Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (1 August 1924 – 23 January 2015) was King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 1 August 2005 until his death in 2015. Prior to his accession, he was Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia from 13 June 1982. He was the tenth son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia.
Abdullah was the son of King Abdulaziz and Fahda bint Asi Al Shuraim. His mother was a member of the Al Rashid dynasty, historical rivals of the Al Saud dynasty. Abdullah held important political posts throughout most of his adult life. In 1961 he became mayor of Mecca, his first public office. The following year, he was appointed commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, a post he was still holding when he became king. He also served as deputy defense minister and was named crown prince when his half-brother Fahd took the throne in 1982. After King Fahd suffered a serious stroke in 1995, Abdullah became the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia until ascending the throne a decade later.
During his reign, Abdullah maintained close relations with the United States and the United Kingdom and bought billions of dollars' worth of defense equipment from both states. Abdullah maintained the status quo when there were waves of protest in the kingdom during the Arab Spring. He held four of his daughters, which he fathered with Al Anoud Al Fayez whom he married when she was age 15, captive against their will.
The three crown princes during Abdullah's reign were among the full brothers of King Fahd. Upon becoming king in 2005, Abdullah appointed his half-brother Sultan bin Abdulaziz as crown prince. When Sultan died in 2011, Sultan's full brother Nayef was named heir to the throne, but Nayef himself died the next year. Abdullah then named Salman bin Abdulaziz as crown prince. According to various reports, Abdullah married up to 30 times and had more than 35 children. He was among the wealthiest royals in the world. Upon his death in 2015 at age 90, he was succeeded by his half-brother Salman.
Abdullah is said to have been born on 1 August 1924 in Riyadh. However, some sources state that this date is incorrect, and that he was approximately eight years older. He was the tenth son of King Abdulaziz. His mother, Fahda bint Asi Al Shuraim, was a member of the Al Rashid dynasty, longtime rivals of the Al Saud dynasty. She was descended from the powerful Shammar tribe and was the daughter of former tribe chief Asi bin Shuraim. She died when Abdullah was six years old. Abdullah had two younger full-sisters, Nouf and Seeta, and two maternal half-brothers, Abdulaziz and Mishaal, who were the children of his mother's first marriage to Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Rashid. Madawi Al-Rasheed argues that Abdullah's maternal roots and his earlier experience of a speech impediment led to delay in his rise to higher status among the sons of King Abdulaziz.
In August 1963, Abdullah was made commander of Saudi National Guard replacing Saad bin Saud, a son of King Saud, in the post. This post allowed him to secure his position in the House of Saud. SANG, which had been based on the Ikhwan, became a modern armed force under his command. Beginning 1985, SANG also sponsored the Janadiriyah festival that institutionalized traditional folk dances, camel races and tribal heritage.
King Khalid appointed Abdullah as second deputy prime minister on 29 March 1975 just four days after his kingship which was a reflection of his status as second in the line of succession to the Saudi throne. Therefore, he became the number three in the Saudi administration. However, his appointment caused friction in the House of Saud. Then-Crown Prince Fahd, together with his full-brothers, known as the Sudairi Seven, supported the appointment of their own full brother, Sultan. Abdullah was pressured to cede control of SANG in return for his appointment as second deputy prime minister. In August 1977, this generated a debate among hundreds of princes in Riyadh. Abdullah did not relinquish authority of SANG in that he feared that this would weaken his authority.
In March 1979 when Crown Prince Fahd left Saudi Arabia and stayed in Europe for a long time Prince Abdullah presided over the council of ministers and held a much more active role in diplomatic affairs of Saudi Arabia. During the same period he was one of the members of the inner family council which was led by King Khalid and included Abdullah's half-brothers Prince Mohammed, Crown Prince Fahd, Prince Sultan and Prince Abdul Muhsin as well as his uncles Prince Ahmed and Prince Musaid.
On 13 June 1982 King Khalid died, and Fahd bin Abdulaziz became King. Abdullah became Crown Prince the same day who also maintained his position as head of the National Guard. During his years as crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was described as a supporter of accommodation. He managed to group a large number of fringe and marginalized princes discontented with the prospect of the succession being passed among the Sudairi brothers one after the other. His control of the National Guard was also a key factor to his success in becoming crown prince. When King Fahd was incapacitated by a major stroke in 1995, Crown Prince Abdullah acted as de facto regent of Saudi Arabia.
On 4 June 2000, the Al Saud Family Council was established by Crown Prince Abdullah to discuss some private issues, including the business activities of House of Saud members and the marriages of princesses to nonroyals. In May 2001 he did not accept an invitation to visit Washington due to the US support for Israel in the Second Intifada. He also appeared more eager than King Fahd to cut government spending and open Saudi Arabia up economically. He pushed for Saudi membership of the World Trade Organization, surprising some.
In August 2001, he ordered then Saudi Ambassador to the US, Bandar bin Sultan, to return to Washington from Aspen to deliver a message. This reportedly occurred after Crown Prince Abdullah witnessed brutality inflicted by an Israeli soldier upon a Palestinian woman. "This is it. Those bastards!" Abdullah yelled over the phone, according to an account that Bandar has given associates. "Even women they're stepping all over them." Later, he also condemned Israel for attacking families of suspects.
In 2002, he developed the Arab Peace Initiative, commonly referred to as the "Abdullah plan", to achieve a mutually agreed-on resolution of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The initiative was adopted at the Arab League's Beirut summit in March 2002.
On the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Crown Prince Abdullah wrote a letter to US President George W. Bush, which ended with the following words:
"God Almighty, in His wisdom, tests the faithful by allowing such calamities to happen. But He, in His mercy, also provides us with the will and determination, generated by faith, to enable us to transform such tragedies into great achievements, and crises that seem debilitating are transformed into opportunities for the advancement of humanity. I only hope that, with your cooperation and leadership, a new world will emerge out of the rubble of the World Trade Center: a world that is blessed by the virtues of freedom, peace, prosperity and harmony."
By late 2003, after the Saudi Arabian branch of al-Qaeda carried out a series of bombings that threatened to destabilize the country, Crown Prince Abdullah, together with other decision-making elites began to deal with political concerns. As Toby Jones wrote in Middle East Report: One of such moves was his project to promote more tolerance for religious diversity and rein in the forces of politico-religious extremism in the kingdom, leading to the establishment of National Dialogue. In the summer of 2003, Abdullah threw his considerable weight behind the creation of a national dialogue that brought leading religious figures together, including a highly publicized meeting attended by the kingdom's preeminent Shi'i scholar Hasan al-Saffar, as well as a group of Sunni clerics that had previously expressed their loathing for the Shi'i minority.