Talal ibn Abd al-Aziz

Talal ibn Abd al-Aziz

Talal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Saud ( Arabic طلال بن عبد العزيز آل سعود, DMG Ṭalāl b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Āl Saʿūd ; * August 15, 1931 in Taif , Saudi Arabia ; † December 22, 2018 ) was a prince from the house of Saud and the 20th son of the state founder of Saudi Arabia Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud . Prince Talal, who is considered progressive, was an unofficial adviser to his half-brother, the Saudi King Abdullah ibn Abd al-Aziz (15th son of Ibn Saud), and a member of the 19-member Royal Saudi Family Council (Majlis al- ʿĀʾila al-mālika as-saʿūdiyya). Prince Talal's firstborn son is the multi-billionaire al-Walid ibn Talal (* 1955).

origin

In 1921 Talal's father Abd al-Aziz (before the founding of the kingdom in 1932) broke the last resistance of his adversaries, the Ar-Rashid clan, in the Nefud desert north of Riyadh . Abd al-Aziz triumphantly visited the emir of the trading settlement Unayza halfway to the Iraqi border and (according to family information ) was presented with a beautiful twelve-year-old girl, Munayer, who later became Talal's mother. Munayer's parents were likely Armenian Christians . Three years later Munayer gave birth to the king's son, named Talal, who died in 1927. Munayar, who has since converted, gave birth to another boy in 1930 (?) Who, according to Bedouin tradition, was named after his deceased brother. In the early 1940s, Abd al-Aziz divorced his fourth wife and married Munayar, thereby legitimizing their descendants.

education

As the son of his father's favorite wife, Talal received preferential education and treatment. He was educated in the royal Qasr al-Murabba palace in Riyadh and was one of the first princes to learn foreign languages. Talal became the favorite son of the aging king and was entrusted with the financial affairs of the palace, the center of the Saudi government. Talal was also one of the first princes to tour the world extensively. Although 14 older half-brothers stood before him in line to the throne, he seemed to have a golden future.

King Abd al-Aziz died in 1953. He was succeeded by his son Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz , a half-brother of Talal. In 1957 Mona Sulh, daughter of the first Prime Minister of the independent Lebanon Riad as-Solh , gave birth to Talal's firstborn son Walid . Talal and Mona divorced in 1960, which is why Walid grew up with his mother in Beirut until 1968. In 1968, Talal urged his son to return to Saudi Arabia to attend the Abdul Aziz Military Academy in Riyadh.

Act

Free princes

On March 7, 1954, King Saud appointed a new Council of Ministers. The office of first minister for communication was given to the 29-year-old Prince Talal, who until then had been the commander of the royal guard. Talal was also briefly Minister of Economics and Finance. March 22, 1958 went down in the family chronicle of the Al-Saud dynasty when twelve young princes ("Young Najd ", named after the Saud region of origin) sought a meeting between the members of the royal family in the family council, chaired by Prince Abdullah was conducted. Prince Mohammed and Prince Talal called on King Saud to abdicate, while others called for full executive power to be handed over to Crown Prince Faisal .

Talal had drawn up a provisional constitution for Saudi Arabia in 1958 , which provided for a constitutional monarchy and extended civil rights , as well as curtailing the privileges of the royal family. He also began to set up an advisory council (shura) to be elected. However, his ideas were rejected by King Saud and religious leaders issued a fatwa on this constitution because it contradicted Sharia law . In 1961, the Kingdom revoked Prince Talal's ID and tried to silence him politically. Talal then went into exile with like-minded princes in Cairo , where he publicly criticized the House of Saud and from where he carried out anti-Saudi radio propaganda. In August 1962, Prince Talal founded the reform-oriented movement of the "Free Princes" (or Free Emirs , Arabic الأمراء الأحرار, DMG al-umarāʾ al-aḥrār ; based on Nasser's Free Officers ). They sympathized with the socialist ideas of the Egyptian head of state Gamal Abdel Nasser and called for constitutional reforms for Saudi Arabia. In Cairo, Talal declared himself a socialist and since then has also been known under the name "The Red Prince".

During the civil war in North Yemen (1962-1967), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia supported the monarchy of the older Kingdom of Yemen , while nationalist Egypt stood on the side of the newly proclaimed nationalist Yemeni Arab Republic . After the defeat in the Six Day War , Egypt withdrew from the Yemeni war zone. In the event of a victory in Egypt, the Free Princes would have stood ready to assert a claim to leadership in Saudi Arabia and to disempower King Saud and Crown Prince Faisal.

As early as 1964, King Saud was ousted by the previous Crown Prince Faisal. Talal agreed to moderate his criticism in order to be able to return to Saudi Arabia.

philanthropist

Talal was re-accepted into the royal family, but without taking an official position in the hierarchy of the state. He became a successful businessman (construction contracts, real estate dealers) and prominent philanthropist who successfully got involved in charitable organizations that advocated educational, women's and drinking water projects. The Saudi media gave him the name "children's prince".

Interviews and Politics

After Faisal's successor, King Fahd ibn Abd al-Aziz, suffered a stroke, his half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, effectively ran state affairs.

In 1998, Prince Talal broke his political silence and publicly called for reforms in the government. Some observers saw this as a ruse to promote the political ambitions of his son Walid. Talal is one of the few princes to publicly address grievances in Saudi Arabia. In April 1998 he caused a scandal when he criticized the unregulated succession to the throne of the Saud dynasty and raised the possibility of a coming power struggle that could shake Saudi Arabia as long as no mechanism of succession is installed. In the power struggle for the succession of King Fahd between Crown Prince Abdullah on the one hand and the so-called Sudairi Seven for the second of the line of succession and current Crown Prince Sultan ibn Abd al-Aziz on the other hand, Talal and his son Walid sided with Abdullah.

