Customer Reviews

Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present

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... that has been written by a Westerner. Prior to President Obama's recent speech to the Islamic world, given in Cairo, he stopped in Saudi Arabia, the "country where Islam began." His visit was an implicit acknowledgment of the importance of the Saudi-American relationship, now in its 8th decade. Mark Weston, in his introduction, wisely gives a small sampling of the appalling ignorance and bigotry concerning the Kingdom which is extant within certain sections of the American leadership, from an article in "Parade" magazine which puts King Abdullah in 4th place as one of the "world's 10 worst dictators," to the assorted slanders of Lt. Gen. William Boykin, Franklin Graham, Jerry Vine, and, of course, Bill O'Reilly.

Previously the two best histories were Lacey's "The Kingdom," and Holden and Johns' "The House of Saud." Each is now three decades out of date, thus missing the period of the Kingdom's dynamic growth. Neither discusses the importance and continued influence of the early Islamic period on Saudi Arabia today. Weston rectifies these deficiencies. He deftly covers the period of Mohammed's life, the first four caliphs, who were known as "the rightly guided ones," (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali), the beginnings of monarchy, with Muawiya and Yazid, the fifth and sixth caliphs, and on to the Sunni - Shiite division which began on the plains of Karbala. As Weston points out, all Saudis know this history; they are the equivalent of Westerner's Bible stories, or for the more secular Americans, Bunker Hill and Valley Forge. Decisions made today have antecedents in the 7th Century, much as other religions adhere to events that occurred thousands of years ago. Weston "telescopes" a thousand years of history onto one page, and then commences with the first and second Saudi states, and the alliance of the House of Saud with an itinerant fundamentalist preacher, Abdul Wahab, known today in the West, generally pejoratively, as the founder of "Wahhabism."

About a fifth of the way into the book, Weston commences the story of Abdul Aziz taking back his family's ancestral home in Riyadh, in 1902. In roughly 150 pages Weston parallels the work of Lacey and Holden & Johns, covering the 20 years in which Abdul Aziz, in his alliance with the Ikhwan (the Brotherhood) warriors, consolidated most of the Arabian Peninsula into one country, which was named after his family. Eventually Abdul Aziz had to turn his guns, or more precisely, some British guns, on his messianic warrior allies, whose rigid theological outlook was incompatible with the exigencies of political rule. This action would be mirrored over 70 years later, when the House of Saud had to turn much more sophisticated weaponry against similar ideological extremists, Al-Qaeda. Much of the significance of the book is that over half is devoted to the post-Lacey, Holden & Johns era, from the early 80's through 2007.

The author astutely handles the political forces and the conflicts, along with the basic overall harmony among the principal individuals in the Saudi leadership, including the delicate questions of succession. Naturally the oil industry, and the impact of fluctuating prices, is likewise covered, along with the remarkable development of the country's infrastructure and the attendant transformation of the Saudis' "small town" and nomadic societies. A key event was the first Gulf War (1990-91), and the consequent backlash against the Saudi leadership's need to have American troops defend the country. This was a significant contributing factor to the rise of forces that supported Osama bin Laden, now that he was "cause-less" after the eviction of Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The book is current and fresh, and has a reasonable analysis of the rule of King Abdullah, since he formally assumed the throne upon the death of King Fahd in 2005, as well as the growing concern about the power, including possibly nuclear, of Iran. Overall, Weston is judicious in his comparisons and analogies, and I particularly thought his comparison of Wahabbism with Calvinism useful. Finally, unlike most other authors on the Kingdom, he actually lived in the country as a scholar at the King Faisal Center, interviewed some of the top leadership, and was able to provide a few personal anecdotes on life in the Kingdom.

I tend to rate books on Saudi Arabia "on the curve" because there are numerous ones that are sheer fantasy and/or ill-informed political "hatchet jobs." I've given two books, "The Bin Ladens," and "Inside the Mirage" a 5-star rating even though each contained at least one egregious error. Despite his seeming good intentions, I had several problems with Weston's book, and particularly since he actually lived there (and therefore should have known better!) I've only given it a 4-star.

