Skip to main content

Abd Al-Aziz IV Ibn Saud Biography

Abd Al-Aziz IV Ibn Saud

(Kuwait, 1902-Athens, 1969) King of Saudi Arabia.He was the son of Ibn Saud III, who he succeeded to the Saudi throne in 1953, since he held until 1964.Despite his great influence in the Islamic world, his close relations with Western countries, especially the United States, earned him the enmity of numerous governments of Arab countries.

He was educated in Kuwait, where his father was in exile.In 1933, a year after the constitution of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he was proclaimed crown prince.At the head of the Saudi troops he defeated the Yemenis in the 1934 campaign.In 1939 his father Ibn Saud III appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Viceroy of Hedjaz.When his father established the institution of the Council of Ministers in early 1953, for the first time in the history of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud IV became its president.

Ibn Saud

In September the king appointed him head of the military police forces.He ascended to the throne in November 1953 with the support of his brothers, after the death of his father.One of his first decisions was to name his brother Faysal Crown Prince.He continued with the modernization program of the country initiated by his father and created the ministries of Commerce, Education and Health.He made a special effort to strengthen the educational system.

Despite this Western aspect with which he endowed his government, his reign was characterized by an autocratic and personalist power, and the country continued to be plunged into a almost feudal regime.He strengthened the ties of friendship with the West and took a series of measures to facilitate the work of the oil companies.His regime was sustained thanks mainly to the high income obtained from the extraction of oil, which in turn allowed him to amass a considerable personal fortune, which made him the richest man in the world.He adopted a sumptuous way of life, which he maintained until his death.On his transfers he was accompanied by a large harem and an entourage made up of more than 150 people.When the Suez Canal Crisis broke out in 1956, Saud showed his full support for Egypt, breaking relations with France and the United Kingdom, as well as blocking the delivery of oil to both countries.

However, the arrival Money complicated the structure of the administration, which made it impossible for it to be controlled directly by the king as had happened in the kingdom until then.The country was involved in a deep internal crisis, as the king was unable to solve the problems that the country was facing.His mismanagement plunged the country into economic disaster.In 1957 he ended the separate administration for the Hedjaz region.That same year the construction of the new Nasriya Royal Palace was completed, where he established his residence.Also in 1957 he made his first state trip to the United States, a country with which he promised to allow him to continue using the Dharan air base, in exchange for the sending of instructors and war material.

His old friendship with the Egyptian leader Nasser broke down, and he began a series of trips around the world in order to replace Egypt as the main Arab power.His enmity with Egypt led him to prepare a plot against the Egyptian president; in this way, it tried to avoid the creation by Syria and Egypt of the United Arab Republic.The failure of the plot against the Egyptian dignitary made him lose much of his support in the court of Riyadh.

An illness plunged him into practically total blindness, for which he gave his brother Faysal in 1960 the presidency of the council of ministers.The new head of government assumed full control of foreign and domestic policy.He established a more austere administration and publicly lamented his brother's former profligacies, which had led to dangerous inflation.However, to avoid confrontations with the king, he announced that the sovereign continued to retain his authority and that he, as head of government, would continue to be loyal to his brother.Ibn Saud appointed Faysal as Minister of Defense in 1959, a position previously held by the sovereign's own son, Fahed.

Faysal's decision to end The censorship of the press annoyed Ibn Saud, who, fearful of losing his absolute power, returned to assume all powers in 1960.Shortly after regaining power he gave new signs of his absolutism, when he forced the Council of Ministers to accept the concession from the Jidda refinery for one of his sons.Faced with the protests that arose in the court, in June 1960 he called a meeting of the royal family, in which he established the spheres of influence of each member of the family.Shortly after, he accepted his brother's resignation.During 1961 he reaffirmed his power by directly assuming control of domestic politics with his traditional heavy hand.His actions led his brother Talal and several members of the royal family, who had attacked the feudal system, to flee the country.

