Part One: Prince Mohammed Bin Salman: The Tyrant of Saudi Arabia

Summary

Behind the Bastards — Part One: Prince Mohammed Bin Salman: The Tyrant of Saudi Arabia

Podcast: Behind the Bastards
Host: Robert Evans (Cool Zone Media/iHeartPodcasts)
Guest: David Bell (Writer/podcaster, "Some More News" & "Gamefully Unemployed")
Date: January 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

This inaugural episode of a multi-part series examines the origins and bloody legacy of the House of Saud, with particular emphasis on the formation of Saudi Arabia, the dynasty’s long partnership with religious fundamentalism, and the lavish, violent environment that shaped Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), today’s effective ruler of Saudi Arabia. Host Robert Evans is joined by David Bell for a blend of historical narrative, political context, and their trademark dry wit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Talk About "Bastards" Like MBS?

• “Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating.” — The hosts set the stage by drawing listeners into the psychology and attraction of historical villains versus more mundane world leaders.
• This episode aims to look beyond headlines like the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to explore how Saudi Arabia’s complex, violent history informs MBS’s rule.

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2. Meet the Hosts and Establishing Their Credentials (00:00–03:00)

• Quick banter: Robert teases David’s Saudi “expertise,” riffing on their history together at Cracked and various podcasts.
• David pokes fun at himself:

  “If anything, I'm going to be teaching you a thing or two.” (00:41, David Bell)

• The tone is accessible, irreverent, but sharp.

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3. Who is Mohammed bin Salman? (04:43–08:12)

• Robert gives a succinct overview: MBS is the Crown Prince and de facto ruler, best known globally for ordering the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and as a highly effective, albeit dangerous, modern authoritarian.
• He is described as a master at consolidating power, mixing reforms with intense crackdowns (even on family), and leveraging oil wealth for regional (and global) influence:

  “At home he has mixed a series of dizzying reforms with unprecedented authoritarian crackdowns...” (06:13, Robert Evans)

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4. Origins of the House of Saud & Wahhabism (08:12–16:54)

• Historical Context:

  • The House of Saud began in the 18th century when Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (a hardline religious reformer) partnered with local emir Muhammad Ibn Saud, launching a fusion of political ambition and religious extremism.

• Wahhab's Extremism:

  “He was unhappy about a lot of art in the Ottoman world that depicted the human form... unhappy about music... he was angry at what he saw as the decadence and many moral compromises of the Ottoman caliph...” (07:36-08:45, Robert Evans)

• Comparison to Modern Extremism:

  • Wahhab is likened to proto-‘Heritage Foundation’ zealotry, exploiting religious grievances to serve larger ambitions:

    “You could see Wahab as sort of like a Heritage Foundation maniac of his time...” (08:59, Robert Evans)

  • David wryly notes the timelessness of zealous fringes driving political change, regardless of faith.

• Early Struggles:

  • The initial Saudi ‘state’ (a city-state around Diriyah) lasted more than 50 years, but was eventually crushed by the Ottomans. Brutality and family infighting became recurring themes.

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5. Violence, Betrayal, and Family Chaos (16:54–22:26)

• The second Saudi state rises, again via a member escaping exile and rebuilding the dynasty, marked by betrayals and assassinations (e.g., Turkey bin Abdullah killed by his cousin, internal wars).
• The pattern emerges:

  “Honestly, even up to the modern day, the Saudi royal family spends a lot of time killing other members ... It’s one of their great pastimes.” (21:15, Robert Evans)

• David quips how power and family always breed conflict:

  “You never have enough power. But you can have too many cousins, right? That’s kind of the rule.” (22:06, David Bell)

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6. The Modern Saudi State and Its Foundations (22:26–27:51)

• Abdulaziz Al Saud (MBS’s grandfather) is highlighted as the modern founder—skilled, ruthless, and opportunistic.
• With little money, Abdulaziz sells drilling rights to Standard Oil for a pittance (£50,000), betting on oil’s potential—a gamble that pays off spectacularly.

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7. The Oil Boom: Transformations and Corruption (27:51–34:57)

• The Aramco deal brings in “millions, then billions,” structuring Saudi society to prop up the royal family and buy allegiances.

  “Large numbers of Saudi men, even outside of the family, are given government jobs that are themselves basically bribes to keep anyone from complaining about the endemic corruption.” (31:04, Robert Evans)

• Excess, grift, and burgeoning royal ranks—by the late 20th century, thousands draw state stipends, while 40% of Saudis are poor and 90% of private workforce is foreign labor.

• Notable quote:

  “Much of that money trickled into society to earn the royals the loyalty of the population... But the royals still had large, commanding fleets of yachts, building palaces from Los Angeles to Monaco.” (32:08, quoting Ben Hubbard)

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8. Patterns of State Brutality and Internal Paranoia (34:57–37:42)

• Family feuding, public executions, and deliberate brutal intimidation are institutionalized.
• Notorious story: Abdulaziz executes 18 rebelling family members publicly, then pardons the 19th to “tell everyone.”

  “Go tell everybody. I could have killed you, but I didn’t.” (36:03, David Bell, paraphrasing the king)

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9. Modernization vs. Religious Backlash (37:42–47:42)

• Kings struggle to balance Westernization and religious conservatism.

• King Faisal brings modernization, more rights for women, and attempts to dilute clerical power. Assassinated by his own nephew over a TV ban.

• 1979: Seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by fundamentalists prompts the regime to swing violently back to religious orthodoxy, banning gender mixing, alcohol, TV, and women’s labor in public.

  “Almost overnight, everything changed in Saudi Arabia... No more movies, no more alcohol, no more women on television, no more gender mixing anywhere...” (48:20, quoting Karen House)

• Brutal suppression: Use of French commandos (forced to “convert” for the mission), mass executions, indiscriminate violence during the Mosque siege.

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10. The Rise of MBS's Father, Salman, and the Next Generation (49:49–54:00)

• Salman, MBS’s father and eventual king, is portrayed as the rare hardworking, relatively non-corrupt prince among a sea of decadent siblings.
• His sons—one becomes the first Muslim in space, others obtain Western educations and succeed in business or military.
• The system ensures intra-family competition is lethal, and alliances are fragile and transactional.

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11. A New Generation: The Birth of MBS (53:08–end)

• Mohammed bin Salman is born in 1985—emerging into a Saudi Arabia convulsed by religious reaction and family malaise.

• By the late 1980s–’90s, the regime is ossifying: successive kings are weak, ineffective, or disengaged, setting the scene for the rise of an ambitious new wielder of power.

