Saudi Arabia on Edge @ National Geographic Magazine

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Saudi Arabia on Edge
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Alan Mairson

Land of Sand, Sea of Oil

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By Frank Viviano

Photographs by Reza

Tribal traditions and modern wealth clash in the birthplace of Islam—a kingdom in the political hot seat since 9/11.

Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

At 3 a.m. miles of freeways and boulevards are locked in a traffic jam of gas-guzzling, mostly American, cars headed for shopping malls that remain open until sunup. Macho sport utility vehicles are the ride of choice among affluent young men, Lincolns and Chevys among their parents. In the malls, store aisles throb with music videos blasting out techno and rap as salesmen hawk subscriptions to satellite television—technically illegal in Saudi Arabia—with a success rate that has made satellite dishes ubiquitous on the rooftops of Saudi cities. If not for the neon signs in Arabic, the streets of Jeddah tonight could pass for downtown Los Angeles or Dallas or Houston.

Up and down chic Tahliyah Street, carloads of teenage boys, with baseball caps worn rakishly backward and their ankle-length robes tossed aside in favor of baggy, low-slung pants, idle alongside cars full of teenage girls driven by chauffeurs.

As I take in the scene with "Hassan" (not his real name), my 18-year-old guide, a green Chevy slowly passes a silver Jeep Cherokee, and a blizzard of paper flies between their vehicles.

"What was that all about?" I ask.

"They're 'numbering,' " Hassan explains. "A girl writes her cell phone number on a piece of paper, rolls it into a ball, and throws it at a boy. Then she waits for a call."

But the flirting, with its paper-wad blizzards and cell phone dates, has a distinctive Saudi twist: The girls are still covered from head-to-foot in the black gown known as the abaya, their faces hidden behind veils.

"Otherwise the mutawaeen might go after them," Hassan says, referring to the state religious police, the agents of a theocratic law-and-order system that dates back more than a thousand years.

Jeddah, in the middle of the night, is the paradox of contemporary Saudi Arabia writ large. "We are being carried in two directions at once, backward and forward," says Suad al-Yamani, a Saudi neurologist who sees, in her patients, the disorienting effects of changes that have rocketed a deeply conservative society from the 7th to the 21st century in the span of a few decades.

The stakes are beyond exaggeration, for Saudi Arabia is not simply another traditional country coping with change. As keeper of the Muslim holy cities, Mecca and Medina, it serves as the chief custodian of Islam and the spiritual home of 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide.

Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

Despite the friendship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, the two nations are very different: One is a democracy. The other follows strict theocratic law that has come under international scrutiny since 9/11. What do you see in the future for U.S.-Saudi Arabia relations? Join the discussion.

In More to Explore the National Geographic magazine team shares some of its best sources and other information. Special thanks to the Research Division.

The world's largest integrated dairy farm, Al Safi, is located in the Saudi Arabian desert, 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Riyadh. The dairy is a result of the 1973 Arab oil embargo against Western nations. During the embargo, the Saudi royal family realized their nation couldn't rely on food imports from other countries. Vowing the kingdom would become self-sufficient, the royal family set out to revolutionize agriculture in the mostly arid country.

Through government subsidies, Saudi farmers were able to import irrigation equipment to grow grain. They also imported dairy cattle from Europe, Canada, and the United States. Al Safi, which is owned by the royal family, quickly became the largest dairy in the country and then the world.

Al Safi has more than 29,000 head of Holstein-Friesian cows, which produce 122,000 gallons (462, 000 liters) of milk a day, supplying 33 percent of the kingdom's dairy market. These cows survive in temperatures that drop to freezing in the winter and soar to 115º Fahrenheit (46º Celsius) in the summer. There's no grass in the desert for them to eat, so all their food is grown on the farm. The cows' water is pumped from 6,000 feet (1,800 meters) underground. Each cow uses about 30 gallons (100 liters) a day for drinking (and cooling off) via sprinkler systems in the shed.

—Marisa Larson

Did You Know?

Arab News
www.arabnews.com
Read about world and regional affairs from the Arab viewpoint. Arab News is one of the leading Middle Eastern newspapers in English.

Saudi Arabia Enters the 21st Century
www.csis.org/burke/saudi21
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is undertaking a new project to examine the trends shaping the future of Saudi Arabia and its impact on the stability of the Persian Gulf. Read reports on Saudi Arabia's government, economy, military, and foreign affairs.

Saudi Arabia Information Resource
www.saudinf.com
Created by the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information, the Saudi Arabian Information Resource contains more than 2,000 pages of information on every aspect of the kingdom.

Saudi Aramco
www.saudiaramco.com/cgi-bin/bvsm/home.jsp
Learn how the oil industry started in Saudi Arabia and how it is being managed today. Visit the website of the government-run company, which controls a quarter of the world's oil supply.

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