MANAMA: King Saud was “a visionary who sowed the seeds of development in Saudi Arabia,” his grandson Prince Mishal bin Mohammed said at the opening here of a mobile photographic exhibition on the late Saudi king.
“This is the first time this exhibition is being held outside Saudi Arabia. We have strong ties with Bahrain and this exhibition will highlight the work and achievement of King Saud,” Prince Mishal told a press conference at the Correspondents Club in Juffair, revealing the details of the exhibition, which opens in Manama today.
Prince Mishal said King Saud was the first Saudi monarch who broached the idea of building a bridge between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in 1954. He added that the Bahraini leadership welcomed the idea of holding the exhibition at the National Museum with the support of Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Muhammad bin Mubarak Al-Khalifa and in association with the Bahraini Ministry of Culture and Information.
The exhibition, which is supported by the sons and daughters of King Saud, ends on March 31.
The exhibition includes exquisitely restored black-and-white photographs, short films and historic memorabilia chronicling the life and times of Saudi Arabia’s second king.
Prince Mishal revealed that the exhibition will travel to other Gulf and Arab states. “We are planning to take this photographic exhibition to other Gulf States to pay tribute to King Saud’s legacy,” he said.
When asked by a reporter on the situation of Saudi women during the rule of the late King Saud, Prince Mishal said, “Special schools were set up for girls in several provinces during the late monarch’s rule, which was the first step in boosting women’s education in the Kingdom.”
A short film in the exhibit records King Saud’s order to alter the course of flash floods in Makkah in order to protect the Grand Mosque from flooding. The pictures also reveal a number of projects implemented by King Saud in the service of the holy sites and the expansion of the tent city of Mina.
There are brilliant photographs of a smiling king with US President John F. Kennedy, Wafd Party President Saad Al-Zagloul Pasha of Egypt, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jordan’s King Hussein. He is also shown at the Taj Mahal and with the Nizam of Hyderabad during his visit to India in the 1950s.
Some of the historic photographs have been restored, framed and retouched by the famous Brazilian photographer Humberto da Silveira.
The exhibition was first inaugurated in Riyadh on Nov. 26, 2007, and then moved on to Jeddah and the Eastern Province the same year.
