Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and is approximately 2,150,000 km2 (830,000 sq mi) in area. Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the Middle East and the second largest country in the Arab world.  Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Most of its territory consists of arid deserts, lowlands, steppes, and mountains. Its capital and largest city is Riyadh, and Mecca and Medina are important cultural and religious centers.

The area that now makes up Saudi Arabia was home to several ancient cultures and civilizations. The prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of human activity in the world. The second largest religion in the world, Islam, originated in modern-day Saudi Arabia. At the beginning of the 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad united the population of Arabia and created a single Islamic religious state. After he died in 632, his followers quickly expanded Muslim-dominated territory beyond Arabia, conquering vast and unprecedented tracts of territory (from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to present-day Pakistan in the east) in a matter of decades. Arab dynasties originating from modern Saudi Arabia founded the Rashidun (632-661), Umayyad (661-750), Abbasid (750-1517) and Fatimid (909-1171) caliphates, as well as many other dynasties in Asia, Africa and Europe ...

The territory of modern Saudi Arabia used to be comprised mainly of four different historical regions: Hejaz, Najd, and parts of Eastern Arabia (Al-Ahsa) and Southern Arabia (Asir).  Since then, Saudi Arabia has been an absolute monarchy, a hereditary dictatorship ruled by Islamist principles. The ultra-conservative Wahhabis religious movement in Sunni Islam has been described as "a predominant feature of Saudi culture";. However, the power of the religious establishment has weakened considerably in recent years. In its Basic Law, Saudi Arabia continues to define itself as a sovereign Arab Islamic state, whose official religion is Islam. The official language is Arabic, and the capital is Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is sometimes referred to as the "land of two holy mosques" in relation to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca) and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), two of the holiest sites in Islam.

The oil was discovered on March 3, 1938, followed by several more finds in the Eastern Province. Since then, Saudi Arabia has become the world's second largest oil producer (after the United States) and the world's largest oil exporter, controlling the world's second largest oil reserves and the sixth largest gas reserves. The Kingdom is classified as a high income country by the World Bank with a very high Human Development Index. It is the only Arab country in the largest economy of the G20.

However, the state has attracted criticism for several reasons, including its role in the Yemeni civil war, alleged sponsorship of Islamic terrorism, and its poor human rights record, characterized by excessive and often extrajudicial use of the death penalty. take adequate measures against trafficking in persons, state-sponsored discrimination against religious minorities and atheists, anti-Semitism and its strict interpretation of Sharia law.

The kingdom spends 8% of its GDP on the military (the highest in the world after Oman), making it the world's third-highest military spending after the United States and China and the world's largest arms importer from 2015 to 2019, receiving half. of all US arms exports to the Middle East. According to the BICC, Saudi Arabia ranks 28th in the world in terms of militarization and has the best military equipment in the region after Israel. However, in recent years, there have been constant calls for an end to arms sales to Saudi Arabia, mainly due to alleged war crimes in Yemen and especially after the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi.