Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (; born 31 December 1935) is King of Saudi Arabia, having reigned since 2015. He is a son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia, and a member of the House of Saud. Salman is the third-oldest living head of state and the oldest living monarch. He is the first Saudi head of state born after the unification of Saudi Arabia.
Salman is a son of King Abdulaziz and Hassa bint Ahmed Al Sudairi, making him one of the Sudairi Seven. He was the deputy governor of Riyadh and later the governor of Riyadh for 48 years from 1963 to 2011. He was then appointed Minister of Defense and was named crown prince in 2012. Salman became king in 2015 upon the death of his half-brother, King Abdullah.
He has a reported personal wealth of at least US$18 billion, which makes him the third wealthiest royal in the world.
Salman's major initiatives as king include the Saudi intervention in the Yemeni Civil War, Saudi Vision 2030, and a 2017 decree allowing Saudi women to drive. His seventh son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is considered the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia due to the King's poor health and Mohammed's own political maneuvering. Mohammed replaced his father as prime minister in 2022, making Salman the first king since Saud in 1964 not to serve as head of government.
Early life Salman was born on 31 December 1935, and is reported to be the 25th son of King Abdulaziz, the first monarch and founder of Saudi Arabia. Salman and his six full brothers make up the Sudairi Seven.Alexander Bligh. From Prince to King; Succession to the throne in Saudi Arabia. New York, New York University Press (1984). Arabic edition: Alexander Bligh. Min amir ila malik. London, D.A. Publications (1989). He was raised in the Murabba Palace.
Salman received his early education at the Princes' School in the capital city of Riyadh, a school established by King Abdulaziz specifically to provide education for his children. He studied Islam and Arabic language, focusing on sharia in the Wahhabi interpretation under the Hanbali school of jurisprudence. Salman, like many of his siblings learned the Quran by recitation and under a cleric in the Wahhabi tradition.
Riyadh Salman was appointed Deputy Governor of Riyadh Province on 17 March 1954, aged 18, and held the post until 19 April 1955. He was appointed the governor of the same province on 5 February 1963, and remained in that office until 5 November 2011, a period of almost half a century.
As governor, Salman contributed to the development of Riyadh from a mid-sized town into a major urban metropolis. He served as an important liaison to attract tourism, capital projects, and foreign investment to his country. He favored political and economic relationships with the West. During his governorship, Salman recruited advisors from King Saud University.Joseph A. Kechichian. Succession in Saudi Arabia. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Print.
During Salman's five decades as Riyadh governor, he became adept at managing the delicate balance of clerical, tribal, and princely interests that determine Saudi policy.Here's Everything We Know About The New Saudi King Business Insider. 23 January 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2015. He was also the chairman of the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (KAFRA), King Abdulaziz Museum, the Prince Salman Center for Disability Research and the Prince Fahd bin Salman Charitable Society for the Care of Kidney Patients.
Salman also undertook several foreign tours while he was governor. In 1974, he visited Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar to strengthen Saudi Arabia's relationship with those nations. During his visit to Montreal, Canada in 1991, he inaugurated a gallery. In 1996, he was received in the Élysée Palace in Paris by the then-French president Jacques Chirac. The same year he toured Bosnia and Herzegovina to give donations to the Muslim citizens of the country. Being a part of an Asian tour in 1998, Salman visited Pakistan, Japan, Brunei and China.
According to The Washington Post, the late Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi "criticized Prince Salman, then governor of Riyadh and head of the Saudi committee for support to the Afghan mujahideen, for unwisely funding Salafist extremist groups that were undermining the war [in Afghanistan against the Soviets]."
Under Salman, Riyadh became one of the richest cities in the Middle East and an important place for trade and commerce. There were also infrastructural advances including schools, universities, and sports stadiums. About the province, he said:
Second in line On 5 November 2011, Salman was appointed Minister of Defense, replacing his full brother, the Crown Prince Sultan. Sattam bin Abdulaziz was named governor of Riyadh Province. Salman was also named a member of the National Security Council (NSC) on the same day.
It is speculated that he was placed in the immediate line of succession due to his personal qualities. First, he has a conciliatory and diplomatic nature. He headed the family council, called The Descendants' Council (Majlis al Uthra in Arabic), that was established by King Fahd in 2000 to solve family matters, reach consensus and try to avoid any publicly embarrassing behaviour by some family members. Second, Salman belongs to the "middle generation" in the royal family; therefore, he could develop close ties with both generations socially and culturally. Last, due to his long-term governorship, he had developed a network of relationships within Arab and international circles.
