The long history of prohibition in Saudi Arabia shows why Riyadh is unlikely to relax its alcohol ban

Saudi Arabia has denied a report claiming it would allow limited and controlled sales of alcohol on its soil for the 2034 FIFA World Cup.

The denial was a reminder that, while Riyadh has permitted sweeping top-down loosening of myriad societal restrictions in recent years, the alcohol ban seems set to endure. A 73-year history of prohibition hardly makes this surprising.

The recent clarification from Saudi officials follows FIFA's disclosure in December 2024 that there would be no exception to the Saudi ban on buying and consuming alcohol for the prestigious event.

Hopes that Saudi Arabia might temporarily relax its longstanding prohibition seemed plausible in light of January 2024 reports that Riyadh agreed to open an alcohol store in its Diplomatic Quarter, where “non-Muslim diplomats” could buy a monthly quota of alcohol.

The kingdom believes that such a “regulatory framework” can help “counter the illicit trade of alcohol goods and products received by diplomatic missions”.

Consequently, the move wasn’t necessarily an indication that Saudi Arabia intended to loosen prohibition but rather a tactical compromise.

It’s easy to forget that for 20 years after its establishment in 1932, Saudi Arabia did not officially prohibit the sale of alcohol. It didn’t really need to, since it was already strictly disallowed on religious grounds.

A July 1950 Reuters report noted that any Saudi consuming or possessing alcohol faced imprisonment and caning, while foreigners caught faced expulsion. Public sales and consumption were nonexistent.

No official top-down government ban existed until 1952. The reasons behind that ban are dramatic and tragic.

Hitherto, diplomatic missions were allowed to import alcohol for private consumption. On 16 November 1951, Britain’s Vice-Consul in the Saudi city of Jeddah, Cyril Ousman, held a party attended by Mishari bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, one of the 45 sons of the kingdom’s founder, Ibn Saud, which included drinking.

However, after Ousman refused to pour the inebriated 19-year-old prince another drink, he angrily stormed out. Still enraged the next day, Mishari returned and shot up the residence, killing the Vice-Consul.

A furious King Saud offered Ousman’s widow, Dorothy, to decide whether his son should receive the death penalty. Reports from the time said the king even suggested placing Mishari’s head on a spike outside the British Embassy. Dorothy Ousman declined and accepted financial damage for her husband’s murder. Mishari was imprisoned and lashed for his crime.

Given the central role Mishari’s intoxication played in the fiasco, Saud decided to ban all liquor imports into his kingdom, even for foreign diplomatic missions. By the end of 1952, the kingdom had largely dried up. Skilled foreign technicians and oil workers quit over the measure, and others threatened to do so unless the king reversed his decision. Saud remained steadfast.

“Hell, a tough Oklahoma oil driller just isn’t going to be satisfied to work here for six days a week and then relax with a bottle of Coca-Cola,” quipped one official quoted by the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate in December 1952.

The dry kingdom of Saudi Arabia

But the ban had just begun. In April 1956, the Selma Times-Journal described “a total and airtight ban” on alcohol imports to the kingdom, applying to all foreigners without exception.

“Immediate deportation awaits any foreigner breaking the Saudi Arabian dry law,” King Saud decreed on 25 September 1952. “For native Saudis, the penalty is 100 lashes and a year in jail,” the report added. “And 100 lashes, medical men say, is usually fatal.”

The ban reminded Americans of the prohibition in their country that ended 19 years earlier. Non-alcoholic beer-like beverages gained popularity in Saudi Arabia by the 1960s.

“American beer-makers ship over stocks of what used to be called near beer,” an Associated Press report noted in December 1962. “Cans of it are stacked like pyramids in Saudi grocery stores. Some sinners take the brew home and spike it with ‘siddiki juice’, a homemade product akin to 100-proof alcohol. Skills along these lines are so developed that one man was known for his excellent home-brewed Cointreau.”

Ibn Saud’s successor, King Faisal, started cautious reforms after ascending to the throne in 1964, including building a television network but maintaining the ban on movies. Record players were allowed and became hugely popular consumer items by the summer of 1965.

“While the ban on alcohol remains very strict in public, the upper crust of society drinks at home,” noted one 1964 report reviewing Faisal’s reforms. “No one any longer hesitates to smoke.”

In January 1968, Saudi Arabia publicly executed three liquor smugglers who had gotten into a fatal shootout with police near the Yemen border.

Foreigners who ran afoul of prohibition often faced punishment, albeit less harsh. An American was sentenced to two years in 1970 after a bottle of whiskey was found in his possession. Nevertheless, there were some extremely rare concessions. British technicians helping Saudi Arabia set up new air defences in 1971 effectively gave their hosts an ultimatum, “No drink, no defence.”

