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MADINAH: The color green covered the city of Madinah in preparation for the Kingdom’s 87th National Day.
Public gardens were cleaned and readied to receive Saudis celebrating this great day.
Some governmental buildings, roads, streets, trees, bridges and even tunnels were decorated with green flags and lights. The story of delivering the city of Madinah to the founder, King Abdul Aziz bin Abdulrahman, is also in the spotlight.
On the occasion of the 87th Saudi National Day, which is celebrated everywhere in the Kingdom, a scholar specialized in Islamic history, Fouad Al-Maghamisi, told Arab News how Madinah was peacefully delivered to the founder king.
Months after the siege of Madinah had passed with only a few small clashes, some people began calling for negotiations and reconciliation. The leaders of the city gathered to find a solution to the crisis with the Saudis.
Some conditions were imposed. One of the most important was to negotiate with King Abdul Aziz and deliver the city of Madinah safe and ready, to one of his sons. They decided to let one of the city’s traders, Mustafa Abdulaal, a neutral man who had relations with traders from Qasim, carry out the mission. Abdulaal secretly left Madinah, and headed to King Abdul Aziz’s camp in Bahrah.
The conditions of Al-Sharif Shehat for delivering Madinah to King Abdul Aziz were to guarantee the safety of its residents; that they wouldn’t be punished for the clashes that had happened; and that Madinah would be delivered to one of the sons of King Abdul Aziz.
King Abdul Aziz accepted the conditions and gave an order to his son Prince Mohammed to head to Madinah with the messenger Abdulaal. Thus, Prince Mohammed arrived in Madinah on November 9, 1925, accompanied by his father’s household and 200 men.
Despite a last-minute hesitation, the leaders of Madinah gathered and decided to deliver the leadership of Madinah to Prince Mohammed. The leader Abdul Majid Pasha mandated one of his officers to speak with one of the Saudi force leaders and ask him to deliver an important message to Prince Mohammed.
However, Abdul Majid Pasha surprised everyone by showing up to see the prince personally and discuss the conditions. They decided to deliver Madinah to the prince the following morning. Everyone waited and longed for the new era of Prince Mohammed, the first prince of Madinah city.
Al-Maghamisi noted that, since that day, Madinah has become a modern city that advocates for development in all fields. The first step the prince took was to expand the Prophet’s Mosque, but the work of maintenance and rehabilitation was not finished until after he died. The expansion work was supervised by King Saud bin Abdul Aziz.
As for the administrative field, King Abdul Aziz appointed an advisory board and inspection commissions that had a big role in developing and regulating Madinah’s affairs back then.
Madinah has developed much since then and continues to witness many new developments — the construction of roads, serving pilgrims, establishment of the Madinah airport. The population has also grown in the city that became a main attraction for people seeking jobs, education and other services.
Madinah continued to be, in the ensuing years, an economically booming city with development projects continuing until the present, under the reign of King Salman.