Second of the Sudairi brothers to lead S Arabia

LAHORE: Having assumed charge as the new Saudi monarch after the death of his half-brother Abdullah, the 79-year-old Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud is now the second among the influential seven Sudairi brothers, also called the “Sudairi Seven” till the death of King Fahd, to lead his country.
A research, conducted by the Jang Group/Geo Television Network, shows that the “Sudairi Seven” are the largest group of full brothers among the sons of King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al-Saud (1876-1953) or the founder of the House of Saud, who ruled Saudi Arabia for 21 years between 1932 and 1953.
The seven Sudairi brothers are King Fahd (1921–2005), the late Defence Minister Prince Sultan (1929–2011), former Deputy Defence Minister Prince Abdul Rahman (born 1931), the late former Interior Minister Prince Nayef (1934- 2012), former Deputy Defence Minister Prince Turki (born 1934), the incumbent King and ex-Minister of Defence Salman bin Abdul Aziz (born 1935), former Deputy Interior Minister and ex-Interior Minister Prince Ahmed (born 1942).
The Sudairi brothers have four full sisters—Princess Luluwah (1928–2008), Princess Latifa, Princess Al-Jawhara and Princess Jawaher.
The marriage of King Abdul Aziz to Hassa bint Ahmad Al Sudairi (1900-1969) had produced 11 children—seven sons and four daughters.
Hassa bint Ahmad Al Sudairi was a member of Al Sudairis, a powerful Dawasir clan in Nejd, where the Wahhabi ideology had emerged nearly 300 years ago.
Hassa bint Ahmad’s father and Chief of the Sudairi tribe, Ahmed bin Muhammed Al Sudairi (1869-1936), was one of the early supporters of King Abdul Aziz during the latter’s attempts to conquer Saudi Arabia.
While King Abdul Aziz had appointed his father-in-law Ahmed bin Muhammed Al Sudairi as a governor in the Saudi provinces of Washm, Sudair, Qassim and Aflaj, the monarch’s brothers-in-law Messrs Turki bin Ahmed, Abdul Aziz bin Ahmed, Khalid bin Ahmed, Muhammad bin Ahmed, Abdul Rahman bin Ahmad and Musa’id bin Ahmed had also served as provincial governors.
It is interesting to note that King Salman is younger to at least six of his surviving siblings Mishaal bin Abdul Aziz (born 1926), Abdul Rahman bin Abdul Aziz (born 1931), Mutaib bin Abdul Aziz (born 1931), Talal bin Abdul Aziz (born 1931), Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz (born 1933) and Turki II bin Abdul Aziz (born 1934).
King Salman bin Abdul Aziz has seen five of his elder brothers King Saud (1902-1969), King Faisal (1906-1975), King Khalid (1913-1982), King Fahd (1920-2005) and King Abdullah (1924-2015) calling shots in the oil-rich Kingdom before him.
According to BBC, the number of children that King Abdul Aziz fathered in total, with all his wives, is unknown.
The prestigious British media house had stated in its October 30, 2007, article “Who’s Who: Senior Saudis” that King Abdul Aziz had 37 sons. However, Robert Lacey in his book “The Kingdom” has listed 43 sons of King Abdul Aziz and states that Princess Hassa was actually married to him twice, and the first marriage had produced another son, Prince Sa’ad (1914–1919), whom others attribute to Princess Tarfah. The London-based Arabic newspaper “Asharq Al-Awsat” (meaning Middle East) also differs with the number of King Salman among King Abdul Aziz’s sons.
Dubbed one of the oldest and most influential newspapers in the region by the “New York Times,” the “Asharq Al-Awsat” states that Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud happens to be the 25th son of the founder of King Abdul Aziz Al Saud.
This afore-cited Arabic newspaper, printed in 12 locations internationally since 1978, had further stated in one of its November 2011 articles: “Prince Salman is most well-known as the long-time Governor of Riyadh Region, and under his governorship, the Saudi capital has developed from a mid-size oasis town into a major urban metropolis with a population of more than 5 million. For 57 years, Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz led the development of Riyadh, which is one of the fastest growing cities in the Arab world.
The July 15, 2010, edition of the Economist adds The Sudairi Seven were the largest bloc of full brothers and as a consequence were able to wield a degree of coordinated influence and power.”
The New York-based “Journal of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy” has gone on to write: “Unlike many of King Abdul Aziz’s other sons who dealt much more with business activities, the Sudairi Seven tended to be interested in politics.”
With the appointment of King Salman as the new Saudi ruler, the rules of succession in the House of Saud thus seem to have changed. This is what Simon Henderson, the Baker fellow and director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Programme at the Washington Institute had written about rules of succession in the House of Saud on October 25, 2006: “When the founder of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, died in 1953, he was indeed succeeded by his eldest son, Saud. However, Ibn Saud also named his second-eldest son, Faisal, crown prince. Since then the throne has passed from elder brother to the next in age — and Ibn Saud had thirty-four sons who survived him, born to seventeen of his twenty-two wives. After Saud came his half-brother Faisal, then Khaled, then Fahd who died last year—and, now Abdullah.”
Simon Henderson, a specialist in energy matters and the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf, a former “BBC” and “Financial Times” journalist, had also revealed that “the new rules still restrict the throne to the sons and more than one hundred grandsons of the kingdom’s founder, over the other approximately 6,000 princes of the larger al-Saud family, including the so-called “cadet branches” that have held occasional power in the 260-plus years since the al-Sauds initially seized power in central Arabia. In reality, though, the pool is smaller, those sons who are not genetically Arab are handicapped (at least five of Ibn Saud’s sons had Armenian mothers); character, experience, popularity and an appropriately pious practice of Islam also count.”
He had further maintained: “Prior to the new rules, kings and crown princes were chosen by secret family conclaves of uncertain structure. On one occasion (Saud in 1964), such a conclave even deposed a monarch deemed unsuitable. In 1992, King Fahd declared that the monarch alone should choose the crown prince. Now, future crown princes will have to be approved by an “allegiance commission” made up of Ibn Saud’s sons, the eldest sons of the brothers who have died since Ibn Saud’s death, as well as the sons of the current king and crown prince.”
Having also written extensively on Pakistan’s nuclear programme and Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, Simon Henderson had added: “This suggests a membership of around 35 (at least one brother did not produce a male heir). The decision-making will still happen in secret. The king will suggest three candidates; in the event of disagreement, there will be a vote. Apparently mindful of the precarious health of some of the princes, the new system also calls for a temporary council of five princes to lead the country if neither the king nor the crown prince is deemed fit to rule for medical reasons — though defining such ill-health could be a problem.”