Some people expect him to face behind-the-scenes competition from a clique of half brothers who hold their own powerful posts and have close ties with Saudi Arabia's conservative Muslim clerics, although the royal family's swift backing of the new king hinted at some consensus.
Fahd, the country's absolute monarch from 1982 until he was debilitated by a 1995 stroke, died yesterday at 84 after nearly two months in a Riyadh hospital.
The mechanism of succession moved quickly along tracks laid down long ago: Abdullah stepped in as king, while Fahd's brother Prince Sultan, the 77-year-old defense minister, became crown prince and next in line to the throne.
Abdullah has been the main force behind unprecedented reforms and a heavy crackdown on Al Qaeda-linked militants following a series of terror attacks in May 2003.
Now armed with the power of the throne after years in the more tenuous position of de facto ruler, Abdullah is likely to move to advance supporters into key positions and push forward on the reform and antiterror tracks.
But he must tread carefully: Prince Sultan and others in the close-knit circle of Fahd's full brothers known as the ''Sudairi Seven" hold key security posts and are seen as resistant to swift change.
Few expect Abdullah and his brothers -- like Fahd, the sons of Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, the Bedouin chief who welded the kingdom together under his name in 1932 -- to hold the throne as long as the 22 years that Fahd held it. In the next generation of numerous grandsons, there is no clear line of succession beyond Sultan.
As the family installed Abdullah, Saudis prepared to bury their longest-ruling monarch today with a mix of the austerity dictated by their puritanical Wahhabi version of Islam and the grandiosity befitting a kingdom whose oil riches fueled investment across the Muslim world.
By yesterday, hotels in Riyadh were packed as Saudis flocked to the capital to express their condolences to the royal family and congratulate the new king.
Fahd was to be buried in an unmarked grave at a cemetery alongside previous kings and commoners -- the tradition in Wahhabism, which frowns on the visiting of graves of family or revered figures.
