Word: saud
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Abdul Aziz Ibn Abdul Rahman al Faisal al Saud, son of the Sultan of Nejd, grew up lean and strong, ignorant of book learning, but a whirlwind in the saddle and a master of desert wile. As a boy, he was made by his father to ride bareback and walk the blistering desert rocks barefoot each midday to toughen himself for a career of revenge against the enemies of his line. At 20, he set out at the head of his Wahabi tribesmen to regain the sand and oases that had been wrested from his illustrious forebears, the Sauds...
...slashing night ride, he and a handful of followers recaptured the ancestral capital and palace of Riyadh. Soon after World War I, he had united all the tribes of the Nejd under his rule; next, he overthrew the Saud enemy, Sherif Hussein of Mecca, and blended the Hejaz into his domain...
...virtually all Arabia with its 6,000,000 citizens was recognized as his; he called it the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and pronounced himself King Ibn Saud. His prowess was legendary. One day of battle, so the story goes, he was wounded badly in the groin. Hearing that his followers feared for his future potency, he selected a maiden, married her on the spot and consummated the marriage that night...
Enraged, Crown Prince Saud (who is trying to run the country while his father lies critically ill) ordered the men to return to work. If they did not, he said, he would ship them back to their villages, where they used to enjoy the benefits of a 7½?-a-day wage. Whatever happened, Saudi Arabia would never be the same again. The astonished government muttered that it was looking into labor laws in other countries to see what they did about this sort of thing...
...Saudi Arabia's old (73) King Ibn Saud, ill with a heart ailment, went a get-well-quick message from Queen Elizabeth...