"Holy War'

Robed and stately sheiks of the Arabian plateau gathered, last week, to imprint loud, smacking kisses of fealty on the tip of their potent Sultan's nose. The monarch thus saluted was Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, bronzed and stalwart Sultan of Nejd, King of the Hejaz. He subjects his nose to kisses, instead of receiving bows of homage, because his subjects are of a fanatically orthodox Moslem sect, the Wahabi, and hold that the pious should bow only to Allah. Last week the Sultan and his devout Sheiks were persistently reported to have launched a "Holy War." Menaced areas: the British Mandates of Palestine, Transjordania, Irak and the Sultanate of Koweit.

A radio antenna sprouts from one of the squat mud turrets of Ibn Saud's mud-walled Palace, at Riyadh, his Capital. Unfortunately, however, even such modern equipment could not enable the Sultan to know, last week, what the cables of the world press were flashing about his reputed "Holy War." Had he known, Ibn Saud might have smiled in grim derision at the following reports:

P: The Jewish Telegraph Agency alarmed from Jerusalem: "A force led by Sheik Ed Dowilsh with 1,400 camels is marching toward Irak. . . . Twenty-two [British] airplanes and seven tanks have been despatched to the frontier of Transjordania to protect the territory from . . . Ibn Saud."

P:Englishmen began to take serious heed when the Manchester Guardian cut loose from decorum and stated that it would be "no picnic" to whip Ibn Saud. Meanwhile the British Laborite Daily Herald cried in frank alarm: ". . . This country is on the verge of war not with a few scattered tribes but with a monarch who has proved his ability and military strength and whose easy defeat cannot be assumed."

P: At London the first word of clear council to cut through the babbling of the press came from Sir Percy Zachariah Cox, who was the first British High Commissioner to Irak (1920-23) and has treated personally with Ibn Saud.

Said Sir Percy: "Advices from Jerusalem should be regarded with caution. . . . It is certain that a rupture with Great Britain would be extremely repugnant to Ibn Saud. . . .

"Doubtless he finds himself in a difficult position in relation to his . . . subjects . . . unable to check their raiding. . . ."

P:Finally, when the "Holy War" had been fully exploited by Jew correspondents of Jerusalem and by sundry gentile newsgatherers in Irak, a statement forthcame from Ibn Saud. Through his representative at Cairo, Sheik Hafiz Wahba, the Sultan positively denied that he was making war upon the British Mandates, and stated that he was doing his best to quiet certain pugnacious bands of his tribesmen subjects who had been raiding along the frontier.

The Sultan "whose easy defeat cannot be assumed," even by the British Empire, has placed above one of his palace doors a verse which might be rendered thus:

Although we are of noble line,

We do not on our line depend;

We build as our ancestors built

And do as they did, to the end.

Ibn Saud began to "build" in his earliest youth, preaching tempestuously the literal Koran, riding and fighting like the whirlwind, dazzling the Sheiks of Central Arabia by his sheer, inborn will to lead. At the age of 19, in 1901, he led a victorious expedition which captured his present capital, Riyadh.

Since then his days of the gazu--conquest--have been long. During the World War, however, when Britain's great Colonel Thomas Edward (Revolt in the Desert) Lawrence was fomenting an Arab uprising against Turkey, Ibn Saud cannily refused to fall in with the revolt. Instead he threatened to fly to arms against the Empire, and was soon able to accept a British bribe for his neutrality in the amount of $300,000 per year.

After the War, the Sultan of Nejd valorously conquered and added the Hejaz to his realm (1924). This he did despite the fact that Colonel Lawrence had promised the late King Hussein of the Hejaz that Great Britain would make Hussein master of Arabia. In effect, Ibn Saud has thwarted the major purpose of Colonel Lawrence and now rules supreme over nearly all Arabia.

At Riyadh the Sultan-King dwells in resplendent state, attended by wives & concubines, served by slaves, kissed by Sheiks. The possibility that he and his super-orthodox followers might wage a Holy War on the effete and backsliding Moslems in the British Mandates was suggested to him two years ago in the form of a pointed question. At that time Ibn Saud snorted, struck the ground with his staff and exclaimed: "No, No! Rest assured. We are not as some people imagine us!"