Word: sultanic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa, hand-picked Sultan of Morocco, docilely performed an unpleasant duty which his unruly old predecessor had resisted for years. He signed a dahir (decree), dictated by the French, which transferred some of the royal powers to a half-Moorish, half-French administrative council. The dahir was a hard blow at French Morocco's hot-tempered independence movement...
Next morning, Sultan Arafa assembled his courtiers and red-uniformed horse guards, mounted a noble white charger inherited from the deposed Sultan and started out for Sabbath prayers at the imperial mosque. Somebody was waiting for him. A young (28), high-strung house painter named Allal ben Abdallah had piloted his creaky model-A Ford through the crowds waiting to view the Sultan and parked it close to a wall of the mosque...
...Abdallah sat until the Sultan, shaded by a parasol and fanned by a long-handled fly sweeper, drew near. Ben Abdallah revved up the motor, threw the old roadster into gear and roared at 40 m.p.h. straight at the mounted Sultan. For a startled instant, the Sultan watched the oncoming car, then began to dismount. A tough professional soldier, Calais-born Robert King, who is physical training instructor of the Sultan's guards, leaped on the running board of the Ford, grabbed ben Abdallah by the neck and wrestled him from the car. Ben Abdallah pulled a butcher knife...
Like many another wealthy Moor, French Morocco's deposed Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef had enjoyed himself in two worlds. He liked fine automobiles, often wore European dress, sent his sons to French schools. But he also took full advantage of a standard Moslem privilege-plenty of women. He had two wives and 41 concubines, none of whom (according to a close friend) was long neglected...
...meanwhile, Ben Youssef had to move out of the house of the frantic governor and install himself in a hotel before moving on, probably to a resort in the French Pyrenees. There, the broad-minded French indicated, the 26 remaining concubines will be allowed to rejoin the bereft ex-Sultan. "We are adhering to our principles," explained a Quai d'Orsay spokesman. "He is in exile with all the honors due his rank...