Yearbook 2000
Saudi Arabia. During the year, the human rights organization Amnesty International criticized Saudi Arabia for its harsh legal system, where death and imprisonment occur, and also accused the country of discriminating against women, especially guest workers.
Four times during the year, the countries within OPEC decided to increase their total oil production in order to cool off the overheated crude oil market. Saudi Arabia, the only country with a large unused production capacity, accounted for the largest increase. However, no major fall in prices followed. Despite high oil prices, Saudi Arabia struggled with continued economic problems, and unemployment remained at around 25%. In April, the government took steps to open all sectors of the economy to foreign investment.
- ABBREVIATIONFINDER: Offers three letter and two letter abbreviations for the country of Saudi Arabia. Also covers country profile such as geography, society and economy.
A British man was killed when a car bomb exploded in the capital Riyadh on November 17.
A Saudi passenger plane on its way from Jeddah to London with hundreds of people aboard was hijacked on October 14 by two Saudis who ordered it to land in Baghdad. There the hijackers gave up and received asylum, despite Saudi protests.
At least 55 people, according to some, many more, were killed in September in an outbreak of Rift Valley fever in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Rift Valley fever is a viral disease that is transmitted to humans from infected animals.
On June 12, Saudi Arabia and Yemen signed a border agreement.
In the 8th century, the Arab borders were expanded and extended from North Africa and Spain to the west, to Pakistan and Afghanistan in East. By moving the capital to Damascus, Syria evolved to become a cultural, political, and economic center of the empire, building the foundation for a new culture that unified elements of Greco-Roman, Persian, and Indian cultures into a highly original Arabic culture in which sciences played a very prominent role. Contrary to Muhammad’s expectation, the Arabian Peninsula became a marginalized area of the vast empire, apart from the religious aspect. Mecca at no time became as important socio-economic and cultural as Baghdad and Damascus, but continued to be the center of Islam and the target of pilgrimage from all corners of the world.
This situation remained unchanged for centuries: the empire was divided, the capital moved to Baghdad and Arabic became the common language of all religious from Portugal to India. But in the land where all this development had taken place, nothing had changed: the nomad tribes continued to care for their herds, the locals continued their trade, and the rivalry between them periodically developed into local wars. As in the time of Muhammad, the rising population growth was channeled into several conquests, with emigration of entire cities, such as. Bani Hilal in the 11th Century. Nevertheless, the caravans transporting goods and supplies to Mecca and other cities grew steadily, as port activity increased to expand trade with Africa. Maritime activity also increased, but it did not help to change the way of life of the Arabs – like neither did Egyptian domination, Saladdin and his mammals,
The provinces of Hidjaz and Asir, by the Red Sea, remained in the hands of the Ottomans, albeit with some autonomy, thanks to the prestige of religious leaders in Mecca. The central part of the country where Riyadh was the center, developed into the emirate Najd in the late 18th century, which was due to a great effort by the Saud family, supported by the Wahabita sect known as the “Puritans of Islam”. With the help of the Turks, a century later, the Rachidi clan succeeded in defeating Abd al-Raman ibn Saud, who was forced into exile in Kuwait. His son, Abd al-aziz, reorganized in 1902, with the assistance of the Wahabites, a religious-military alliance – Ikhwan – and succeeded in persuading more than 50,000 Bedouins to take part in the invasion of Nadj. Twelve years later, the Saudis had defeated the raids and at the same time had submitted themselves to the Al-Hasar region of the Gulf,WW1. By the end of the war, the region’s dominant state, England, was in a particularly difficult situation: Thanks to the Saudis’ help against the Turks, the English had promised Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud to guarantee his country’s independence, but at the same time, promises had also been made to Hussein ibn Ali, the religious leader in Mecca, to make him king in a state formation that would include Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula.
The Emir of Nadj waited for a while, and it became clear to him that the English had no intention of fulfilling the promises they had made to Hussein: a state so powerful, which had the Prophet’s family as leaders and whose capital was the holy city, would destroy the local balance, but when Hussein proclaimed himself a caliph in 1924, Abd al-Aziz invaded the region, despite English protests, and in January 1926 he was appointed king of Hidjaz and sultan of Nadj in the great mosque in Mecca. In 1932, the kingdoms of Hidjaz, Nadj and its colonies were officially united under the name Saudi Arabia.
In 1930, the monarch empowered North American companies to begin oil exploration. On his death, in 1953, his son Saud, the revenues of the Arab-American Oil Company, Aramco, squandered on the construction of palaces, harems, luxury cars and in the casinos on the French Riviera. The country was on the verge of bankruptcy when Saud was deposed by his brother, Faisal, a skilled diplomat and recognized military man under his father. Monogam, deeply religious and spartan until the ascetic, Faisal managed to fix the economy and began using “petrodollars” for ambitious development projects, without touching the “feudal power pyramid” led by the king himself. The Emirate, which was subordinate to the king, ruled in the provinces, with the assistance of the local tribal leaders and their desert soldiers.
Population 2000
According to COUNTRYAAH, the population of Saudi Arabia in 2000 was 20,663,732, ranking number 49 in the world. The population growth rate was 2.080% yearly, and the population density was 9.6125 people per km2.
