История Саудовской Аравии: от истоков до современности

none

The history of Saudi Arabia as a nation state began with the emergence of the Al Saud dynasty in central Arabia in 1727 and the subsequent establishment of the Emirate of Diriyah. Pre Islamic Arabia, the territory that constitutes modern Saudi Arabia, was the site of several ancient cultures and civilizations; the prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of human activity in the world. The world's second largest religion, Islam, emerged in what is now Saudi Arabia. In the early 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad united the population of Arabia and created a single Islamic religious polity. Following his death in 632, his followers rapidly expanded the territory under Muslim rule beyond Arabia, conquering huge and unprecedented swathes of territory (from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to modern day Pakistan in the east) in a matter of decades. Arab dynasties originating from modern day Saudi Arabia founded the Rashidun (632–661), Umayyad (661–750), Abbasid (750–1517), and Fatimid (909–1171) caliphates, as well as numerous other dynasties in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The area of modern day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of mainly four distinct historical regions: Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al Ahsa), and Southern Arabia ('Asir). The modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman, also known as Ibn Saud in Western countries. Abdulaziz united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family. Saudi Arabia has since been an absolute monarchy governed along Islamist lines. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "the Land of the Two Holy Mosques", in reference to Al Masjid al Haram (in Mecca) and Al Masjid an Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam. Petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the world's second largest oil producer (behind the US) and the world's largest oil exporter, controlling the world's second largest oil reserves and the sixth largest gas reserves. From 1902 until his death in 1953, Saudi Arabia's founding father, Abdulaziz, ruled the Emirate of Riyadh (1902–1913), the Emirate of Nejd and Hasa (1913–1921), the Sultanate of Nejd (1921–1926), the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd (1926–1932), and as the King of Saudi Arabia (1932–1953). Thereafter, six of his sons in succession have reigned over the kingdom:
Saud, the immediate successor of Abdulaziz, faced opposition from most in the royal family and was eventually deposed. Faisal replaced Saud in 1964. Until his murder by a nephew in 1975, Faisal presided over a period of growth and modernization fuelled by oil wealth. Saudi Arabia's role in the 1973 oil crisis, and the subsequent rise in the price of oil, dramatically increased the country's political significance and wealth. Khalid, Faisal's successor, reigned during the first major signs of dissent: Islamist extremists temporarily seized control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. Fahd became king in 1982. During his reign, Saudi Arabia became the largest oil producer in the world. However, internal tensions increased when the country allied itself with the United States, and others, in the 1991 Gulf War. In the early 2000s, the Islamist opposition to the regime carried out a series of terrorist attacks. Abdullah succeeded Fahd in 2005. He instituted a number of mild reforms to modernize many of the country's institutions and, to some extent, increased political participation. Salman became king in 2015, at the age of 79. He oversaw the reorganization of the Saudi government and bestowed most of the king's political power into the crown prince, whom he replaced twice. Salman's son and current crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, effectively controls the government. Mohammed has been responsible for the controversial Saudi intervention in the Yemeni Civil War. He has overseen a number of legal and social reforms in the country, while also seeking to diversify the economy with Saudi Vision 2030.

There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 63,000 years ago. Nevertheless, stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic age, along with fossils of other animals discovered at Ti's al Ghadah, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, might imply that hominids migrated through a "Green Arabia" between 300,000 and 500,000 years ago. Archaeology has revealed some early settled civilizations: the Dilmun civilization on the east of the Arabian Peninsula, the Thamūd north of the Hejaz, the Kingdom of Kinda in the centre, and the Al Magar civilization in the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula. The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the peninsula into neighbouring areas. There is also evidence from Timna (Israel) and Tell el Kheleifeh (Jordan) that the local Qurayya/Midianite pottery originated within the Hejaz region of northwestern Saudi Arabia, which suggests that the biblical Midianites originally came from the Hejaz region of the peninsula, before expanding into Jordan and southern Israel. On 9 June 2020, the discovery of a 35 metre long triangular megalithic monument in Dumat al Jandal, dated back to the seventh millennium BC, presumably dedicated to ritual practices, was published in the journal Antiquity. Archaeological researchers from France, Saudi Arabia, and Italy, headed by Olivia Munoz, believe that these findings illuminate a pastoralist nomadic lifestyle and a ritual used in prehistoric Arabia. In May 2021, archaeologists announced that a 350,000 year old Acheulean site named An Nasim in the Hail region could be the oldest human habitation site in northern Saudi Arabia. The site was first discovered in 2015 using remote sensing and palaeohydrological modelling. It contains paleolake deposits related to Middle Pleistocene materials. 354 artefacts discovered by researchers, including hand axes, stone tools, and flakes, provide information about tool making traditions of the earliest living humans inhabiting southwestern Asia. Besides, Paleolithic artefacts are similar to material remains uncovered at the Acheulean sites in the Nefud Desert.

Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was born in Mecca in about 570 and first began preaching in the city in 610, before migrating to Medina in 622. From there, he and his companions united the tribes of Arabia under the banner of Islam and created a single Arab Muslim religious polity in the Arabian Peninsula. Following Muhammad's death in 632, Abu Bakr became leader of the Muslims as the first caliph. After putting down a rebellion by the Arab tribes (known as the Ridda wars, or "Wars of Apostasy"), Abu Bakr attacked the Byzantine Empire. On his death in 634, he was succeeded by Umar as caliph, followed by Uthman ibn al Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib. The period of these first four caliphs is known as the Rashidun Caliphate (al khulafā' ar rāshidūn). Under the Rashidun caliphs, and, from 661, their Umayyad successors, the Arabs rapidly expanded the territory under Muslim control outside of Arabia. In a matter of decades, Muslim armies decisively defeated the Byzantine army and destroyed the Persian Empire, conquering huge swathes of territory from the Iberian peninsula to India. The political focus of the Muslim world then shifted to the newly conquered territories. Nevertheless, Mecca and Medina remained the spiritually most important places in the Muslim world. The Quran requires every able bodied Muslim who can afford it, as one of the five pillars of Islam, to make a pilgrimage, or Hajj, to Mecca during the Islamic month of Dhu al Hijjah, at least once in his or her lifetime. The Masjid al Haram (the Grand Mosque) in Mecca is the location of the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site, and the Masjid al Nabawi (the Prophet's Mosque) in Medina is the location of Muhammad's tomb; as a result, from the 7th century, Mecca and Medina became pilgrimage destinations for large numbers of Muslims from across the Muslim world.

After the fall of the Umayyad empire in 750 CE, most of what was to become Saudi Arabia reverted to traditional tribal rule soon after the initial Muslim conquests, and remained a shifting patchwork of tribes and tribal emirates and confederations of varying durability. Muawiyah I, the first Umayyad caliph, took an interest in his native Mecca, erecting buildings and digging wells.

From the 10th century (and, in fact, until the 20th century) the Hashemite Sharifs of Mecca maintained a state in the most developed part of the region, the Hejaz. Their domain originally comprised only the holy cities of Mecca and Medina but in the 13th century, it was extended to include the rest of the Hejaz. Although the Sharifs exercised at most times independent authority in the Hejaz, they were usually subject to the suzerainty of one of the major Islamic empires of the time. In the Middle Ages, these included the Abbasids of Baghdad, and the Fatimids, Ayyubids, and Mamluks of Egypt.

The emergence of the Saudi dynasty began in central Arabia in 1727. In 1744, Muhammad ibn Saud, the tribal ruler of the town of Ad Dir'iyyah near Riyadh, joined forces with the religious leader Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabi movement. This alliance, formed in the 18th century, provided the ideological impetus to Saudi expansion and remains the basis of Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today. Over the next 150 years, the fortunes of the Saud family rose and fell several times as Saudi rulers contended with Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and other Arabian families for control of the peninsula. and Medina (captured in April 1804). Concerned at the growing power of the Saudis, the Ottoman Sultan Mustafa IV instructed his viceroy in Egypt, Mohammed Ali Pasha, to reconquer the area. Ali sent his sons Tusun Pasha and Ibrahim Pasha, who were eventually successful in routing the Saudi forces in 1818, and destroyed the power of the Al Saud. Meanwhile, in the Hejaz, following the defeat of the First Saudi State, the Egyptians continued to occupy the area until 1840. After they left, the Sharifs of Mecca reasserted their authority, albeit with the presence of an Ottoman governor and garrison. In 1916, with the encouragement and support of Britain and France (which were fighting the Ottomans in the First World War), the sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, led a pan Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, with the aim of securing Arab independence and creating a single unified Arab state spanning the Arab territories from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen. The Arab army comprised bedouin and others from across the peninsula, but not the Al Saud and their allied tribes, who did not participate in the revolt partly because of a long standing rivalry with the Sharifs of Mecca and partly because their priority was to defeat the Al Rashid for control of the interior. Nevertheless, the revolt played a part in the Middle Eastern Front and tied down thousands of Ottoman troops, thereby contributing to the Ottomans' World War I defeat in 1918. However, with the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, the British and French reneged on promises to Hussein to support a pan Arab state. Although Hussein was acknowledged as King of the Hejaz, Britain later shifted support to the Al Saud, leaving him diplomatically and militarily isolated. The revolt, therefore, failed in its objective to create a pan Arab state, but Arabia was freed from Ottoman suzerainty and control. By 1906, Abdulaziz had driven the Al Rashid out of Najd, and the Ottomans recognized him as their client in Najd. His next major acquisition was Al Hasa, which he took from the Ottomans in 1913, bringing him control of the Persian Gulf coast and what would become Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves. He avoided involvement in the Arab Revolt, having acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty in 1914, and instead continued his struggle with the Al Rashid in northern Arabia. In 1920, the Ikhwan's attention turned to the southwest, when they seized Asir, the region between the Hejaz and Yemen. In the following year, Abdul Aziz finally defeated the Al Rashid and annexed all of northern Arabia. The Ikhwan completed their conquest of the Hejaz by the end of 1925. On 10 January 1926, Abdulaziz declared himself King of the Hejaz and on 27 January 1927, he took the title King of Najd (his previous title was Sultan). The use of the Ikhwan to effect the conquest had important consequences for the Hejaz: the old cosmopolitan society was uprooted, and a version of Wahhabi culture was imposed as a new compulsory social order. By the Treaty of Jeddah, signed on 20 May 1927, the United Kingdom recognized the independence of Abdul Aziz's realm (then known as the Kingdom of Hejaz and Najd). In 1932, the two kingdoms of the Hejaz and Najd were united as the "Kingdom of Saudi Arabia".

