Word: sheiking
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Qatar (pop. 25,000), to the south of Kuwait, marks the next stage of the evolution of a sand-blown sheik into a millionaire. Seventeen years ago, Qatar (rhymes with butter) was no more than a sunburned thumb-120 miles long and 50 wide-sticking out into the Persian Gulf. Periodically, howling shamal winds blistered the low, monotonous plateau. Doha, seat of government, was a mud village, and the only sign of industry was a few palm groves by the sea and a few fishing boats. The only foreigners were American missionaries...
...P.D.Q. came back, and two years ago it shipped its first crude. Last year total production reached 18.5 million barrels. Last week 57-year-old Sheik Ali, a dull but honest fellow, was getting an average $1,360 a day in royalties. As soon as the British can find a suitable teacher, they promise to open the first school in Qatar's history. P.D.Q. has built a network of roads, and now the big new Cadillacs and Buicks in Doha have some place to go. The Eastern Bank has opened a branch. The Sheik's royalty will shortly...
...Financial Consultant Charles Dalrymple Belgrave, Britain would be winning, not losing, popularity contests in the Arab world. Belgrave, an officer in the British Camel Corps in the Sudan in World War I, answered a blind personal ad in the London Times in 1925. The job was to advise a sheik in Bahrein. Belgrave took it, married a childhood friend, and set out with her for the Persian Gulf. He found Bahrein living on an income of something less than $500,000 a year. Sheiks at that time were not in the habit of sharing the wealth. But Belgrave talked...
...when it is, Bahrein will be prepared. Again persuaded by Belgrave, the Sheik has been saving a husky part of his $4,000,000-a-year oil royalties (which are due to be raised). The Sheik keeps one-third for himself, salting away a good chunk in British securities; spends another third on public improvements; deposits the remaining third in the bank, where it buys British government debentures. Today Bahrein has a growing cash reserve of more than $6.500,000 against the inevitable day when the last of the oil is drained away...
Belgrave did not do this alone. Bahrein's little Sheik, Sir Sulman bin Hamad al Khalifah, who came to the throne in 1942, is a good ruler. He looks like Jordan's late King Abdullah, has the same dignified mien and dancing eyes. Sulman's memory is phenomenal: he remembers which oil driller's wife is having a baby. He takes all the newspapers, listens regularly to the Arabic radio broadcasts. When the Moscow radio calls Belgrave a "dictator" Sulman chuckles, twits his $9, 600-a-year adviser. From time to time, in his Rolls-Royce...