If the present oil wealth of Saudi Arabia dries out even then it won’t make any difference to the Saudi’ economy as Riyadh earns a lot of money from its pilgrimage industry alone which has been thriving on ever-increasing Hajj pilgrims whose strength has been increasing every year on the occasion of Hajj and Umras.
The question which strikes a sensitive mind is this:Where does the money that goes into the coffers of Saudi government on this score is spent?No body in the Muslim world has got the gut and gumption to pose this simple question to those who rule the roost in Riyadh. Granted that Riyadh might be spending some part of it on the facilities provided to the pilgrims but isn’t it a fact that a big amount of it is spent on the opulent life style of the Saudi rulers as they fancy living a luxurious life full of royal pomp and show. Aren’t they notorious for buying sea resorts, costly villas and palaces abroad?. Don’t they like purchasing limousines, yachts and planes at prohibitive cost?
The rulers of the United Arab Emirates are also extremely rich. If they and the Saudi monarch and princes join hands and in close coordination with over 50 Muslim countries, most of whose people are living below poverty line, form an Economic Union, pool their economic resources together and help out financially the needy countries among them in the various fields of life, surely, that would ameliorate the lot of the teeming millions of people of these countries who don’t know where their next meal comes from.