Saudi Arabia

Core values & worldview

If you want to understand a Saudi, start with faith and family. Islam is not one part of life among others but the frame of it: five daily prayers set the rhythm of the day, the Qur’an is the constitution in the state’s own words, and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina are a source of profound pride and responsibility.^•

That history helps explain a few things you will often notice.

Family and lineage. The extended family is the centre of life, the source of identity, support and obligation. Many Saudis can recite their genealogy and tribe, and marrying within a known family network remains common. Respect for parents and elders is close to sacred.^•

Honour, generosity and reputation. Desert values of karam (generosity) and protecting one’s guest and good name run deep. How the family is seen matters, which can make people both extraordinarily hospitable and careful about what is said in public.^•

Loyalty to the nation and its rulers. Many Saudis feel real attachment to the monarchy, especially to the founder King Abdulaziz, whom they credit with turning a land of feuding tribes into a safe, unified country. The traditional social contract was simple: the state provides security, services and jobs, and in return, loyalty.^•

Pride and change. Saudis often feel their country is misunderstood. Older generations remember a poor, isolated land; younger ones live in malls, on social media and, increasingly, at concerts and festivals. Holding on to identity while changing at speed is the great Saudi balancing act.^•

Daily life & customs

Saudi Arabia is overwhelmingly urban, and life revolves around the home, the mosque, the mall and the car. Because summer temperatures pass 45°C, much of social life happens at night: families eat late, shop late and picnic in parks or the desert after dark.^•

The majlis, the sitting room where men (and, separately or together, women) receive guests, is the heart of social life. You are offered gahwa, light coffee with cardamom, poured into small cups, and dates; the polite way to say you’ve had enough is to give the cup a little shake. Meals such as kabsa are served on shared platters, and leaving a guest hungry is unthinkable.^•

The religious calendar shapes the year. In Ramadan the day is quiet and the nights come alive with family iftars and late prayers. Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, which falls at the time of the Hajj, are the great holidays. National Day (23 September) and the newer Founding Day (22 February) have become big, green-flagged celebrations.^•

Traditional dress is still the norm for most citizens: white thobe and red-checked or white shemagh for men; the black abaya for women, though in 2018 the crown prince said the law requires only modest dress, not the abaya itself, and colours and open styles have spread fast in the big cities.^•

Daily life also depends on foreign workers, from South Asian labourers and Filipino nurses to Egyptian teachers and Western engineers, who made up about 42% of the population in 2022. Many Saudis grew up with a foreign nanny or driver at home.^•

Wounds & sensitivities

Being judged by 9/11. That fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi is a lasting source of shame and frustration. Saudis point out that al-Qaeda also attacked the kingdom itself, killing Saudis and foreigners in a campaign of bombings in 2003–04, and that bin Laden was stripped of his citizenship in 1994.^•

Criticism of the faith or the holy places. Insults to the Prophet, the Qur’an or Mecca touch the deepest nerve. So can suggestions that Saudis are not proper guardians of the holy cities, a charge Iran and others have made, especially after the deadly crushes and fires at the Hajj.^•

“Wahhabi” as an insult. Many Saudis dislike the label, which they hear as a slur implying a separate sect. They describe themselves simply as Sunni Muslims following the Qur’an and the Sunna. Blaming all of global extremism on their country also stings, even though many Saudis themselves now say religious hardliners had too much influence after 1979.^•

Khashoggi and Yemen. These are politically dangerous subjects inside the kingdom, and many Saudis resent foreigners raising them as if they define the country. Some privately share the outside world’s concerns; others see Western double standards. Either way, it is not a conversation to start lightly.^•

Stereotypes of wealth. Not every Saudi is rich. Many families live on modest government salaries, and youth unemployment and housing costs have been serious worries. The image of the oil sheikh can grate.^•

Modern attitudes

Excitement about change. Many young Saudis, especially women, describe the years since 2016 as the most exciting of their lives: working, driving, travelling without a guardian’s permission (since 2019 for women over 21), going to concerts and football matches. Many older and more conservative Saudis are uneasy at the speed of change, but rarely say so in public.^•

Less room to speak. Social freedoms have grown as political ones have narrowed. Clerics, activists, including some of the women who campaigned for the right to drive, businessmen and royals were detained after 2017, and people have received long prison sentences for social media posts. Many Saudis are careful about what they say, especially to foreigners.^•

Saudi first. National pride has grown sharply in the Vision 2030 era, sometimes framed as “Saudi first” ahead of the older pan-Islamic and pan-Arab identities. Football, Founding Day and the kingdom’s new global events feed it.^•

Iran. The rivalry with Iran, framed in Saudi media as a struggle against Iranian expansion in Arab countries, shaped foreign policy for decades, though relations were restored in 2023 with Chinese mediation.^•

Palestine. Sympathy for the Palestinians is deep and widely shared; normalisation with Israel is a sensitive subject that the government has tied to progress towards a Palestinian state.^•

