Sheik Omar Ch. 06

I forgot to name the books that inspired me to write this story:

- "The Sheik" is a 1919 novel by Edith Maude Hull
- "A Son of the Sahara" by Louise Gerard (1921);
"The Flight of the Phoenix" 1964 novel by Elleston Trevor
"The Sheltering Sky" 1949 by Paul Bowles

"The Sheik" is a novel set around the time it was written - so just after World War I. The female lead is a woman that we would now call a feminist who wants to travel the desert on her own. Well with servants but not with a man in the lead. An Arab sheik meets her before she sets off on her safari and decides to trick her. So her bodyguards just deliver her in his camp where he had his way with her and holds her captive. The repeated rapes are never openly describes as that would have caused troubles with the censor but you get the point. After being his captive for a long time and in the midst of many adventures they realise they have fallen in love with each other.

This book was made into a movie starring Rudolph Valentino that had the ladies fainting.

"A Son of the Sahara" might have been inspired by the former book and movie but is in my opinion a far better book. A desert king from the area between Morocco and Senegal kills a French expedition apart from the wife of the French officer. He takes her to his harem and she has a son that is his only child. When he attacks a British outpost he is executed and his young son, by then still a teen, tries to rescue him in vain. The son vows revenge on the British commander and his family. Many years later this son has become a rich trader and no one knows this Frenchman is in fact also partly Arab and the leader of a desert enclave. While on the Canary Islands he meets a young girl and falls in love for the first time in his life. She had inherited a large sum and plans to travel the world and although she also loves him dearly does not want to marry as that would end her independence. Then she also finds out he is partly Arab and that makes a marriage impossible. She runs away but both still love each other. When he hears that his nemesis the British officer is now posted in Africa again he strikes to take his revenge and then finds out that the also captured daughter is the woman he had fallen in love with and lost. He then tries to win her over by pretending to sell her as a slave and rescue her as the Frenchman she thinks he is. And when she finds out he is in fact the sultan who holds her captive he put her in his harem waiting for her to give in.

"The Flight of the Phoenix" I read as a teen. It is about a group of people whose planes has crashed in the desert and who try to survive. It was also made into a movie. A few years ago the did a remake that I have not seen (yet).

"The Sheltering Sky" I first saw as a movie and it has beautiful shots of Morocco. In the movie at some point the leading lady decides to join a caravan going south. The book is also a good read. Do not expect a happy lovestory.

The first two books picture how "racist" people were one century ago. The idea of falling in love and even marrying someone who was not Anglo-Saxon is regarded as shameful. People even refer to Arabs as niggers in the second one. While both female heroins decide to follow their heart and love their Arab sheik/sultan (and the writer seem to care less what race the hunk is) the writers both feel the need to reveal in the end both men are in fact of European descent. I wonder if that was done to make the books socially acceptable to the readers or if otherwise they would have been banned from publishing.

To set the story firmly in its timeframe I added scenes to show this "black blood / black barrier" element. But I can assure you that I could not care less myself when I was young and madly in love with my sheik. Nowadays it is more religion and politics that drives people apart then the colour of their skin.

By the way the first two books are copyright free and can be found on Amazon Kindle for free. On YouTube you can find the famous movie starring Rudolph Valentino. Do not laugh when you see his Balkan attire and the women with sleeveless dresses.

Although we now see rape and Stockholmsyndrom when we read The Sheik the second book is in my opinion marvellous in showing that real love will conquer all.

Happy reading!

PS One of my readers suggested the movie The Wind and the Lion with Sean Connery. I have not seen that yet but the first impression of Wikipedia is promising.

PS2 For more (non-fiction) reading: "White Slavery in the Barbary States" by Charles Sumner.

And "In Morocco" by Edith Wharton.

Both are free old books.