Word: saud
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Pilgrims' Progress. Saud has also tried to ease the lot of Islam's pilgrims. Every year 200,000 of them make the long trek to Mecca to kiss the Sacred Black Stone and walk the ritual seven times around the Kaaba. Once thousands died of sunstroke or disease, and local Arabs fleeced them of their last pennies. Saud established first-aid stations, erected sun shelters, built a $3,000,000 quarantine station at Jiddah, allocated $132 million to refurbish the Great Mosque, straighten Mecca's streets, expand its accommodations. The pilgrim's head tax (among...
...hand; public amputations are commonplace (one result: Arabia has probably the lowest crime rate in the world). Social reform comes hard when slavery, sanctioned by Mohammed, still exists, though Saudis protest that slaves are well treated and often freed by owners eager to gain credit with Allah (old Ibn Saud used to release one every Friday after prayer). Tax reform is blocked by the Koran's ban on any personal tax on believers except the Zakaah, a small yearly levy paid to the sheik, who is instructed to use it to support his own family and to give...
...political reform, the Koran says nothing of democracy. Neither does King Saud. Said one official: "The constitution we follow is the Koran. We don't want to replace this with any other thing...
...Saud tries hard to be the Koran's conscientious father to his people. He travels the country (nowadays he flies in a Convair, has an air-conditioned trailer driven overland to meet him at his destination), listens to a sheik's troubles, soothes him with a Cadillac, a school or a clinic-given as a favor rather than as a right. But father comes first. In two years observers estimate Saud has set aside $100 million for new palaces. One just completed in Jiddah (cost: $28 million) brings his personal collection of palaces to 24, and another...
...cheapest to produce, sells for $1.90 on the world market. From the beginning, Aramco's operations have been an exemplary display of enlightened management. In 1950, seeing the handwriting writ large across the Middle East by Britain's gathering troubles in Iran, Aramco increased the Saud share in the oil profits to 50%, the Middle East's first 50-50 contract, patterned on the pact made by Creole Petroleum with Venezuela. For its Saudi employees, Aramco has built schools, hospitals, recreation halls and swimming pools. To appease Saudi pride, it has replaced Americans with Saudis as fast...