After studying Oriental languages at the University of Cambridge, he was posted to Lahore in the Punjab in 1908, acquiring fluency in Urdu, Punjabi, Baluchi, Persian and eventually Arabic.

Born in Badulla in British Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the son of a tea planter, he was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied oriental languages under Edward Granville Browne, and was a friend and classmate of Jawaharlal Nehru, who later became the first prime minister of independent India.

[7] Philby who prided himself on his ability to travel over Arabia-at the time a region that few Westerners had ever visited-kept his distance away from the Ikhwan (Arabic for "the brotherhood"), a ferociously fanatical Wahhabi movement notorious for their practice of shooting anyone who refused their offers to convert to Wahhabism.

Philby argued that Ibn Saud was a "democrat" guiding his affairs "by mutual counsel", as laid out in the Quran, in contrast to George Curzon's support for Hussein.

[12] In October 1919, Ibn Saud sent his Foreign Minister, his 14-year-old son, Crown Prince Faisal, to London to seek British mediation of his dispute with the Sharif of Mecca.

In November 1921, Philby was named chief head of the Secret Service in Mandatory Palestine, worked with T. E. Lawrence and met his American counterpart, Allen Dulles.

[15] Philby's view was that the interests of both the British and the Saud family would be best served by uniting the Arabian Peninsula under one government stretching from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, with the Saudis supplanting the Hashemites as Islamic "Keepers of the Holy Places" and protecting shipping lanes along the Suez Canal–Aden–Mumbai (then Bombay) route.

Shortly afterward, Ibn Saud began to call for the overthrow of the Hashemite dynasty, with Philby advising him on how far he could go in occupying the Hejaz without incurring the wrath of the British, the principal power in the Middle East.

[16] The Sharif of Mecca was a very unpopular ruler owing to his rapacious corruption and cruelty and it was only the monthly subsidy of British gold that kept the Bedouin tribal chiefs loyal to him.

[24] Philby was an atheist and his reasons for converting to Islam were cultural, not spiritual, namely that he wanted to become part of the social life of the court of Ibn Saud, which could not do as an infidel.

[citation needed] Lacey wrote that Philby greatly embellished his role in the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, writing: "If you read his own accounts-and there are several-Philby was in there from the very beginning.

On 11 July 1932, Philby told Loomis that Ibn Saud wanted cash in the form of gold sovereigns in exchange for an oil concession and was not interested in the fine print of any agreement.

[26] In May 1933, IPC instructed Longrigg to withdraw from Jeddah and to leave SoCal free to conclude negotiations with Saudi Arabia for a 60-year contract to obtain the exclusive concession for exploration and extraction of oil in the al-Hasa region along the Persian Gulf.

[30] In 1933, the United States did not even maintain diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and Ibn Saud had preferred to award an oil concession to a British company as Britain was the hegemonic power in the Middle East.

Judah Magnes, chancellor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of Brit Shalom, reacted to the proposal positively, and suggested alterations in order to secure guarantees for the Jewish minority.

A few days after their meeting, Philby sent to Ben Gurion a draft treaty by which the Zionists would renounce the Balfour Declaration in exchange for being welcomed to the Middle East by an Arab Federation, headed by Ibn Saud.

[36] The romantic image of Ibn Saud as the "desert king" who was more of an "authentic" Arab than the corrupt, Westernised monarchs of Egypt, Transjordan and Iraq was the main reason for the support of Churchill, Namier, and Weizmann for the Philby Plan.

[38] Subsequently, several other leading figures such as the South African prime minister General Jan Smuts and the India Secretary Leo Amery accepted the Philby Plan as the best solution to the problems of the Middle East.

[42] Dr. Fritz Grobba visited Riyadh in January-February 1939 to see Ibn Saud who told him he "hated the English" and looked forward to the day when Germany would replace Britain as the world's foremost power.

[45] Philby in his 1948 memoir Arabian Days downplayed his commitment to the BPP as he wrote "...I was approached by Lord Tavistock, John Beckett and Ben Greene of a new and small organisation called the British People's Party, with those general outlook I had no sympathy, though I fully and cordially agreed with the anti-war attitude.

[45] Reflecting the way that various extreme right movements in Britain often co-operated, Lady Domville, the wife of Admiral Barry Domvile, the leader of The Link, campaigned hard for Philby in the Hythe by-election.

[45] Joining her were Lady Grace Pearson along with a number of activists from the British Union of Fascists-who came mostly from London- who descended upon Hythe and the other small towns of Kent in order to campaign for Philby.

[47] One of the pamphlets produced by the BPP in the by-election, Alien Money Power in Great Britain attacked the Conservative candidate Rupert Brabner by claiming he worked for a London law firm run by Jews.

Shortly after his release from custody, Philby recommended his son, Kim, to Valentine Vivian, MI6 deputy chief, who recruited him into the British secret service.

A month later Weizmann wrote in a letter to Sumner Welles: "It is conceived on big lines, large enough to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of both Arabs and Jews, and the strategic and economic interests of the United States;... properly managed, Mr. Philby's scheme offers an approach which should not be abandoned".

There, he wrote: the true basis of Arab hostility to Jewish immigration into Palestine is xenophobia, and instinctive perception that the vast majority of central and eastern European Jews, seeking admission... are not Semites at all.... Whatever political repercussions of their settlement may be, their advent is regarded as a menace to the Semitic culture of Arabia... the European Jew of today, with his secular outlook... is regarded as an unwelcome intruder within the gates of Arabia.In Beirut, he reconciled with Kim, and they lived together for a time.

Philby helped further his son's career by introducing him to his extensive network of contacts in the Middle East, including Lebanese President Camille Chamoun.

[66] Furthermore, Goldberg noted that Philby had a strong antagonism towards his own country that verged on Anglophobia and in his account of Arabian history it was always the British who were at fault while Ibn Saud was always the wronged party.

[68] Finally, Goldberg noted that even sympathetic observers commented that Philby "saw everything in black and white, without finer shades" which let him to reduce the history of Arabia down to a morality play, a constant struggle between his villains such as the duplicitous British vs. heroes such as his noble Saudis.

[72] Likewise, Goldberg noted that Ibn Saud failed to gain the support of the British that he chose appeasement of the Sublime Porte as he feared that Ottomans would dispatch even more troops against him.