World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles
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talk in Egypt that in 1943 (five years after his marriage) the
king was driving furiously with two Italian girls and a male
companion when his car hit a truck near the village of Kassassein. He spent a month at a British military hospital. It
was reported he "broke two ribs and sustained serious eye injuries.
Farouk is fabulously wealthy. His father, Fouad, left him a
fortune estimated at forty million dollars. Farouk and the
royal family own about one million acres out of the five and
a half million under cultivation in Egypt. He possesses huge
villas and palaces throughout Egypt, and several private planes
for emergency departure. In addition, he receives an annual
income of half a million dollars from the government. His investments, scattered in Switzerland and other countries, reputedly total sixty million dollars. He operates a model farm
and owns a number of night clubs and restaurants in Cairo
and Alexandria.
The king lives in constant fear of his life. I saw him one
day as he was leaving the Cairo Opera. For blocks ahead the
streets were cleared of all traffic, and the people were kept on
the sidewalk by police. The king's bright-red Rolls-Royce was
preceded by motorcycles, an armed truck filled with troops,
and two bright-red jeeps filled with soldiers and automatic
rifles. Immediately before and behind his car were black sedans filled with plainclothesmen. No one else in Egypt is
allowed to paint his car red, the royal color.
In fairness, it must be pointed out that Farouk is probably
no better and no worse than most of the members of Egvpt's
ruling cliques. His personal morals and profligate living are
patterned after those of the ruling pashas and effendis, which
explains their tolerance for him—and, in turn, explains the
king's hold on them.