My Friend Ibn Saud

I

I CALL him my friend, although he is a king and I a journalist. I do this not because he opened the portals of his soul to me — for that he has done to no man. Nor do I speak of him in this way because of the many evidences of friendship and kind-heartedness that he has given me during the past two years that I have spent in Arabia, — years not free from bitterness, — for he has treated others no less cordially. Also let me make this clear: Abd-elAziz ibn Saud does not call me his friend — I call him mine. And I do this simply because he is a good man. Not merely good-hearted — many people are good-hearted. Just as we say of an old Toledo blade that it is a good weapon, because it possesses all the qualities that can be demanded of a weapon of that kind, so J call Ibn Saud a good man. A fully rounded out character, obeying only the dictates of his own conscience — sometimes in the wrong, but never failing in his honesty toward himself.

Ibn Saud was born about fifty years ago in Riyadh in Central Arabia. He is a collateral descendant of the royal family that gained control over the greater part of the Arabian peninsula at the beginning of the previous century and that subsequently fell into a state of decadence. During Ibn Saud’s early childhood all powder passed out of the hands of his family into those of a former vassal, Ibn Rashid of Havel, in Northern Arabia. And the proud, reserved boy had to sit by and watch a foreign emir usurp his father’s city of Riyadh, all in the name of Ibn Rashid. Abd-el-Aziz ibn Saud and his family then became mere pensioners of the bounty of Ibn Rashid, tolerated without being feared. Presently this became too much for even the peaceloving father, Abd-er-Rahman, who departed with his family to Koweit to spend the rest of his days there in the home of his friend, the Sultan. Little did he dream of the future and of his son’s aspirations.

There was probably only one person who detected the indomitable passionate spirit that slumbered in the boy’s breast and the future greatness it: betokened. That person was one of his aunts — an older sister of his father, who loved him dearly. While he was still a little boy, when no one else was present she used to clasp him to her bosom, telling him of all the great deeds he must accomplish. ‘You must be a great man,’ was her unending refrain.

In Koweit he got his first taste of solitude. This arose from the fact that, as a boy, Abd-el-Aziz ibn Saud was thin and talk So much taller was he than other boys of his age that they would laugh at him and mock him. He was immoderately ashamed of his stature, which attracted all eyes in his direction, and he would carry his head bent in the hope of appearing shorter. It hurt his feelings to seem different from the people around him, but since his peculiarity was not solely physical he was unable to adjust himself.

Gradually his youthful intelligence grasped the situation, and his ambition stirred within him. He began to look beyond his immediate surroundings. He approached his father, saying, ‘ How can you tolerate having the Ibn Rashids rule over your home? Attack them, and drive them away. No one has a better claim than you to the throne of Riyadh.’

It must be understood that Ibn Rashid was at this time the most powerful chieftain on the Arabian peninsula. His domain extended from the Syrian desert to Roba-el-Khali, and all the Bedouin tribes lived in terror of his mailed fist. It was therefore hardly surprising that Abd-erRahman, exiled, old, and impoverished, should have considered the demands of his stormy son fantastic. The boy urged and the father refused for years, but the son’s enthusiasm was more stubborn than the father’s lassitude, and Abd-er-Rahman finally yielded. With the assistance of the friendly Sultan of Koweit he assembled a few faithful Bedouin tribes and set out across the Arabian desert with dromedaries, banners, and flintlock muskets to attack Ibn Rashid. But the expedition was speedily repulsed. It returned to Koweit, — secretly, no doubt, somewhat relieved, — and the son was told that, it was all to no purpose. Determined to spend t he evening of his days in peace, the father renounced all his claims to Nejd.

But Abd-el-Aziz, the son, did not despair. He summoned a couple of his friends, and they assembled a troop of forty men, mostly Bedouins. They departed from Koweit without flags or music, but secretly, furtively, like thieves. By hasty night marches, avoiding the heavily traveled caravan routes, the forty men, mounted on camels, drew near to Riyadh and hid close by in an obscure valley. On that same day, Ibn Saud picked out five of his forty companions and spoke to the others as follows: ‘We have laid our destiny in the hands of God, and we are going to Riyadh either to conquer it or to fail completely. If you hear a sound of fighting in the city, hasten to our aid. If, by sunset tomorrow, you hear nothing of us, then we are dead — and God have mercy on our souls. You who are left will return to Koweit.’