Weston called the 1973 Israeli-Arab war the "Yom Kippur" war, which would grate in the Arab world just as much as if an American was touring the battlefield at Gettysburg, and heard the park ranger refer to the conflict as the "War of Northern Aggression," which I'm sure is a term used by a very few "un-reconstructed" Southerners still. The author could easily have explained that the Israelis and some of their supporters use "Yom Kippur", the Arabs, and their supporters use "the Ramadan War," and those seeking to be neutral would use "the October, 1973 Arab-Israeli" war. Likewise, chapter 17 is entitled "the Persian Gulf War" when the Saudis prefer the term "Arabian Gulf," and simply "The Gulf" is preferred (in context). Far worse that the nomenclature of wars is his use of the word "terrorist." It is used as an all-encompassing objective fact, and always means "them," not "us." On page 557, in his Conclusion, he uses the familiar concatenation of Islam and terror: "The United States cannot win the war against Islamic terror alone." Recently an American walked into the Holocaust museum in Washington DC and killed a security guard; another American walked into a church in Kansas and killed a doctor who happened to perform abortions. Both crimes were politically motivated; neither was labeled a "terrorist" act. Many other examples abound. On page 390 Weston discusses the killing of Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, but does not mention the number of civilians killed by the missile shot from an airplane. Indeed, are the deaths of any civilians killed as a result of aerial action every labeled a "terrorist act"? Wisely, President Obama, realizing that "terrorist" is a very loaded word, eschewed its usage in his recent speech in Cairo. Weston also quotes Gerald Posner (!), of all people, concerning dirty bombs - at least Weston says that his claims were met with skepticism by many journalists, and those in the intelligence community. But why quote him at all? The author's most stunning mistake was accepting, apparently unexamined, a portion of the bigotry of expat "Saudi tales" when he said: "On the outskirts of cities, the livestock pens behind the car dealerships disappeared because the Bedouin no longer swapped camels for their first pickup truck." (p 251).

I am also bothered by formulations such as: "...what the Saudis saw as Israel's noncompliance with UN resolutions demanding its withdrawal from the West Bank." (p 392). Isn't it an objective fact that Israel has not complied with UN resolution 242 (and others), and don't most Europeans, Americans, and numerous Israelis concur?

I also had a problem with his use of statistics, given invariably without specifying their derivation, and with no caveats. Implied was an exactitude that simply is impossible. As is known, such a figure as the US unemployment rate is given to different interpretations, and is subject to political manipulation. How much more so the numbers that he cited. In particular I had a problem when he cites polling data. I once looked at the methodology of one of the polling companies. Their poll takers call from a foreign country, and "try" to match genders. Anyone who actually knows a Saudi would consider it hilarious that a Saudi woman, for example, might tell a strange Arab man who calls from a foreign country what her true sentiments were, about, say, Bin Laden or the Royal Family. Indeed, how many Americans would? There IS a reason why all too many Saudis answer the phone not with "marhaba" (hello), but "Min" (who) (as in, who is this?).

The book could benefit from much tighter editing, for example, there are numerous duplications, sometimes in the same chapter, such as being told South Koreans earn $20,000 a year on page 480, and repeating it again on 490. Weston adds to the numerous Western mis-translations of "Tash ma Tash" with "Does it Splash?" Finally, although the author actually lived in the Kingdom, I doubt that he ever spent a night around a desert campfire. His primary adjective for the desert is "harsh." And even, "Compared to the almost lifeless Arabian Desert, the American Southwest is a garden." Well, yes, I do like our trees which elevation gives us, just like they do in the Kingdom, in the Asir, but Weston must never have seen the wildflowers around Hail in March.

Overall though, Mark Weston has written a very important, needed book - a comprehensive, fairly balanced history of Saudi Arabia. He humbly points out that deficiencies exist, and the ideal author would have a much better background. It is unlikely that the person he describes exists, so I hope he will come out with a revised edition that merits the full 5-stars.

