Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Arabic: فهد بن عبد العزيز آل سعود; 1920, 1921 or 1923 – 1 August 2005) was King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 13 June 1982 until his death in 2005.

Fahd was viewed as the de facto leader of the country during King Khalid's reign in part due to the latter's ill health.

His half-brother Crown Prince Abdullah served as de facto regent of the kingdom and succeeded Fahd as king upon his death in 2005.

[18][19] Prince Fahd led the Saudi delegation to the League of Arab States in 1959, signifying his increasing prominence in the House of Saud and his being groomed for a more significant role.

[24] King Faisal accused him of being late to implement severe measures to arrest those who had contacts with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

[24] During his absence which was reported by the officials as a medical leave, Prince Fahd stayed in London and then in Spain where he spent the time on gambling and leisure.

[25] King Faisal sent him both Omar Al Saqqaf, his envoy, and several letters asking him to return to the country, but Prince Fahd did not follow his request.

[27] In addition, Prince Fahd was not a supporter of the oil embargo which he regarded as a potential threat to the relationships between Saudi Arabia and the United States of America.

[37] Due to this, Madawi Al Rasheed described the reign of King Fahd as the era of austerity in contrast to the period of affluence experienced under his two predecessors.

He also gave aid to foreign groups such as the Bosnian Muslims in the Yugoslav Wars, as well as the Nicaraguan Contras, providing "a million dollars per month from May to December 1984".

[43] However, Fahd distanced himself from the US throughout parts of his reign, declining to allow the US to use Saudi air bases to protect naval convoys after the attack on the USS Stark, and in 1988 agreed to buy between fifty and sixty nuclear-payload-capable CSS-2 intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

[52] Another cause for criticism came when during an event with the British Royal Family, King Fahd was seen wearing a white decoration in the shape of a cross; in 1994 Bin Laden cited this as "abomination" and "clearly infidelity".

In 1992, a group of reformists and prominent Saudi intellectuals petitioned King Fahd for wide-ranging reforms, including widening political representation and curbing the royal family's wasteful spending.

Like all the countries bordering the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia under King Fahd focused its industrial development on hydrocarbon installations.

[57] The most significant change by the edict was that the King did acquire the right to appoint or dismiss his heir apparent based on suitability rather than seniority and that the grandsons of Abdulaziz became eligible for the throne.

Due to the decline in oil prices during the early years of his reign, previous initiatives by Faisal and Khalid before him to modernise the education system saw significant setback.

The local Saudi education system remained better equipped to teach humanities, with Islamic studies getting more preference under increasing pressure from clerics.

Foreign educated returnees from American and European universities typically occupied well-paid jobs in prestigious ministries with high salaries added with the prestige of being the vanguard of the civil service and government-owned corporations keeping the kingdom on its feet.

Meanwhile, local educated Saudis, often having graduated from humanities, found themselves working low-ranking, clerical jobs in the civil service with modest salaries.

Anti-western rhetoric and a call to return to an ultra-orthodox and more religious lifestyle by Wahhabi clerics grew more popular amongst this segment of Saudi society.

The archetype of the ultraconservative Saudi man preaching to his family and friends, showing strong distaste for Western culture, listening to religious cassettes and refusing to take pictures would begin to be cultivated.

[8] He suffered a debilitating stroke on 29 November 1995[19] and became noticeably frail, and decided to delegate the running of the Kingdom to Crown Prince Abdullah on 2 January 1996.

In November 2003, according to government media, King Fahd was quoted as saying to "strike with an iron fist" at terrorists after deadly bombings in Saudi Arabia, although he could hardly utter a word because of his deteriorating health.

However, it was Crown Prince Abdullah who took official trips; when King Fahd traveled, it was for vacations, and he was sometimes absent from Saudi Arabia for months at a time.

When his oldest son and International Olympic Committee member Prince Faisal bin Fahd died in 1999, the King was in Spain and did not return for the funeral.

[63] In a speech to an Islamic conference on 30 August 2003, King Fahd condemned terrorism and exhorted Muslim clerics to emphasize peace, security, cooperation, justice, and tolerance in their sermons.

The ship featured two swimming pools, a ballroom, a gym, a theatre, a portable garden, a hospital with an intensive-care unit and two operating rooms, and four American Stinger missiles.

[69] When Fahd's brothers found out about his habits which were considered a disgrace to the House of Saud, he was immediately summoned to King Faisal's palace.

Fahd's body was carried to Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque, and funeral prayers were held at around 15:30 local time (12:30 GMT) on 2 August.

[10] Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Syria, Yemen, the Arab League in Cairo, and the Palestinian Authority all declared three-day mourning periods.