Ibn Saud

"Ibn Saud grew to manhood living the harsh traditional life of the desert nomad, a life that had changed little since the days of Abraham, and then made a careful study during his adolescence in Kuwait of the ways of the great imperial powers such as Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire. Thus equipped, and endowed with immense physical courage, between 1902 and 1930 he found and won a series of astonishing military victories over a succession of enemies much more powerful than himself. Over the same period, he transformed himself from a minor sheikh into a revered king and elder statesman,…