Saudi Arabia

 Harper, Robert A. Saudi Arabia. Part of the Modern World Nations. 2003. 109p. ISBN 0-7910-6935-4. Available at 953.8 HAR on the library shelves.

No country exemplify the conflict between modernity and traditions more than Saudi Arabia. A relatively sparsely populated land, the main occupation of its population as late as the 1930s was camel herding. Bedouins, or desert travelers, grazed their animals in the deserts of the peninsula and observed a strict version of Islam. 

A collection of tribes, Arabia became the center of Islam when the Prophet Muhammad received visions from God. Mecca, his birthplace, and Medina, the first city that accepted his teachings, soon became the sites of vast pilgrimages. Muslims from all over the world are expected to visit at least once in their lifetime. 

Arabs exported Islam to North Africa and eastward all the way to Indonesia, but soon lost control of Islam as more entrenched civilizations took over. Egypt and the Ottoman Empire ruled Mecca and Medina, leaving the rest of the desertic peninsula to its inhabitants.

Sheik Saud successfully united the tribes in the early 1920s and named the country Saudi Arabia, just in time for oil to be discovered. Oil made the Saudis rich, but it also changed their lives. Foreign workers were imported to help build the infrastructure needed to exploit the oil wealth. A social safety net was created for the citizens, and massive investments in health care and education moved Saudi society forward. The country's geographic areas are divided and only connected by air, and the arid climate limits agriculture.

Tensions remain between Saudi Arabia's move toward modernity and a desire to keep ties to its past, and Saudi Arabia will continue to exert geopolitical influence as long as oil remains the center of industrialized economies.