Saud ibn Abdulaziz ibn Muhammad Al Saud

Imam Saud ibn Abdulaziz ibn Muhammad Al Saud (1748–1814), known after his death as Saud al-Kabir, Saud the Great, was the third imam of the first Saudi state, ruling from his father's assassination in 1803 until his own death ^{1 2}. Under him the state reached its greatest extent, from the Euphrates and the Syrian desert to Oman and Yemen, and from the Gulf to the Red Sea ².

Saud was born in Diriyah in 1748, the eldest son of Abdulaziz bin Muhammad; his mother was a daughter of Uthman bin Mu'ammar, the ruler of Uyaina ¹. His succession was decided and announced in 1787, when Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab asked the people to pledge allegiance to him as heir — the Shaykh's last significant act in the affairs of state ¹. As the Emirate's chief military commander Saud conquered al-Hasa from the Bani Khalid between 1789 and 1792, and in April 1802 he led the army that sacked Karbala, destroying the tomb of Husayn and killing many of the city's inhabitants ¹.

Saud came to the throne in 1803 holding the titles of both Emir and Imam, as his father had ¹. His forces took Medina in April 1804 and Mecca in 1806, making him the first Al Saud ruler to receive the title of servant of the Two Holy Cities; Bahrain and Oman were also annexed, and his supremacy was recognised by the Qawasim and Muscat ¹. After the capture of Mecca he ordered the Ottoman sultan's name dropped from the Friday prayers there and wrote to Sultan Selim III inviting him to follow the state's theology ¹. The Ottomans, tied down in Europe, assigned Muhammad Ali of Egypt to recover Arabia in 1809, and his son's troops retook the Hejaz in 1813 ¹.

The Arabic article counts Saud among the leading scholars of his age in exegesis, hadith and fiqh, records that he received his learning from Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and describes the reading and teaching sessions he supervised in his palace at Diriyah, sometimes teaching in them himself ². The English article sets this beside a different emphasis: he had a very different personality from his deeply religious father and was interested in the material side of rule, though he dressed plainly and his armaments were undecorated ¹.

Saud died at Diriyah on 27 April 1814 of a fever, and his eldest son Abdullah succeeded him ¹. Wikidata carries 1 May 1814 as an alternative day ³.

No source read names a legal school for the man himself. That he studied under Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, was counted a scholar of exegesis, hadith and fiqh, and reigned as the reform movement's imam is a matter of discipleship, scholarship and leadership, none of which settles a school by itself, and Wikidata gives only Islam ^{1 2 3}. His faith is therefore recorded as unknown.

This imam is not King Saud of Saudi Arabia (1902–1969), who has his own record, nor that king's father; his record and sources carry the ibn form of his name to keep the two apart ³. His birth year is debated: the English and Arabic articles give 1748, the Arabic pairing it with 1161 AH, and Wikidata adds a second year, 1750 ^{1 2 3}. Diriyah has no museum place record yet, so he carries no place edge for his birth or death there.