Faisal ibn Abdulaziz
Faisal deposed his own brother to save the Saudi state from bankruptcy, used oil as a weapon in 1973, and was shot dead by a nephew in his own audience chamber. He was a son of Ibn Saud, sent to London at thirteen as his father's envoy, and spent decades as foreign minister and viceroy of the Hejaz before the quarrel with his brother King Saud, whose spending had brought the treasury close to collapse. Faisal was made prime minister in 1958, forced out, recalled, and in 1964 the family and the religious establishment deposed Saud in his favour. He balanced the budget, built the ministries of a modern state, and introduced television and girls' schooling against clerical resistance - the television broadcasts provoked a protest in which a nephew of his was killed by police. He abolished slavery in 1962. Abroad he fought a long proxy war against Nasser in Yemen and made anti-communism and pan-Islamic solidarity the axis of Saudi policy, founding the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. In October 1973, during the war with Israel, he cut production and embargoed exports to the United States; the price of oil quadrupled, and the transfer of wealth reshaped the world economy and Saudi Arabia with it. In March 1975 he was shot at close range by Faisal bin Musaid, the brother of the man killed in the television protest, who was beheaded for it. He had been foreign minister since 1930, which by the time he died was the longest tenure of that office anywhere in the world. He refused to have his own image on the currency or on stamps. His full brothers and half-brothers succeeded him in turn for the next forty years, so the sons of Ibn Saud went on ruling until 2015. Time made him its man of the year for 1974, on the strength of the embargo.
- Lived: 1906 CE – 1975 CE
- Nationality: Saudi Arabian
- Roles: ruler
