A portrait of the enigmatic former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. discusses such topics as his illegitimate birth, his role in such events as the Iran-Contra affair and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and his relationship with the Bush and Reagan families. 50,000 first printing.
The Prince
The Secret Story of the World's Most Intriguing Royal, Prince Bandar bin Sultan
By William Simpson
Regan Books
Copyright © 2006
William Simpson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-06-089986-7
Chapter One
Who is Prince Bandar?
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in
the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find
that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are
dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes,
to make it possible."
T. E. Lawrence,
"The Seven Pillars of Wisdom"
Fifty-seven years ago, inside a traditional Bedouin tent, a
young servant girl gave birth to her only child, a boy. But
for one detail, the birth of a child to a young mother of
indifferent, even insignificant status, deep in the desert,
would be of import to very few. That singular detail, however,
was important, for the father of the infant boy was Prince
Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, a member of the royal family
and son of the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz bin
Abdul Rahman Al-Saud-known in the West as Ibn Saud.
At the time, Saudi Arabia itself was still in its infancy, for
not until 1932 did Ibn Saud unify the diverse tribal regions
in the center of the Arabian peninsula, rename the country the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and name himself as its first king.
The formation of modern Saudi Arabia did not come about
easily. In the early nineteenth century, members of the
Al-Saud tribe ruled Najd, a central and physically isolated
region, which included the holy cities of Mecca and Al Medina.
In 1811, the Ottoman sultan asked Muhammad Ali, ruler of
Egypt, then part of the Ottoman Empire, to depose Al-Saud. Ali
sent two of his sons to invade Najd, and in 1818, his second
son, Ibrahim Pasha, captured Dir'iyyah, the capital. Its
ruler, Abdallah ibn Saud, was sent into exile, first to Cairo
and then to Constantinople, where he was beheaded. With his
death, so too died the first Saudi state.
A second Saudi state emerged in 1824, when Turki bin Abdallah
bin Saud bin Abdul Aziz bin Muhammad Al-Saud, ousted the
Egyptians from Najd and established Riyadh as his capital.
Although this second state prospered initially, internal
disputes saw the leadership change hands within the family
until Faisal bin Turki took charge in 1843. Under Ibn Turki's
leadership, order prevailed. Yet his death in 1865 marked the
return of disorder and strife. In 1891, the Ottoman Rashidi
tribe defeated that of the Al-Saud, forcing its leader, Abdul
Rahman-grandfather of the present King Abdullah and great
grandfather of Prince Bandar-to flee into what is now Kuwait.
He was exiled with his family, including his son Abdul Aziz.
With Rahman's exile, the second Saudi state came to an end.
Abdul Aziz, who would become known as Ibn Saud, spent the
remainder of his childhood in Kuwait, where he attended the
daily governing councils, majlis of the emir of Kuwait, from
whom he learned about the wider world. Seeking to restore the
kingdom to the Al-Saud, Abdul Aziz set out in 1901 with a
small number of warriors intent on recapturing Riyadh. Luck
and audacity favored him when, on the night of January 15,
1902, he scaled Riyadh's walls with only twenty men and laid
in wait for the Rashidi governor, Ajlan. The following
morning, Abdul Aziz and his raiding party attacked, killing
Ajlan and launching a campaign that would ultimately give rise
to the third Saudi state. Over the next thirty years, Ibn Saud
would gradually seize control of each of the tribal regions.
In 1932, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was born.
Though born into the royal family of Ibn Saud, Bandar bin
Sultan's future was far from certain. His mother was Khizaran,
a dark-skinned sixteen-year-old commoner from the province of
Asir, located at the southern end of Saudi Arabia. It was a
desolate place of vast plains and salt marshes, hostile
mountains, and deep ravines. Its seaports, however, had
allowed centuries of interaction with both Yemen and the Horn
of Africa.
Though his father, Prince Sultan, was one of the Sudairi
Seven, the seven sons of Ibn Saud and Princess Hussa bint
Ahmed al-Sudairi, one of King Abdul Aziz's favored wives, the
boy's birth was inauspicious. Bandar is now quite blunt about
his place in the Saudi royal family, saying, "I was conceived
out of wedlock and my mother was a concubine."
Although his dark-skinned mother was but a servant in his
father's household and they were unmarried, Islamic law
protects illegitimate children if recognized by their father,
and Bandar's father acknowledged the birth. "My father
recognized the pregnancy of my mother before I was born,"
recounted Bandar. "That is the reason why I was born in King
Abdul Aziz's tented camp in Taif. He personally, King Abdul
Aziz, named me with four other kids." That naming by the king
effectively established the boy's pedigree as royal. Yet there
was still a separation-a distancing of the prince from the
other sons born to Prince Sultan's many wives.
The birth of a child to an Arab prince and a concubine, though
perhaps romantic, was not without pathos. Bandar's mother had
been a servant girl before becoming a concubine to the
twenty-year-old Prince Sultan, who had been appointed governor
of Riyadh in 1947. Bandar remembers, "My mother was not
related to any tribal leader that would provide me with power,
nor was she from a royal family." Having lived in the Asir
Province of Saudi Arabia, which nestles across from Africa,
Khizaran was darker skinned, a feature she passed on to her
son Bandar, who is noticeably darker than his brothers. It has
been a common misconception in the U.S. press that the
prince's mother was African. Bandar often derives curious
enjoyment from knowing the truth of a situation while the
media speculates endlessly and wrongly about him, and he has
made no attempt to explain the geographical background to his
mother's heritage. He confessed, "I coyly let that stand for a
long time, because as you know by now, I enjoy knowing
something that the whole world is talking about mistakenly and
I know that it is not true."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Prince
by William Simpson
Copyright © 2006 by William Simpson .
Excerpted by permission.
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