ABSTRACT
Saudi Arabia is the largest country on the Arabian Peninsula. It is the only country in the world named after its modern founder, Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul-Rahman al-Saud, known colloquially as "Ibn Saud." Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab pledged to unify Arabia under a puritanical banner known as the al-Muwahiddun or "Unitarians," though often called Wahhabists. The disunity of the al-Saud family over succession weakened them, and the rival al-Rashidi family, backed by the Ottomans, took over most of the Arabian Peninsula, forcing the al-Saud into exile in Kuwait, where the Emir Mubarak al-Sabah gave them protection. After defeating the Ikhwan in 1930, Ibn Saud succeeded in bringing the central part of the Arabian Peninsula under his control, and by 1932, he named the new country Saudi Arabia after his family, and ruled it for twenty years until his death.
