LAND OF SAUD: Kingdom Christened

(See map)

Morally straight as a sceptre, physically supple and strong as a beast of prey is the mightiest man in the Middle East, King Ibn Saud. Last week he changed the name of his realm which has been "The Kingdom of the Hejaz and Nejd and Its Dependencies." Renaming this huge desert hodgepodge partly after himself, tall, frowning Ibn Saud christened it "The

Arabian Saudian Kingdom." Next he ordered suitable observances (but no unseemly rejoicing) in his twin capitals: Riyadh, where he was born, and Mecca, where Mohammed was born.

Starting from scratch 31 years ago, Ibn Saud has successfully bluffed the British, reduced hostile cities by siege after bloody siege (in 1924-25 he besieged Medina, where Mohammed lies buried, for 15 months) and hacked out a kingdom of 4,000,000 souls in the middle of Arabia (900,000 square miles). Accredited to the Court of Ibn Saud are exactly two diplomats, the British Minister and the Soviet Minister. Last week their Legations were in at the christening, flattered His Majesty with notes of congratulation in English and Russian which he, peering through his thick, steel-rimmed spectacles, was totally unable to read.

Because non-Moslems are barred from Mecca during the pilgrim season upon pain of death; because Ibn Saud and his personal followers are so strict that they might be called Moslem Fundamentalists; and because few Christians care a whoop what happens in Arabia, news from the Land of Saud is always scarce, usually untrustworthy. Biggest Christian news of recent years was the 58-day trek of English Explorer Bertram Thomas across 900 miles of arid waste, famed for its weirdly noisy ''singing sands'' and called the Riilxi-aI-Khali or "Abode of Loneliness" (TIME. March 9. 1931). Last week the U. S. State Department received its only notice of King Ibn Saud's doings from his Minister in London, the Sheikh Hafiz Wahba. Calling at the U.S. Embassy the Sheikh suavely announced that "in accordance with the wishes of his subjects, His Majesty . . . has graciously consented" to change the name of the Land of Saud (see col. 3).