ABSTRACT
The Saudi population at the beginning of the twentieth century could be considered, with some exceptions, a classless society: there was no upper class to speak of in Arabia at the time. The development of the kingdom's oil industry since 1938 and the modernisation of Saudi Arabia after World War II, produced, moreover in addition to existing regional and other differences new classes and a relatively rigid social structure. There are about 50 senior tribal amirs and a few hundred shaykhs of secondary tribes and sub-tribes in Saudi Arabia. The ulama, who were coerced into accepting the new status quo realised that in the new phase of their alliance with the House of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, Wahhabi hegemony and their special position in the kingdom were still guaranteed, but their actual power and influence were to he dependent on the ruler's goodwill.
