The Saudi Arabia Portal – بوابة المملكة العربية السعودية
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Saudi Arabia , officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA ), is a country in West Asia and the Middle East . It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about 2150 000 km2 (830000 sq mi), making it the fifth-largest country in Asia and the largest in the Middle East. It is bordered by the Red Sea to the west; Jordan , Iraq , and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf , Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to the south. Bahrain is an island country off its east coast. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northwest separates Saudi Arabia from Egypt and Israel . Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert , lowland, steppe, and mountains . The capital and largest city is Riyadh ; the kingdom also hosts Islam's two holiest cities of Mecca and Medina . (Full article... )
The Battle of Khafji was the first major ground engagement of the Gulf War . It took place in and around the Saudi Arabian city of Khafji , from 29 January to 1 February 1991.
Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein , who had already tried and failed to draw Coalition forces into costly ground engagements by shelling Saudi Arabian positions and oil storage tanks and
firing Scud surface-to-surface missiles at
Israel , ordered the invasion of
Saudi Arabia from southern
Kuwait . The
1st and
5th Mechanized Divisions and
3rd Armored Division were ordered to conduct a multi-pronged invasion toward Khafji, engaging Saudi Arabian,
Kuwaiti , and U.S. forces along the coastline, with a supporting Iraqi commando force ordered to infiltrate further south by sea and harass the Coalition's rear. (
Full article... )
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Did you know (auto-generated)
... that the 2021 film West Side Story was banned in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain, likely due to the transgender character Anybodys?
... that due to U.S. support for Saudi-led operations in Yemen , both Saudi Arabia and the United States may be held responsible for war crimes?
... that The Twins , a 1930 story by Abd al-Quddus al-Ansari , was called the first Saudi Arabian novel?
... that Saudi Arabian poet Hamad al-Hajji lost three members of his family during his childhood and later suffered from schizophrenia until he died at the age of 49 after a lung disease?
... that Saudi Arabian broadcaster beoutQ pirated and resold beIN Sports programmes during the Qatar diplomatic crisis ?
... that the documentary film Jihad Rehab features interviews with former inmates from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp who are now in the Care Rehabilitation Center , a "jihad rehab" in Saudi Arabia?
Religions in Saudi Arabia
Arab states
This is a Good article , an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.
The McMahon–Hussein letter of 24 October 1915. George Antonius —who had been the first to publish the correspondence in full—described this letter as "by far the most important in the whole correspondence, and may perhaps be regarded as the most important international document in the history of the Arab national movement... is still invoked as the main piece of evidence on which the Arabs accuse Great Britain of having broken faith with them."
The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence is a series of letters that were exchanged during World War I in which the Government of the United Kingdom agreed to recognize Arab independence in a large region after the war in exchange for the Sharif of Mecca launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire . The correspondence had a significant influence on Middle Eastern history during and after the war; a dispute over Palestine continued thereafter.
The correspondence is composed of ten letters that were exchanged from July 1915 to March 1916 between
Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry McMahon ,
British High Commissioner to Egypt . Whilst there was some military value in the Arab manpower and local knowledge alongside the British Army, the primary reason for the arrangement was to counteract the
Ottoman declaration of jihad ("holy war") against the Allies, and to maintain the support of the
70 million Muslims in British India (particularly those in the
Indian Army that had been deployed in all major theatres of the wider war ). The area of Arab independence was defined to be "in the limits and boundaries proposed by the
Sherif of Mecca " with the exception of "portions of
Syria " lying to the west of "the districts of
Damascus ,
Homs ,
Hama and
Aleppo "; conflicting interpretations of this description were to cause great controversy in subsequent years. One particular dispute, which continues to the present, is the extent of the coastal exclusion. (
Full article... )
Image 1 A view of
Jabal Sawda , a peak located in Saudi Arabia, with an elevation of around 3,000 metres (9,843 ft).
[1]
Image 2 Nasseef House is a historical structure in
Al-Balad ,
Jeddah , Saudi Arabia. As of 2009 it is a museum and cultural center which has special exhibits and lectures given by historians.
Image 3 Sunset view from
Farasan Island , the largest island of the
Farasan Islands , in the
Red Sea . It is located some 50 km offshore from
Jizan , the far southwestern part of Saudi Arabia.
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The following are images from various Saudi Arabia-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1 Residential homes in
Yanbu (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 2 Abdulaziz Al Saud , founder of Saudi Arabia (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 3 The Rashidun Caliphate reached its greatest extent under Caliph
Uthman ,
c. 654 (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 4 Saudi woman wearing a
niqāb in Riyadh. Many women commonly wear a niqab or a burqa in Saudi Arabia. (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 8 Abdulaziz (left) and Roosevelt aboard USS
Quincy during their historic 1945 meeting (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 9 Wall painted with Al-Qatt Al-Asiri (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 10 The
tribes of Arabia at the time of the
spread of Islam (expandable map) (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 11 The surviving insurgents of the
seizure of the Grand Mosque, 1979 under custody of Saudi authorities,
c. 1980 . (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 12 King Abdullah practicing
falconry , a traditional pursuit in Saudi Arabia (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 13 Abdulaziz (left) and Farouk checking an
Egyptian Army unit in 1946. Other people picture include princes
Fahd ,
Abdullah , and
Mishaal , as well as prince
Muhammad Abdel Moneim . (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 14 Bisht Being Sewn in
Al-Ahsa (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 15 Saudi males dressed and prepared for
ardah , the national dance. It also includes swords, poetry, and singing. (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 16 Supplicating pilgrim at
Masjid Al Haram , Mecca (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 17 A family fishing in
Jeddah (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 18 Dammam No. 7 , the oil well where commercial volumes of oil were first discovered in Saudi Arabia on March 4, 1938. (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 19 The Arabian Peninsula in 1914 (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 20 Sections of Saudi Arabia and neighbouring countries formed a part of the Roman Empire. (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 21 Red and white
keffiyeh commonly worn in the desert held with a black
agal (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 24 Soldiers in the Arab Army during the Arab Revolt of 1916–1918, carrying the
Flag of the Arab Revolt and pictured in the Arabian Desert. (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 25 Wedding in Saudi Arabia (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 26 A Saudi woman
riding a horse at
Souk Okaz , a yearly cultural festival in the outskirts of
Taif (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 27 VOX Cinemas movie theater (center) at
Riyadh Front in 2023 (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
Image 28 Faisal (left) and Nasser in Cairo, 1969 (from
History of Saudi Arabia )
Image 29 Pakistani workers at Al Masjid Nabawi (the
Prophet's Mosque ) in
Medina (from
Culture of Saudi Arabia )
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