• Hosts wrap up, reflecting on the sundry failings, oddities, and violent excesses that have paved the way for MBS.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If Fox Mulder really existed, you would have done a six part series on him.” (02:52, David Bell, illustrative of the show’s humorous, pop-culture infused tone)
• “You could see Wahab as sort of like a Heritage Foundation maniac of his time.” (08:59, Robert Evans)
• “Honestly, even up to the modern day, the Saudi royal family spends a lot of time killing other members ... It’s one of their great pastimes.” (21:15, Robert Evans)
• “Large numbers of Saudi men, even outside of the family, are given government jobs that are themselves basically bribes to keep anyone from complaining about the endemic corruption.” (31:04, Robert Evans)
• “No more movies, no more alcohol, no more women on television, no more gender mixing anywhere...” (48:20, quoting Karen House on post-1979 Saudi Arabia)

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Memorable and Humorous Asides

• Ongoing X-Files and Fox Mulder jokes in the opening, as well as riffs on being Nepo babies/Nicolas Cage as a comparison to royal family members (41:03).
• Observing the Saudi family's internal warfare:

  “It’s what the Skarsgards have going for them—they know who’s in charge at any given point and there’s not too many of them.” (34:34, David Bell)

• David ponders the weirdness of being older than MBS, the “tyrant” in question:

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize I’m older than him. That bums me.” (53:08, David Bell)

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Timeline of Important Segments

• 00:00–04:43 – Banter & introductions; why these stories matter.
• 04:43–08:12 – Introduction to MBS & modern Saudi power.
• 08:12–16:54 – The Wahhabist origins and the early Saud dynasty.
• 16:54–22:26 – Betrayals, assassinations, and family feuds.
• 22:26–27:51 – Modern Saudi state’s formation, early oil deals.
• 27:51–34:57 – Oil boom, society-wide corruption, royal excess.
• 34:57–37:42 – Political violence, paranoia, and examples of state brutality.
• 37:42–47:42 – Modernization, religious clerical power, and the 1979 Mosque seizure.
• 47:42–49:49 – Intensification of fundamentalism, religious police.
• 49:49–54:00 – The next generation: Salman’s rise, MBS’s origins.

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Conclusion / Where the Series is Going

This episode concludes with the Saudi state at a turning point; burdened by its bloody, corrupt, and contradictory legacies, and with MBS—a man described as "one of the most dangerous and in some ways competent bastards in the world today"—about to step onto the world stage. Future episodes will dive into MBS’s personal ascent and the consequences of his rule.

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For Further Listening

David Bell can be found at Gamefully Unemployed, and “Some More News.”
Robert Evans teases more detail on MBS in upcoming episodes.

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Note: All ads, musical intros/outros, and unrelated asides omitted per instructions.

Transcript

[Robert Evans]

Call Zone Media. Oh, my goodness. Welcome back to behind the Bastards, the podcast about the very worst people in all of history. And we have a very special episode for you. This week we are talking about finally, we're going to give the first two episodes of what will be a multi part series about Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. And to talk about this, obviously the only guest we could bring on for this episode is a guy I think most people are aware of, one of the world's leading experts on Saudi Arabia, my former colleague at Cracked, David Bell. David, welcome to the show.

[David Bell]

Thanks for having me. Yeah. If anything, I'm going to be teaching you a thing or two.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. A lot of people don't know this. You live for 47 years in Saudi Arabia. That's impressive because you're not that old.

[David Bell]

Yeah, no, no, that's. That's several years. Several years more than I have existed.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I think that's actually older than Mohammed bin Salman. Yeah. Yeah. That's very good. So you're more qualified to talk about the country than the king of the country. Well, not the king. He's not actually the king. He's the crown prince and he's going to be the king and he's effectively ruling the country. But you know how it goes with these sort of royal families.

[David Bell]

Of course I do. Like I said, expert.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, expert on Saudi Arabia. In addition to that, you and I lived together for a period of time in the late aughts.

[David Bell]

We did.

[Robert Evans]

We worked at Cracked magazine together. You are currently a writer and script polisher and finisher. Offer at some more news and even more news.

[David Bell]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

And you also co run the podcast network gamefully unemployed with our also fellow former roommate and colleague Tom Ryman, which hosts several of my favorite podcasts including Fox Mulder as a Maniac and the new Himbus.

[David Bell]

Himbus, which is about Supernatural.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, it's your Supernatural rewatch podcast.

[David Bell]

Yeah, it's not even a rewatch. I've never seen Supernatural, so it's just.

[Robert Evans]

A watch for you.

[David Bell]

Yeah, yeah. It's me discovering those beautiful, beautiful boys, the Winchesters.

[Robert Evans]

And you're. I didn't do it this year. I did a big Lebowski costume for Halloween this year, but I think next year I am gonna do a Fox Mulder costume. And I'm trying to pick between either just wearing the FBI like suit and having an empty holster because as Fox Mulder, I have lost my gun before. Showing up at the party or show up at the party with like five or six fake Guns and give them the people. Like, like, like accidentally drop them in people's laps. If I see someone dressed as a gondola player, maybe pointed at them. You know, all the Fox Moulder classics.

[David Bell]

Anywhere you can leave it where kids can reach it is preferable. Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

These are all classic Fox Mulder tactics.

[David Bell]

I know. If Fox Mulder really existed, you would have done a six part series on him.

[Robert Evans]

Well, because there would have been a congressional investigation into just the things that he did. Yes, like multiple of them. Like the church committee would have had like a church committee over his fucking.

[David Bell]

My favorite. Not to deviate, but my favorite things. I've been rewatching the X Files recently. Cause I'm always rewatching the X Files.

[Robert Evans]

Of course. As you are. Want to do. Yeah.

[David Bell]

My favorite thing he's ever done, in my. My opinion, is they were at a crime scene where there's blood. And he wanted to prove that blood was fake. So he reaches down and he dabs it on his finger and he tastes it and he goes, that's sugar. And it's like, that is just something you don't do. I know it's small, but I can't get over the idea of being in a crime scene, seeing blood and tasting it. That would stop everything. Like, that alone would be like, mulder, go home.

[Robert Evans]

What are you doing here?

[David Bell]

You need to go to the doctor.

[Robert Evans]

I don't care if he's an FBI agent. Like a beat cop could kick you off the scene then.

[David Bell]

What if you just.

[Robert Evans]

You just tasted the blood? Get out of there.

[David Bell]

Yeah. Even if it's fake blood, don't taste it. Don't taste it. It could be anything.

[Robert Evans]

That's crazy stuff.

[David Bell]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

When I was at Oxford, they kept trying to show me, like, you know, oh, here's where Tolkien worked, here's where C.S. lewis wrote. And I was like, where was Fox Mulder's dorm when he was canonically at Oxford?

[David Bell]

Yes. And he had sex on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's grave.

[Robert Evans]

And they were all like 20. And they were like, who is that? A graduate of Oxford. And I'm like, God damn it.

[David Bell]

Those young bastards.

[Robert Evans]

You fucking children. This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human. You know who else is a young bastard?

[David Bell]

Who?

[Robert Evans]

Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Well, us too, but yes. So you've probably listener. Obviously. Dave, again, as I stated, you're an expert on Saudi Arabia. Internationally recognized.

[David Bell]

That's correct.