He tried to reconcile with his brother in October 1962, when he appointed him prime minister.and Minister of Foreign Affairs.His illness forced him to spend much of 1963 abroad to receive various medical treatments.His absence caused internal opposition to increase considerably.One of his last appearances as king was his participation in the Cairo Conference, at the beginning of 1964.Faced with his inability to lead the government, his brother Faysal, who was in favor of a greater modernization of the country, supported by great part of the royal family, took advantage of a new stay abroad for health reasons, gave a coup and overthrew him in March 1964.

Ibn Saud was definitively dethroned in November 1964, when Faysal was proclaimed king of Saudi Arabia by a council of ulama and emirs.The dethroned monarch accepted the invitation of one of his oldest enemies, Egyptian President Nasser, and settled in Cairo.Later, he moved to live in the Greek town of Cavouri, which was in the vicinity of Athens.He died in 1969 from a heart attack.With his death, one of the last absolute monarchs of the East disappeared.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jan Hus Biography

Jan Hus (Also called John or John Huss; Husinec, Bohemia, 1369-Constance, 1415) Promoter of the Czech ecclesiastical reform.He was born into a poor peasant family in southwestern Bohemia.However, he managed to study Theology and Arts at the University of Prague and ordained himself a priest (1400).In 1402 he was appointed rector of the University, supported by the Czech particularist sentiment against Germanic domination. Jan Hus Under the influence of the English heretic John Wycliffe, Hus began in 1405 to preach against the excessive wealth of the Church and the immorality of the clergy, demanding a return to the purity of the evangelical message, preaching in the Czech language that the people could understand, and communion under both species.Its influence was increased by the crisis in which the Church of Rome was plunged by the "Schism of the West", as well as by the Czech nationalist reaction against the German minority (started with the struggle for control of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Spanish Aid in the Independence of the United States

In the history of Spain, has often forgotten relevant events , perhaps because of that character that we Spaniards have in general, of not knowing or wanting to defend our own history. sinking ships that were not as was the case with The USS Maine , all in the interest of the US in Cuba. the Spanish Republican troops were the first to enter Paris, freeing her from the Nazi invasion, another unknown piece of our history.In this article we will know the importance of Spain in the Independence of the US, c omo Espana I collaborate, because it did. A part of our history that we have titled The Spanish Aid in Independence of the United States. Art Index iculo The Spanish Aid in the Independence of the United States To place ourselves in the historical context, the formation of the United States is mainly due to the so-called group of the Thirteen Colonies . These 13 colonies of British origin, had been founded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, located ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Alexandr Izvolski Biography

Alexandr Izvolski (Moscow, 1856-Paris, 1919) Russian politician and diplomat, main architect of the alliance between Russia and England in the years before the First World War. Alexandr Izvolski Educated at the Imperial Lyceum in Saint Petersburg, he soon held important diplomatic posts: he was Russian ambassador to the Vatican, Yugoslavia, Germany, Japan and Denmark.Between 1906 and 1910 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs; after that he was appointed ambassador to France. In 1907, Izvolski signed a pact that strengthened the alliance between France and England against Germany.Thanks to this pact, the British and the Russians divided Persia, which was divided into three zones of influence: a British, a Russian and a neutral zone between the two (Afghanistan was under the protection of Great Britain).This pact, together with the Franco-Russian alliance of 1890 and the Anglo-French agreement of 1904, formed the embryo of what would later become the Triple Entente. In Oct...
Post a Comment
Read more

Giambattista Tiepolo Biography

Giambattista Tiepolo (Giambattista or Giovanni Battista Tiepolo; Venice, 1696-Madrid, 1770) Italian painter.He studied the works of Sebastiano Ricci, Veronese and Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, and imitated the chromaticism, with its violent chiaroscuro effects, of the latter.In his early ceiling paintings (Archinti and Dugnani palaces in Milan) he reaffirmed his decorative talent, based on architectural perspectives, trompe-l'oeil paintings and moving crowds. His first important work, the decorative cycle of the archiepiscopal palace of Udine (1727-1728), composed of biblical narratives, already denotes in the conformation of the figures (of great naturalism) and in the composition of the same contributions from the artist himself, although certain influences from Sebastiano Ricci and Veronese are still detected. Feast of Antony and Cleopatra (c.1743), by Tiepolo In Milan he worked in the Clerici Palace; in Venice he did it in the Scalzi church and in the Labia palace.The...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gaspar Gil Polo Biography

