MOROCCO: Sibismaken

Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa, hand-picked Sultan of Morocco, docilely performed an unpleasant duty which his unruly old predecessor had resisted for years. He signed a dahir (decree), dictated by the French, which transferred some of the royal powers to a half-Moorish, half-French administrative council. The dahir was a hard blow at French Morocco’s hot-tempered independence movement.

Next morning, Sultan Arafa assembled his courtiers and red-uniformed horse guards, mounted a noble white charger inherited from the deposed Sultan and started out for Sabbath prayers at the imperial mosque. Somebody was waiting for him. A young (28), high-strung house painter named Allal ben Abdallah had piloted his creaky model-A Ford through the crowds waiting to view the Sultan and parked it close to a wall of the mosque.

Ben Abdallah sat until the Sultan, shaded by a parasol and fanned by a long-handled fly sweeper, drew near. Ben Abdallah revved up the motor, threw the old roadster into gear and roared at 40 m.p.h. straight at the mounted Sultan. For a startled instant, the Sultan watched the oncoming car, then began to dismount. A tough professional soldier, Calais-born Robert King, who is physical training instructor of the Sultan’s guards, leaped on the running board of the Ford, grabbed ben Abdallah by the neck and wrestled him from the car. Ben Abdallah pulled a butcher knife from his djellaba and sliced King’s shoulder, while the driverless roadster plowed on into the Sultan’s horse, breaking one of its legs (the animal was later destroyed). Sten gunners of the imperial guard fired a burst at ben Abdallah; he quivered, then died. Sultan Arafa, unhurt, turned to his aides and said “Sibismaken” (No harm done). Then he proceeded calmly into the mosque and thanked Allah for deliverance—this time.