Word: mecca
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...good Moslem-and nearly all of the 350 million people of Islam are accounted good Moslems-is not an easy one. Five times a day, the true believer must turn toward Mecca and pray; and before each prayer session, he must wash his face, arms, feet, ears and nose three times. At least once in his life, if he can, he must make the hajj, the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca. In the holy city during the hajj, rich & poor alike mingle in dense throngs under the cruel...
This year, for the second time in his life, Egypt's President Mohammed Naguib made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Dressed in a ceremonial robe of unstitched white cloth, the earnest, personable chief of Egypt's military junta left Cairo by air with an entourage of 75. In Jidda, the Arabian seaport by which most pilgrims enter, the Naguib party was met by Crown Prince Saud and eleven emirs, all sons of ancient, wily King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud...
...high, which Moslems believe was built by Abraham. This year, for the first time, it was illumined by neon lights. Mingling with the devout, Naguib performed the seven traditional circuits of the Kaaba, and managed to get close enough to kiss it, as millions had done before him. Outside Mecca, on the plain of Arafat, he arrived at the immense tent city which springs up for one day and vanishes again at nightfall. He sacrificed two rams and made the all-day "stand" on Arafat's hill, half-naked and barefoot, reading the Koran and chanting prayers...
...Glad to See You." From Mecca, Naguib went southeast to Taif. There, King Ibn Saud, sitting in a wheelchair, greeted Naguib with a cry of "Marhaba, marhaba!" (Welcome, welcome). Said Naguib: "Glad to see you, Your Majesty." Naguib gave Ibn Saud a huge (6½-by-5-ft.) photo of himself in a gilded frame; Ibn Saud gave his guest a gold sword, three Persian rugs, a fragment of holy carpet from the Kaaba. Later the two heads of state dined together and talked privately for 20 minutes. About Arab solidarity? Almost certainly...
...Egyptian port of Alexandria, a band struck up the national anthem, and Egypt's flag was hoisted to the mast of a spick & span ocean liner, the 15,000-ton Gumhuriyat Misr ("Republic of Egypt"). There to welcome the British-built vessel, along with her sister ship Mecca, to the Egyptian merchant fleet was President Mohammed Naguib. Gesturing to a dark and dapper man in a checked tropical worsted suit and red tarboosh, Naguib paid Egypt's thanks to Ahmed Abboud, "that great and capable man who has rendered so many services to his country in the economic...