Gaspar Gil Polo (Valencia, c .1530-Barcelona, ​​1584) Spanish writer.There is very little news of his life.Part of his fame as a poet is that Cervantes dedicated a royal octave to him in La Galatea (1583) and Juan de Timoneda quotes him in his Sarao de amor (1561).His fundamental work is the Diana in love (1564), continuation of the Diana by Jorge de Montemayor. Illustration of Diana in love , of Gaspar Gil Polo Born into a family of municipal officials in Valencia, Gaspar Gil Polo became a lawyer and held various administrative positions in the city.Felipe II appointed him commissioner in the principality of Catalonia, so in 1580 he moved to Barcelona.He must have been known as a poet among his contemporaries, since Juan de Timoneda quotes him in a romance of 1561, but at present only some of his loose poems are preserved. In 1564 he published in Valencia the five books of Diana in love , a pastoral novel that constitutes a continuation of Jorge de Montemayor's...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gerolamo Tiraboschi Biography

Gerolamo Tiraboschi (Gerolamo or Girolamo Tiraboschi; Bergamo, 1731-Modena, 1794) Italian scholar.At fifteen he entered the Society of Jesus, where he remained until its dissolution.He taught at the Milanese academy of Brera, and in 1770 he was appointed prefect of the Estense Library by Francisco III, Duke of Modena.The large number of sources at his disposal allowed him to compose works of considerable scholarship; the main one was the History of Italian Literature (1772-1781). Girolamo Tiraboschi He later became the official advisor of the new duke, Hercules III.He expanded the Estense Library and belonged to various academic entities.Tiraboschi also wrote a series of works on the arts, letters and the historical evolution of Modena.His minor texts include Vetera Humiliatorum monumenta (1766), Biblioteca modenese (1781-86), Memorie storiche modenesi (1793-1794) and Dizionario topografico-storico degli Stati Estensi (posthumous, 1824-25). Published from 1772 to 178...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Maria Linares Biography

José María Linares (Potosí, 1810-Valparaíso, 1861) Bolivian politician.He was Minister of the Interior and Foreign Affairs (1840-1841).He fought against Belzú, and in 1857 overthrew his successor, becoming president of the Republic.He proclaimed himself dictator (1858) and faced the power of the clergy and the army.In 1861 he was overthrown by three of his collaborators.
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Mauri Biography

José Mauri (Valencia, 1856-Havana, 1937) Spanish composer.Installed in Cuba for most of his life, he founded the conservatory that bears his name there (1914).His work includes numerous songs and the opera The Slave (1921).
Post a Comment
Read more

Clément Ader Biography

Clément Ader (Muret, 1841-Toulouse, 1925) French aeronautical engineer.Already in his childhood he designed a large kite that could lift adult men off the ground.Ader was inventive, and in his youth he made a velocipede with rubber wheels and a balloon that he built during the Franco-Prussian War and that he gave to the city of Toulouse at the end of the war. In 1876 he left his job at the Administration des Ponts et Chaussées (Ministry of Bridges and Roads), he moved to Paris and devoted himself to communications.In 1880 he collaborated in the installation of the first private telephone line in the city, using components designed by him; one of them was the Théâtrophone , with which you could listen to opera from your own home.All of this brought him great income. Ader observed the flight of numerous species of birds and bats, which he captured and kept in facilities built in his own home.His purpose was to achieve a machine with a lifting force such that it counteracts that o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joseph Boussinesq Biography

Joseph Boussinesq (Saint-André-de-Sangonis, 1842-Paris, 1929) French mathematician.He also studied physics and was a professor of different disciplines in Paris.A member of the Academy of Sciences, his work covered very diverse fields of physics, mathematics and philosophy.His statistical studies on hydrodynamics are especially interesting.His works include Infinitesimal Analysis Course and Analytical Theory of Heat.
Post a Comment
Read more