The six of them set forth on foot. By nightfall they reached Riyadh, entering the city through a breach in the wall that Ibn Rashid had made to show how secure he felt. With their weapons hidden in the folds of their garments, they made their way to the Emir’s residence. It was locked, for the Emir, fearful of the inhabitants, was in the habit of spending the night in a near-by fortification. The intruders, however, beat upon the door, and a slave admitted them. Without making a sound, they overpowered him and bound him, along with the few other slaves and women who were also there. The rest of the time until dawn they spent reading the Koran by way of preparation for the task ahead of them.

Early in the morning the gates of the fortification were thrown open and the Emir sallied forth, accompanied by a considerable body of armed servants and slaves. Ibn Saud and his five companions promptly hurled themselves upon the company, shouting, ‘Ibn Saud!’ and took them by complete surprise. Abdallah ibn Jiluwi, Ibn Baud’s cousin, who is now the Emir of El-Hasa, hurled his spear at the Emir, who dodged just in time, and the spear buried its quivering shaft in the wall of the fortification, where it remains to this very day. The Emir fled back through the gate, and while Abdallah was pursuing him Ibn Saud and the rest of his followers laid about them with their swords among the Emir’s bodyguard, who were so surprised that they offered almost no resistance in spite of their numerical superiority.

While this struggle was in progress, the Emir suddenly rushed out on the flat roof of the fortification, still pursued by Abdallah ibn Jiluwi. Screaming for mercy, the Emir fell against the barrier at the edge of the roof, which gave way beneath him just as his enemy’s sword cleaved his neck. Ibn Saud then shouted, ‘Come hither, you men of Riyadh! Here am I — Abd-el-Aziz ibn Abd-er-Rahman ibn Saud, your rightful ruler!’ And the citizens of Riyadh, who secretly hated their late oppressor from the north, laid down their arms, while Ibn Saud’s thirty-five reserves galloped through the city gates on their camels. In another hour Abd-el-Aziz ibn Saud was the undisputed master of the city.

II

At this point — it was January 1901 — Ibn Saud’s youth came to an end, and he entered upon the second phase of his life, a grown man and a ruler.

Now began those systematic conquests of Ibn Saud’s which soon proved him to be altogether different from the usual Arabian condottiere. His expansion was as calculated as the plans of a European general staff working with maps, although Ibn Saud had no general staff but himself and had never laid eyes on a map. The process proceeded spirally with Riyadh as its fixed centre, and no forward step was taken until all conquered territory had been thoroughly subdued and organized. He first acquired the provinces to the east and north of Riyadh, and in 1904 took over the busy and prosperous province of Qasim. He then extended his realm over the western deserts, most of which were inhabited by the Ateybe tribes. In 1914 he launched an attack on the province of El Hasa on the Persian Gulf, which had belonged to Nejd fifty years before, but which the Turks had since taken. He captured the capital city of Hofuf after a few minor engagements, and established himself there firmly. The Ottoman Government was about to send out a punitive expedition against him when the World War broke out.

In 1921 the Djebel Shammar and the city of Ilayel were also added to his kingdom, and, since it was in this city that the house of Ibn Rashid originated, that family lost its last stronghold in Arabia, apparently for all time. But the climax of Ibn Saud’s expansion did not come until 1924 and 1925, when the Hejaz, together with Mecca, Medina, and Jiddah, was united with his kingdom.

It should be remembered that none of the territories he conquered were brought to heel in the old high-handed Oriental manner, but that in each case a nation was established. In every one of these states all who were willing to cooperate were placed on equal footing. Ibn Saud always tried to conquer from within and always endeavored to win his subjects’ affection, showing them that he was working as much for their good as he was for the good of his own country. And this was something that no Arabian ruler had done since the great Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab.

Ibn Saud long since has ceased to be merely a citizen of Riyadh. He has out grown the narrow tribal confines. He has mastered the art of keeping his inner man on a par with his outer power. He has never left Arabia and, outside of his own province, is familiar only with Bahrein, Koweit, and Basra. He knows no other language than Arabic. His reading has been confined to religious books and a few works on Arabian history. None the less, he has been able to extend his intellectual fields more widely than any Arabian king before him. No man alive has a better understanding of the present state of Islamic countries, and he is better posted than many professional politicians on the various parties in Egypt, Java, and India. The scientific discoveries of Europe, such as aviation and wireless telegraphy, which many Arabs, even the educated ones, believe to be fairy tales, he understands and appreciates fully as much as an educated Occidental.

