Word: abu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Hussein and force the nation to join an Arab union. Cairo's press headlined that Hussein was challenged by his army. Syria and Iraq papers reported "spreading revolution" and "guerrilla war with pitched battles." In Damascus a band of Jordanian exiles, led by handsome, hotheaded ex-Colonel Ali Abu Nuwar, 40, set up a rival "government." Abu Nuwar had nearly toppled Hussein in 1957, but because of old friendship, the King spared Abu Nuwar's life and banished him. Ever since, Abu Nuwar has repaid the act of mercy by promoting anti-Hussein conspiracies...
Five times a day for the past 30 years, thin, threadbare Sheik Shakhbut bin Sultan faced west, bowed low, and prayed for an oil strike. His realm of Abu Dhabi was desperately in need of some good luck. Up and down the Persian Gulf, the states of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran were rolling in oil wealth. But year after year, Abu Dhabi's 25,000 sq. mi. of sand, date palms and barren offshore islands just got hotter, more humid and windswept than before...
Perpetual Truce. But then Allah responded to the sheik's prayers-belatedly, but in overwhelming measure. Two vast oilfields have been tapped by British drilling teams, one at Murban in the sandy interior, the other in the shallow coastal waters of the gulf. Conservative oilmen estimate Abu Dhabi's proven oil reserves at about 3.8 billion bbl., which at present royalty rates would return some $1.4 billion over the years. Ridiculous, say other experts: on the basis of latest discoveries, reserves may be as great as 38 billion...
This has all been rather unsettling to Abu Dhabi, whose 15,000 Bedouins have got along for centuries on piracy, pearl fishing and intertribal raids. In the 19th century, the swift pirate dhows were swept from the gulf by Britain, which established "a perpetual maritime truce"hence the name Trucial States, given to Abu Dhabi and six other sheikdoms. Pearl fishing became unprofitable when the Japanese cleverly introduced cultured pearls to the world. There was nothing left to Abu Dhabi but intrigue: of the twelve predecessors of the present sheik, only three died peacefully in their palace beds. The rest...
...simply a pipe jutting out from the palace wall. Nearly every day, the sheik sat cross-legged in his throne room holding a majlis, at which he listened to complaints of citizens, while Bedouin chiefs grouped around him, some holding on their wrists the hooded falcons that were Abu Dhabi's only status symbol...