In 1999, Prince Talal returned to politics as a member of the inner core of the Saud family council and became an advisor to Crown Prince Abdullah. Talal also accompanied Abdullah on official trips abroad.

In an interview with Associated Press , he urged Saudi Arabia "to find a smooth way to pass the monarchy on to the next generation, or to expect a power struggle after the era of the old princes is over." Saud's king, which will only succeed for about 20–30 years, so that the second generation will provide the next kings. In another interview with Egyptian state television, he declared his support for the Egyptian candidate for the post of UNESCO Secretary General, even though Saudi Arabia had its own candidate. After the interviews, tensions rose between Talal, Walid and the Sudairi Seven. The Saudi government paid $ 10 million for newspaper ads calling for King Fahd to forbid Talal from making "bizarre" statements and newspaper ads denouncing Walid's investment of most of his fortune outside the Arab world.

In a Reuters interview (1999), Prince Talal predicted "women will gain rights within a few years." A month later, the issuing of ID cards to women was announced, which began in 2000. Likewise in 1999, Talal called for a relaxation of state censorship in Saudi Arabia in an interview with Spiegel. He said that "we are still a tribal society that is not ripe for political parties". In 2000, the kingdom relaxed its press law.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the United States , the older princes of the House of Saud fell on the defensive and appeared increasingly in the international press. Talal advised the US to listen more to the Arab world. In a report on the prince, the Associated Press quotes Talal's view of Palestinian suicide bombers: "they're strugglers and fighters for their country." He said of fundamentalists, “It's all about sex ... Every time they see a woman, they see her (as a sex object). The strange thing is you're applying this to your mother, your sister, your wife. "

Although Christians are banned from practicing their religion in Saudi Arabia, Talal has advocated the presence of Christians in Saudi Arabia and has caused a stir.

In September 2007 Talal announced the founding of a secular party that would not be directed against the reform-minded king, but rather against the interior minister Naif ibn Abd al-Aziz and his backward supporters.

In view of the threatened protests in the Arab world that threatened to spread to Saudi Arabia , Prince Talal called for urgently needed reforms in the kingdom in February 2011.

Offices

• Special Ambassador for Water from UNESCO (2003)
• President and founding member (1980) of the NGO of the Development Program of the Arab Gulf States (AGFUND)
• President of the Arab Council for Childhood and Development
• President of the Arab Open University (AOU), under the umbrella of AGFUND, Talal promoted the establishment of the AOU in 2002
• Founding member of the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues (ICIHI)
• Curator in the Mentor Foundation

Others

Prince Talal founded the first private girls' school in Riyadh in 1957 and the city's first private hospital in 1957.

On November 16, 2011, he resigned as a member of the Baya Commission. Reasons were not given.

The amateur radio call sign of Prince Talal is SU1VN / P.

In the Swedish children's film Min vän shejken i Stureby My Friend the Sheikh (1997), Prince Talal is portrayed by Camal Ben-Hamou.

swell

1. ↑ Saudi Arabia's Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz passes away
2. ↑ Saudi Arabia's ruling family, 42 men are in charge , Der Spiegel, August 1, 2005
3. ↑ Henner Fürtig : Stability Analysis Saudi Arabia ( Memento from August 6, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; in the Internet Archive ), menavision 2010, Deutsches Orientinstitut
4. ^ ^{A b c} John Rossant: The return of Saudi Arabia's Red Prince , Asia Times Online, March 19, 2002
5. ^ THE PRINCE , Business Week , September 25, 1995
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Dossier: Prince Al-Walid bin Talal ( Memento of the original from April 26, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Middle East Intelligence Bulletin (MEIB), Vol. 4, No.9 
7. ^ Swords & Missiles: The Search for Security , Committee Against Corruption in Saudi Arabia
8. ^ Associated Press, Interview with Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz, June 7, 1999
9. ↑ Reuters, Interview with Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz, October 4, 1999
10. ^ Adel S. Elias: A fresh wind must blow . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 1999, pp. 134 ( online ).
11. ↑ Saudi Prince Wants More Openness ( April 30, 2008 memento on the Internet Archive ), Associated Press, April 20, 2002; in the Internet Archive
12. ↑ Talal ibn Abdul Aziz al-Saud: Christian Arabs stay! ( PDF ( Memento from October 26, 2005 in the Internet Archive ); in the Internet Archive ), publication of the Roman Orthodox Church of Antioch to Naschra, issue 2/2002, p. 6, translation in ECH, Unity of Christians in Hamburg, No. . 34 - 2nd quarter 2002, p. 6; Saudi Arabia expels Christians , ORF, February 6, 2002
13. ↑ Rebel Prince . In: Der Spiegel . No. 38 , 2007, p. 132 ( online - September 17, 2007 ).
14. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger online: Saudi Arabia next? dated February 18, 2011
15. ↑ UNESCO Special Envoy for Water
16. ↑ Development Program of the Arab Gulf States (AGFUND), Arab Gulf Program for United Nations Development Organizations
17. ↑ Arab Council for Childhood and Development (ACCD)
18. ↑ Arab Open University and AOU, UNESCO and This open university we're exporting to the Arabs is more of a closed one , Daily Telegraph September 9, 2005
19. ↑ Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues ( Memento of the original dated May 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , successor body to the ICIHI 
20. ^ Mentor Foundation, Council of Trustees ( Memento of August 28, 2005 in the Internet Archive ); in the Internet Archive

literature

• Mordechai Abir: Saudi Arabia. Government, Society and the Gulf Crisis. Routledge, London et al. 1993, ISBN 0-415-09325-2 .
• Prince Talal ibn Abdul Asis al Saud , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 20/1981 of May 4, 1981, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• PrinceTalal.net