A Desert King Faces the Modern world

The oil crisis that has stalked the world since the Middle East's October war presents some internal problems for Saudia Arabia. No one appreciates those problems more than somber King Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz al Saud. Even as OPEC oil, of which Faisal's reserves constitute the largest share, rocks Western economies, the West's relentless thirst for petroleum is in turn forcing far-reaching modernization on Faisal's desert kingdom. Faisal has faced no greater quandary since he displaced his inept half brother Saud from the throne in 1964. At that time, hard as it may be to believe today, his country was unable to pay its debts without loans from Aramco, and one of Faisal's first decisions had to be to cut the oil-fueled allowances of fellow princes. Faisal's predicament, explains a U.S. Middle East watcher, is that "he is a feudal monarch, and the more he modernizes, the more he is apt to undercut his basis for rule."

The Saud dynasty's hold on Saudi Arabia has been precarious until recently. The family dominated the rudimentary kingdom for more than 150 years until 1891, when they were driven out by stronger tribes. In 1901, however, Faisal's father, crusty Abdul Aziz, popularly known as Ibn Saud, roared out of what is now Kuwait to recover power. Ibn Saud gradually regained the kingship in rolling battles that involved shifting tribal loyalties and, eventually, British intrigue. Finally, in 1925 a force of 45,000 Bedouins led by Faisal -- then his father's fa vorite lieutenant -- recaptured Mecca by driving out Sharif Hussein, great-grandfather of the present King of Jordan.

It is a strange domain. In a territory as large as the U.S. east of the Mississippi, huge patches still remain generally unreachable and desolate. Most of the population of 5.7 million is clustered in towns (the largest: Jeddah, pop. 400,000) or oases. The oil boom is Likely to alter the desert kingdom totally, as the Bedouins give up their no madic existence for a better life.

Already, as Saudis assume complete ownership of their oil wealth, new towns are being planned, wells dug, and air conditioning added to overcome summer heat that regularly reaches 120DEG. Hospitals and schools are being built, roads extended, and communications facilities improved. Saudi Arabia, which by autumn 1975 will surpass West Germany as the world's leading holder of foreign currency reserves, intends to spend huge amounts of money within five years to balance oil production with such industrial activities as petrochemical production, steelmaking, shipbuilding and fertilizer manufacture. Not surprisingly, the plans have whetted great interest abroad. Moslems who arrived at Jeddah in record numbers last month on their way to make the annual hadj or pilgrimage to Mecca had to share facilities with another brand of pilgrim. These had business suits and attache cases instead of shaved heads and white prayer garments, and they were seeking slices of the vast petrodollar expenditures.

The decisions on spending and development are ultimately made by Faisal. Other kings of Arab nations have disappeared from Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and most recently Libya, after a military coup there mounted by Muammar Gaddafi; and the thrones of Jordan and Morocco are shaky. But Faisal, whose name in Arabic means sword, remains for now a strong and absolute monarch. His prolific family gives him a solid base. Ibn Saud sired 36 sons, and his son King Saud produced 54 girls and 52 boys. Faisal has had eight sons and six daughters by four wives, two of whom he divorced many years ago, while another died. He and remaining Wife Iffat have been married nearly 40 years. The King as a result serves as regal paterfamilias to 3,000 Saud princes and 2,000 royal women from four generations.

Faisal consults senior princes and tribal chiefs on important matters, but final decisions are still his own. Unlike neighboring Bahrain and Kuwait, which are experimenting with legislatures, Faisal has no parliament, which he considers to be the crutch of a weak ruler.

In desert Arab tradition, however, an absolute monarch is, like the Pope, the servant of the servants of the Almighty. Even on the street, as Faisal climbs into the front seat of his white Chrysler New Yorker, he is apt to pause to listen to petitioners, some hardly more than beggars. Once, recalls an aide, his left foot was in the car, his right foot still on the ground, when a simple Bedouin began running toward him shouting, "Ya, Faisal!" (the Arab equivalent of "Hey"). Bodyguards started to chase the man, but the King stopped them. "Don't drive him away," said Faisal. "Perhaps he has something important to tell me." They spoke for a few minutes and the Bedouin went away smiling.

Faisal's concern is fostered not only by tribal tradition but also by a deep religious faith. The King prays, as Islamic law commands, five times a day. When he is in Jeddah, he likes to take a prayer rug to the shore and meditate beside the sea. On Thursday evenings, when he visits a mosque for prayers, other worshipers are often invited home with him for a post-prayer repast. His personal life continues to be more ascetic than that of many of his subjects. The King dislikes opulence. Succeeding Saud, he declared his brother's al Hamra palace in Jeddah "foo ornate for me." Decreed the new King: "We will use it for our guests." Faisal does not like the hand kissing that surrounds the monarchy, and he prefers Faisal or Brother as terms of address over Your Majesty. Majesty, the King explains simply, is an attribute properly reserved to God.

