Word: gamal
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...since the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser nearly five years ago had the Arab world been so deeply shaken by the loss of a political leader. Across the Middle East, radio stations broke into their regular programs to replay the emotion-choked voice of the Riyadh announcer. Panic and hysteria swept through the dusty streets of the capital as the news spread. Fierce Bedouin tribesmen wept openly; army and police units moved into strategic positions throughout the city. Within hours, every Arab government had proclaimed extended periods of mourning. Egypt's President Anwar Sadat, who had received extensive...
...Moslem shrines in Mecca and Medina, Faisal had a certain claim to spiritual leadership within Islam. But in an era when kings were being overthrown in Egypt, Iraq and Libya, Faisal's ambitions for political leadership in the Arab world were sharply challenged, most notably by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, the secular prophet of a new kind of Arab nationalism. The two strong-minded leaders clashed directly only once before Nasser's death in 1970. After Yemen's Imam Badr was ousted in a Republican coup, Nasser sent in Egyptian forces to support the new regime. Faisal backed...
Last week, at 76, Umm Kulthum died of a cerebral hemorrhage. She retired two years ago, and even before that her appearances were few. However, her public funeral rivaled that of Gamal Abdel Nasser's four years ago. Arab heads of state sent condolences, airlines laid on extra flights and railroads added trains to accommodate mourners. A frenzied crowd of a million people followed her funeral procession through Cairo streets, weeping and chanting "Goodbye to the lady." After rites at Sharkass Mosque, the crowd carried the coffin to the suburb of Basatin, where she was buried...
Although he no longer worries as much about potential attacks from other Arabs as he did in the days of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser a decade ago, Faisal faces other political complications. One is the Shahanshah of Iran across the Persian Gulf (Saudis doggedly refer to it as the "Arabian Gulf). Like Faisal, the Shah is an oil-rich absolute monarch, but he disagrees with the King about religion (Iranians are Shia Moslems; Saudis, more orthodox Sunnis) and the military steps necessary to protect the Gulf...
...eventually be resigned to some kind of territorial compromise with Israel, Arafat obviously considered last week an inappropriate time to mention it. His hard line was clearly aimed toward P.L.O. supporters in the Arab world, where the speech was beamed by satellite. Not since the heyday of the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt had any speech been so eagerly awaited. On the streets of Beirut and Cairo, people gathered round anyone carrying a transistor radio to listen in. In the refugee camps of Beirut, Sidon and Tripoli, a holiday was declared; schools were closed, and employees...