Saudi succession

Following the recent death of Fahd ibn Abdel-Aziz ibn Saud, there are now at least 18 other sons of Abdel-Aziz– or most likely, more– who potentially could be in line to the throne, after Abdullah ibn Abdel-Aziz, the new king. Miqrin, the youngest of these awlad (children of) Abdel-Aziz, is indeed in his fifties, and has many uncles who are patrilineal grandsons of Abdel-Aziz who are older (and most probably wiser) than him.
Many of those grandsons, including longtime Foreign Minister Prince Saud ibn Faisal ibn Abdel-Aziz, 64, could also plausibly think they have some claim to the throne at some point. And I’m sure Saud al-Faisal is by no means the oldest “prince” of his generation…
So when will the generational handover take place? Who knows?
To supplement what I wrote here last week, I offer you the following analysis of succession issues in Saudi Arabia, which comes from Michael Herb of Georgia (USA) State University, with his permission. Michael was doing a quick analysis of the Saudi Press Agency reports of the recent bay’a proceedings, in which everyone who’s anyone in (the male half of) Saudi society came forward to swear fealty to the new king:

[T]he order of names in the Saudi Press Agency announcement is by age. The order of precedence among sons of Ibn Saud can be deduced from these press releases, and from the Saudi press generally, which often lists the princes who attend various events. The order across SPA press releases is consistent. The list differs in some details, however, from the birth order that is given in standard English language sources on the Al Saud.
This order is relevant to the succession, as the succession has typically gone to the “eldest able” son of Ibn Saud. The sons (or those of them who showed up in the SPA releases that I looked at) are listed in the following order: Bandar, Musa’id, Mishaal, Sultan [the new Crown Prince], Abd al-Rahman, Mitab, Talal, Badr, Turki, Nawwaf, Nayif, Fawwaz, Salman, Mamduh, Abdulilah, Sattam, Ahmad, Miqrin. This overrepresents sons who are currently in Riyadh. A more complete list could be deduced from examining more press releases, though there surely is a master list, and it must be widely available to the Saudi press…
If this were a standard succession among the Al Saud, the family would go down the list, starting with the eldest after Sultan, and skipping princes who are felt to be unqualified for one reason or another, or who decline the honor, until a suitable prince is found. In the past, only one or two princes have been skipped. The family has already passed over the three eldest on this list.
Continuing this practice, without skipping a large number of eligible princes, will produce a permanent gerontocracy. There is nothing in the traditions of the Gulf monarchies that suggests that the ruling family cannot abandon the practice of appointing the “eldest able” son when it no longer serves the interests of the family. Of course, that does not mean that the rule will be dropped this time. If the rule is dropped, grandsons will be eligible. It is worth noting that the order of protocol given in the SPA releases (and in the Saudi press generally) does not list the sons first, then the grandsons. Instead, grandsons are listed according to
their age, and can be listed before sons of Ibn Saud (the older grandsons are decades older than the youngest sons). Thus Fahd bin Muhammad bin Abdalaziz is listed before Abd al-Rahman bin Abdalaziz. To judge from the practice of other Gulf monarchies, it is unlikely that a grandson will be chosen if his father was not a king, or at least a very, very prominent prince. Faysal, of course, was the most prominent king since Ibn Saud.
None of this allows for a prediction of who the next second deputy will be. Talal could make an argument that he should be appointed: he is a senior son. Whether or not the rest of the family (that is to say, the senior members) agree is something that we will eventually find out. Campaigning for the job via the press is not a very good way to get it.
Finally, I doubt that much should be made of omissions in any particular list of those who gave the new king and crown prince the bay’a. A separate press release, for example, noted that Khalid al-Faysal, the governor of Asir (and a son of Faysal), gave his bay’a at a general majlis in Baha, along with his deputy, Faysal bin Khalid bin Abd al-Aziz, and other citizens of the province.

I note that if the succession has to run through Abdullah and (as is the current plan) Sultan, before any further succession decisions are finally made, that could on its own take another 8-10 years. Depending on those two oldsters’ physical status. And as we saw with “King” Fahd, where money is no object, the advances of modern medicine now mean that the most amazing feats of keeping people alive many years or even decades beyond a natural span can now be performed.
Is it any wonder, therefore, that large numbers of Saudi men who are (1) not royal and (2) not in their 80s, are now seeing their ability to contribute positively to the direction of their own society quite blocked, and are therefore now getting quite fed up? (And then, of course, there are also all those Saudi nationals who are, (3) not male.)