Faisal shuns modern dress for the traditional long cotton lhawb that Arabs wear beneath an abayeh or robe. His meals are bland and include much .boiled rice because of a series of ulcer operations. The King routinely works a 16-hour day, which leaves him little time for a private life. For other Saudis, however, Faisal is slowly relaxing the stark imperatives of Islam. As the King has grown older, his reign by the standards of conservative desert Arabs has become surprisingly benevolent. Although members of the royal family are expected to behave at home, they and other well-to-do Saudis are seldom reprimanded for high living abroad, even when they lose heavily at the gambling tables of Monte Carlo or Las Vegas.

Life for ordinary Saudis is also improving. Demand for labor is so heavy that the kingdom has full employment, and the wages of even unskilled laborers have jumped from $2 a day to $5. Because most of it has lobe imported from more fertile countries, food is subsidized by the government and is relatively cheap. General home loans are available, and medical care and education through university level are underwritten by the government. With gas selling at a modest 13-c- a gallon at service stations, it is not surprising that auto imports tripled last year.

Partly at Wife Iffat's urging, Faisal has permitted Saudi women to be educated in schools for the first time. Already 210,000 girls attend classes (v. 517,000 boys). Outside the country at least, some now toss away their veils and demure clothes in favor of couturier fashions. In one of the most remarkable changes, television has been introduced, and Saudi women are now allowed on the tube. When conservative Arabs question him about all of these sudden changes in an ancient culture, Faisal likes to reply, "Revolutions can come from thrones as well as from conspirators' cellars."

Faisal's political weight in the Arab world has increased as his treasury has grown. The King attends Arab summits like the recent Rabat conference and regularly meets with other Arab leaders. But Faisal apparently says little publicly at these sessions. Saudis insist that he is merely obeying one of his own favorite proverbs: "God gave man two ears and one tongue so we could listen twice as much as we talk." One thing is obvious, however. Faisal's money has tightened ties among Arab nations. At Rabat he led a move in which Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates will provide $2.35 billion to Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization to underwrite their confrontation with Israel. He strongly supports the Palestinian cause but distinguishes between the overall Palestine Liberation Organization and some of its Marxist member groups. He steadfastly refuses funds, for instance, to organizations like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose aim is to overthrow Arab monarchies as well as Israel.

Although he no longer worries as much about potential attacks from other Arabs as he did in the days of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser a decade ago, Faisal faces other political complications. One is the Shahanshah of Iran across the Persian Gulf (Saudis doggedly refer to it as the "Arabian Gulf). Like Faisal, the Shah is an oil-rich absolute monarch, but he disagrees with the King about religion (Iranians are Shia Moslems; Saudis, more orthodox Sunnis) and the military steps necessary to protect the Gulf.

At home, meanwhile, Faisal must contend with the radical change that inevitably follows rapid modernization. A feeble bureaucracy that has traditionally bucked all decisions upward is plainly inadequate for major innovations. A government that has taken as long as four months to process work visas for foreigners will now have to cope with a foreign work force that may reach 2 million people. A kingdom that has traditionally pushed foreigners into ghettos--even embassies by royal choice are in the diplomatic capital of Jeddah rather than the royal capital at Riyadh--must learn to live with a non-Saudi segment that will soon constitute fully one-fourth of the total population.

Other changes may prove more difficult. Perhaps Saudi Arabia's oil boom will encourage the emergence of a modern middle class--well off, well educated and unwilling to live under an absolute monarchy. There is also the danger that revolution by socialist army officers--as happened in Libya, the Sudan, Peru and lately in Ethiopia--could strike the kingdom. That would turn out to be a double hazard for Saudi Arabia: even if such a revolution were to topple the throne, it would not be likely that Western nations would tolerate a cadre of socialist colonels like the unpredictable Gaddafi of Libya in a country on which they depend for so large a share of their petroleum. Some observers insist that the presence of 3,000 Saudi princes spread through every echelon of the government and the armed forces prevents such threats, but no one really knows how the princes line up.

Faisal himself may be spared such a crisis. The King's health is not robust. Already Saudis talk openly about the succession. The next King will by custom not be one of Faisal's own eight sons, but one of the surviving 31 sons of old Ibn Saud. The most likely family choice at the moment is Prince Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, 53, the tall, handsome Second Deputy Premier and Minister of the Interior. Fahd is not only able and politically powerful as Interior Minister but is also one of the "Su-dciri seven," the seven sons born to Ibn Saud by the same mother from the Sudeiri family. There is no similar bloc of strength among the many half brothers in the dynasty.

Fahd, if he makes it, is likely to follow the same course of evolutionary absolutism that has marked Faisal's reign. In an interview with TIME at his sumptuous villa in Jeddah, the prince ruled out the imminent possibility of free elections. "We want to use the elite of our country," he explained, "and we are convinced that elections would not put the elite into power until education is more widespread." The words were his own. The wisdom, like much else worthwhile amid the petroglitter of Saudi Arabia, obviously emanated from King Faisal.

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