As with prohibition in the US, the Saudi alcohol ban only succeeded in driving up prices. One American expat who lived in Jeddah recalled to the Missoulian in 1976 the bootlegging at the time and how few could afford the exorbitant prices of $50 for a fifth of scotch and $100 for a case of beer.

Consequently, expats resorted to making their own alcohol, often with horrendous results in terms of taste and occasional, sometimes fatal, accidents in the brewing process or poisoning in consumption.

The illegal liquor trade among foreign workers in Saudi Arabia had become a booming underground industry by the late 1970s.

One British engineer told the Sunday Telegraph that he made £600 a week selling alcohol compared to his official salary of £200. Britons and other foreign nationals caught in such illegal activities were, unsurprisingly, jailed and flogged.

An American electrical contractor who spent three years in the kingdom lamented to the Courier-Gazette in September 1979 that locals legally consumed opium-based products that were illegal in the US.

“I really do not know why the Saudi government is so strict about alcohol offences, yet shows no concern whatever for the use of drugs,” he lamented.

Saudi Arabia would more strongly enforce its hardline Islamist laws and restrictions in light of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and concurrent Grand Mosque seizure. By doing so, Riyadh aimed to placate the extremists by, in many ways, outdoing them. Any loosening of the prohibition under this climate was unimaginable.

The US State Department complained in August 1982 that the flogging of five Americans imprisoned over alcohol-related violations was “more severe” than lashings given for similar offences in the past, with previous floggings not hard enough to break the skin.

Saudi Arabia built the causeway linking the kingdom with the neighbouring island kingdom of Bahrain in the 1980s. Riyadh footed the approximately $1 billion construction bill. Alcohol isn’t banned in Bahrain. Speculation abounded that the causeway could compel the island kingdom to limit alcohol availability.

Bahraini officials denied such rumours, insisting that the tiny country could retain its relatively cosmopolitan environment. Saudi subjects could now easily nip over to their smaller neighbour for weekend drinks.

Thirst in the desert

After Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait in August 1990, Saudi King Fahd made the unprecedented decision to allow 500,000 US troops onto Saudi soil as part of a gigantic buildup that would expel Hussein’s forces from Kuwait.

Commander of all US forces, General Norman Schwarzkopf, declared the US would respect Saudi sensitivities, ordering all US troops not to take any alcohol or pornography on their deployment. However, Schwarzkopf drew a line when it came to restrictions on female forces, such as adhering to the Saudi ban on women driving. The US military docked the wages of personnel found either drunk or possessing alcohol.

American troops enduring the sweltering desert heat expressed frustration over the ruling, lamenting that their jobs would have been a lot easier with occasional drinks during downtime. It was a stark contrast to the experience of US troops in Saigon, where scotch and bourbon were readily available on almost every street during the preceding Vietnam War.

“How long can the Army expect a soldier to last without his beer?” one infantry lieutenant complained. Darryl Peek, an Air Force staff sergeant and aspiring rapper, was inspired by the experience to rap: "There is no wine, not even beer. How do these folks ring in the New Year?”

Bootlegging and illegal brewing by expats continued into the 2000s. In February 2001, the UK's Independent newspaper detailed how profitable the trade remained. For example, a £19 bottle of Johnnie Walker scotch could sell for £120. “It is smuggled in by the containerful, and a 20ft sea container can hold 1,100 cases. That can realise a staggering £1.3m profit.”

Some expats caught in such illegal activities ended up severely radicalised in prison. Irishman Terence Kelly, a nurse in Saudi Arabia, helped transport a large quantity of Johnnie Walker into the kingdom in 2000.

He was caught and arrested, and converted to Islam while imprisoned, becoming Khalid Kelly. He later expressed affinity for al-Qaeda and the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States. He blew himself up in November 2016 in Mosul, Iraq, while fighting for the Islamic State (IS) group against Iraqi forces.

The 2010s saw unprecedented reforms in Saudi Arabia under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of his ambitious Vision 2030 agenda. MbS lifted longstanding bans on cinema, women driving, and other restrictions lamented by large segments of younger Saudis.

The kingdom encouraged tourists to visit for reasons other than religious pilgrimage. In a kingdom where record players were banned, raves in the desert and other Western-style concerts were permitted. It was almost all inconceivable mere years earlier.

Nevertheless, while these wide-ranging and, at times, dizzying changes are doubtlessly substantial, it seems a line has been drawn when it comes to any lifting or easing of prohibition after seven decades of rigorous enforcement.

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist based in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, who writes about Middle East affairs.

Follow him on Twitter: @pauliddon