[Robert Evans]

For the listeners who know less, Mohammed bin Salman is the crown prince and the current effective ruler of Saudi Arabia. His dad is the king, but he's not like super on the job right now, like most people tend to agree that his son is kind of the power behind the throne. The thing you will probably know him best for if you were a casual reader of news in Saudi Arabia, is that he's the guy who had that journalist bone sawed. Jamal Khashoggi from the Washington Post almost certainly ordered a team of people to have him killed and sawed up with the bone saw in Turkey. Yeah, he's that guy. And mbs, as he's generally called, is one of the most dangerous and in some ways competent bastards in the world today. He's a, he's a world leader who has been generally very successful in pushing his specific ideology and his specific plans. He's been running into increasing issues as he's gotten more power and as he's accumulated more power and as he's spent more time at the top. But it's kind of one of those things where his overall level of success has been pretty great. So you have to credit him as being extremely competent, at least kind of within his, his broad remit. Right. He has put his fingers on the scale to push anti democratic policies around the globe using his influence and the amount of money that the Saudis have through their oil wealth. And at home, he has mixed a series of dizzying reforms with unprecedented authoritarian crackdowns, often against members of his own family. Now, before we discuss how he got to where he is today and what he's done with his time in power, we need to talk the origins of his family. The House of Saud. As you might guess, the country of Saudi Arabia takes its name from the Saud family line, which has its origins in the 18th century in a small town on the Arabian peninsula named deiriya. In the mid-1700s, there was a religious leader in that town named Muhammad IBN Abd al Wahhab in the Arabian state of Najd who began preaching about the need to return to a pure form of Islam. He was angry at what he saw as the decadence and many moral compromises of the Ottoman caliph who had allowed such evils as relatively open socialization between unmarried men and women and women to work in the world. Right. Like ladies were getting jobs in the Ottoman Empire. Right. Particularly in the capital. Yeah, he was really unhappy about that. Like women are making money. No, no, no, no, no. He was also unhappy about a lot of art in the Ottoman world that depicted the human form, which you're not really supposed to do under the strictest interpretations of Islam. And he was unhappy about music. You're not supposed to have music. Right. There are certain kinds of what we would call music that just involves, like, harmonizing voices that are allowed, but you're not supposed to have, like, instruments. Right. These are all things that under. Yeah. Under the strictest interpretations of Islam. Right. Again, most Muslims that I have known, in most places in the Muslim world, you're going to encounter music. But not in the strict parts. Right.

[David Bell]

Yeah. I mean, it's. Every religion. Right. Is like, the strictest parts are always ridiculous. And most people, even if they subscribe to that religion, are going through and they're just like, yeah, we're not going to do that. Like, we'll have. It's fine.

[Robert Evans]

Like, you can run into, like, people who are, like, American Christian, anti Muslim folks who will be like, well, you know, if you. If they're actually following their religion, they're not supposed to do this and this and this. And it's like, well, if you were following the letter of the Bible, there's a lot of shit you shouldn't be doing that you're doing. Right.

[David Bell]

Yeah, exactly.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's.

[David Bell]

It's. It feels like it's all kind of part of the same thing, whether it be like these people or, I don't know, the Heritage foundation, where it's like, yeah, they're all the same kind of maniac.

[Robert Evans]

You could see Wahab as sort of like a Heritage foundation maniac of his time, where he's like, very minor compromises had been made with the hardest line version of the faith in order to exist in the increasingly modern world. And Wahab was like, fuck that shit. Like, we need to go back. Right? We have to return. He's really one of those guys. There's a lot of debate, and I am not a scholar of Islam on how theologically sound Wahhab's arguments are. Right. And this is not a podcast that. That doesn't matter for the. For our purposes today. What matters is that he had a lot of supporters. And one of these supporters was his local emir, a guy named Muhammad IBN Saud, who is the kind of founder. He's obviously not the first member of the House of Saud, but he is the guy who is generally seen as the founder of, like, the House of Saud, as a modern political dynasty. Right. And Muhabbn IBN Saud seems to have seen Wahhab as a useful tool for building a base of support. Saud was an ambitious man. The Arabia of his day was a scantily populated backwater with nomadic tribes who were constantly at each other's throats and too busy fighting to build a credible state. In 1744, Wahhab, again, this guy is basically the leader of a militant extremist religious movement of his day. He leads, like, a mob to destroy the tomb of one of the Prophet Muhammad's, framing it as an attack on idolatry, right? If you've got a tomb that is like a venerated spot, that's worshiping an idol, right? And you're not supposed to do that under the strictest interpretations of the religion. You know, like, that's kind of. His argument is that people were worshiping the tomb as opposed to, like, you're only supposed to worship God.

[David Bell]

The tomb is the place where his body is, though, right?

[Robert Evans]

Right. Yes.

[David Bell]

Like, that just seems like, what are we gonna do at that point? Point like that. That just. I don't know, man. That's. That's. That's. Yeah, strict.

[Robert Evans]

I guess that's exactly what it is, right? He also stones a woman to death for alleged adultery. I'm pointing, like, who knows what the term? Like, the standards of evidence back then were not high, right? And eventually he. He does a lot of shit like this. And Wahab has to go on the run because people get angry at him for being a giant dick and.

[David Bell]

For being an asshole.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, for being an asshole. And when he goes on the run, Muhammad IBN Saud takes him in and he kind of welds his followers. And this version of orthodox Islam, which has this. It includes all of these strict returns to, like, old rules, but it also includes these new calls for Arab nationalism, right? Which is an increasingly popular idea in the area right at the time. Arabs are not governing themselves themselves. They're under the rulership of a Turkish caliph in large part, right? We talk about this in the Lawrence of Arabia episodes. This is going to culminate in the early 1900s in the Arab revolution. But this is kind of a lot of the origins of a lot of that stuff, right? Is Wahhab is preaching that, like, we should be independent. And Ibn Saud is like, okay, well, if I. This guy just wants to be a religious figurehead, and he's willing to back my family as the ruling kings of an Arab kingdom, right? And that's what I want for my family. I don't want us to just be, like, local bigwigs. I want us to be the kings of the Arab world.

[David Bell]

In 1740 is Arab nationalism. I assume that it was very popular, right?

[Robert Evans]

Like, that idea, not yet it's starting to be because of Saud and Waha. Right. It starts to be popular. It's going to be very popular in the 1900s. Right. In 1745. They're kind of ahead of the curve. Right.

[David Bell]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. They're like the first punk bands.

[David Bell]

Yeah. I just think about how a lot of bad ideas will be couched in, you know, generally popular ideas, or the idea that this system isn't working, where it's like, they're not wrong. You know, it's like someone being like, hey, Twitter sucks. Let me buy Twitter. And then making Twitter even worse, where it's like, if you're exploiting, like, people's frustrations that are valid, you can sneak in all sorts of bullshit, I guess, is my point. Is it like that?

[Robert Evans]

It's. Yeah, it's kind of a. And it's kind of a symbol of how there's not enough. There's not enough, just raw support for the idea of an independent Arab state. So Saud has to kind of grab this crazy dude and his followers who are angry about, like, women working and people playing music to be like, if they're angry about other things, mostly, but they're willing to be angry about the thing I'm angry about, and if I get them on my back, they're crazy and they're willing to fight and die. Right. So, like, it kind of makes sense to partner up with these. These insane motherfuckers. It's a lot. Again, this happens all the time. Right. Like, the religious right is largely a factor of, like, very rich people whose primary goal was to not be taxed and to not have their workers have rights who are like, oh, these people are angry about, like, women weari wearing skirts and getting abortions. Well, if they're angry about taxes, too, if I can get them to oppose taxes too, then, like, yeah, throw them on the bus. Right.

[David Bell]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

That's kind of how reactionary movements always work.

