“We will strive for our present and future, inspired by the sacrifices of our fathers and forefathers for the sake of our nation and its people.”

This is from the text of the address of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman on his Twitter account on the occasion of the grand Saudi celebrations of the National Holiday to mark the 91st anniversary of the foundation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

If we go back a bit, we find that the choosing of the 23rd of September to celebrate the National Day every year was by the order of the late King Faisal, as stated in a report published in Umm Al-Qura newspaper, the official gazette of the state, in 1965. The report explained that this celebration was to define: “A National Day during which its sons celebrate and boast about their achievements...and remember the glories of the heroism to unify various parts of this country.”

This is our 91st National Day if we celebrate the occasion of the official founding of the state with its modern name: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. But the reality is that the journey of establishing the great Saudi entity, which was founded by King Abdul Aziz Bin Abdul Rahman Bin Faisal Bin Turki Al Saud, preceded much before this date, since he regained Riyadh, the capital of the second Saudi state, in 1902, nearly 30 years before the declaration of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

And if we want to go back more beyond in history, we can go down two centuries ago before the announcement of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, and this was with the great foundation of the first Saudi state, which reached the zenith of its glory and expansion during the reign of the third ruler of the first state, Imam Saud Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Kabeer, or Saud Al-Kabeer as described in the Western sources, who died in 1814.

The historical substrate of the Saudi state is extremely significant, and it must be evoked in multiple images and in various artistic forms, as in an educational content. One of the most important implications that should be emphasized on this occasion is the virtuous reference that King Salman made in his royal tweet about recollecting the great sacrifices of previous Saudi generations in building the nation.

Yes, all the sons of the Saudi land have an abundant share in watering the Great Dream until it ripened and settled on its market, along with Al-Ukhdud of Najran, the Sarawat Mountain peaks, the Tihama plains, and the sands of the Empty Quarter, passing through the plains of Makkah, the coasts and Rawashin of Jeddah, the green villas of Taif, the spring of western Najd, the heart of Al-Aridh, the oases of Al-Kharj, Al-Houta, Horaiq, and Wadi Al-Dawasir, springs of Al-Ahsa, the beaches of Dammam, the palm trees of Qatif, the mountains of Hail Al-Shamaa, the oases of Tabuk, Al-Wajh, Dhuba, Yanbu, Al-Ula and Madinah.

The entire people from all the stripes of Saudi Arabia are the generations who had their sweat and toil under the leadership of the dream man Abdul Aziz, the builder of the glorious Saudi diversity, which was one of the secrets of its strength in the past. At present, it is one of the most important characteristic features of Saudi Arabia, which charted its future path that is opened to the whole world, and the weaver of the dream is none other than Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman.

— This article was originally published in Asharq al-Awsat.