The Nobility, Strength, and Economics of the Ru’ala Tribe of Arabia in the 19th and 20th Centuries, and the Legacy of its Power

Abstract

A political anthropological historiographical examination of the Ru’ala tribe of Northern Arabia, primarily now Saudi Arabia, who dominated this region for hundreds of years rising to its zenith in the 19th–20th centuries. The tribe is known inside Saudi Arabia as a once powerful militaristic force; they are little known to non-Saudi scholars.

This thesisI aims to salvage the tribe’s overall name and placement in history: to analyse the tribe’s political, diplomatic, economic, and militaristic relevance as a core basis of continuity prior to the formation of the post WWI modern nation states. Analysing and measuring the tribes’ value, this study investigates five key factors of the Ru’ala: the tribe’s foundational origins and history; space and proximity; economics and wealth; warfare and politics; and decline and absorption into the state.

Utilising historiographical, ethnographical, anthropological, and political/diplomatic sources I establish the tribe’s presence and political power in history to create a new understanding of its importance. I interviewed hundreds of Ru’ala tribe members including over twenty-five members of the al-Sha’alan ruling family and many members of Saudi Arabia’s ruling al-Saud family, and analysed primary sources in more than a dozen international government archives.

The thesis contextualises why the Ru’ala’s role in pre-Saudi history is not included in official Saudi national narratives, and records the tribe’s relevance after the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.