Although at the moment this is written he holds in the world to-day a position second only to that of the pope in Rome, he lives so simply that he prefers a mule to any other conveyence. But for mules he is a connoisseur and a fan. South America, Australia, and Abyssinia are combed for his favorite steeds; but the best of all, according to King Hussein, is the good Missouri “hard-tail.”
Simple, even severe in his tastes, Hussein is a rigid upholder of the Volstead clauses in Al Qu’ran. After a gloriously successful train-wrecking expedition, two of Lawrence’s Arab officers went up to Mecca on a week’s leave, taking along in their grips something stronger than rose-water, with which to celebrate. This breach of piety reached the ears of the king, who had the officers beaten in public. After that no one chose Mecca as the Arabian Montreal.
The Arabs are inordinately fond of talking-machines, but King Hussein has prohibited them in Mecca, believing them to be the invention not of Edison but of the devil. Although he himself prefers the life of a nomad and his real sympathies are with the Bedouins, he is even more severe with the tribesmen of the black tents than with the Arab townsfolk.
One day he was resting in the cool shelter of date-palms in an oasis with a circle of Bedouins squatting around him on their prayer-rugs. Out of the corner of his eye, he observed one of these Arabs slip the kuffieh belonging to his neighbor under the folds of his robes. A moment later, the owner returned and missed his handsome head-dress. Every one denied seeing it, including the culprit. Hussein stood up, terrible in his wrath, and strode over to the guilty man.
“Varlet, where is thy brother’s kuffieh?” he demanded.
“Master of mercies, I know nothing of it,” stammered the terrified man.
“Thou liest!” growled Hussein, and, picking up the gnarled club that formed part of his regal trappings, he dealt the man a terrific blow in the ribs. The thief collapsed in a heap and died next day.
Hussein, as the Grand Shereef of Mecca, was the sixty-eighth of his dynasty. As king he was the first of a new line. Now, as ruler-elect of the Mohammedan world, he revives the supremacy of his ancient clan, the Qu’reish, from whom the Prophet himself was descended. He is a man of keen intelligence, and those who know him best say that he has a natural gift for diplomacy. Certainly he will need every ounce of it if he is to keep his present difficult position as caliph over the divided and distracted Moslem world of to-day. Many do not acknowledge him. Even in his own Arabia, the powerful schism of the Wahabis pays him but scant attention. In fact the present sultan of the Central Desert and head of the puritanical Wahabis, is King Hussein’s great rival and one of the strongest men in Arabia to-day. Early in the war, according to Mr. H. St. John Philby, “Sir Percy Cox, who accompanied the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force as Chief Political Officer, immediately sent Captain Shakespear to spur Ibn Sa’ud into active operations against the Turks and their natural ally, Ibn Rashid. The campaign was launched in January, 1915, and I have always thought that, had it not been for the unfortunate accident of Shakespear’s death in the very first battle between the rival forces, Colonel Lawrence might never have had the opportunity of initiating and carrying through the brilliant campaigns with which his name is associated, and as the result of which he entered Damascus in triumph at the head of the army of the Hedjaz.”
Mr. Philby followed Captain Shakespear into the Central Desert ruled over by Ibn Sa’ud, and he had a tremendous admiration for that potentate. But by the time Mr. Philby was sent to Ibn Sa’ud’s country the Hedjaz revolt was at its height and Colonel Lawrence was well on his way toward Damascus. Mr. Philby made an extraordinary journey through the unknown heart of Arabia and turned up rather unexpectedly at the summer capital of King Hussein in the mountains near Mecca. The aged monarch in greeting the explorer called him the Lawrence of Nejd.
In the Wahabi sect sons can kill fathers or fathers can kill sons who do not join. A man can also be killed for smoking a cigarrette. These Mohammedan Puritans want to abolish the pilgrimage to Mecca and blot out all shrines, such as the sacred Kaaba and the Tomb of the Prophet in Medina. Ibn Sa’ud was the head of a powerful force of fighting men, and after the World War he had captured the city of Hail, his old enemy Ibn Rashid’s capital, and made himself the ruler of the whole of Central Arabia.