    25

    wo

    n.  In retaliation, he had been ambushed by five members of the

    rival gang.  The solitary fighter had not survived the encounter.

    Though the dignitary has sired a small squadron of male children by

    his many wives, he is now down to one last son.  His male children

    have all been gambled...and lost.

    What would have happened if those gambles had paid off?  The

    victorious sons would have become heroes of the desert, exalted

    leaders with many wives, much wealth, and the respect and envy of

    their fellows.  For example, Ibn Sa'ud--founder of Saudi Arabia and its

    king until his death in 1953--started as a desert raider.  He had an

    abnormal tendency to emerge from his battles victorious.  The result:

    through a long series of conquests, Ibn Sa'ud consolidated a territory

    that, thanks to oil, became wealthy.  He indulged in the luxury of

    naming his new kingdom after himself.  The leaders of America,

    England and every other Arab state bowed to his power.  Presidents of

    banks and C.E.O.s of massive corporations hungered for his favor.

    Superpowers fell over each other in a scramble to sell him weapons.

    Ibn Sa'ud's sexual payoff was equally impressive.  He sired 45

    "official" sons by 22 mothers.  He fathered at least an equal number of

    daughters by a bewildering variety of women that included

    concubines, slave girls and "wives of the night."  As of 1981, roughly

    500 royal children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren could trace

    their origin back to the activity of Ibn Sa'ud's loins.39

    Gambling with the lives of men is not limited to the children of

    Islam.  In early societies everywhere from Africa and Asia to Europe

    and South America, the soldier marching off to war could easily

    pole-vault from farmer to aristocrat, expanding the territory of his tribe

    in the process.  The Vikings who were ordinary plowmen back home

    packed their spears and swords in a boat, rowed off over the horizon,

    and became the rulers of Moscow, Sicily and Normandy.  Their

    descendants would someday call themselves czars and kings.  The

    Mongols' property once consisted of a few ponies and the right to

    graze across Asia's most barren and frigid steppes.  Then in the

    thirteenth century they set off, nearly starving on their compact horses,

    <<  <  GO  >  >>