- published: 21 Jul 2015
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Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, (Arabic: فهد بن عبد العزيز آل سعود Fahd ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz Āl Su‘ūd) (16 March 1920 – 1 August 2005) was King of Saudi Arabia from 1982 to 2005.
King Fahd is the eighth son of Ibn Saud and is the fifth king of Saudi Arabia. Fahd ascended to the throne on the death of his half-brother, King Khalid, on 13 June 1982. He was a member of Sudairi Seven. In fact, he was the eldest of Sudairi Brothers.
Fahd was appointed Crown Prince when Khalid succeeded their half-brother King Faisal, who was assassinated in 1975. Fahd was viewed as the de facto prime minister during King Khalid's reign in part due to the latter's ill health.
Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke on 29 November 1995, after which he was unable to continue performing his full official duties. His half-brother, Abdullah, then-Crown Prince, served as de facto regent of the kingdom and succeeded Fahd as monarch upon his death on 1 August 2005.
King Fahd is credited for having introduced the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia in 1992.
Saudi Arabia (i/ˌsaʊdi əˈreɪbi.ə/ or i/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbi.ə/; Arabic: السعودية as-Su‘ūdīyah[citation needed] or incorrectly as-Sa‘ūdīyah, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic: المملكة العربية السعودية al-Mamlakah al-‘Arabīyah as-Su‘ūdīyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab world, after Algeria. It is bordered by Jordan, and Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south. The Red Sea lies to its west, and the Persian Gulf lies to the east. Saudi Arabia has an area of approximately 2,250,000 km2 (870,000 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of 27 million, of which 9 million are registered foreign expatriates and an estimated 2 million are illegal immigrants. Saudi nationals comprise an estimated 16 million people.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as the Al Saud. The Saudi Arabian government, which has been an absolute monarchy since its inception, refers to its system of government as being Islamic, though this is contested by many due to its strong basis in Salafism, a minority school of thought in Islam. The kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam.