RARE comprehensive biography of Abdulaziz ibn Abdul Rahman ibn Faisal ibn Turki ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al Saud (1876-1953), usually known within the Arab world as Abdulaziz and outside it as Ibn Saud - the first monarch and founder of Saudi Arabia, the third Saudi State, who reconquered his family`s ancestral home city of Riyadh, consolidated his control over the Najd, then conquered the Hejaz in 1925 and united his dominions into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. As King, he presided over the discovery of petroleum in Saudi Arabia in 1938 and the beginning of large-scale oil production after World War II. He fathered many children, including 45 sons, and all of the subsequent kings of Saudi Arabia. The author - Ameen Rihani (1876-1940), was a Lebanese Arab-American writer, intellectual and political activist, and an early theorist of Arab nationalism. In 1922 he traveled throughout Arabia, at that time the only traveler to have covered that whole territory in one trip, meeting its rulers, developing a friendship with Ibn Saud, and acquiring an invaluable and first-hand account of the character, vision and belief of each of these rulers. Between 1924 and 1932 he wrote six books in English and Arabic related to the three trips he made to Arabia and published these accounts to a considerable critical and public success. Contains Ibn Saud`s portrait as frontispiece, many b&w photographs, two maps and a genealogical table of Aal Sa`oud. 225x155mm. XVIII+370 pages. Blue cloth Hardcover with gilt spine and text block upper edge. Cover and spine stained and rubbed. Cover corner, edges, and spine edges bumped and peeling. Spine hinges partly cracked and glued. Binding visible between pages 16-17 and 160-161. Text block fore edge stained. Pages and plates yellowing. Pages rough-cut as published. [SUMMARY]: This extremely rare book is in good reading condition.