Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

He was born in Riyadh on 14 April 1906; the Arabic article pairs the date with 14 Safar 1324 AH, while the Urdu article gives April 1905, a variant not followed here. ^{1 2 3} His mother, Tarfa bint Abdullah Al Sheikh, was a descendant of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and after her death in 1906 he was raised by his maternal grandparents, under whose mentorship he completed his study of the Qur'an and of Islamic law by the age of nine. ¹ He served as viceroy of Hejaz from 1926 to 1932 and as foreign minister from 1930, and when his father died in 1953 and his half-brother Saud became king, Faisal became crown prince and prime minister. ¹

As crown prince Faisal abolished slavery in Saudi Arabia in 1962; he had helped found the Islamic University of Madinah in 1961 and the Muslim World League in 1962. ¹ In March 1964, amid King Saud's illness and the kingdom's financial crisis, a fatwa of the ulama and a decision of the senior princes made Faisal regent with full powers; on 1 November 1964 the ulama and judges announced Saud's deposition, and Faisal was proclaimed king on 2 November 1964. ²

Faisal introduced the kingdom's first television station, broadened political representation cautiously, and — the English article notes, on the strength of his standing as a pious Muslim — carried through social reforms such as female education against conservative protest, persuading the conservatives by argument. ¹ After the October 1973 war he led the Arab oil embargo against states supporting Israel. ¹ On 25 March 1975 he was shot and killed in Riyadh by his nephew Faisal bin Musaid, and was succeeded by his half-brother Khalid. ^{1 4}

No source names a religious school for Faisal. The English article calls him a pious Muslim — piety, not an affiliation — and his Al ash-Sheikh descent on his mother's side is family background; the Urdu article files him under "Saudi Sunni Muslims", a category filing, which never attests; and Wikidata's only religion value is Islam, with no branch. ^{1 3 4} The Sunni reading thus rests on a filing alone, and his faith is recorded as unknown, with the reading preserved for the founder's attention.

He succeeded Saud on the throne, and both that succession and his sonship of King Abdulaziz are written in this record. ¹

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