Khalid bin Saud Al Saud (; 1925 – 7 July 2020) was a member of the

House of Saud The House of Saud ( ) is the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia. It is composed of the descendants of Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the Emirate of Diriyah, known as the First Saudi State, (1727–1818), and his brothers, though the ruling ...

, one of the grandsons of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

's founder King Abdulaziz. He was one of the sons of King Saud and held various administrative positions during the reign of his father. He was the first member of the Saudi royal family to command the Saudi National Guard.

Early life and education

Khalid was born in Mecca in 1925 and was the ninth son of King Saud. His father King Saud is a son of Saudi's founder King Abdulaziz. His mother was Jamila Asaad Ibrahim Merhi who was of

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

origin. Jamila and her father, Asaad Ibrahim, were charged with planning to assassinate

Gamal Abdel Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...

, President of the

United Arab Republic The United Arab Republic (UAR; ) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 to 1971. It was initially a short-lived political union between Republic of Egypt (1953–1958), Egypt (including Occupation of the Gaza Strip by the United Ara ...

, in March 1958, and they were both tried in absentia in Damascus. Following the completion of high school education, Prince Khalid received a university degree in 1948.

Career

Khalid bin Saud was first made an assistant to his father, King Saud, and remained in the post until 1955. In June 1957, he was appointed as the commander of the Saudi National Guard. Prince Khalid became the first Saudi royal to lead the Guard which had been headed by tribal sheikhs. Robert Lacey reports that King Saud asked Prince Khalid to reorganize the Guard to protect the royal family. In addition, following Khalid's appointment, the Guard began to have independent and substantial funds for the first time to improve its quite limited capabilities. His half-brother Prince Saad replaced him in the post in 1959. Khalid's next position was the director of

King Saud University King Saud University (KSU, ) is a public university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Established in 1957 by King Saud bin Abdulalziz to address the country's skilled worker shortage, it is the first university in Saudi Arabia. It was known as Riyadh U ...

to which he was appointed in 1959. On 7 March 1962, he was made the head of the royal court.

Personal life and death

Prince Khalid married five times, and his first wife, Al Anoud, was a daughter of Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz. Then he married Maha bint Mohsen Nashi Al Sharif. Shams Al Baroudi, an Egyptian actress, was his next wife, and their marriage lasted only three months. Then he wed another Egyptian actress, Suhair Ramzi, and the marriage lasted for a year. His marriage to the Lebanese singer

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalima ...

lasted for only one month. Prince Khalid had a daughter who was born in 1974. Following the removal of King Saud in 1964, Khalid accompanied his father in exile, and was his only son who did not return to Saudi Arabia even for the funeral of his father in 1969. On 7 July 2020, Khalid bin Saud died at age 95 in an undisclosed foreign country.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saud, Khalid Saud Khalid Khalid 1925 births 2020 deaths Khalid Khalid