Simple shroud, no ceremony for one of world’s richest men
Print Edition
SAUDI Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, one of the richest men in history, was carried in a simple white shroud to an unmarked grave in a Riyadh cemetery yesterday where many of his commoner subjects rest, in keeping with ascetic traditions.
The Saudi state school of Wahhabi Sunni Islam holds ostentatious displays of grief or mourning to be sinful, akin to idolatry.
There was no official mourning period in Saudi Arabia and flags around the kingdom all flew at full staff. Despite his apparent popularity among his subjects, there were no spontaneous gatherings on city streets to mark his passing.
Government offices, closed for the Middle East’s normal Friday-Saturday weekend, will open as usual on Sunday.
While the afternoon prayer that preceded Abdullah’s burial took place before ranks of Muslim leaders, Saudi princes, powerful clerics and billionaire Arab businessmen, his body was transported to the mosque in a city ambulance.
It was borne through the crowds on a carpet on a simple stretcher, laid in front of the faithful at prayer and then carried by Abdullah’s male relatives to the graveyard, where it was laid in the ground with no ceremony.
It was a change for the king who, during his lifetime, traveled in the luxury one might expect of the absolute monarch of the world’s leading oil exporter. A 2006 US diplomatic cable noted that he personally asked a US envoy for his Boeing 747 to be outfitted with all the same security systems as the Air Force One of his friend, then-President George W. Bush.
Compared to the opulent style of many of his brothers and nephews, Abdullah lived frugally, choosing to holiday in a desert camp instead of brash Mediterranean palaces. He was also known for curbing some of his family’s excesses once in power, ordering princes to pay their phone bills and book seats on the national airline.
In Wahhabism’s austere reading of Islam, elaborate shrines contradict the ideal of egalitarianism that should unite all Muslims. Some Wahhabi followers have interpreted the tenet as requiring the destruction of shrines to Sufi saints and Shiite imams across the Middle East.
Abdullah’s predecessors and other half brothers have also been interred in unmarked graves in the al-Aoud cemetery where he was buried yesterday, as well as in other simple graveyards in the kingdom.
The Al Saud family has always striven to distinguish itself from European monarchies, preferring to hark to the tribal roots of its leadership.
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