On March 25, 1975, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia — the man who had wielded the oil weapon against the West, who had transformed his desert kingdom into a global economic power, and who was revered across the Muslim world as a pious and principled leader — was holding a majlis, a traditional reception where subjects could approach their ruler directly to petition for justice. Among those waiting in line was a young man with a Kuwaiti passport who had flown into Riyadh the day before. He was Prince Faisal bin Musaid, the 28-year-old nephew of the king. As King Faisal leaned forward to greet his nephew — a traditional gesture of familial respect and affection — Prince Faisal drew a .38 caliber revolver from beneath his robes and fired three shots at point-blank range. The first bullet struck the king's chin, the second his ear, and the third his head. The king of Saudi Arabia — the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the man who had defied the United States with the oil embargo, the monarch who had modernized a nation — collapsed in a pool of blood. He was rushed to the hospital but was pronounced dead within minutes. The assassination of King Faisal sent shockwaves through the Arab and Muslim worlds. It was the first — and to date, the only — assassination of a Saudi monarch by a member of his own family in the modern history of the kingdom. And it remains one of the great unresolved mysteries of Middle Eastern politics. Was Prince Faisal a lone, deranged assassin — or was he a pawn in a larger conspiracy involving foreign intelligence services, the CIA, or even factions within the Saudi royal family itself?
Summary: King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was assassinated on March 25, 1975, by his nephew Prince Faisal bin Musaid, who shot him at point-blank range during a royal audience at the Royal Palace in Riyadh. The king was struck by three bullets and died within minutes. Prince Faisal was immediately captured. He was tried and convicted by a Sharia court, and on June 18, 1975, he was publicly beheaded in Riyadh's Justice Square — the only member of the Saudi royal family ever executed for regicide in the kingdom's modern history. The assassination has been the subject of speculation for decades. Theories include: Prince Faisal acting alone in a deranged state (the victim of drug use and mental instability from his years studying in America); revenge for the death of his brother Prince Khalid, who was killed by Saudi police during a protest against the introduction of television in 1966; a CIA conspiracy to punish King Faisal for the 1973 oil embargo; and a larger plot involving the Al Saud family's internal power struggles.
👑 The Man: King Faisal, the Modernizer
King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was born in 1906, the third son of Ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi kingdom. His mother, Tarfa bint Abdullah, was a descendant of the Al ash-Sheikh family — the religious establishment that had been allied with the Al Saud since the alliance of Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the 18th century. Faisal was groomed for leadership from childhood: he was the first Saudi royal to visit Europe, the architect of the kingdom's foreign policy, and the driving force behind its modernization. He became king in 1964 after deposing his brother Saud, who had bankrupted the kingdom through profligacy and incompetence. As king, Faisal balanced modernization with conservative Islamic principles — he abolished slavery in Saudi Arabia (1962) and introduced television (which provoked riots from religious conservatives, including his own nephew), while simultaneously strengthening ties with the religious establishment. His greatest triumph — and the act for which he is most remembered globally — was the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which he orchestrated in response to US support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The embargo quadrupled oil prices within months and fundamentally altered the global economic order, shifting vast wealth and power to the Arab Gulf states and humiliating the industrialized West. In the Arab and Muslim worlds, King Faisal was a hero: the man who had used Arab oil as a weapon for Arab dignity.
"We did not impose the oil embargo to harm anyone. We imposed it because we could no longer tolerate the injustice being done to our Palestinian brothers. We are a people of faith, and faith without action is meaningless." — King Faisal, 1974
🔫 The Killer: Prince Faisal bin Musaid
Prince Faisal bin Musaid ibn Abdulaziz Al Saud was born in 1944, the son of Prince Musaid, an older half-brother of King Faisal. He was a junior prince — part of the sprawling Al Saud family that numbered thousands — and his life had been marked by privilege, restlessness, and tragedy. He studied at the University of Colorado and the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a degree in political science. He lived with an American girlfriend, drank alcohol, and experimented with drugs — behavior that, while unremarkable for an American college student in the 1960s, was profoundly taboo for a Saudi prince. In 1970, his older brother, Prince Khalid bin Musaid, was shot and killed by Saudi police during a riot in Riyadh. The riot had erupted when Khalid led a group of religious extremists in an attack on the newly opened Saudi television station — television being an abomination, in their view, against Islamic principles. Prince Faisal was devastated by his brother's death. He became increasingly erratic, paranoid, and obsessed with revenge. When he flew back to Riyadh from Kuwait on March 24, 1975, he carried a .38 caliber revolver. The next day, he joined the majlis line.