The price of gas is sky-high and I admit, I was surprised to realize that Saudi Arabia has a quarter of the world's oil while the United States has just 2 percent. I knew I had a lot to learn about the Saudi kingdom and am so glad to have Prophets and Princes as my guide. Mark Weston does a phenomenal job of separating myth (and mistrust) from fact and of explaining in a thoughtful and compelling way everything westerners should know from the birth of Islam to the recent and dramatic changes in Saudi Arabia today. A balanced and comprehensive book complete with remarkable photographs, this is an impressive tour de force that is also remarkably clear and readable.

I am a Saudi so my review might give a different perspective about Mark's book. I was astonished by the tremendous effort he puts in the data collection and research to write his book. He travelled to different cities and met many people. It also amazed me how much knowledge that Mark has about the history of Saudi Arabia.
In short, unlike other authors how wrote their books about Saudi Arabia from their offices in Washington, Mark did travel to Saudi Arabia and met and interviewed Saudi people from different backgrounds and levels in order to write his book.

Having lived in Saudi Arabia for over a quarter of a century, I wasn't sure what to expect from Mark Weston's book. Many books have been written from so called 'experts' that never really capture the true flavor of this culture. However, I found that PROPHETS AND PRINCES accurately portrayed the country and it people. He has managed to sum up the past 60 years of Saudi history and put a complex subject into a Western understanding. He has obviously researched his subject, as well has having the unique prospective of living in the Kingdom while preparing his book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is considering moving to this interesting part of the world.

An entertaining and detailed look at Saudi Arabia at a time when Westerners (and Americans in particular) need more than ever to understand the country. I learned a lot and enjoyed the read.

From the days of Muhammad to 9/11 and beyond, Mark Weston's "Prophets and Princes" is a well written and accessible introduction to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi is a much maligned country, albeit for pretty good reasons, and Weston makes an effort to present it in a more "balanced" light. Weston definitely strives for impartiality, and acknowledges Saudi Arabia's many faults: But he still paints an overly rosy picture of the Kingdom, admittedly less so of its present than of its past and future.

Starting with the prophet Muhammad in 7th century Arabia, Weston presents early Muslim history with far too much certainty. The historical record is hardly straightforward. This does not always lead to results favorable to Muslims: Weston reports as fact the controversial story of the satanic verses, when the prophet briefly accepted the semi-divinity of several pagan deities. This story is plausible, but far from certain, yet Weston raises no questions to its authenticity.

More often, the certainty paints Islam positively, as when Weston writes that Muhammad "Sincerely believed that his revelations came directly from God" (p. 21). Weston can claim no more access to the prophet's inner mind than any of us. Even if one discards the Satanic verses episode, Muhammad's teaching changed in significant ways throughout his life. Specifically, when courting the Jews of Mecca he made Yom Kippur a fasting day, and had Muslims pray towards Jerusalem. Later he reversed both decisions. Did the angel Gabriel really made him do it?

After telling us the story of Muhammad and his immediate disciples, Weston stops the narrative in the late 7th century and resumes it in the early 18th. This is a strange decision - making "Prophets and Princes" not so much a history as a mythology, with an ancient era of grace, a fall, and a slow, if imperfect, re-emergence. It would have been better to either tell the whole history of Saudi Arabia, or its modern history only.

Picking up the tale in the early 18th century, Weston narrates the alliance between the House of Saud, a Saudi family/tribe, and Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahab, founder of an extreme puritanical school of Islam, known as Wahhabism. The House of Saud spent the 18th and 19th century in and out of power, clashing with the Ottoman authorities and the other tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. Finally, in the early 20th century, under Sheikh (later King) Abed al Aziz, the Saudis took over their capital Riyadh, and started to expand their empire.

In power but poor, everything changed for Saudi with the discovery of oil in their kingdom in the 1930s. Suddenly a remote part of Arabia became one of the world's most strategic locations, and a local chieftain became a world player. Since before the oil days, Abed al Aziz made a strategic alliance with Britain, then the colonial power. He and his successors maintained the links with Britain and its successor, the United States, acting mostly as loyal partners. Thus Saudi refused to stop selling oil to the US during the Israeli war of independence, despite their opposition to America's support for the Zionist state. Similarly, the Saudis and Americans found themselves on the same side in the struggle against Nasser's Pan Arabism.

