First edition. Numerous black and white photographic illustrations. 8vo. Very good original black cloth in good pictorial dust-jacket. 184pp. London, Arthur Barker Limited, 1964.
Sheikh Hafiz Wahba was the first Saudi Minister of Education and was later the long-serving Ambassador of Ibn Saud to the United Kingdom. His is one of the best English-Language works on the Arabian Peninsula by an Arab, and provides an especially valuable account of Saudi history.
Gerald de Gaury, in the introduction, deems Sheik Hafiz "the perfect interpreter of Arabia. He writes as it were from behind the glass and not after merely looking into it, however brilliantly discerning. It is the quality of writing as a Muslim with intimate knowledge of his own people that makes the invaluable difference." (p.9).
