Salman bin Abdulaziz

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Salman bin Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman
House of Saud
Salman bin Abd al-Aziz bin Abd al-Rahman bin Faisal bin Turki Al Saud
Offspring
Fahd bin Salman Ahmed bin Salman Sultan bin Salman Faisal bin Salman Abd al-Aziz bin Salman Saud bin Salman Muhammad bin Salman Turki bin Salman Khalid bin Salman Nayif bin Salman Hussa bint Salman

Prince Salman bin Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman (Arabic: سلمان بن عبد العزيز ) is one of the Sudairi Seven, a son of Ibn Saud and Hassa bint Ahmad Al-Sudairi. Born in 1936, he currently serves as the Governor of Riyadh, a position he has held since 1962. Prince Salman is reported to arbitrate disputes among the members of the royal family which, along with the governorship of Saudi Arabia's capital city, and a reputation for fairness and competence, has propelled him to be amongst the Kingdom's most powerful royals. He has shown a willingness to accommodate Saudi Arabia's predominant Wahhabi clergy's social influence which has further solidified his influence in national politics.

His unofficial other roles include: chief censor of media, domestic and foreign press coming into Saudi Arabia [1].

Since King Fahd's stroke in 1995, the power struggle between then now King Abdullah-Salman-Sultan has become somewhat more open [2].

As the de facto head of Saudi internal intelligence network, Prince Salman's has worked closely with Interior Minister Prince Nayef and tolerates little dissent on his watch. Religious leaders based at King Saud University in Riyadh criticised government support of peace with Israel. In retaliation, Salman fired Sheik Hamdan al-Hamdan, the leader of Friday prayers at the university's mosque.

Prince Salman airbrushes away unfavorable news about Saudi Arabia that may come into the country via the foreign news media, but, through his ownership of Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, a London newspaper for the Arab community, he is working to keep the Saudi image "spic and span". He touched up a photo of a reception with people held their hands in the air, but an airbrush had wiped out the wineglasses they were holding.

The loss of his two oldest sons, Fahd [3] and Ahmed, within a short period appears to have strengthened his personal conservatism and media reports of political and personal discord between Salman and Prince Nayef, may have hindered the Saudi Interior Minister's attempts to have been named Second Deputy Minister on fellow Sudairi's, King Fahd's, death in August of 2005. Salman is conventionally regarded as sixth in Saudi Arabia's line of succession and considered, both in the Kingdom and externally, as among the better candidates, though serious health concerns may have dampened his desire for higher office.

His son Prince Sultan was an astronaut on board the United States space shuttle.

[edit] Philanthropy

Salman was also a founder of the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia, a controversial Islamic charity organization raided by NATO forces in October of 2002 on suspicions of connections to terrorist financing. Among the items found at the Commission's premises were before-and-after photographs of the World Trade Center, of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole; maps of government buildings in Washington; materials for forging U.S. State Department badges; files on the use of crop duster aircraft; and anti-Semitic and anti-American material geared toward children.^[1]

In November 2002, Prince Salman said that Saudi Arabia, as a country, could not be held responsible if "some change the work of charity into work of evil". He stated that he had personally taken part in the activities of those organizations, "and I know the assistance goes to doing good. But if there are those who change some work of charity into evil activities, then it is not the kingdom's responsibility, nor it people, which helps its Arab and Muslim brothers around the world." The prince added that if beneficiaries had used assistance "for evil acts, that is not our responsibility at all".^[2]