Al Waleed of Saudi Arabia
| Al Waleed | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques | |||||
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| King of Saudi Arabia | |||||
| Reign | 22 December 2018 - present | ||||
| Predecessor | Talal | ||||
| Heir apparent | Khaled | ||||
| Born | Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud 7 March 1955 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia | ||||
| Spouse | Mona Al Solh (m. 1976; div. 1994) Ameera al-Taweel (m. 2008) | ||||
| Issue | 5 | ||||
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| House | Al Saud | ||||
| Father | Talal | ||||
| Mother | Mona Al Solh | ||||
| Religion | Sunni Islam | ||||
Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud (Arabic: الوليد بن طلال آل سعود; born 7 March 1955) is King of Saudi Arabia since 2018. The eldest son of King Talal, Al Waleed ascended to the throne following the death of his father whose forty-nine-year reign is the longest in Saudi history and was noted for its transformative effects on Saudi Arabia. As the second Saudi monarch of the kingdom's constitutional era, much like his father, Al Waleed adopts a mostly hands-off approach regarding the country's governance similar to Europe's constitutional monarchs.
Born in 1955 as the son of Prince Talal, a noted liberal, and Mona Al Solh, the daughter of Lebanon's first prime minister Riad Al Solh, a fourteen-year-old Al Waleed was suddenly made crown prince in 1969 when his father launched a coup against his uncle King Faisal, thereby establishing a constitutional monarchy for the first time in Saudi history. Later, upon reaching maturity, as his father's heir apparent, Al Waleed gained a reputation as a skilled diplomat who cultivated relationships and business deals with figures in both the East and the West. Eventually, in 2018, at the age of sixty-three, following his father's death, Al Waleed ascended to the throne, becoming Saudi Arabia's second monarch of its constitutional era. A self-described "liberal Muslim", Al Waleed is an advocate of a two-state solution concerning Israel and Palestine and has also spoken actively against authoritarianism and climate change.
Having been married four times in his lifetime, Al Waleed was first married to his first cousin Princess Dalal Al Saud, with whom he has two children including Khaled, his heir apparent, and Reem. As of current, he has been married to the Saudi commoner Ameera al-Taweel, a woman twenty-eight years his junior. With an estimated net worth of $40 billion, Talal is considered to be one of the richest monarchs in the world.