Saudi Arabia

From the incense roads of ancient Arabia and the cradle of Islam to the oil-fueled kingdom of the Al Saud.

Saudi Arabia occupies the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, a land of deserts and oases that gave rise to ancient caravan kingdoms, became the birthplace of Islam in the 7th century, and was unified into a single modern state in 1932. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was proclaimed by Abdulaziz ibn Saud after a thirty-year campaign that began with his capture of Riyadh in 1902. Its roots reach back to the religious and political alliance forged in 1744 at Diriyah between the Al Saud and the reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The discovery of oil in 1938 transformed a poor pilgrimage economy into one of the world's largest energy exporters, and the kingdom remains custodian of Islam's holiest cities, Mecca and Medina.