Yet all the while he has never ceased to be a devout Moslem. From the premise that all existence originates in God, he arrives at the conviction that all material progress is futile unless it deepens our belief. It is therefore only natural that Ibn Saud’s country should have developed in a religious direction. He belongs to the so-called Wahhabi movement. The Wahhabis are a reforming sect that follows the teaching of that great Nejd scholar, Mohammed ibn Abdul-Wahhab, who lived at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The aim of this sect is to cleanse Islam of the heresy it has gathered during its long history, and particularly to eliminate the custom of praying to Mohammedan saints instead of to Allah. It is the most severe of all Mohammedan sects, and it is based on the theory that all believers should imitate in their lives the simplicity and selfdiscipline of the Prophet.

As Occidentals, we generally do not understand Islam, because we are too prone to judge it by the modern Mohammedan countries. The form of Islam which such countries exemplify is anything but the original religion. It is a cult that spread like wildfire from the distorted teachings of a crazy heretic who advocated honoring graves and saints, although such teaching flatly contradicts the original Islamic beliefs. Modern Islam has arisen from a laissez-faire attitude which is as remote from the original teachings of Mohammed as are the ideals of most Europeans. Mohammedan countries cannot blame Islam for their decadence, but rather the fact that they have twisted and ignored the pure teachings of Islam without supplanting them with anything better. The disease of Orientalism is not Islam. A truly Islamic society, systematically organized, would produce a more proportioned and orderly organization of life than we can find under any other system, although from a practical point of view it would be impossible, because Islam forbids any form of progress in culture or civilization and because its very thesis denies every scientifically proved fact.

Nevertheless, the goal of Ibn Saud’s efforts is to establish a really Islamic state — the first since the time of the companions of the Prophet. He has no desire for personal aggrandizement — he only wishes to serve the Idea. He imagines himself as standing very much in the background of all his activities, and in this sense he is a thoroughly modern ruler, quite different from the old-fashioned Oriental sultans who regarded their subjects as mere servants of their own ego. A foreigner, seeing Ibn Saud for the first time, would laugh at the primitive aspect of this king who sits, simply dressed, in a simply furnished room, rises and gives his hand to everyone who enters, even to the poorest Bedouin, and eats his meals with ministers, stenographers, and chauffeurs. But the visitor’s laughter would come to an end as soon as he regarded this king from closer range.

Ibn Saud began his constructive labors with the endeavor to establish domestic security by means of strict laws and effective punitive measures directed against bandits. Before his time, Arabia was a veritable den of thieves, filled with warring Bedouin tribes who plundered caravans and made all travel immeasurably dangerous. The new king promptly forbade his Bedouins to fight among themselves. All disputes had to be brought either to him or to the court of some emir. All criminals were punished in strict accordance with the code of the Koran. For a murder a man was beheaded; for robbery his right hand was cut off; and for armed robbery his right hand and left foot.

But soon Ibn Saud realized that mere force could not transform wild beasts into human beings. He began describing to his people the ethos of true belief. He sent scholars and preachers to various tribes to teach the Bedouins to read and write and to make them zealous disciples of the true belief. After a few difficult years, the movement suddenly caught hold. A miracle occurred. This kingdom of Ibn Saud’s, as big as France, Germany, and Italy put together, now enjoys a state of security that the so-called civilized countries of the West cannot begin to duplicate. In the broad deserts of Central Arabia, where nobody ever dared travel unarmed in the old days, a visitor can now go quite alone, unarmed, laden with gold, and encounter no danger. Battles between individual tribes, which were everyday occurrences twenty years ago, are things of the past in the territories of Ibn Saud — though not, it may be said, in Syria and Iraq, where the ‘civilized’ powers of Europe hold sway.

But Ibn Saud’s labors did not end here. He has built his cultural structure on a broader basis. Fifteen years ago he conceived the idea of persuading the Bedouins to establish themselves in permanent residences. It was clear to him that the nomadic life of these tribes was not conducive to progress and civilization or — and this was the really important point in Ibn Saud’s estimation — to profound belief. He therefore began preaching this new, unheard-of idea to the Bedouins of Arabia. His success exceeded all expectation. One after another, the various tribes perceived the advantages of a settled mode of life. They were assigned land, built themselves houses, and planted palm trees. At first, during the early and difficult stages of transformation from nomadic herders into settled agriculturalists, the king backed them to the limit, giving them money, food, and grain. And he had to keep on helping, because new tribes kept allying themselves to him. It is estimated that now, fifteen years after this movement started, one third of all the Bedouins in Central Arabia have settled down, and the movement is going forward with undiminished intensity. The cultural significance of this aspect of Ibn Saud’s work cannot be overestimated. The future historian will be compelled to assign this king a high place among those who have speeded human progress.

