King Abdullah's formal title is "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques".
I am pained by such shameful behaviour in the country of the two holy mosques," in Mecca and Medina.
Then, on March 2, he went to a talk by Chibli Mallat, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Visiting Professor of Islamic Legal Studies at HLS.
King Abdullah, whose official title was Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, was also prime minister, as is customary in the Saudi system.
You see, the king of Saudi Arabia, also known as the Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina, can visit the pope in the Vatican.
Notice also that bin Laden's beef is with American troops defiling the land of Saudi Arabia -- the land of the two holy mosques," in Mecca and Medina.
One thing that shows no sign of altering is the Saudi monarch's insistence that his own role, epitomised by his title as "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques", should transcend Saudi borders and extend to the whole Muslim world.
Amr Badr, an Egyptian businessman close to Hawass, compared his friend's strategy to the way King Fahd of Saudi Arabia took the title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, in the nineteen-eighties.
Bin Laden, in particular, was infuriated, claiming that the Saudis, by allowing the U.S. to base its soldiers in the kingdom, were violating a dictate to keep infidels out of the "land of the two holy mosques".
In August 1996, from the Afghan mountain stronghold of Tora Bora, Bin Laden issued his "Declaration of War Against the Americans Who Occupy the Land of the Two Holy Mosques".
Fahd drew intense criticism for his inability to protect the site; when he became king, he took the title Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (the other is in Medina).
