap-of-Saudi-Arabian-Exports-300x137.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Transportation:<\/h2>\n
Road:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Road-Map-of-Saudi-Arabia-300x249.gif\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Rail:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Hejaz-Railway-Map-286x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Railway-Map-of-Saudi-Arabia-300x245.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Air:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/King-Khalid-International-Airport-in-Riyadh-300x159.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Flag of Saudi Arabia:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/06\/Flag-of-Saudi-Arabia-300x200.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>