Donald Trump is "a true friend of Muslims who will serve the Muslim world in an unimaginable manner", Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has claimed.

The statement by a senior adviser to the deputy crown prince – who is also the defence minister for the Gulf nation – came after a meeting with the US president on Tuesday (14 March).

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The declaration appears to be at odds with the global perception of the Trump administration, which in January ushered through an executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the US for 90 days.

The order – which was dubbed as a "Muslim ban" – triggered worldwide fury and mass protests.

Saudi Arabia, which has been accused of spreading Islamic terrorism, was not included in Trump's executive order.

The order faced rigorous legal challenges and its key provisions were blocked, with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals eventually ruling against reinstating the travel ban.

Earlier this month, Trump signed a revised executive order that bars foreign national from six Muslim-majority nations from entering the US for 90 days, but omitted green card holders and those with existing valid visas from the order.

Federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland will hold hearings today (15 March) on whether to halt the implementation of the revised order.

Despite the actions of the US commander-in-chief, the statement from the Middle East oil giant said: "Saudi Arabia does not believe that this measure is targeting Muslim countries or the religion of Islam. This measure is a sovereign decision aimed at preventing terrorists from entering the USA."

However, a grand total of zero Americans have been killed by nationals of the countries identified in Trump's travel ban in terrorist attacks on US soil between 1975 and 2015, according to the Cato Institute.

On the other hand, of the 19 men who carried out the 9/11 terror attacks, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one from Egypt and another from Lebanon. None of these countries were listed in Trump's executive order – either the original or the revised version.

Under the Obama administration, the US-Saudi relationship was at times fraught – particularly after the Iran nuclear deal in 2015.

Yesterday's meeting, however, was heralded as "a huge success" and an "historic turning point in bilateral relations the two countries."

Riyadh views Trump as a strong ally in containing Tehran amid an ongoing power struggle in the Middle East. "The President and the Deputy Crown Prince share the same views on the gravity of the Iranian expansionist moves in the region," the statement said.

"Iran is trying to gain its legitimacy in the Islamic world by supporting terrorist organisations with the aim of reaching Mecca," it added, before explicitly identifying Tehran as a supporter of "Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Isis".

Last year, however, a leaked email from US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton dating back to 2014 acknowledged Saudi Arabia's support for the terror organisation.

In the email, Clinton wrote: "We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to Isil [Isis] and other radical Sunni groups in the region."