ABSTRACT
Abdal ‘Aziz was born in circumstances of little promise. He was the fourth child of ‘Abd ar-Rahman, two brothers, Faisal and Fahd, and one sister, Nura, being older than he. He was renowned as one of its great and successful Sa‘udi Amirs. There came a day when ‘Abd al ‘Aziz, then King Ibn Sa‘ud, was in urgent need of treatment for an affection of the throat. His private doctor, a young Syrian, realized that an operation was necessary but not being a surgeon did not dare to undertake the operation. It was then that the King thought of the medical mission that had been established in Bahrain by the Dutch Reformed Church of America and an urgent request for help was sent to the American doctors in Bahrain. For ‘Abd al ‘Aziz, who was bom in a palace, although a mud palace in a primitive town, the desert had, up till then, mostly been a hunting and play-ground.
