Faisal of Saudi Arabia

Born in Riyadh in 1906, Faisal bin Abdulaziz was the third son of the kingdom's founder and a mother from the Al ash-Sheikh family that supplied the country's religious authority. He entered statecraft early: viceroy of Hejaz at twenty, foreign minister at twenty-four. When his half-brother Saud took the throne in 1953, Faisal became crown prince and abolished slavery. By 1964 he'd manoeuvred Saud into abdication with the backing of the royal family and the Grand Mufti. As king he pushed modernisation while reining in the clerics, advanced pan-Islamism and opposition to communism, and in 1973…