Word: arafa
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Dates: during 1953-1953
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Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa, hand-picked Sultan of Morocco, docilely performed an unpleasant duty which his unruly old predecessor had resisted for years. He signed a dahir (decree), dictated by the French, which transferred some of the royal powers to a half-Moorish, half-French administrative council. The dahir was a hard blow at French Morocco's hot-tempered independence movement...
Next morning, Sultan Arafa assembled his courtiers and red-uniformed horse guards, mounted a noble white charger inherited from the deposed Sultan and started out for Sabbath prayers at the imperial mosque. Somebody was waiting for him. A young (28), high-strung house painter named Allal ben Abdallah had piloted his creaky model-A Ford through the crowds waiting to view the Sultan and parked it close to a wall of the mosque...
...knife from his djellaba and sliced King's shoulder, while the driverless roadster plowed on into the Sultan's horse, breaking one of its legs (the animal was later destroyed). Sten gunners of the imperial guard fired a burst at ben Abdallah; he quivered, then died. Sultan Arafa, unhurt, turned to his aides and said "Sibismaken" (No harm done). Then he proceeded calmly into the mosque and thanked Allah for deliverance-this time...
...Arabs and Berbers of French Morocco as their spiritual and temporal sovereign. On Aid el Kebir last week, the knife was wielded not by Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef (who had reigned since he succeeded his father in 1927), but by a new Sultan, Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa. Ben Youssef had made the mistake of antagonizing the French, and was unceremoniously banished from the land...