[David Bell]

Yeah. It's just whoever's pissed off who can tolerate each other getting together, and, like, we can all.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's. Again, there are some legitimate grievances here. Arabs are being persecuted by the Ottomans, but there's a lot of, like, there's not enough persecution for there to be a large enough movement to cause a revolt on its own. So Saud has to find these maniacs and kind of get them on his side. So for about half a century in 1745, they establish what is technically a country. It's really just like a city state based around the city of Duria, which is today kind of like a suburb of Riyadh. Right. Riyadh is the current capital of Saudi Arabia. So basically that region, what is today the capital of Saudi Arabia, they have like a micro state that is ruled by the Saud family and is a semi independent. An independent Saudi state. Right. That exists in 1745 for about 50 years. A little. A little bit more than half a century. Right, A little more than 50 years. So that's a pretty good job. Right. Like they're able to kind of like make their own country for like two generations almost, until in 1819. Yeah, pretty good. Better than I probably would have done if I tried to make a breakaway stage.

[David Bell]

Mine will be done in an afternoon. Like, it won't even last a day.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. I really wish you'd been able to get hold of those nuclear missiles, Dave. But unfortunately without them, you're unlikely to secede from the United States.

[David Bell]

That's how they take you seriously.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah. We all learned that lesson from North Korea. So for half a century or so, the Saud family rules their new country from daria until in 1819. This kind of like the black and white teachings that Wahhabism are preaching leads to increasing conflicts with the Ottomans. The Al Saud rulers of the country run into a version of the same problem that afflicts any authoritarians who ally with crazy religious hardliners, which is that sooner or later they're going to try to get you to do crazy stuff for them because they think that's what God wants. Right. Like if you, if you hit yourself to these guys, they're going to make demands increasingly that you like, you have to do some crazy stuff. Right. Like you're on Team Crazy Guys. You have to do some crazy shit. Right.

[David Bell]

That's what you signed up for.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Don't you believe the crazy stuff.

[David Bell]

Well, this is. Sorry, this is just paralleling because obviously it's on my mind a lot, but today, where it's like, it feels like a lot of the far right, you have the grifters and then you have the true believers. Right. The people who are like, no, we're going to unmask the Deep State and get all the pedophiles and then the other people are like, no, no, no, no. This is like kind of a gris.

[Robert Evans]

No, we are the Deep State pedophiles.

[David Bell]

We just want money. Yeah, exactly. You don't understand. We're just trying not to pay a lot of taxes.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's a weird mix in this case, the Wahhabists believed that God wanted them to occupy Mecca and Medina and to sack Karbala, which is a town in Iraq, and destroy a tomb for Muhammad's grandson, which, again, people were, like, going to. To pray, basically. Right. This is the kind of thing the Ottomans were kind of fine with ignoring them while they were just running this backwater, but now they're trying to take the capital city of the faith and sack a random town and also take the second city of the faith. And that's just too. You're getting too busy. Right. And you don't have the ability to actually.

[David Bell]

Yeah, it's like a cult. Right. Is like, we all want to wear robes and, like, do drugs and hang out. And then they're like, why not? All right. Yeah. And then it's suddenly like, all right, everybody take a dagger and we're gonna stab ourselves. And you're like, well, no, I don't want to do that.

[Robert Evans]

You guys believe in the cult shit? Not that much. Right.

[David Bell]

It was in the terms. Terms and agreements. Like, did you not read them? Like, this was where it was heading.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So the. The Wahhabists accused the Ottoman governors of the state of not respecting Sharia law, which forbade idolatry. And the Ottomans don't react well to this. And unlike the Saudis, they have an army, like, a big army, because they're an empire. They're not like a good empire, but they're bigger than this backwater little town. So the first Saudi state gets crushed by Ottoman arms, their capital at Duriya was destroyed, and the Saud in charge is taken to Constantinople, where his head gets cut off. His body is posed, holding the severed head and displayed for three days before being thrown into the sea, which is, you know, one way to handle an insurrection.

[David Bell]

Yeah. Did it work?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, not in the long run. Not in the long run, but, you know, points for trying. If the Saud family was good at one thing, it was the fact that they were really good at making more of themselves. Right. This continues to be a strength of this family to the modern day. Despite the Ottoman Empire's best efforts, a prince managed to get free of their dragnet and survived to rebuild the family movement. This guy was Turkey Bin Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Saud, and he fought against the Ottomans to defend Duriyah, escaping after his son and two of his brothers were. He spends five years in exile in the desert, rebuilding an army and gathering followers to his banner. Biographer Ibrahim Al Khamis says this about the Turkey vowed to himself to stand firm in the face of enemies and to fight in battle, even if alone, carrying his sword, Al Ajrib, which he referred to in his famous poem. If every friend forsakes their friend, I will carry Al Ajrib as a steadfast companion. Right. Basically, if I don't have any other friends, at least I've got my knife. Which is pretty cool.

[David Bell]

Yeah, it's pretty badass, right? You can get a tattoo of that gangster.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Bell]

So I'm sure, like you said, they, like. There's a lot of them. I started picturing the scars, guards, like. Is it like that where if you strike down to.

[Robert Evans]

There'll just be three more comparisons? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[David Bell]

And are they, like, charismatic, like.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, they're charismatic. Like the Skarsgards. One of them was in the series. Andor like the Skarsgard. Yes, you can. Yeah. The Al Saud family's everywhere.

[David Bell]

The prime one.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, got it. So in 1824, this guy, Turkey, the kind of like inheritor of the Al Saud family, establishes a second Saudi state, moving the capital to Riyadh proper and governing there for about 10 years. Near the end of 1834, while he's kind of consolidating his power, he's fighting a series of battles against his rivals. And, you know, he's got to fight the Ottomans. But a lot of his rivals are members of his own family. Right. Because it's a big family and they're not all in agreement about who should be in charge. And near the end of 1834, after about 10 years of governing this revitalized Saudi state, Turkey is ambushed while leaving his mosque and slain by three assassins who had been hired by his second cousin, Mishari bin Abdul Rahman, who tried to make himself the new imam. Turkey's son Faisal returned home immediately after this and put an end to the insurrection. Although fighting would continue for another decade. This is going to be a common feature of the second Saudi state. Right. Is that they're all fighting each other. Right. That's kind of their biggest enemy. And honestly, even up to the modern day, the Saudi royal family spends a lot of time killing other members of the Saudi royal family. It's kind of one of their great pastimes.

[David Bell]

Yeah, well, you gotta have a pastime. I mean, that's the thing about power. Right. Is, like, never enough. Right. So, like, no, it'll just keep whittling down more and more. So if there's a family in power, it's like, well, who in the family is in power? And then you have Your own little power struggle within that family, you never have enough power.

[Robert Evans]

But you can have too many cousins, right? That's kind of the rule.

[David Bell]

Yeah, sorry.

[Robert Evans]

I have.

