Word: medinae
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...Saudi construction firm. His secret was winning the trust of the Saudi King, Abdel Aziz ibn Saud, who reigned from 1932 to 1953. The King asked bin Laden to rebuild the sacred city of Mecca, and ever since, the bin Ladens have been responsible for construction in Mecca and Medina. After Mohammed's death in a plane crash in 1967, his sons built Saudi BinLaden Group into a multibillion-dollar enterprise. Recent ventures include building a freeway around Riyadh, expanding King Khaled Airport and constructing a base for U.S. troops. According to the Wall Street Journal, the family has invested...
...Saudi bin Laden Group, built by Osama's father Mohamed, who had four wives and 52 children. Mohamed had had the good luck of befriending the country's founder, Abdel Aziz al Saud. That relationship led to important government contracts such as refurbishing the shrines at Mecca and Medina, Islam's holiest places, projects that moved young Osama deeply. Today the company, with 35,000 employees worldwide, is worth $5 billion. Osama got his share at 13 when his father died, leaving him $80 million, a fortune the son subsequently expanded to an estimated $250 million...
...Like many other Muslims, bin Laden was offended by the Army's presence, with its Christian and Jewish soldiers, its rock music, its women who drove and wore pants. Saudi Arabia has a singular place among Islamic countries as the cradle of Islam and as home to Mecca and Medina, which are barred to non-Muslims...
Consequently, the Koran, the inspired scripture that Muhammad brought to the Arabs, venerates the great prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It speaks of Solomon's "great place of prayer" in Jerusalem, which the first Muslims called City of the Temple. Only after the Jews of Medina rejected Muhammad did he switch orientation and instruct his adherents to pray facing Mecca, whose ancient shrine, the Kabah, was thought by locals to have been built by Abraham and his son Ishmael, the father of the Arabs...
...Turkish passenger. Three hijackers seized control of the Moscow-bound Tuplov 154 jet as it left Istanbul airport, issuing a list of demands including an end to Russia's military campaign in Chechnya. The Saudis said they decided to storm the plane after 18 hours of negotiation at Medina airport proved fruitless...