That changed in the 1970s. With world demand for oil increasing, the oil producing Arab countries felt they had been short changed, selling oil far too cheaply. Unhappy with US support of Israel during the 1973 Israeli Arab war, the oil exporting countries joined together to hike up the price of oil and limit its supply in protest.

Economists still argue to what extent the oil crises of the 1970s are related to that era's economic slowdown. Saudi's strategic use of oil was half hearted at best, and waned in the 1980s, as additional sources of oil were found and as the world was moving to alternative types of energy.

Oil brought with it power and influence, but it is a mixed blessing: it destroys the local industry and fosters dictatorships. Saudi Arabia's fared better than other oil producing countries like Nigeria, Angola and Sudan. Its government is repressive but it avoided such internal calamities as civil wars or foreign invasions. Yet oil created a country with inefficient agriculture (pp. 274-275), wasting away Saudi's precious reserves of water. Saudi has little industry, and most of its workers are foreigners. Many of the locals, while well educated, are given to a life of boredom, and some succumb to the appeal of Radical Islam. The best known of those was the 17th son of a Saudi self-made construction mogul: Osama bin Laden.

Born in 1958, Bin Laden radicalized in his teens, and became the best known of the Saudis fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Learning military skills and setting up Al Qaeda, his terrorist network, Bin Laden saw the war as a Jihad - a holy war, and the eventual victory of the Mujahedeen (the Muslim fighters) as proof of God's approval. Having defeated one Infidel Empire, he could now turn against the other: America.

After the Gulf War of 1991, Saudi faced a dangerous environment, with a weakened Saddam Hussein still ruling Iraq, and a revolutionary and hostile Shiite regime in Iran. The Saudis therefore invited the American forces, which came to Saudi to liberate (or re-conquer) Kuwait, to remain in the kingdom. This raised the fury of Bin Laden and other Fundamentalists, as it contradicted the Prophet Muhammad's dying wish - that there shall not be two religions in Arabia.

The 1990s saw increasing terrorist attack in Saudi and abroad, culminating of course in the 9/11 attacks. After much delay, the Saudis responded with an active anti terrorist policy, although the innate conservatism and the close links between the Radicalism of Saudi and that of the terrorists, ensure that they continue to get some support from the regime even as it fights them.

Saudi also moved in baby steps towards greater economic and even political freedoms. In 2005 Saudi has become a member of the World Trade Organization. Earlier that year, King Abdullah told Barbara Walters that one day women would be allowed to drive in the Kingdom (p. 511). I admit I don't see these steps as the grand improvements Weston thinks they are.

The most problematic aspect of Weston's book is that he sees Saudi on a course of gradual progress, getting ever more liberal, albeit at a snail's pace. This kind of positivism strikes me as very 19th century. Saudi's population is exploding, ensuring that the nation would grow poorer and more desperate. It is true that Saudi became slightly more liberal in recent years, but this was during the oil boom. Societies frequently liberalize in good times and retrench in bad (see The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth). Given the extreme nature of the regime, and the problems the country faces, perhaps the lack of progress should be emphasized overthe achievements.

Weston argues that America should remain an ally of Saudi Arabia. I most heartedly concur. For the House of Saud is the most American-friendly regime conceivable in that part of the world. Given the radicalism of the Saudi people, any other government that could replace it would be far worse. Weston is wrong, I think, to suggest that Saudi public opinion is in sync with the regime; that the House of Saud represents a great-but-hidden affinity between Jews, Christians and Muslims. This explains why his vision of Muhammad lacks the realism that characterizes his report of present day Saudi. Because if the conflicts between Islam and West are shallow and temporary rather than deep and long lasting, the evil of supporting an autocratic regime would not be necessary for much longer. Weston believes that the Saudi government is simultaneously harmonizing the Kingdom with the liberal values at the roots of Islam and democratizing it. Thus we support Saudi today because it offers the slow, sure path to nirvana.

