How Saudi Arabia, born in 1932, houses centuries-old Mecca, Medina

The Middle East is a raging inferno with Saudi Arabia warning Iran of retaliation after it hit Riyadh. Shia powerhouse Iran had questioned the legitimacy of Saudi Arabia's Al Saud family as custodians of Mecca and Medina. This is how Saudi Arabia, born in 1932, got to control Islam's two holiest sites, which are centuries-old.

In Short

• Iran had earlier accused Saudi Arabia of mismanaging Mecca, Medina, and the Hajj
• Ottomans were custodians of Mecca, Medina; Hashemites got brief control after them
• Holy sites were in Hejaz; Ibn Saud defeated Hashemites in 1924-25 got their control

In July 1987, the annual Hajj pilgrimage turned into one of the bloodiest flashpoints in the history of Islam's holiest cities. A protest march by Iranian pilgrims in Mecca ended in clashes with Saudi security forces. More than 400 people died. The dead included hundreds of Iranians, and the tragedy scarred the pilgrimage far beyond that season. For Tehran, the incident was the "proof" that the Saudi rulers were "not competent custodians" of Mecca and Medina. The Ayatollah's Shia regime said that the House of Saud, under King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, was a political actor who "controlled" the holy cities.

The mistrust was not recent. It was shaped by the Sunni Saudi monarchy and the Shia regime in Iran, which was established after the 1979 revolution. The glimpses of the Iran-Saudi rivalry were recently seen in the ongoing war in the Middle East. After Israel and the US hit Iran, Tehran targeted its neighbours, including Saudi Arabia. An attack on Riyadh with a ballistic missile made Riyadh warn Tehran of a military response. A Shia Iran and a Sunni Saudi Arabia have long fought for dominance in the Middle East.

The hostilities sharpened after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The mistrust and bad-blood over Saudi's "control" of Mecca and the Medina never really faded. Over the decades, Iran has accused Saudi Arabia of mismanaging the Hajj, especially after disasters such as the 2015 Mina stampede (which resulted in the death of more than 2,000 individuals). Tehran has attacked Riyadh over what it calls the monopoly over the administration of Islam's holiest sites. Saudi Arabia, for its part, has insisted that the management of Mecca and Medina and the pilgrimage is a matter of sovereign responsibility.

That, in turn, raises the question, how did the House of Saud, who did not earlier rule the Hejaz region that had Mecca and Medina, come to become their custodians?

Before the Saudis took over the Hejaz region in 1924-25, the holy cities had long been under Ottoman sovereignty. The Hashemite sharifs ruled locally. And for a brief period after World War I, Mecca-Medina and the region were part of an independent Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz.

Ibn Saud's eventual takeover was not just because of its military conquests. The British backed him during his rise and the Wahhabi clerics provided him with religious legitimacy.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was, in fact, born in 1932. It is true that Mecca and Medina are far older than Saudi Arabia, the modern state. The two holy sites were not originally part of the House of Saud's territory. They came under Abdulaziz Ibn Saud only after his military expansion from central Arabia into the Hejaz in 1924-25. Later in 1932, all the territories in the Arabian Peninsula were folded into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as Saud unified them in his bloody campaigns.

WAS MECCA AND MEDINA ALWAYS PART OF SAUDI ARABIA?

The holy cities of Mecca and Medina long predate the modern Saudi state. For centuries, they have been ruled by powers other than the House of Saud. Located in the western mountainous coastal region of Hejaz along the Red Sea, the two cities passed through the hands of early Islamic caliphates, local sharifs and the Ottoman Empire before Abdulaziz Ibn Saud's rise.

The Ottoman Empire was the sovereign power in Hejaz. The Hashemite Sharifs of Mecca administered the region on the ground. But the arrangement changed during World War I. Hashemite leader Sharif Hussein bin Ali, with British backing, broke from the Ottomans and became King of the Hejaz.

The modern Saudi state inherited Mecca and Medina through conquest and British backing in the 1920s. Years later, the national entity, "Saudi Arabia", was born in 1932.

Mecca had already been Islam's holiest city for over a millennium by then, and Medina had long occupied a central place in Islamic memory and history.

Mecca and Medina existed long before Islam.

In Islamic history, Mecca is linked to the birth of Prophet Muhammad around 570 CE, while Medina became central in 622 CE when the Prophet migrated there during the Hijra to escape persecution.

WHAT WAS IBN SAUD'S ORIGINAL TERRITORY? HOW MECCA, MEDINA CAME UNDER IBN SAUD?

Abdulaziz Ibn Saud's original power base was not Hejaz, but Najd in central Arabia. He captured Riyadh in January 1902, an event that launched the long military campaign through which he rebuilt Saudi power.

Meanwhile, Britain, the colonial power in the region, played an important role in Ibn Saud's rise. It recognised, subsidised him and dealt with him as a key Arabian ally during and after World War I.

From that inland base, he gradually expanded eastward and outward. Saud consolidated authority across central and eastern Arabia before moving west toward the Red Sea coast.

The turning point came in 1924-25. The Ikhwan, the Wahhabi military-religious force allied to Ibn Saud, took control of Mecca in 1924, and of Medina by the end of 1925. Jeddah had also surrendered by then. These military conquests and victories ended the Hashemite rule in the Hejaz and brought Islam's holiest cities under Ibn Saud's authority.

The conquest also needed religious justification. Ibn Saud's alliance with Wahhabi clerics took care of ideological legitimacy in Hejaz.

In 1926, he was proclaimed king of the Hejaz in the Great Mosque of Mecca. He presented his rule as one accepted by the people of Mecca and tied to restoring order and governing the Hejaz under Islamic law.

The ruler, who had a centre in Riyadh and Najd, now controlled the cities at the heart of the Muslim pilgrimage. It also gave Ibn Saud a religious stature beyond a tribal sheikh. The control of Mecca and Medina carried immense symbolic power in the Islamic world.

FORMATION OF SAUDI ARABIA IN 1932

After annexing various territories, the formal unification of the landmass as Saudi Arabia came in 1932. Ibn Saud issued the decree that merged Najd, the Hejaz and other territories under his control into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The new kingdom's creation centralised authority in the House of Saud, which still rules the kingdom.

The current king, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, also holds the title of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

His seventh son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. He is also the Prime Minister of the nation.

So it was in 1932 that the political map of Saudi Arabia was redrawn into a single internationally recognised state. By then, the holy cities had already been under Saud's rule for years.

Saudi Arabia might have come into being only in 1932, but it houses Mecca and Medina because the region in which the two sites are located had been won in a military conquest before the nation state's formation. That still matters because, for Iran, the issue has been about who gets to claim moral and political authority in Islam's holiest spaces.

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