Word: emirs
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Five years ago His fun-loving Highness Sarikin Katsina Alhajk Osman Nagogo breezed off to London with his father, the elderly Emir of Katsina, to play polo, back race horses and greyhounds. Last month friendly, easygoing Nagogo, now Emir himself and ruler of a million Nigerian Mohammedans, was called abroad on more serious business. Thousands of uniformed West Africans, fighting the war in Southeast Asia, wanted to gladden their hearts and rejoice their eyes with the sight of their rich and powerful leader...
...India and Burma the young, amiable Emir displayed his sacred person freely to his grateful subjects. Some of his fighting men, overcome by awe, knelt before him to be blessed. Others begged to touch the hem of his robe or (when he wore a uniform) the cuffs of his well-creased trousers. Six Katsinans trekked four days & nights through the jungle to glimpse the red-fezzed head of their Emir. Sergeant Gombo Gombe ("Mr. Five by Five"), fattest front-line fighter in Burma, stripped to the waist to get his rifle immaculate enough to fire a royal salute...
Before he departed, the Emir, an astute ruler, made a wise gift to his men: ten tons of bitter, exhilarating kola nuts from the sterculiaceous African tree. Morale soared. On kola nuts and water Katsinans can tackle anything-hunger, fatigue, forced marches, or the most vicious enemy. Roaring their traditional cry of Hau!, the kola-inspired warriors swarmed down the Kaladan Valley, won their biggest victory of the Burma...
...year Amal lived in pampered boredom in a Syrian mountain villa. Then Cairo's footlights called irresistibly. She divorced the Emir, hurried to Egypt, married a film director, divorced him within a year. By that time she had a new career: she was well on the way to be coming the Arabic world's Hedy Lamarr...
Enter Ahmed. Ismahan's days, like Amal's days, were gaudy with melodrama. In 1941 she remarried Cousin Emir Hassan. Her motive was patriotism, not love. She brought him and his fierce Druse tribesmen into the Allied camp, inspired him to help the British take Syria from the Vichy French. Then she got another divorce and another husband, temperamental Ahmed Salem, Egypt's foremost cinema producer...