The Saudi Arabia Portal – بوابة المملكة العربية السعودية
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia and the Middle East. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about 2150000 km2 (830000 sq mi), making it the fifth-largest country in Asia and the largest in the Middle East. It is bordered by the Red Sea to the west; Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to the south. Bahrain is an island country off its east coast. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northwest separates Saudi Arabia from Egypt and Israel. Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland, steppe, and mountains. The capital and largest city is Riyadh; the kingdom also hosts Islam's two holiest cities of Mecca and Medina. (Full article...) Selected article -Sunni Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is called the "home of Islam"; it was the birthplace of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who united and ruled the Arabian Peninsula. It is the location of the cities of Mecca and Medina, where Prophet Muhammad lived and died, and are now the two holiest cities of Islam. The kingdom attracts millions of Muslim Hajj pilgrims annually, and thousands of clerics and students who come from across the Muslim world to study. The official title of the King of Saudi Arabia is "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques"—the two being Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina—which are considered the holiest in Islam. In the 18th century, a pact between Islamic preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and a regional emir, Muhammad bin Saud, brought a new form of Islam (Salafism) of Sunni Islam first to the Najd region and then to the Arabian Peninsula. Referred to by supporters as "Salafism" and by others as "Wahhabism", this interpretation of Islam became the state religion and interpretation of Islam espoused by Muhammad bin Saud and his successors (the Al Saud family), who eventually created the modern kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. The Saudi government has spent tens of billions of dollars of its petroleum export revenue throughout the Islamic world and elsewhere on building mosques, publishing books, giving scholarships and fellowships, hosting international Islamic organisations, and promoting its form of Islam, sometimes referred to as "petro-Islam". (Full article...)Did you know (auto-generated)
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Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Arabic: فيصل بن عبدالعزيز آل سعود Fayṣal ibn ʿAbd al ʿAzīz Āl Suʿūd, Najdi Arabic pronunciation: [fæjsˤɑl ben ˈʕæbd ælʕæˈziːz ʔæːl sæˈʕuːd]; 14 April 1906 – 25 March 1975) was a Saudi Arabian statesman and diplomat who was King of Saudi Arabia from 2 November 1964 until his assassination in 1975. Prior to his ascension, he served as Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia from 9 November 1953 to 2 November 1964, and he was briefly regent to his half-brother King Saud in 1964. He was prime minister from 1954 to 1960 and from 1962 to 1975. Faisal was the third son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. Faisal was the son of Abdulaziz and Tarfa bint Abdullah Al Sheikh. His father was still reigning as Emir of Nejd at the time of Faisal's birth, and his mother was from the Al ash-Sheikh family which has produced many prominent Saudi religious leaders. Faisal emerged as an influential royal politician during his father's reign. He served as viceroy of Hejaz from 1926 to 1932. He was the Saudi foreign minister from 1930 and prime minister from 1954 until his death, except for a two-year break in both positions from 1960 to 1962. After his father died in 1953 and his half-brother Saud became king, Faisal became crown prince, and in that position he outlawed slavery in Saudi Arabia. He persuaded King Saud to abdicate in his favour in 1964 with the help of other members of the royal family and his maternal cousin Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al ash-Sheikh, Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. (Full article...)Selected pictureMore did you know
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