RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The body of King Fahd was shrouded in his brown cloak and lowered into an unmarked desert grave yesterday as the powerful monarch's death was marked with the simple rites of this puritanical kingdom.

Hundreds of people, including Muslim princes and rulers from around the world, crowded into Riyadh's Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque to hear the prayers for the dead chanted over the body of Fahd, who ruled Saudi Arabia for almost a quarter century.

In life, the Saudi king ruled over untold riches and the most sacred shrines in Islam. But in death, Fahd was whittled down to the plainest possible profile. He was laid to rest in a dreary stretch of brown dirt and crumbling mud-brick markers, his remains left to languish anonymously among the bones of thousands of other Saudis.

It was a final, egalitarian note after a life of opulence and privilege. But it was also a reminder that, for all of Saudi Arabia's much-stereotyped materialism, there is a contradictory tendency to weigh spirituality and humility as measurements of dignity.

It was this often-forgotten face of Saudi culture that emerged in the death rites of Fahd. In Saudi Arabia, the idea that Fahd's body soon would be indistinguishable from others was a point of pride.

"Kings the world over have sumptuous funerals that we've seen on television," the news anchor on state-run Saudi television reminded the many viewers who tuned in to the live coverage of the king's rites. "But the kingdom of Saudi Arabia abides by the Sharia," or Islamic jurisprudence.

People in the Saudi capital went about their business with no apparent show of emotion. Shops and cafes were bustling. The Saudi stock market closed briefly yesterday but reopened before the day was over. Government employees stayed at their desks. Saudi flags flapped at full mast.

"Maybe to the outside world we seem cold, but that's the way we are about things," said Jamal Khashoggi, a senior adviser to the Saudi foreign ministry.

In the severe Wahhabism that is entwined into Saudi society, stoicism trumps mourning at the time of death. Excessive displays of emotion are frowned upon, deemed dangerously close to disrespecting the will of God.

The body is washed according to Islamic rite, wrapped loosely in cloth and buried without a coffin in the desert sands. Mourning is restricted to three days and is expected to be muted.

It was no mistake that many of the world leaders who poured into Riyadh to attend Fahd's ceremony hailed from predominantly Islamic states. Non-Muslims were not allowed at the rites, nor women.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai and Jordan's King Abdullah II were among yesterday's mourners.

Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to lead the U.S. delegation, which will be present at today's ceremonies. But by then attention will have fallen away from the dead king and focused instead on the future and the newly named King Abdullah.