🩸 The Assassination: March 25, 1975
The majlis was a tradition as old as the Saudi kingdom itself — an open audience where any subject, from the highest prince to the lowliest Bedouin, could petition the king directly. On March 25, 1975, King Faisal was receiving a delegation of Kuwaiti officials and citizens. Prince Faisal bin Musaid — who had lived in Kuwait and possessed a Kuwaiti passport — joined the Kuwaiti delegation, blending in. When his turn came to approach the king, he stepped forward. King Faisal, recognizing his nephew, tilted his head downward in a gesture of familial deference, expecting the traditional kiss of greeting — a kiss on the nose, on the forehead, a gesture of respect from a young prince to his elder. Instead, Prince Faisal drew his revolver and fired. The king staggered backward. Prince Faisal fired again. The room erupted in chaos. Bodyguards seized the assassin. King Faisal was carried to his bedroom, where the palace physician pronounced him dead. He was 68 years old. Prince Faisal bin Musaid's trial was swift. A Sharia court found him guilty of regicide and sentenced him to death. On June 18, 1975, he was led to Justice Square in Riyadh, forced to kneel, and beheaded with a single stroke of a gold-hilted sword in front of a crowd of 10,000. His body was then crucified — hung from a wooden cross in the square — as a warning to all would-be assassins.
The Royal Audience — March 25, 1975, Riyadh
"The king leaned forward to receive his nephew's kiss. There was no fear in his eyes — only the expectation of familial love. Then the shots rang out. The king of Saudi Arabia, the most powerful Arab ruler of his age, fell to the ground in his own palace. His nephew stood over him, gun in hand."
🕵️ Conspiracy Theories: Who Was Behind the Assassination?
The official Saudi narrative — that Prince Faisal bin Musaid acted alone, driven by personal demons and a desire to avenge his brother — has never fully satisfied observers of the region. Over the decades, three main conspiracy theories have emerged. The first and most popular in the Arab world is that the CIA orchestrated the assassination, either directly or through manipulation of Prince Faisal. King Faisal had become an obstacle to American interests: the 1973 oil embargo had devastated the US economy, and Faisal's support for the Palestinian cause and his resistance to the Camp David process made him a liability. The second theory is that the assassination was part of a power struggle within the Al Saud family itself. King Faisal's successor, his half-brother King Khalid (with Crown Prince Fahd as the real power behind the throne), may have had a motive. Faisal's son, Prince Abdullah, had been building a power base, and some speculate that elements within the family sought to remove Faisal before he could establish a rival line of succession. The third theory is that Prince Faisal bin Musaid was radicalized while studying in the United States and was manipulated by intelligence agencies — either American, Soviet, or even Israeli — seeking to destabilize Saudi Arabia. The truth remains unknown. No independent investigation was ever conducted. The Saudi government has never declassified its files on the assassination. And Prince Faisal bin Musaid took whatever secrets he had to the grave.
📖 The Legacy: The End of an Era
King Faisal's death marked the end of an era in Saudi Arabia. He was the last Saudi monarch with the authority, the vision, and the moral standing to lead the Arab and Muslim worlds. His successors — King Khalid, King Fahd, King Abdullah, King Salman — would be competent managers of the Saudi state's relationships with the West, but none would command the same respect or project the same moral authority that Faisal had. The oil weapon that Faisal had wielded so effectively was never used again. Saudi Arabia's relationship with the United States, strained under Faisal, was repaired and deepened by his successors. The pan-Arab nationalism that Faisal had championed gave way to a more narrow, self-interested Saudi foreign policy. The assassination of King Faisal was not just the murder of a monarch. It was the end of a particular vision of Saudi Arabia — a vision of a kingdom that could be both modern and traditional, both Western-allied and pro-Palestinian, both conservative and reformist. The contradictions Faisal managed to hold in balance during his lifetime have since splintered, and Saudi Arabia has been grappling with them ever since.