These Bedouins, who had been wild desert robbers mounted on horseback only a generation ago, began to feel that they were fulfilling a great destiny when they took permanent homes. The religious teachings that Ibn Saud had planted in their breasts awoke in them that peculiarly Arabian instinct for absolute belief. They understood that here was a true Islamic nation and that they had been called upon to lay its foundations. These men, to whom Islam had once been nothing but a word, now became zealous champions of the belief, and quite naturally they came to regard Nejd as the capital city of their faith, set in a world of unbelievers and half-believers. They gradually gave up their old ideas of tribal loyalty and called themselves Ikhwan (brothers) — brothers of all who fully recognized God’s word. As an outer symbol of their new attitude they gave up wearing the traditional Arabic braid about their heads and adopted white turbans, following the example of the Prophet.

The great importance of the Ikhwan to Ibn Saud’s nation resides in the fact that all members capable of bearing arms voluntarily place themselves at the service of their king in case of war, thus providing him with a highly spirited body of troops. Since they regard themselves as the only real representatives of the true belief, any war is a war against unbelievers and therefore a holy war, and it is the highest honor, according to Mohammedan belief, to die fighting in a holy war. The result is that the Ikhwan not only do not fear death, they even court it — without despising life. They are the bravest, most tireless, and most mobile troops in the world, and, with adequate technical equipment, could make extensive conquests. In times of peace they are scattered throughout the land, but within a month they can assemble in any place the king commands, all of them mounted on dromedaries and armed with modern weapons, — Ibn Baud’s booty in his various campaigns, — swords, and daggers, each with his own rations, which include a little rice and a sack of dates. They receive no pay from the king, but occasional presents, and they always count on booty. This inexpensive army of enthusiastic volunteers makes Ibn Baud stronger than any Arabian ruler before him.

III

All this is the work of a single man — Abd-el-Aziz ibn Saud. All the help that his emirs give him — and some of them are important men — consists in carrying out his plans. The burden of his work is tremendous.

All day long, from early morning until late at night, he works incessantly, pausing only to pray and to spend a very few moments with his family. Each day he receives hundreds of communications and reports, all of which he reads himself. He dictates hundreds of letters. Countless Bedouins and representatives from all parts of his kingdom come to him daily, laying their complaints and demands at his feet and receiving his orders. While they are in Riyadh, all of them are his guests. He puts up an average of a thousand people a day, and when they depart each one receives an article of clothing and some suitable gift, in accordance with the generous Arabian code. But the personal expenses of the king are small, except for his big automobile park, which is really a national necessity. His private life is devoid of luxury.

People say that Ibn Saud is very fond of women, that he has married often, and that he keeps changing his wives. That is true. But he is capable of genuine and devoted affection, as few other Arabs are. Everyone who knows him at close range testifies to this and talks about it.

He is also capable of real forgiveness. About fixe years ago, one of his wives put some poison into his incense vessel at the instigation of Ibn Rashid’s family. Ibn Saud was alert enough to observe it, and lost only the sight of one eye. He then forgave the woman, because he was convinced that she had been the victim of insuperable psychological influences at the hands of her family. He gave her a letter of divorce, together with clothes and money, and sent her back to Hayel.

He is never revengeful, though he can be hard and relentless to lawbreakers. On one occasion, when fifteen ringleaders of a conspiracy were being beheaded, he watched the proceedings as coolly as if he were witnessing a horse race, and sipped coffee all the while.

Ibn Saud is very tall and possesses superb virile beauty. He has a high, thoughtful forehead, a slightly bent nose, a small mouth with thick lips that are sensuous yet sensitive. Anyone who meets him is at once impressed by his smile — a charming, understanding, and inexpressibly sweet smile; and one cannot but love him.

Ibn Saud has been compared to Napoleon, but I prefer to liken him to Cyrus as Xenophon depicted him in his Cyropœdia — a wise, farsighted ruler, working for the good of his people and not for his own advantage; estimating men at their real worth; reading their souls before he speaks a word; always aware of the fact that the people one works with must be satisfied. To these people he gives more than they ever expected — security of life, the gifts of a great heart, and a love that is never forgetful of true worth. Yet all the time he stands among them a solitary spirit — solitary because he is great.

A deep loneliness dwells in the breast of Ibn Saud, although many people surround him. No man can penetrate behind his smiling mouth or behind the broad gestures that his hands make when he is discussing problems of state or religious matters. No man knows what he will do to-morrow, for his future desires are dark and mysterious. But his yesterday and to-day arc without mystery, without secrecy. His is the solitude of greatness. No leader points the way before him — only the living spirit. And behind him lie great achievements and great wisdom.