Word: nejd
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Abdul Aziz Ibn Abdul Rahman al Faisal al Saud, son of the Sultan of Nejd, grew up lean and strong, ignorant of book learning, but a whirlwind in the saddle and a master of desert wile. As a boy, he was made by his father to ride bareback and walk the blistering desert rocks barefoot each midday to toughen himself for a career of revenge against the enemies of his line. At 20, he set out at the head of his Wahabi tribesmen to regain the sand and oases that had been wrested from his illustrious forebears, the Sauds...
...slashing night ride, he and a handful of followers recaptured the ancestral capital and palace of Riyadh. Soon after World War I, he had united all the tribes of the Nejd under his rule; next, he overthrew the Saud enemy, Sherif Hussein of Mecca, and blended the Hejaz into his domain...
Over the centuries many marauders have come-the rulers of Oman, of Abu Dhabi, the Unitarians of Nejd (ancestors of modern Saudi Arabia)-briefly planted flags, then vanished. In 1869 the Trucial sheiks drove off the last of the Saudi tax collectors. Most conscientious modern geographers simply label Buraimi "undefined." It is a land of shifting sands, shifting tribes and shifting allegiances...