Salman continued the policy of military intervention in Bahrain. In April 2012, Salman visited both the United States and the United Kingdom where he met with US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron. 2013 saw Saudi military spending climb to $67billion, overtaking that of the UK, France and Japan to place fourth globally."Saudis lead Middle East military spending". 14 April 2014. Al Jazeera. Retrieved 14 April 2014. As defense minister, Salman was head of the military as Saudi Arabia joined the United States and other Arab countries in carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Crown Prince On 18 June 2012, Salman was appointed as Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia shortly after the death of his brother, Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz. Prince Salman was also made First Deputy Prime minister. His nomination as crown prince and deputy prime minister was seen by some as a signal that King Abdullah's cautious reforms were likely to continue. On the other hand, Saudi reformists stated that while Prince Salman, in contrast to other Saudi royals, took a more diplomatic approach towards them, he could not be considered a political reformer. They also argued that, like King Abdullah, Salman focused mainly on economic improvement rather than political change.
On 27 August 2012, the Royal Court announced that Salman was in charge of state affairs whilst King Abdullah was out of the country. Prince Salman launched a Twitter account on 23 February 2013. In September 2012, Salman was named as the deputy chairman of the military service council. He is a strong advocate for philanthropy in poor Muslim nations such as Somalia, Sudan, and Afghanistan.
Reign On 23 January 2015, Salman, aged 79, inherited the throne after his half-brother Abdullah died of pneumonia at the age of 90. The new king issued a statement which read "His Highness Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and all members of the family and the nation mourn Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, who passed away at exactly 1 am this morning." He appointed his younger half-brother, Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, as Crown Prince.
After coming to power, Salman reshuffled the cabinet on 30 January 2015. Khalid bin Ali bin Abdullah al-Humaidan was made the intelligence chief. Prince Bandar bin Sultan was removed from his post in the security council and the adviser to the monarch was also removed as were the former monarch's sons Turki as governor of Riyadh and Mishaal as governor of Mecca. Ali al-Naimi remained the minister of petroleum and mineral resources, as did Saud al-Faisal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ibrahim Al-Assaf as finance minister. Salman also "gave a bonus of two months' salary to all Saudi state employees and military personnel", including pensioners and students, while also asking citizens to "not forget me in your prayers".
In February 2015, Prince Salman received Charles, Prince of Wales, during his six-day tour in the Middle East. They "exchanged cordial talks and reviewed bilateral relations" between the countries.
In April 2021, Prince Mishaal bin Majid Al Saud, who has been the governor of Jeddah since 1997, was appointed as adviser to King Salman with the rank of minister.
Early reforms One of the first things the King and his son, Mohammed bin Salman, did was to streamline the government bureaucracy. On the death of King Abdullah, there were as many as eleven government secretariats, and all of these were abolished and reconstituted as only two, the Council of Political and Security Affairs (CPSA), headed by Deputy Crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, and the Council for Economic and Development Affairs (CEDA), headed by the Secretary-General of the Royal Court, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was given free rein to completely reorganize the governmentMohammad bin Nayef takes leading role in Saudi Arabia Gulf News. 17 February 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2015. and cement the power of the Sudairi faction, to which both princes belong.
Yemen military intervention
In March 2015, the king ordered the bombing of Yemen and military intervention against the Shia Houthis and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was deposed in the 2011 uprising."Saudi-led coalition strikes rebels in Yemen, inflaming tensions in region ". CNN. 27 March 2015. He first put together a coalition of ten Sunni Muslim countries. Code-named Operation Decisive Storm, this was the first time the Saudi Air Force had launched airstrikes against another country since the 1990–91 Gulf War.
According to Farea Al-Muslim, direct war crimes have been committed during the conflict; for example, an IDP camp was hit by a Saudi airstrike. Human Rights Watch (HRW) wrote that the Saudi-led air campaign had conducted airstrikes in apparent violation of the laws of war. Human rights groups have also criticized Saudi Arabia for the alleged use of cluster bombs against Yemeni civilians. In 2022, Saudi airstrikes at a prison in Northern Yemen killed at least 70 people and knocked out the country's internet access. The UN estimated that by the end of the year 2021, the death toll of the war on Yemen had reached 377,000 people and could reach 1.3 million people by 2030.
Crown Prince changes In April 2015, three months after becoming king, Salman appointed a full nephew, Muhammad bin Nayef, as the new Crown Prince to replace his youngest brother Prince Muqrin. Furthermore, he made his son, Mohammed bin Salman, the Deputy Crown Prince. Almost all powers under the king were concentrated in the hands of the crown prince and deputy crown prince, both of whom held the portfolio determining all security and economic development issues in Saudi Arabia.
King Salman then removed Muhammad bin Nayef from the line of succession to the Saudi throne on 21 June 2017 and designated his son Mohammed bin Salman as the new crown prince. At the same time, King Salman removed Muhammad bin Nayef from his other positions in the Saudi government. Mohammad bin Salman has been described as the power behind the throne.Transcript: Interview with Muhammad bin Salman The Economist, 6 January 2016.
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