Although Abdulaziz had military and political success, the country struggled economically until commercial volumes of oil were discovered in 1938 in the Al Hasa region, along the Persian Gulf coast. Development began in 1946, after being delayed due to World War II. By 1949, oil production was in full swing. In February 1945, Abdulaziz and U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt met aboard the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal. There they made a historic handshake agreement (still in effect today), whereby Saudi Arabia would supply oil to the United States in exchange for American military protection of the Saudi regime. Abdulaziz died in 1953, upon which his son King Saud succeeded to the throne. Oil provided Saudi Arabia with economic prosperity and a great deal of political leverage in the international community. Meanwhile, the government became increasingly wasteful and lavish. Despite the new wealth, extravagant spending led to governmental deficits and foreign borrowing in the 1950s. However, by the early 1960s, an intense rivalry between the King and his half brother, Prince Faisal, emerged, fueled by doubts in the royal family over Saud's competence. As a consequence, Saud was deposed in favor of Faisal in 1964. Meanwhile, Ahmad Shukeiri was relieved from his post as representative of Saudi Arabia at the UN after praising the fascist far right organization Tacuara, as this embarrassed Arabs and caused Latin American objections. Days before his dismissal, Hutchinson News reported that Arab diplomats, who claimed to be in close touch with the Saudi Arabian government, became so annoyed at Shukairy for his rash speech that they spoke of urging Saudi Prince Faisal to recall him. This case was not the first time they disapproved of his views and rhetoric. Tensions with Yemen subsided only after 1967, when Egypt withdrew its troops from the country. Saudi forces did not participate in the Six Day (Arab–Israeli) War of June 1967, but the government later provided annual subsidies to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria to support their economies. During the 1973 Arab Israeli war, Saudi Arabia participated in the Arab oil boycott of the United States and other Western allies of Israel. A founding member of OPEC, Saudi Arabia voted in favor of the group's decision to moderate oil price increases beginning in 1971. After the 1973 war, the price of oil rose substantially, increasing Saudi Arabia's wealth and political influence. and was succeeded by his half brother King Khalid, during whose reign economic and social development continued at an extremely rapid rate, revolutionizing the infrastructure and educational system of the country; in foreign policy, close ties with the US resumed. In 1979, two events occurred that the Al Saud perceived as threatening the regime, and had a long term influence on Saudi foreign and domestic policy. The first was the Iranian Islamic revolution. There were several anti government riots in the region in 1979 and 1980. The second event was the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Islamist extremists. The militants involved were in part angered by what they considered to be the corruption and un Islamic nature of the Saudi regime. Part of the response of the royal family was to enforce a much stricter observance of Islamic and traditional Saudi norms. Islamism continued to grow in strength. In 1995, Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke and his half brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, assumed day to day responsibility for the government. In 2003, Saudi Arabia refused to support the US and its allies in the invasion of Iraq. He pursued a policy of limited deregulation, privatization, and seeking foreign investment. In December 2005, following twelve years of talks, the World Trade Organization gave the green light to Saudi Arabia's membership. As the Arab Spring unrest and protests began to spread across the Arab world in early 2011, King Abdullah announced an increase in welfare spending. No political reforms were announced as part of the package. At the same time, Saudi troops were sent to participate in the crackdown on unrest in Bahrain. King Abdullah gave asylum to deposed President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and telephoned President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (prior to his deposition) to offer support. Abdullah also granted women the right to vote in municipal elections. King Abdullah died in 2015 and his half brother Salman became king. The new king reorganized the government, abolishing several bureaucratic departments. King Salman involved Saudi Arabia in the Second Yemeni Civil War. Salman named his son Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince in 2017, and Mohammed has been assisting his father in the government ever since. Shortly after becoming crown prince, he detained 200 princes and businessmen in the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, stating that this was a move to prevent corruption in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman has led Saudi Vision 2030, a plan to diversify the country's economy and move Saudi Arabia away from a dependence on oil revenues. He has also weakened the powers of the Saudi religious police and granted a number of rights to women in the country. For instance, Saudi women were given the right to drive in 2017 and in 2018, they were allowed to open their own business without the permission of a male guardian and to maintain custody of their children following a divorce. But Mohammed has also gained criticism for, among other things, his involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and human rights violations under his rule.