Not all Saudis are the same

Regions. The kingdom was stitched together from very different places. Najd, the central highlands around Riyadh, is the conservative heartland of the Al Saud. The Hejaz on the Red Sea coast, with Mecca, Medina and Jeddah, was for centuries a cosmopolitan world of pilgrims, merchants and families with roots in Egypt, Yemen, India and Central Asia, and many Hejazis still feel distinct. The Eastern Province is the land of oil and of the Shia oases. Asir and the southwest, with its mountains and green terraces, has customs closer to Yemen’s.^•

Sunni and Shia. Most Saudis are Sunni, but an estimated 10–15% are Shia, concentrated in Qatif and al-Ahsa in the east and among the Ismailis of Najran. Many have long complained of discrimination in religion, jobs and the military.^•

Tribal and non-tribal. Saudis from the great tribes (qabili) and those without tribal lineage (khadiri), and descendants of formerly enslaved people, can still meet barriers, especially in marriage.^•

Religious outlooks. Saudis range from strict Salafis to the cheerfully secular. The Sahwa (“Awakening”) Islamist current shaped a generation from the 1980s; liberal intellectuals and Sufi-minded Hejazis are part of the story too.^•

Generations and genders. Grandparents may remember life before electricity; parents grew up in the strict 1980s and 1990s; today’s twenty-somethings, the largest group, came of age with smartphones, scholarships abroad and Vision 2030. Women’s lives in particular have changed beyond recognition in a single decade.^•

Citizens and residents. Millions of foreigners, some born in the kingdom, live there without citizenship. Their experiences, from comfortable compounds to hard labour under the sponsorship (kafala) system, are part of Saudi life but not of Saudi identity.^•

Meeting someone

Conversation starters

• Their city and region. Ask what makes Jeddah different from Riyadh, or about family roots in a village or tribe; most Saudis enjoy explaining.
• Food and coffee. Kabsa, dates (there are dozens of varieties) and coffee customs are safe, warm topics.^•
  • Arabic coffee, a symbol of generosity; Majlis, a cultural and social space (Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage) — UNESCO (2015)
• Football. The Saudi Pro League, Al-Hilal versus Al-Nassr, and the 2022 win over Argentina.
• Studying or travelling abroad. Many Saudis have studied in the US, UK or Australia and love comparing notes.
• The changes. Asking what has changed in their life in the past decade, and listening, usually opens a rich conversation.^•
  • MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman — Ben Hubbard, Tim Duggan Books (2020)

Topics to approach carefully

• The royal family and the crown prince. Criticism can carry serious legal risk. Don’t put people on the spot.^•
  • MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman — Ben Hubbard, Tim Duggan Books (2020)
• Religion. Respect is essential. Don’t joke about the Prophet, the Qur’an or the pilgrimage, and don’t push a Saudi to say how devout they are.
• Women’s rights. Many Saudi women are tired of being seen only as victims. Ask about their lives rather than lecturing.^•
  • Labor force participation rate of Saudi females reaches 36.2% — General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), Saudi Arabia (2024)
• 9/11, Khashoggi, Yemen. Let them raise it if they wish.^•
  • The 9/11 Commission Report — National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (2004)
  • Annex to the Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: Investigation into the unlawful death of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi (A/HRC/41/CRP.1) — Agnès Callamard, UN Human Rights Council (2019)
• Hospitality. Refusing coffee or food outright can seem cold; accept a little.
• Gender etiquette. Wait for a person of the opposite sex to offer a handshake.

Common misconceptions

• “Saudis don’t work; foreigners do everything.” Most working Saudis are in jobs, often in the public sector, and the private-sector workforce has been rapidly “Saudised” in recent years.^•
  • Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change — Bernard Haykel, Thomas Hegghammer and Stéphane Lacroix (eds.), Cambridge University Press (2015)
  • Labor force participation rate of Saudi females reaches 36.2% — General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), Saudi Arabia (2024)
• “Women can’t do anything in Saudi Arabia.” The restrictions were real and some remain, but women now drive, work in large numbers and run businesses, and women made up the majority of university students even before the recent reforms.^•
  • Labor force participation rate of Saudi females reaches 36.2% — General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), Saudi Arabia (2024)
  • Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change — Bernard Haykel, Thomas Hegghammer and Stéphane Lacroix (eds.), Cambridge University Press (2015)
• “Saudi Arabia is all desert and Bedouin.” Most Saudis live in large modern cities, and the country also has mountains, coasts and green highlands.^•
  • Saudi Arabia — Encyclopaedia Britannica
• “All Saudis are rich.” Wealth is unevenly spread, and many families live on modest incomes.^•
  • On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines – and Future — Karen Elliott House, Alfred A. Knopf (2012)
• “Saudis are the same as their government.” Saudis have a wide range of private opinions about their rulers’ policies, and limited freedom to express them.