ABSTRACT
Saudi Arabia has been transformed in the space of sixty years from a frag mented, tribal society comprising migratory Bedouin tribes that survived on the products of oasis agriculture, to that of a cohesive, modem state with unimagined economic wealth based upon the seemingly limitless reserves of crude oil. The Bedouins adapted to the difficult arid conditions by mov ing from oasis to oasis in an effort to optimize the availability of scarce natural resources. These people, numbering no more than 250,000, pos sessed little in terms of material assets. Their well-being was dependent upon their religion and their ability to maintain their camels, flocks of goats and some sheep, as well as trading with the periodic caravans that linked the oases with the coastal areas. This way of life finally succumbed by the 1960s when the revenue from oil sales allowed a transformation of the so cial structure for all Saudi inhabitants.