[David Bell]

I have eight uncles and aunts, so I have a lot of. Just on one side. And we're always trying to kill each other.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[David Bell]

I got a couple of them. They keep coming at me, but I'm very careful.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you have a lot of landmines in your yard. Speaking of killing your cousins, maybe our sponsors will help you do that. Or not, if you like them. And we're back. So Turkey alone creates about four branches of the new of the Saudi royal family, just one of which, the Al Faisal contains several thousand male descendants by the late 20th century. So that's like how prolific this family is. Is this one guy, because of how many kids he has, creates four branches of the family that are like thousands of people strong today. This brings us to what will become a pattern within the House of Saud, which is the sheer number of these guys causes a constant problem with political turnover, as there are always more princes and other royals who hate each other and think they really ought to be the branch of the family that's in charge. The second Saudi state ultimately collapses in 1891 as a civil war within the House leads to their defeat by the Al Rashid tribe and the destruction of the country. For more than a decade, the Al Saud family struggles to regain their lost glory. Many of them, like Abdul Aziz Al Saud, grandfather of Mohammed bin Salman, the guy we're talking about in these episodes, went into exile in places like Kuwait. Abdulaziz is probably the most significant member of this. Of the House of Saud. Right. He is the guy who establishes the modern Saudi state. Like I said, he goes into exile in Kuwait and he returns to Arabia in 1902 with an army. Right. He spent his time gathering power. He gets a bunch of desert warriors to his banner, and he shows up. In the early 1900s, intent on re establishing the Saudi state for a third time. He carries out a daring early morning assault on a fort near Riyadh called Masmak. They take the fort, kill the governor, who was a member of the hated Al Rashid tribe, and they retake Riyadh. In her book the man who Would Be King, Karen House writes, once again, they used religion just as his ancestors had, to help the Al Saud reconquer Arabia. He convinced the Bedouin to congregate in agricultural villages and adopt a sedentary life focused on puritanical Islam. Promoted by Muhammad IBN Abd al Wahhab. The Imam taught that belonging to the Ummah, or a community of believers, took precedence over other social bonds, including tribe. Anyone who made a judgment based on anything other than the Quran was a non believer. Still, it took Abdulaziz over 30 years to subdue and unite warring tribes under his rule. In 1932, he announced the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Now, this is a very short summary of a lot of complex history, but it gets across the key bullet points that are going to be important for our purposes. The House of Saud spends about 300 years viewing the Arabian Peninsula as theirs, and they repeatedly try to make that so. They create a series of states which often fail due to infighting until they succeed. And they are always backed in power by an alliance with religious hardliners, generally today called Wahhabists, who help them secure their power. And the main threat to said power over the years has been inability to stop killing each other. Right. These are all traits of the Saudi state up till the present day. The other key point here is that Saudi kings and princes have varied wildly in their competency and efficacy. Abdulaziz is very good. He's probably the best Saudi king in terms of his actual level of competency. He is the really, really on the ball leader who establishes the state when he takes power in 1932. Saudi Arabia is a poor country and most of its citizens live lives that are barely changed from the way Bedouin had been living for hundreds of years. The government maintained what control it could by doling out government salaries and bribes to tribal leaders to keep them loyal. This tapped the state treasury almost to the breaking point. Abdulaziz was able to put through some minor infrastructure improvements, but his only real sources of state income in the early period for the state are money that comes from pilgrims visiting Mecca for the Hajj and the zakat, which is a tax paid by non Muslims who live in the country. Britain also provided a stipend because of their role in helping to establish the Saudi state. So long as Abdulaziz could be relied upon to use his forces to crush fundamentalists who tried to launch insurrections in the places like Iraq, which were still controlled by the British Empire by the late 1930s, this whole house of cards is in danger of collapse. Abdulaziz has done kind of the impossible, but he's had to make a lot of compromises in order to do it. He's had to kind of throw a lot of his hardline followers under the bus by allowing unbelievers to control chunks of the Muslim world, including Iraq. And there's not really any money in the Saudi state yet because oil isn't worth much and they don't know that Saudi Arabia has it at the moment. It's a mark of his desperation that Abdulaziz sells Standard Oil of California, a concession to drill in his country for just £50,000. When his finance minister balks, Abdulaziz tells him, put your faith in God and sign. And that works out. That winds up being a really fucking good bet.

[David Bell]

Yeah, this is like. This is like 90s Marvel, where they're like, we don't know what we have yet. We're just selling it off to whoever.

[Robert Evans]

We'll give you $20 for this iron man character.

[David Bell]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And they're just. It's tourism. Did I hear that correctly?

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no, no. It's drilling. It's drilling.

[David Bell]

Well, there's also religious people coming there.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah, yeah. To Mecca and Medina. Right. Like, because you have. Muslims are supposed to. If they can go to Mecca. Right. To do the hajj at least once in their lives. And that brings in some money to the state. But you only get so much money from that.

[David Bell]

It's not Florida. It's not Florida where they're like, all right, we got this one thing going on for us that's just a little side. Little side hustle.

[Robert Evans]

It's a little side. It's not the kind of side hustle that having most of the world's oil is. Right. Which is going to be kind of their big hustle. Yeah.

[David Bell]

If I could choose between one or the other, I guess I would go for the world's oil.

[Robert Evans]

Right? Yeah. And that's going to work out for them. PER the book MBS by Ben Hubbard, quote, the discovery of oil in 1938 attracted speculators, technicians, oil companies, and representatives of Western governments seeking access to the kingdom's black gold, including the United States. In a secret meeting in 1945 between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz aboard an American warship in the Suez Canal, the two leaders hit it off, laying the groundwork for a lasting agreement that guaranteed American access to Saudi oil in exchange for American protection from foreign attacks.

[David Bell]

Now, this is funny how leaders always hit it off.

[Robert Evans]

They sure seem to. Right? Wow. The rich guy in charge of this country likes this other rich guy, huh?

[David Bell]

Yeah. You like money and power and, like. Yeah, me too. It's like, cool.

[Robert Evans]

You were born into money. Me too. Yeah.

[David Bell]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And this is. It kind of starts with fdr, the very Close relationship to this day that Saudi Arabia and the United States states enjoy like starts here. And from this point forward, money begins flowing into the peninsula in its millions and its tens of millions and eventually tens of billions. At the start of the third Saudi state, King Abdulaziz had agreed to curb the spread of fundamentalist Islam to maintain the favor of European colonizing powers. But now Saudi Arabia has money, and the Saudi royal family starts investing piles of it into spreading Wahhabist teachings around the world. Saudi Aramco, soon the world's most valuable company by a mile. This isn't the case today, but it is going to be the case for quite a while, allows the royal family to accumulate vast fortunes. This helps fund the further expansion of the family. King Abdulaziz married some 18 women and fathered more than 60 children. The next generation of his family would be freed from material concerns that had dominated their forebearers lives. Oil money provided stipends to the many hundreds of royal children. Right. This is like how Saudi royals live from now on. There's money coming into the state and a big chunk of it gets earmarked for the members of the house of Saud. Right. Vast fortunes of what should have been state funds start disappearing into the pockets of different royal family members as grift and graft become an increasingly accepted pastime. Large numbers of Saudi men, even outside of the family, are given government jobs that are themselves basically bribes to keep anyone from complaining about the endemic corruption. Right. So the Saudi royal family are all living luxurious lives for doing nothing, or at least lots of the Saudi royal family are. And regular Saudis get jobs that they basically have to do almost nothing. Right. In order to get enough money to live. Yeah.

