It is an undisputed truism that the story of twentieth-century Saudi Arabia is synonymous with oil. And while oil and gas pipelines have rightfully been understood as the infrastructural lifeblood of the Kingdom’s meteoric rise, another set of pipelines and processing plants has remained virtually invisible to historians, desalination facilities. Despite this seeming invisibility, Saudi Arabia has become the world’s leading desalination superpower. Thus, instead of thinking of Saudi Arabia only as a petro-state, this article argues that we also need to understand the Kingdom as a desalination powerhouse or saltwater kingdom. 

If one man’s biography could explain this understudied feature of Saudi state and society, it would have to be narrated through the larger-than-life story of the “Water Prince,” Prince Muhammad AlFaisal, pioneer of desalination technologies and architect of the Saudi Saline Water Conversion Corporation. While too often remembered only for his 1970s plans to harvest Antarctic icebergs to bring freshwater to Saudi Arabia, this article .argues that we must reevaluate his legacy to acknowledge his pivotal role as the father of the Saudi desalination industry