Word: saud
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...Lion offered the widow his son's life in forfeit (she declined, settled for $70,000 damages). In sorrow and anger, he forthwith banished all liquor from Saudi Arabia. In 1953, the Old Lion died, a stranger in a world he never dreamed of. At 51, Saud became King...
Within Saudi Arabia princes built palaces for their private comfort, hotels and apartment houses for their private profit. Officials and palace hangers-on made fortunes in kickbacks and invested their profits in Egyptian or Lebanese real estate. When a Western diplomat tried to hint to Ibn Saud that his money was being stolen by corrupt officials, the Old Lion summoned his finance minister and demanded 1,000,000 riyals on the. spot. Soon sacks of coins were stacked around him. Triumphantly, the old king turned to the diplomat, declaring: "As King I must know that there is money available...
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...