Saudi Arabia historical timeline

Origins

The Nabataeans carved tombs at Hegra in the north-west, a southern sister city to Petra and now the country’s first UNESCO World Heritage site. Incense and spice routes ran up the western side of the peninsula, and Mecca sat on them as a trading town and a pilgrimage centre before Islam. Muhammad was born there around 570; his move to Medina in 622 begins the Islamic calendar, and within a century of his death Arab armies had carried the new religion from Spain to the Indus.

Turning points

In 1744 an alliance was struck in Diriyah between Muhammad ibn Saud and the preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab: political authority for one family, religious authority for the other. That pact is the foundation of the state and has outlasted two earlier Saudi polities that rose and were destroyed. Ibn Saud retook Riyadh in 1902 and declared the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. Oil was struck at Dammam six years later, and Ghawar turned out to be the largest conventional oil field ever found. The embargo of 1973 demonstrated what that meant. In 1979 militants seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, and the state’s response — conceding ground to religious conservatives — shaped the next thirty-five years. Vision 2030, announced in 2016, reversed much of it: cinemas reopened, women were permitted to drive from 2018, and tourist visas were issued for the first time in 2019.

Influential people

Muhammad, whose life is the reason the country occupies the place it does in the Muslim world. Ibn Saud, who assembled the kingdom by conquest and marriage. King Faisal, who modernised the administration and used oil as leverage. King Abdullah, who sent a generation abroad on scholarships. And Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has driven the changes of the last decade and the criticism that has come with them.

Cultural evolution

The Hajj brings up to two million people to Mecca in a single week, among the largest recurring gatherings on earth, and the king’s formal title is Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. The country is less uniform than it looks from outside: the Najd of the interior, the Hejaz of the Red Sea coast with its centuries of pilgrim traffic, and the Eastern Province with its Shia minority are distinct in dialect, food and outlook. The majlis — an open sitting room where anyone may bring a matter to whoever is hosting — remains a real institution. And AlUla, long closed, is now the centrepiece of an archaeological tourism programme.

Present-day significance

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest crude oil exporter, and Aramco is among the most valuable companies anywhere. The Public Investment Fund has become a major global investor, particularly in sport and entertainment, and the kingdom will host the 2034 football World Cup. Diversification, a very young population and sustained international criticism of its human rights record are the three things shaping the decade.