The State Department was little help on this, or on much else about Saudi Arabia.

In February 2006, Angola surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the number one supplier of oil to China.

Azerbaijan currently has diplomatic relations with 160 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, the People's Republic of China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Libya, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Republic of India, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

* Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

* 2005 – President of Mauritania Maaouya Ould Sid ' Ahmed Taya is overthrown in a military coup while attending the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.

* 1980 – Saudia Flight 163, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar burns after making an emergency landing at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 301 people.

The world of Arab music has long been dominated by Cairo, a cultural center, though musical innovation and regional styles abound from Morocco to Saudi Arabia.

Omari came from Asir Province, a poor region in southwestern Saudi Arabia that borders Yemen, and graduated with honours from high school, attained a degree from the Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, was married, and had a daughter.

He is alleged to have often served as an Imam at his mosque in Saudi Arabia and is believed by American Authorities to have been a student of a Saudi cleric named Sulayman al Alwan, whose mosque is located in Al-Qassim Province.

A man with the same name as those given by the FBI turned up alive in Saudi Arabia, saying that he had studied at the University of Denver and his passport was stolen there in 1995.

* Amputation is used as a legal punishment in a number of countries, among them Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Islamic regions of Nigeria.

Born in Saudi Arabia, Nami had served as a muezzin and was a college student.

Nami, much like Abdulaziz al-Omari, Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, and Mohand al-Shehri was born in the ' Asir Province in Saudi Arabia.

Born to the Quraish tribe of Saudi Arabia, Nami served as a muezzin at the Seqeley mosque after having reportedly become very religious sometime in early 1999.

By October he had taken a prospective hijacker Mushabib al-Hamlan from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia where they both procured B-1 / B-2 tourist / business visas on October 28 – but Hamlan then decided not to proceed and is thought to have returned to his family.

In mid-November 2000, the 9 / 11 Commission believes that Nami, Wail and Waleed al-Shehri, all of whom had obtained their U. S. visas in late October, traveled in a group from Saudi Arabia to Beirut and then onward to Iran where they could travel through to Afghanistan without getting their passports stamped.

This probably followed their return to Saudi Arabia to get " clean " passports.

Ahmed al-Haznawi was the son of a Saudi imam from the Al-Bahah province, which is located in an isolated and underdeveloped part of Saudi Arabia.

On November 12, 2000, Haznawi applied for and received a two-year US B-1 / B-2 ( tourist / business ) visa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

From November 27, 2000 through December 27, 2000, Haznawi was in Saudi Arabia for Ramadan.

In Saudi Arabia, eating in public during the daytime is prohibited during the Muslim month of Ramadan.

In Saudi Arabia, all businesses except hospitals are made to close during Islamic prayers, held five times daily.

Saudi Arabia has provided enormous financial assistance to Bosnia-Herzegovina since its independence in 1992.

In the 15 years of existence, the OUT has enrolled students from Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Namibia, Hungary, Burundi, Libya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Lesotho, Botswana and most of the United Republic of Tanzania.

Islamic fundamentalism has appeared in many counties ; the Wahhabi version is promoted worldwide and financed by Saudi Arabia.

Jordan is situated geographically in Southwest Asia, south of Syria, west of Iraq northwest of Saudi Arabia and east of Israel and the West Bank ; politically, the area has also been referred to in the West as the Middle or Near East.

This has resulted in countries, such as the GCC ( Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates ), choosing to invest more in the Arab world.

An estimated US $ 45 billion has been spent by the Saudi Arabian government financing mosques and Islamic schools in foreign countries.

This agreement became a " mutual support pact " and power-sharing arrangement between the Al Saud and the Al ash-Sheikh, which has remained in place for nearly 300 years, providing the ideological impetus to Saudi expansion.

Within Saudi Arabia, the family is held in prestige similar to the Saudi royal family, with whom they share power, and has included several religious scholars and officials.

Strategically located in the Northern Persian Gulf between the major markets of Saudi Arabia and Iran, the airport has one of the widest range and highest frequency of regional services with connections to major international destinations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.

Under Saudi rule, much of the historic city has been demolished as a result of construction programs-see below.

As a consequence, under Saudi rule, it has been estimated that since 1985 about 95 % of Mecca's historic buildings, most over a thousand years old, have been demolished.

As mentioned above, because of the Wahhabist hostility to reverence being paid to historic and religious buildings, Mecca has lost most of its heritage in recent years and few buildings from the last 1500 years have survived Saudi rule.

In contrast to the rest of Saudi Arabia, and particularly Nejd, Mecca has, according to the New York Times, become " a striking oasis " of free thought and discussion and, also, of " unlikely liberalism " as " Meccans see themselves as a bulwark against the creeping extremism that has overtaken much Islamic debate ".

India has also been an important partner, as have countries outside of Asia such as Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia.

However, exceptions include Oman ; India ; Saudi Arabia ; Pakistan ( Pepsi has been a dominant sponsor of the Pakistan cricket team since the 1990s ); the Dominican Republic ; Guatemala ; the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island ; and Northern Ontario.

The agreement has furthered the goal of definitively establishing the border with Saudi Arabia and Saudi-led mediation efforts continue.

Although the territory within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's boundaries is largely arid desert or rocky infertile terrain – home for much of its history to tribal nomadic societies with only rudimentary state structures – it has twice in world history had a global impact.

The border through ' Al Buraymi Oasis, located near the conjunction of the frontiers of Oman, Abu Dhabi ( one of the emirates of the UAE ) and Saudi Arabia, has triggered extensive dispute among the three states since the Treaty of Jeddah in 1927.

Only the construction of long moles at Ras Tanura has opened the Saudi coast on the gulf to seagoing tankers.

Because the plants and animals of the sea floor are the basis of the food chain, damage to the shoreline has consequences for the whole shallow-water ecosystem, including the multi-million-dollar Saudi fisheries industry.

It has been said that Islam is more than a religion, it is a way of life in Saudi Arabia, and, as a result, the influence of the ulema is pervasive.