POD 1902: one of the defenders of Masmak Fort makes a lucky shot, and the man who would become King Abdulaziz IOTL falls dead a few meters short of the walls. The remainder of his raiding party retreats in disarray, and the House of Saud fades into obscurity in Kuwaiti exile.
The Emirate of Jebel Shammar is now safe… from the Saudis. But Abdulaziz was only one of the threats the Rashidi state faced in the early 20th century. Discontent with Rashidi rule was rife, and the religious movement that gave rise to the Ikhwan IOTL was still there and could be mobilized by another leader or a coalition of imams. The British were playing their imperial games and trying to break the Arabian Peninsula away from the Ottomans, and they might easily find another horse – the Sharif of Mecca, or maybe the Idrisids or one of the trucial emirs – to back against the Rashidis. And the later rulers of the House of Rashid were, shall we say, a bit on the fratricidal side and not always competent in dealing with the crises at hand. There’s a nonzero chance that a Saudi vacuum would result, not in Rashidi Arabia, but in a Hejaz-dominated peninsula or a hermit kingdom ruled by an *Ikhwan that makes the House of Saud look like progressive radicals.
But let’s suppose that the Rashidis do everything right. Abdulaziz (the Rashidi Abdulaziz) avoids death in battle, makes a switch in time from Ottoman to British allegiance, and either manages to placate the Wahhabi tribesmen or defeat them with British help. Thus, the Rashidis are the ones who get all the British military goodies during WW1 (I’m assuming that the House of Saud’s debacle neither forestalls the war nor materially alters its course) as well as London’s blessing to keep what they conquer.
So how much do they conquer? Would a surviving Jebel Shammar, without the Saudis’ religious zeal, fight the Hashemites and the Idrisids for control of Hejaz, or would it be content to consolidate its position as the undisputed ruler of Najd? If the latter, what position would a kingdom without Mecca (but which would still be immensely wealthy once the oil is discovered) have in the Islamic world? If the former, what effect from Mecca, and the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, being ruled by a dynasty that, while not exactly modern, was far more tolerant of religious differences than the House of Saud? How would Jebel Shammar face the challenges of the later 20th century and the beginning of the 21st?
The Emirate of Jebel Shammar is now safe… from the Saudis. But Abdulaziz was only one of the threats the Rashidi state faced in the early 20th century. Discontent with Rashidi rule was rife, and the religious movement that gave rise to the Ikhwan IOTL was still there and could be mobilized by another leader or a coalition of imams. The British were playing their imperial games and trying to break the Arabian Peninsula away from the Ottomans, and they might easily find another horse – the Sharif of Mecca, or maybe the Idrisids or one of the trucial emirs – to back against the Rashidis. And the later rulers of the House of Rashid were, shall we say, a bit on the fratricidal side and not always competent in dealing with the crises at hand. There’s a nonzero chance that a Saudi vacuum would result, not in Rashidi Arabia, but in a Hejaz-dominated peninsula or a hermit kingdom ruled by an *Ikhwan that makes the House of Saud look like progressive radicals.
But let’s suppose that the Rashidis do everything right. Abdulaziz (the Rashidi Abdulaziz) avoids death in battle, makes a switch in time from Ottoman to British allegiance, and either manages to placate the Wahhabi tribesmen or defeat them with British help. Thus, the Rashidis are the ones who get all the British military goodies during WW1 (I’m assuming that the House of Saud’s debacle neither forestalls the war nor materially alters its course) as well as London’s blessing to keep what they conquer.
So how much do they conquer? Would a surviving Jebel Shammar, without the Saudis’ religious zeal, fight the Hashemites and the Idrisids for control of Hejaz, or would it be content to consolidate its position as the undisputed ruler of Najd? If the latter, what position would a kingdom without Mecca (but which would still be immensely wealthy once the oil is discovered) have in the Islamic world? If the former, what effect from Mecca, and the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, being ruled by a dynasty that, while not exactly modern, was far more tolerant of religious differences than the House of Saud? How would Jebel Shammar face the challenges of the later 20th century and the beginning of the 21st?
