Analysis | Saudi King Abdullah, a cautious reformer, dies at 90
Monarch who led kingdom through unprecedented oil wealth remembered as a benign reformer by some Saudi's but as a conservative obstacle by those seeking modernisation
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, born the year the first car bumped through the dusty streets of Riyadh, left a modernising legacy of cautious social and economic reform.
King Abdullah, thought to have been born in 1924, had ruled Saudi Arabia as king since 2006, but had run the country as de facto regent for a decade before that. State television reported early on Friday that King Abdullah had died.
After outliving two designated heirs, his younger half-brothers Sultan and Nayef, Abdullah is succeeded by Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
The new king is thought likely to persevere with Abdullah’s efforts over nearly two decades to nudge powerful conservative clerics to accept cautious changes aimed at reconciling Islamic tradition with the needs of a modern economy.
Plain-spoken and avuncular, King Abdullah was born in the court of his father King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud in 1924, according to the Saudi embassy in Washington. The capital Riyadh was at that time a small oasis town ringed by mud-brick walls at the centre of an impoverished but rapidly growing kingdom.