Word: sultanic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
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...
After complaining to French officials in Corsica that his assigned quarters of 37 hotel bedrooms had bad plumbing, leaky roofs, and cramped his style of living, Morocco's exiled former Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Youssef persuaded his keepers to move him into 50 rooms in the island's flossiest hotel. The Sultan's ménage: 14 concubines, two wives, two sons, two daughters, three servants...
...victorious Allies, of course, favored the complaisant Sultan, but in their greed they served to further Kemal. The Sultan and the Grand Vizier went to Versailles to plead not to be denuded of all land and power. Clemenceau, the Tiger, said coldly: "Be silent, Your Highness! Relieve Paris of your presence." The Allies handed the Sultan the Treaty of Sevres, which split Turkey six ways. The Greeks marched in to enforce the Diktat, and Kemal roared: "Turks! Will you crawl to these Greeks who were your slaves only yesterday?" He raised an army of peasants, veterans, criminals, patriots. Two years...
...Kemal became: President of the new republic, commander in chief of the army, president of the Council of Ministers, chief of the only party, and speaker of the Assembly. He began ridding the Turks of the things that reminded them of the degenerate past. First he ordered the Sultan expelled; 16 months later the Caliph (or Moslem spiritual leader) was exiled. Kemal announced that "Islam is a dead thing," and Turkey became a nondenominational state...
...years; then abruptly he switched from precept to fiat. He gave civil servants three months to master the new script-or find new jobs. He had not been to Istanbul since 1919; now he returned in style and with a purpose. He sailed into the Golden Horn on the Sultan's yacht, triumphantly marched past cheering crowds. He summoned Istanbul's elite to the Sultan's palace to a ball, and stood before them in full evening dress on a raised platform, chalk in hand, before a blackboard. For two hours he explained the new language, then...