Nasser bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

Names

Nasser bin Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud

Early life and education

Prince Nasser was born in Qasr Al Hukm, Riyadh,^[1] in 1911.^[2] There are other reports, giving his birth date as 1913 and as 1921.^[3] He was the sixth son of King Abdulaziz.^[4] His mother was Bazza, a Moroccan woman.^[3]^[5] Prince Nasser had no full-brothers or full-sisters.^[6] He received education in Riyadh at the school of the palace, learning Quran, horsemanship and war techniques.^[2]

Riyadh governorship

In 1938, King Abdulaziz appointed him as the governor of Riyadh Province.^[2] However, he had to resign from his post due to an incident in which several foreigners died of alcohol poisoning.^[7] Upon hearing of this event, King Abdulaziz threw him in jail.^[7] He was replaced by his half-brother Sultan bin Abdulaziz in the post.^[8] Subsequently, Nasser bin Abdulaziz lost his post and never returned to public life.^[8]

Exclusion from succession and allegiances

Prince Nasser and his half-brother Prince Saad were excluded from the succession, and their younger half-brother Fahd was selected as crown prince instead in 1975.^[5] However, the supersession did not cause turmoil because both Nasser and Saad were regarded as weak contenders due to being relatively less experienced.^[5] Furthermore, Prince Nasser lost his chance to become king due to "dissolute" mores. He was regarded as unsuitable for succession by the larger family.^[4] His lack of accomplishment and low birth (his mother was a woman of colour from Morocco) were also factors leading to his exclusion.^[9]

Prince Nasser was one of two sons of King Abdulaziz who did not support the Crown Prince Faisal in his struggle with King Saud.^[8]

Personal life

One of his wives, Muhdi bint Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Sudairi, was the younger sister of his step-mother, Hussa, who was the mother of seven influential sons, known as the Sudairi Seven.^[10] Nasser and Muhdi had five sons: Prince Khalid, Prince Abdullah, Prince Fahd, Prince Turki and Prince Ahmed.^[10] His other spouse was a daughter of Abdullah bin Mutaib Al Rashid.^[8] Another one was a great granddaughter of Nuri Al Shalaan.^[11]

One of Nasser's sons, Turki, was a former military officer and the former head of the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME). Another son, Mohammed bin Nasser, is the governor of Jizan Province.^[12] Mansour bin Nasser was one of King Abdullah's advisors.^[13] Yet another son, Abdulaziz bin Nasser, is a businessman^[14] and the father of Saud bin Abdulaziz, who murdered his servant in London in 2010.^[15] Abdullah bin Nasser, another son of Prince Nasser, was the president of Saudi football club Al Hilal in the 1970s.^[16]