[David Bell]

That's the thing about like corruption or like trying to run. Like you have to make enough people happy. Right. And otherwise it's just not going to last. So at some point, you know, enough people who, like, who matter, I guess, to you staying in power, have to be happy with it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And the first group that the family is concerned with is the other members of the family. Right. The princes lower down the line who. These are the guys who, if they were uncomfortable and they had to struggle, might become rivals for power. Right. So part of why you make sure they all get something is that then none of them want to rock the boat, which has been a continuing problem in the family. Ben Hubbard describes the state of like the. The Saudi royal family's basic welfare fund. Quote, there were thousands of them, all subsidized by the Saudi state in 1996, an American diplomat visited the office that distributed their monthly stipends and found a stream of servants picking up their master's allowances, which varied based on their status. The sons and daughters of king Abdulaziz received $270,000, his grandchildren up to 27,000, and his great grandchildren 13,000. The most distant relatives got $800. Princes also got million dollar bonuses to build their palaces when they got married, as well as perks for having children. The diplomat estimated that the stipends cost the state more than $2 billion per year, but that was merely a guess. Much of that money trickled into society to earn the royals the loyalty of the population. One of Salman's sons said he spent more than a million dollars of his own money during the holy month of Ramadan on hosting feasts for his subjects. But the royals still had large, commanding fleets of yachts, building palaces from Los Angeles to Monaco and taking foreign vacations so lavish that they caused economic booms in the communities where they landed. So they're doing pretty good, Even though about 40% of the country lives in poverty and about 40% of the Saudi youth are unemployed. Right. All of these princes are fairly comfortable.

[David Bell]

Right? Again, enough people. Just enough.

[Robert Evans]

Enough people. And one of the things that's remarkable at the Saudi state is how few Saudis actually have to work. Right. The majority of jobs in the country are done by foreign workers who are brought in. And often some of them are very close. It's a mix you have. Some of them are like Western workers who are paid pretty well by like Saudi Aramco. But the largest number of them are very close to slaves. And 90% of the private sector labor force is foreign born in Saudi Arabia by the 21st century, which is crazy. Right? Yeah, like that, that, that's like an unsustainable situation unless you've got all of this oil money sloshing in. The royal family increasingly starts to exist as a subculture within broader Saudi society. The constant infighting and sometimes deadly conflicts mean that the vast majority of royals know they're in potential danger anytime they attend a family gathering. It becomes the norm for everyone to memorize each other's birthdays so that they would all know at a glance who in the room was most senior and thus who they had to show deference to. Right. Like, you have to always be careful to make sure that you're not seen as, like, looking to get one up on your betters, because that could be dangerous to you.

[David Bell]

Right. See, that's, that's what the scars guys don't have to worry about because they know who's in charge at any given point. Like that's.

[Robert Evans]

That's definitely not Bill. Yeah.

[David Bell]

Yeah, exactly. And there's not too. Too many of them. That's part of the secret too, I feel like.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. Stellan. Unlike. Unlike the King, Salman Stellan does not keep a prison for members of his family who displease him. Right.

[David Bell]

Well, we don't know that so far.

[Robert Evans]

As we're aware of. Right, right. That's a good point. There's a couple. Skarsgard's unaccounted for as far as I've. As far as I'm concerned. King Abdulaziz establishes another key precedent for the House of Saud taking bloody vengeance upon their enemies. Early in his reign, several of the king's cousins put together an army to threaten Riyadh as part of a play to shift power to a different branch of the family. Abdulaziz smashes the army rather than negotiate. And his brutality convinces the village of Layla, where a lot of these guys had been, like, base to surrender. And the king condemns 19 leaders of the rebellion to death. He immediately issues a 24 hour stay of execution, not as an act of mercy, but so his men can erect a gallows at the entrance of the town and kill them all publicly. By dawn the next day, he has the rebels beheaded in pairs, each person killed by a black enslaved man with a sword. After the first 18 have been killed, the king pardons the 19th man and orders go tell his friends and family members about the justice and vengeance of King Abdulaziz. Right. Yeah. Go tell everybody. I could have killed you, but I didn't.

[David Bell]

Well, hold on. You're saying he made a public execution?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[David Bell]

And then he saved the last person who was like, go tell people what happened here. I. I wouldn't.

[Robert Evans]

I.

[David Bell]

Listen, I wouldn't say anything, but at the time I'd be thinking, like, I think they'll know it's public, but obviously I'm not going to argue.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[David Bell]

Yeah, I'm not gonna argue. I'll be like, yeah, I'll totally tell everybody about this.

[Robert Evans]

Sure, man.

[David Bell]

But still seems redundant. It just seems redundant. I think you could have killed that guy and his family would have known. But it's fine.

[Robert Evans]

I'm not gonna backseat. I'm not gonna give him this king, but yeah. Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was born into this increasingly weird and isolated world in 1935. This is Muhammad bin Salman, the subject of our episode dad. Right? So he comes into the world in 1935, which is about 10 years before the oil deal with FDR. His early years are spent living the traditional way. He's born before oil money becomes a thing in Saudi Arabia. He's living in tents in the desert several months out of the year. And he comes of age just as the house of Saud is flooded with oil money for the very first time. King Abdulaziz passes on in 1953, leaving a wealthy and powerful state after being born into exile because he had grown up conscious of the fact that the internal struggle for power had shattered their last state. On his deathbed, Abdulaziz begs his oldest son, Saud, and Faisal to join hands and swear to work together. And they totally swear to do that. And then as soon as he dies, they start fighting with each other, right? They're like, yeah, dad, we totally aren't gonna fight over the throne. Is it cold? All right, let's get at it.

[David Bell]

Oh, yeah. Let's get the weapons out.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[David Bell]

I'd created an arena, like, I would make it official, right?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, Yeah. A knife fight right in the. Right in the fucking hospital chamber.

[David Bell]

Oh, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

King Saud rules for 11 years, and he is not good at it. He is so corrupt that he has completely bankrupted the kingdom after a little over a decade. His younger brothers, headed by Faisal, have to ally to force him to go to exile in Greece, at which point Faisal takes over. Feisal is going to prove to be a much better king. He's one of the most successful Saudi monarchs. And in the 1970s, he embarks on an ambition, ambitious campaign to modernize the country and pull power away from the clerics. For a brief moment, it seems as if the kingdom is bending to secular modernity. And it becomes increasingly normal to see women with their heads uncovered socializing with men who aren't relatives. Televisions proliferate, and alcohol is common at parties hosted by members of the royal family. Right. The Saudi, at least the leaders of the Saudi royal family are increasingly, like, modern. And a lot of the religious hardliners seem to be losing power in the country. Faisal's chief innovation is splitting control of the military between three different princes in order to reduce the odds of a successful coup. Right. You kind of make sure no one has all of the military in their hands and just trust that no group of three Saudi princes will ever trust each other enough to work together.

[David Bell]

Yeah. It's very funny listening to this because it's like, it seems like all governments sort of naturally settle into a certain way. Right. Where it's like, okay, we need to cool it with the religious stuff. We need to allow people to just do whatever they want. Oh, we need to spread out power. So it's not just like, one person can make this decision. Like, it's not one to one. But it's just funny hearing this of like, yeah, this is. If you want to be in charge for a long amount of time in a functional way without everybody killing each other, it all kind of goes in this direction. It feels like.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[David Bell]

To work.

