Saudi Arabia is all set for the funeral of Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.
Prince Sultan's funeral will be held on Tuesday before the afternoon prayer and his body will then be taken away for burial.
The funeral sets the stage for an eventual generational shift in the ageing leadership of the world's top oil exporter, even if Saudi King Abdullah picks 77-year-old Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz to succeed him.
Hundreds of men, including the king, gathered on an airport runway to watch as the coffin of the 83-year-old prince who died of colon cancer in New York on Saturdaywas flown back to Riyadh on Monday.
Prince Sultan was the seventh of the 36 sons of King Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, who united and founded Saudi Arabia in 1932.
Like the deceased King Fahd, he was a member of the "Sudairi Seven," the powerful alliance of seven surviving sons of Abdul-Aziz and one of his wives, Princess Hissa Al Sudairi.
Prince Sultan served as defence minister for nearly 50 years, the longest term of any Saudi minister, and brought advanced military hardware to the kingdom from the United States and United Kingdom.
Among his sons are Prince Khalid, who has overseen fighting against Yemeni rebels and commanded Arab forces against Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, and Prince Bandar, who served as ambassador to the United States between 1983 and 2005.
With Prince Sultan's death, his brother Prince Nayef, the longtime minister of interior, becomes the most probable candidate to be next in line to rule after King Abdullah.
King Abdullah's choice to replace Sultan may signal how the conservative Islamic state manages the transition to its future leaders.
In 2006, the king formed an Allegiance Council meant to help oversee succession issues. The king has ultimate authority to choose the next crown prince and heir, and it remains unclear how exactly the council will interact with him.
King Abdullah, Sultan and Nayef have run the country since the late King Fahd fell ill in 1995, but the monarch is in his late 80s and has spent three months abroad this year recovering from a back problem that again required surgery last week.
He remains firmly in control of the kingdom, but the focus will increasingly fall on Nayef and some younger princes.
Chief among them is Prince Salman, the Riyadh governor who is a full brother of Sultan and Nayef and is seen as next most important in a ruling family that has prized seniority since it was founded by King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud in 1932.
PHOTO CAPTION
The body of Saudi's Crown prince, Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who died in America on Saturday, is moved to an ambulance from an airplane at Riyadh Military Air Base in Saudi Arabia, October 24, 2011
Al Jazeera