Thousands offer prayers for Fahd

Muslim heads of state and Saudi princes bade farewell to King Fahd Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud yesterday, saying prayers in a packed Riyadh mosque.

Mourners all men from the Saudi royal family, some carrying brightly coloured umbrellas to ward off the punishing sun crowded in the barren Al Oud cemetery, a desert plain with small patches of brush among simple piles of dirt and small uninscribed stones to mark the graves.

Snipers kept watch from nearby buildings.

The body of King Fahd, who died early on Monday at age 84, was covered in his own brown cloak, which was removed before family members lowered the body into the grave in a white shroud.

The ceremony comes amid a smooth handover of power after the 23-year reign of King Fahd.

King Fahd's brother, Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, stepped in as Saudi Arabia's sixth king, and King Fahd's brother Defence Minister Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz became the new crown prince and next in line.

Burial

After the burial, King Abdullah went to the royal court, where lines of Saudis and foreign dignitaries filed by him to express condolences.

Today, King Abdullah will receive audiences of Saudis pledging their allegiance to him in a traditional investiture ceremony.

Yesterday's funeral rites were as stark and simple as possible despite the presence of royals. King Fahd, like his predecessors, will be buried in an unmarked grave, in keeping with austere Wahhabi traditions that stress the equality in all in death and that frown on the visiting of gravesites.

Other public displays of grief are also shunned. The only sign of mourning in the streets of Riyadh were a few small signs put up by foreigners living in the kingdom Sudanese and Chadians, for example expressing their condolences for King Fahd.

The heads of state and dignitaries crowded the mosque, along with thousands of Saudi princes decked out in red headdresses, finely pressed white robes and their best brown and black cloaks.

King Fahd's body was brought in, wrapped in his plain brown cloak on a wooden plank carried by his sons, and placed in the middle of the mosque amid the crowd.

The mourners, including King Abdullah, stood for a special prayer for the dead, some with tears in their eyes.

Afterward, King Fahd's body was carried back out to an ambulance for a procession of cars to the cemetery.