Muhammad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was a member of the House of Saud. Briefly Crown Prince from 1964 to 1965, he was among the wealthiest and most powerful members of the Saudi royal family. His advice was sought and deferred to in all matters by his brothers. Until his death in 1988, he was a close and powerful confidant and senior adviser to his younger full brother, King Khalid, and his younger half-brother, King Fahd.
Early life
Prince Muhammad was born the fourth son of Ibn Saud. His birth date is, according to different sources, either 1909 or 1910. Indeed, one source also states that he was the third son of Ibn Saud. Prince Muhammad's mother was Al Jawhara bint Musaed Al Jiluwi. She was born into the important Al Jiluwis family, which was in fact a cadet branch of the Al Saud family itself. She was a second cousin of her husband. This was in keeping with long-standing traditions in Arabia of marriage within the same lineage, and members of the Al Jiluwi family frequently intermarried with the members of Al Saud family. Prince Mohammad was one of three children born to his mother and Ibn Saud. King Khalid was his full brother, and he had a full sister, Al Anoud, who married successively two sons of Saad bin Abdul Rahman. Al Anoud was first given in marriage to Saud bin Saad. After Saud died, she was married to his brother Fahd bin Saad.
Royal duties
Prince Muhammad and Prince Faisal were given the responsibility for the Ikhwan in mid-1920s. Prince Muhammad participated in fights during the formation years of the Kingdom with his older brothers and cousins. In 1934, Ibn Saud ordered his forces to attack Yemen's forward defences. Then, Faisal bin Sa'd, the son of the Saudi king's brother Saad, advanced to Baqem and the son of his other brother Mohammed, Khaled bin Muhammed, advanced to Najran and Saada. King's son Prince Faisal assumed command of the forces on the coast of Tihama and Mohammed bin Abdulaziz had advanced from Najd at the head of a reserve force to support his brother Saud. Prince Muhammad together with then Crown Prince Saud represented Ibn Saud at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in London in 1937. Prince Muhammad and Prince Mansour accompanied Ibn Saud in the latter's meeting with the then US president Franklin D. Roosevelt on 14 February 1945. They together with their uncle Prince Abdullah also attended the meeting between Ibn Saud and British premier Winston Churchill in Egypt in February 1945. Prince Muhammed also accompanied King Saud during his visit to the US in January 1962. Prince Muhammad was head of royal family council. The council expressed its allegiance to Crown Prince Fahdafter the death of King Khalid on 13 June 1982.
Renunciation of the succession
Muhammad bin Abdulaziz was Crown Prince during the first few months of the reign of his elder half-brother King Faisal. He then voluntarily stepped aside from the succession to allow his younger and only full brother, Prince Khalid, to become heir apparent to the Saudi throne. Due to this event, he was called king maker. He was a key prince in the coalition against King Saud. His nickname, Abu Sharayn or "the father of two evils". In addition, Prince Muhammad was a frequent visitor to the parties in Beirut which he himself did not consider a proper act for a royal. All such traits were the reasons for not being selected as the king by his brothers. It is also argued that Prince Muhammad, the oldest surviving son of Ibn Saud after Faisal, either declined the role of crown prince or was passed over because of his close association with King Saud during the latter's reign.
Controversy
Prince Muhammed's granddaughter, Misha'al bint Fahd, was convicted of adultery in Saudi Arabia; she and her lover were sentenced to death on the explicit instructions of her grandfather, Prince Muhammad, who was a senior member of the royal family, for the alleged dishonour she brought on her clan and defying a royal order calling for her to marry a man selected by the family, and were subject to public execution. Western media criticized the event as a violation of women's rights. A British TV channel presented a dramatized documentary, Death of a Princess, which was based on this incident. The broadcast hurt Saudi–UK relations significantly. Following the execution, segregation of women became more severe, and the religious police also began patrolling bazaars, shopping malls and any other place where men and women might happen to meet. When Prince Muhammad was later asked if the two deaths were necessary, he said, "It was enough for me that they were in the same room together".
Views
Prince Muhammad led the conservative members of the royal family. They did not support the fast modernization of the society witnessed at the end of the 1970s and thought that modernization and the presence of too many foreign workers in the country would lead to the erosion of traditional Muslim values. Prince Muhammad later stated that he would not be a good king if he would have been chosen as the king.
One of his grandsons, Muhammad bin Abdulaziz bin Muhammad, was named deputy governor of Jizan Province in May 2017. Prince Muhammad died and was buried in Riyadh on 25 November 1988, at approximately 78 years of age.
Legacy
is named after him. A hospital in Riyadh, Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Hospital, is also named after him.
