Page 128 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

112 Dubai & Co.

● The Saudi GDP is around $400 billion—half the total for
the GCC countries. 14
● Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest oil reserves—22
percent of the world’s total and more than those of Kuwait
and the UAE combined. 15

The modern state of Saudi Arabia traces its roots to an alliance
in the middle of the eighteenth century, and in the center of the
Arabian Peninsula, between a local ruler named Muhammad bin
Saud and a religious leader named Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab.
Abd al-Wahhab was a reformer, seeking to return the peninsula to
an austere form of Islam that he believed to be more authentic and
free of superstition and of other modern innovations. The Al Saud
family fought for over 150 years with other local rulers, the
Ottoman Empire, and even Egypt in its efforts to solidify control of
the Arabian Peninsula. Abdul Aziz Al Saud, the founder of the
modern kingdom, captured the city of Riyadh in 1902 and went on
to take control of most of the rest of the peninsula in the coming
decades. In 1932, the country now known as Saudi Arabia—named
after the ruling family—was unified.
Saudi Arabia is made up of three main regions, each with a
very different character. Toward the coast of the Red Sea (the west-
ern area) is the region known as the Hijaz. Islam’s holiest cities,
Makkah and Madinah, are located here, and this is also the birth-
place of the Prophet Muhammad. Through centuries of hosting
pilgrims and trading via land and sea, the Hijaz became the most
cosmopolitan, diverse, and international part of the Arabian
Peninsula. Saudis of the Hijaz trace their roots back to many regions
and cultures, including Africa, Muslim Asia, and Iran. The holy
cities of Makkah and Madinah shape the ethos of the Hijaz, while
the port city of Jeddah is the commercial center.
At the center of the peninsula is the region known as the Najd.
This desert region is home to Riyadh—the Saudi capital—and the
area from which the Al Saud family traces its roots. The Eastern
Provinces have, since the discovery of oil, become centers of oil pro-
duction and industrial activity. The most important commercial
center there is Al Khobar. Saudis from different regions will adhere
to somewhat different cultural attitudes and practices, with the
people of the Najd often known for toughness and strict religious