I hope that he's right, but I doubt it. The Saudis are good friends to America and the west. They remain in power by imposing on their land an autocratic, harsh, fanatical and puritanical rule. As long as they maintain their friendship, it is in our interest to help them oppress their countrymen. That's a harsh and ugly truth, but I don't think we should shrink from it.

Weston brings his formidable intellect to a fascinating project--weaving past and present into a very readable account of what is often a puzzling culture. A must read for a better understanding of the interests and conflicts in this oil rich region.

I'm half-way through Prophets and Princes and I'm mesmerized!!! He is a fabulous story teller and this incredible work of non-fiction reads like a novel - intrigue, beheadings, arranged marriages, family feuds, bribery, wars, covert ops, and MONEY! I consider myself fairly well-informed but I encounter jaw-dropping revelations every few pages!! Who knew!!?? I'm ordering multiple copies to pass on to friends and to my daughter's history teacher.

This should be required reading!

[[ASIN:0470182571 Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present]

PROPHETS AND PRINCES, by Mark Weston, is a throughly researched, fully documented, and engagingly written account of how Saudi Arabia came to be what it is today. Weston provides a balanced view of the country, sometimes writing admiringly of it, its people, culture, and ruling family; sometimes being critical. Most often he simply provides enlightening,information about the Kingdom. It is noteworthy that Weston supplemented his extensive research of the literature by living in Saudi Arabia and interviewing many Saudis, including princes. This book deserves to be read by everyone seeking to better understand the complexities of a region of the world where so much American blood and treasure has been spent. A more extensive version of this review will appear in DR AHEAD, the newsletter of the Air Force Navigators Observers Association.

The book is well-researched and can be a useful reference book for research. However, in its entirety , I have some major issues with it.


(1) The book is so openly propagandistic that sometimes I thought it was commissioned by the Saudi royal family. I'm not saying that it was, but very ofter it reads as if it were. The book tries to paint a picture of a warm and fuzzy Saudi Arabia where everything is great or improving, where every Saudi is a devout Muslim and respects and admires the royal family and so on, exactly the sort of image that the Al-Sauds themselves try to establish internationally. This takes away massively from the book's credibility. Some typical examples (the whole book is like that):

page xiv: 'Today the majority [of Saudis] enjoy a first world infrastructure, modern conveniences and at least high school education.'

page 377: 'Being good Muslims, most Saudi women do not mind wearing the abaya.'

page 551: 'The majority of Saudis are devout Muslims who are content with their monarchy.'


(2) In the last few chapters, the amount of data is overwhelming. Instead of a piece of writing, the book turns into a mere listing of numerical data, for at least a hundred (sic!) pages, in the following fashion:

'Saudi Arabia's negotiations to join the WTO took twelve years and involved 314 rounds of talks with trade representatives from other countries. The Saudis prepared more than 7000 pages of documents to answer more than 3400 trade related questions over the course of these negotiations. Saudi Arabia signed 38 trade arrangements with various countries that covered 7177 separate tariffs on agricultural and manufactured goods and 155 different kinds of services.' (page 488)


(3) In the concluding chapter, surprising as it may sound, the author seems openly proselytizing for Islam. He implies that Jews and Christians should recognize Muhammad as a prophet. He quotes from the Koran, and closes the text with an Islamic phrase 'inshallah' which means 'God willing' in Arabic. I have no problem with Islam or promoting Islam, but here it makes the real aim of this book very ambiguous.

page 558 (this is the voice of the author): 'Jews and Christians revere Obaidah and Haggai as prophets, even though their books at the end of the Old Testament are just twenty-one verses and thirty-eight verses long. Yet many would balk at granting the same honour to Muhammad, although he has nearly doubled the number of people who believe in one God'


As it shows the same AMOUNT of bias, it may be possible that 'Prophets and Princes' was written to counterbalance the flow of books about Saudi Arabia such as 'Princes of Darkness' or 'Hatred's Kingdom'.

In short, to me, this book is far too propagandistic and biased to be given any credit or taken seriously as a whole. Certain parts can be useful for research, though, and hence the two stars.