ABSTRACT
The discovery of gold and oil and the advent of the Americans meant that ‘Abdullah as-Sulaiman was out of danger and beyond reach. He was not much younger than Ibn Sa‘ud, in uxoriousness he was nearer to the Sa‘udis than to Yusuf Yasin and he did not believe in Wahhabi abstention where whisky was concerned, yet he was a hard worker and full of new ideas at a time when the King was losing his vigour. The Americans who were providing the principal source of income of the country were receiving the greater part of Sa‘udi official attention. They were more fortunate than the rest of us in their dealings with the two Sa‘udi key-men. With the development of the eastern part of Ibn Sa‘ud’s land the Americans made the overland route from Red Sea to Persian Gulf a darb an-nasara, a road for Christians.
