The last crown prince of the
second Saudi State was
Abdulaziz, who lost the title when
Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, his father, lost his state after the
Rashidis conquered Riyadh in 1890. The Al Sauds went into exile and took refuge in multiple
Arab states of the Persian Gulf for nearly a decade. Despite this, Abdulaziz and his relatives remained determined to regain Nejd. Throughout the early 1900s, the Al Sauds went on multiple raiding expeditions and wars of conquest to attempt to regain Nejd from the Rashidis. Their efforts were highly successful, and as a result, they successfully formed the third Saudi state. When Abdulaziz had taken enough land to become recognized as an Emir, he designated his eldest son
Turki as his heir. When Turki died during the flu pandemic of 1919, Abdulaziz designated his second son Saud to be heir and further succession would be brother to brother. The Al Sauds went on to expand their borders out of Nejd and established multiple iterations of the third Saudi state. In 1932, after Abdulaziz administered the Nejd and Hejaz as two separate states, he unified them and formed
Saudi Arabia. Abdulaziz declared himself king, and designated Saud, one of his sons, as crown prince. When King Abdulaziz discussed succession before his death, he was seen to favor
Prince Faisal as a possible successor over crown prince Saud due to Faisal's extensive knowledge from years of experience. Many years before, King Abdulaziz recognized Faisal as the most brilliant of his sons and gave him multiple responsibilities in war and diplomacy. "I only wish I had three Faisals", King Abdulaziz once said when discussing who would succeed him. However, King Abdulaziz made the decision to keep Prince Saud as crown prince. His last words to his two sons, the future King Saud and the next in line Prince Faisal, who were already battling each other, were "You are brothers, unite!" Shortly before his death, King Abdulaziz stated, "Verily, my children and my possessions are my enemies." A fierce power struggle between Abdulaziz's most senior sons, Saud and Faisal, erupted immediately after Abdulaziz's death. Faisal was declared the
prime minister of Saudi Arabia in 1954, but had limited powers. Soon after, Saudi Arabia began having financial issues and debt as a result of Saud's disastrous policies. Saud was often associated among other things with the plundering of oil revenues, luxurious palaces, and conspiracy inside and outside of Saudi Arabia while Faisal was associated with sobriety, piety, puritanism, thriftiness, and modernization. As the issues in Saudi Arabia worsened, the House of Saud forced King Saud to delegate most of his executive powers to Faisal in 1958. However, Faisal was still unable to use his powers as Saud continued to block them, which prompted Faisal to resign in 1960, although he returned to the position in 1962. On 4 March 1964, Faisal and his brothers launched a bloodless coup d'état against Saud. Faisal was made regent, and Saud remained King as a purely ceremonial role. In November, the ulema, cabinet and senior members of the ruling family forced Saud to abdicate altogether, and Faisal became king in his own right. On 6 January 1965, Saud went to the palace with his uncle Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman to declare his allegiance to King Faisal. The next in line, Prince Mohammed, was crown prince for a short time but disclaimed that title in favour of Prince Khalid in 1965. Shortly after King Faisal was assassinated by his nephew, Khalid became the King of Saudi Arabia and Fahd became the crown prince. During Khalid and Fahd's reigns, both adopted conservative Islamic policies after the
1979 Grand Mosque seizure. When King Fahd had a stroke in 1995, crown prince Abdullah became the formal Regent for the remainder of Fahd's reign. When Abdullah became King, he began to modernize Saudi Arabia. He allowed women the right to vote and to work in government positions. Abdullah also created the
Allegiance Council, a body that is composed of the sons and grandsons of Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdulaziz, to vote by a secret ballot to choose future kings and crown princes. As the nation became a
gerontocracy in the 2000s and early 2010s, three crown princes died of old age in rapid succession. In the meantime, more and more princes were passed over. In January 2015, King Abdulaziz's last son, Muqrin, became crown prince, only to be ousted three months later in favour of his nephew,
Muhammad bin Nayef. Mohammed bin Nayef, the first grandson of King Abdulaziz to hold the title, was himself removed in June 2017 by
Mohammed bin Salman, another grandson of King Abdulaziz.
Crown Princes of Saudi Arabia (1933–present) Timeline ==History of the second deputy prime minister position==