An overview about KSA

 

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an Arab country and the largest in the Arab peninsula. It is also called “The Land of the two holy Mosques” which refers to Mecca and Medina. Its main religion is Islam and more specifically: Sunnis and their spoken language is Arabic with a Bedouin dialect. The climate is known to be extremely hot and arid, and during summer the temperature could reach 50 degrees. Saudi Arabia was not united; on the contrary it was split upon nomads, Najd and Hejaz. Hejaz is a whole region defined by the red sea and along the Great Rift Valley. Moreover it includes the two holy cities (Mecca and Medina). This region was previously occupied by Egypt, Ottoman Empire and Britain. The Hejazis adhere to a more moderate interpretation of Islam than does the Wahhabi sect that arouse in Najd, due to their previous occupations by foreigners and their link to the sea. Whereas the Najd (meaning “upland”) is located in the central region and its main and largest city is Riyadh. It was composed of several tribes such as Tamim and Tayy before King Abdul Aziz has put an end to nomadic life in 1932. Since the beginning of the Kingdom, there was an understanding between Al Saud the royal family and Al Wahab regarding the way of ruling the country. Wahhabism became a dominant form of Islam in Saudi Arabia, and it is one of the most fundamentalist interpretations of Islam by Muhammad Bin Abdel Wahab. For instance, they established what we call “Moutawiin”; this is a sort of police that tries to maintain the Shariia ruling. An example of the Moutawaa role is to make sure that women are wearing their veils and their “abaya” properly. Saudi Arabia is considered to be a monarchy rules by Al Saud, and the Koran has the equivalence of the constitution. It follows the Islamic law or Shariia. The Shariia is also applied in courts when it comes to crimes. Homosexualities, drunkenness, murder, robbery, adultery so on and forth are all equivalent to crimes and its consequences could attain amputation and capital punishment! Human rights in the Saudi kingdom are not issues to be discussed, whenever there is censorship in the media then it is believed to be the best thing to do for several reasons. And concerning the right of women to drive, well it is still not taken into consideration. Economically, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is based on petroleum whereby it represents 75% of the budget revenues, and 90% of the export is from the oil industry. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is part of the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). Nowadays, the kingdom is suffering from a surplus of foreign labor and from the Saudi people unemployed. Therefore, it decided to apply the saudization, which means to employ a certain percentage of Saudi nationals in each private company.

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