[Robert Evans]

Yep. Yep. In 1975, King Faisal is assassinated by his nephew in an act of vengeance for his brother, who had been executed by Faisal for protesting the king's decision to allow television in Saudi Arabia. So there's always backlashes to the modernizing. Right.

[David Bell]

Oh, man. Like, dying for television. To television.

[Robert Evans]

1975 TV. There's not even anything good on.

[David Bell]

I kind of get it. But you could if you told this person, like, don't worry. Once the Internet shows up, no one's gonna give a shit about television.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I don't think Cheers is even on the air yet, man. Right. What were you fighting for? God. While all this is going on, Prince Salman, MBS's father and the current king, is keeping his head down and avoiding making himself a target. He'd been born the 25th of Abdulaziz's 36 sons, and on paper, again, the 25th son of the now dead king shouldn't get anywhere close to the throne. Right. Like, you've got a lot of guys have to die for that to ever become your job. And he's not gonna become the king until, like, 2015. But he is distinguished from the start from a lot of his brothers and half brothers by the fact that he is willing to actually work. Like, he's not scared of actually doing a real job, which gets him promoted.

[David Bell]

Yeah, they're Nepo babies, but he's like Jack Quaid, where it's like, where. Like, yeah, you're a nipple baby of a. You're fine, you're fine. It's cool.

[Robert Evans]

I'd say he's the Nicolas Cage of King Abdulaziz, right? Where he's like. He's definitely, like, he gets a head up because of who he is. But he's also in Face Off. You know, a lot of people don't know that about the current king of Saudi Arabia, that he was in the movie Face off, but he was.

[David Bell]

Good for him.

[Robert Evans]

It's not impossible. You can't prove he wasn't. So when his. When this guy's half brothers and brothers, they're all fighting throughout this period of time for the choicest positions from which they can largely just shunt oil money into their own pockets while not doing anything. Prince Salman actually works, and he focuses on building a base of support. He sits down with citizens who need his royal help, and he makes deals with business interests in his area who provide him with support throughout his life. And he gets invited by influential clerics to his court to discuss, like, religious things and whatnot. You know, he's kind of making himself well known with the thinkers and doers in Saudi society. He develops a reputation for seriousness and a relative lack of corruption, which is not to say he's not corrupt, but he's not, like, primarily motivated by money. In fact, he's poor by the standards of the Saudi royal family. He's not a poor man, but he's not, like, just in it to suck cash out of the family oil money. He's doing something right.

[David Bell]

The bar is low.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, exactly. Just like Nicolas Cage was poor after he had to give all that money back to Mongolia for buying dinosaur bones illegally.

[David Bell]

Exactly. Where you're like, he's poor, but like.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he's Nicolas Cage poor. He's just gonna do a couple more face offs, you know, and he's gonna be fine. Now, some of the fact that he, like, has financial issues has to do with the fact that he has a lot of kids like his dad, although not. Not a crazy amount of kids, but he's still pretty kid. Having his first wife, Sultana, gives him five sons and one daughter. Now, because their branch of the family can't count on a vast fortune of grafted oil money, Prince Salman raises his sons to be hard workers who, in a reversal from the norm for scions of the royal family, actually grow up knowing how to do stuff. His oldest son, Fahd, went to school in the west and developed a deep understanding of how to communicate with Americans and Europeans. His second son, Sultan, joined the Saudi Air Force and became the first Muslim in space as an astronaut on the shuttle discovery. In 1985. His third son, Ahmed, studied mining in Colorado and graduated from Wentworth Military Academy and then enlisted in the Saudi Air Force. His fourth son, Abdulaziz, went to work in the oil industry and became an expert on modernizing Saudi energy extraction methods. While his kids work diligently, the Kingdom struggles. In 1979, the country still reeling from Feisal's assassination, endures another shock. On November 20, 1979, 50,000 worshipers crowded into the Grand Mosque in Mecca. As the Imam finishes giving his blessings, hundreds of armed men begin rushing forward, firing into the air and forcing people away from the doors. A gang of militants grab the Imam's microphone and held a dagger to his neck. All 51 doors to the mosque are chained shut. Thousands of people are taken prisoner. The guy responsible for this massive act of terrorism is Johaiman Al Oytabi, an anti monarchy Islamist insurgent who had put together a small army of around 600 rebels. He and his followers hated the House of Saud for allying with Christian infidels in order to make their fortunes and accused the royal family of betraying Islam. Al U Taibi and his followers also believe that one of the group's leaders, Muhammad Abdullah Al Qahtani, was the Mahdi. For the sake of brevity, it's enough to know that the Mahdi is basically Islam's equivalent of the second coming. He's a messianic figure whose arrival heralds the of days. So these guys have now taken the holy mosque and Saudi soldiers spend days trying to retake it. But the rebels have a commanding position and they massacre anyone who comes close. The Saudi government has to reach out to France and get the help of an elite unit of commandos. And I'm going to quote next from Lawrence Wright's book, the Looming. Because of the prohibition against non Muslims entering the holy city, they converted to Islam. In a brief formal ceremony, these French commandos. The commandos pumped gas into underground chambers. But perhaps because the rooms were so bafflingly interconnected, the gas failed and the resistance continued with casualties. Climbing Saudi forces drilled holes in the courtyard and dropped grenades into the rooms below, indiscriminately killing many hostages but driving the remaining rebels into more open areas where they could be picked off by sharpshooters.

[David Bell]

That is so messy.

[Robert Evans]

It's so many different ways. Like, first off, is it not worse to fake that they're Muslim now? Like, is that not worse?

[David Bell]

Any mission that starts with, okay, we're going to need you to pretend to convert to Islam. I would be like, all right, let's, let's take a step back here. Let's look at the bigger plan first.

[Robert Evans]

Did none of these French commanders go like, sir.

[David Bell]

They'Re like, it's fine, you can lie, you can lie.

[Robert Evans]

It's fine to lie. It's apparently fine to lie.

[David Bell]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And also, though guests didn't work, I just, we dropped grenades indiscriminately into the mosque.

[David Bell]

Oh God, that's Why? They're like do we like yeah, what's the point in converting to then drop grenade? Like how is that?

[Robert Evans]

Is Al Anon angry at this?

[David Bell]

Like what, what rulebook are they going by? Like I'm trying to think of like the afterlife of like who is checking things off of like is it the air bud idea where they're like well there's no rule that says they can't do this according to our rules. You did it.

[Robert Evans]

I would imagine just in a mom with like 40 cigarettes in his mouth reading the. It's fine. It takes two bloody weeks.

[David Bell]

It's nut stuff.

[Robert Evans]

It takes two bloody weeks for the rebels to surrender. The so called Mahdi is killed during the fighting while Al otaibi and nearly 70 of his followers are captured alive. In total, about a thousand people die during the fighting. A mix of soldiers, civilian worshippers and insurgents. 63 militants are ultimately beheaded for their parts in the attack. The fallout from all of this is substantial. As Karen House writes in the man who Would Be King, Saudi religious clerics actually felt sympathy for the militants occupying the mosque. The imam's sermon that very morning lamented the kingdom's moral decay. And the revolt's leader had studied with the Imam he now held captive. His goal was to end what he saw as the Al Saud's tolerance of infidel innovations like women working and mixing with women. Or the government's tolerance of Shias, a sect of Islam that he and his fanatics saw as heritage Catholics, not Muslims. The Wahhabist clerics, they find themselves in a tough position after this. Right. Their power is tied to the House of Saud who just made kind of the biggest compromise with hardline Islam imaginable. You know, like it's kinda, it's, it's pretty tough to top that.

