ABSTRACT
Saudi Arabia had a population in the mid-1960s larger than Libya’s; how much larger was unknown, since no census had ever been taken. Estimates ranged from about 3.0 million to 7.0 million and even higher. The population of the kingdom, however, may well have been less than 3.5 million. Viewing all fellow Muslims as polytheists, the adherents of the movement called themselves Unitarians, for Wahhabi was the name given them by opponents and became the accepted one outside Islam. As religious fundamentalists, the Wahhabis forbade smoking, discouraged shaving, and disallowed the decoration of mosques, even with minarets. In Saudi Arabia, as in Libya, political unity resulted from the triumph of pastoral nomads over culturally more advanced townsmen. The accidents of history, however, gave each a different political system. The default of the great powers induced the premature birth of Libya, and with the aid of United Nations midwifery it started life with a written constitution.
