Saudi Arabia

Hejaz, Najd, and portions of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia ('Asir) were the four primary historical regions that made up the territory that is now Saudi Arabia. [19] King Abdulaziz formed the Saudi Arabian Kingdom in 1932. (known as Ibn Saud in the West). Through a series of conquests, beginning in 1902 with the acquisition of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, he united the four regions into a single state. Since that time, Saudi Arabia has been ruled by an absolute monarchy that is essentially an islamist hereditary dictatorship. [20] [21] [22] As a "predominant element of Saudi culture,"[20] the ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been described. [21] Despite the fact that in the 2010s, the religious establishment's influence substantially diminished. [23]