Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (1908–1967) was the family patriarch and founder; before World War I, Mohammed, originally poor and uneducated, emigrated from Hadhramaut, on the south coast of Yemen, to the Red Sea port of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he began to work as a porter. Starting his own business in 1930, Mohammed built his fortune as a building contractor for the Saudi royal family during the 1950s. Married 22 times, with 54 children, his 17th child was Osama bin Laden, who was the son of 