[David Bell]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So this is rough. The most prominent of these clerics issue a fatwa which doubles down on the legitimacy of the House of Saud but demands that the the current rulers of the kingdom stop flouting the rules. As Karen House writes of what would come in the no more movies, no more alcohol, no more women on television, no more gender mixing anywhere, no more soccer to distract youth from studying Allah's Holy Quran. Almost overnight, everything changed in Saudi Arabia. During my first visit in 1978, I attended a dinner at oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani's house in Jeddah where men and women mixed. Alcohol was plentiful. And after dinner the minister and his guests watched a table feed of the 1978 World Cup Soccer final between between Argentina and the Netherlands. Just the sort of evening deplored by religious clerics.

[David Bell]

So no more fun.

[Robert Evans]

No more fun is going to be the rule in Saudi Arabia after this point. But there's also gonna be no more fun for a minute here because we're gonna have our second ad break.

[David Bell]

Ads are fun.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that's good. And we're back. How you feeling about Saudi Arabia, Dave? It's going good.

[David Bell]

Yeah, Always. Like I said, I'm an expert on this, so everything you're telling me are things I already knew. I'm just humoring you. It's like when you talk to a kid about Star wars and the kids discovering things and you're like, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I'm just imagining now, in the International Anti Terrorist Commando Handbook, they're like the. They're like that one character in the Mummy where they just have a bunch of different religious symbols on necklaces that they're like, okay, which country am I going into? All right, this is the religion I am for the time being.

[David Bell]

It's tough, man. When you inject money into any situation, everybody in that situation loses their goddamn minds.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. That's the one constant rule of the world, is that as soon as people get access to billions of dollars in oil money, they go fucking crazy.

[David Bell]

They lose their minds.

[Robert Evans]

A lot of why Saudi Arabia is so fucked up in the religious ways that it is and has been for most of the modern era comes down to the fact that they were following a pretty natural path of people being like, I don't know, we're rich now. Do we need to abide by all of these crazy religious strictures? Like, we're okay being Muslim. We don't have to be such hardliners about all of the batshit stuff. And then there's this hideous terrorist attack, and the government responds in the worst way they possibly could.

[David Bell]

They're like, terrorism wins.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So many people are like, okay, but we're gonna become assholes again. Don't worry. We did drop grenades in the mosque. We understand that's a problem. But women will no longer get to be on television. Are you cool with us now? Can we keep being rich? Yeah. And it turns out, yeah, it just.

[David Bell]

I don't know. You just. It's that battle between, like, I get the idea of having a set of beliefs, not necessarily these beliefs, but beliefs that you're like, you stand by and you have certain rules in your life. When you try to apply that to a country, it always gets messy where it's like, no, I Need everybody be doing this stuff. Meanwhile, the country's like, we just want to have good relations with our neighbors and prosper and make money. Or make a stupid amount of money in this case. And it's just like, it's just not going to work. All these factors are not going to work. Or maybe they do. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I mean, it's going to work because of the amount of money behind them. It's going to work longer than it probably should have. Right, that's true.

[David Bell]

It's like going to like, Prince's house, where you're like, he has enough money that he also can have, like, weird rules at his house. Right?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[David Bell]

Everybody is just gonna go, like, all right, fine.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, sure, Prince. I mean, I get to hang out at your house. So that seems cool. Yeah, exactly. It's also a case where like, okay, so you had French commandos fake being Muslim and then drop grenades in the holiest mosque. And the consequence of this is women don't get to be on TV anymore. Huh? Okay, yeah, that's really hitting the main problem. Okay, so for the next 20 years and change after this point, fundamentalist Islam becomes more and more entrenched in Saudi Arabia, as does the power of the religious police to punish men and women who violated even the smallest rules. Karen notes that before 1979, it had been acceptable for foreign women especially to go about their business without their heads covered. This becomes impossible by the start of the 1980s. As the clerics crack down, the House of Saud goes through a spate of particularly weak and incompetent kings. King Faisal is followed by King Khalid, who wanted the job so little that he hands power right away to his son, the crown prince, who succeeds him in 1982. This guy, King Fahd, was more interested in chilling on his yacht than governing. And he half asses the job himself until he as a stroke in 1995, it was into this Saudi Arabia saddled with a series of basket case kings and riven with financial corruption, straining under the weight of increasingly radical and restrictive religious laws, that the subject of our episodes for this week and next week. Mohammed bin Salman is born on August 31, 1985, and we will talk about his life and how he comes to power in subsequent episodes. But Dave, this has been part one. You're introduced.

[David Bell]

Sorry, I didn't realize I'm older than him.

[Robert Evans]

That bums me. Yes, you are. That is a bummer. He's a little older than me, but not much.

[David Bell]

Yeah, he could have us killed today. And he's younger.

[Robert Evans]

He's had a lot of people killed. He's had a lot of people killed, you know? Yeah. I feel like I could take him in a straight fight, but, yeah, he does have planes and stuff, and I don't have planes.

[David Bell]

Right. Not yet.

[Robert Evans]

Not yet. Yeah.

[David Bell]

It's like learning that Finn Wolfhard was born after 9 11, where it's just like, man, I haven't done shit with my life.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Well, it's also. If we'd had a Finn Wolfhard In 2001, they never would have tried to take those towers. There would have been too high a chance that a Finn Wolfhard might have been on the plains, you know, he's too precious.

[David Bell]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he's too. They would say how much they'd be scared of his name with you or like. No, they wouldn't want to risk Finn Wolfhard.

[David Bell]

No, his name is Finn Wolf.

[Robert Evans]

Wouldn't take that danger.

[David Bell]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Anyway.

[David Bell]

Anyway, what were you saying? Something about a podcast.

[Robert Evans]

Where can people find you on the interweb. Com.

[David Bell]

I can be reached at. So just Google gamefully unemployed. G A M E F U L L Y. Unemployed. Like Robert, like you said, it's a movie podcast. It's just bitching about movies. Very low stakes, but fun. And then, yeah, we have, like, our Patreon, where we have a bunch of extra stuff. We've made like 2,000 podcasts. It's too many, but you can find that. I'm the head writer at Some More News. Again, Google some More News. Completely different vibe than the movie podcast thing. So if you like politics and like doom or you like people complaining about Marvel movies, I got you covered for those two things, so check that out.

[Robert Evans]

Excellent. Well, everybody, this has been behind the Bastards. We will be back in due time, but until we're back, think about us every waking second. Don't think about driving. Close your eyes. If you're driving right now, you know, get on the road, close your eyes, drift off, fall asleep, you know?

[David Bell]

Yep. Let, you know, like, let instinct guide you.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it'll be fine.

[David Bell]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Bye. Behind the Basterds is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel, YouTube.com behindthebastards. This is an Iheart podcast. Guaranteed human.