"I ask the Sultan about his opinion on the world´s probably most notorious Hadhramauti: Usama bin Laden. He smiles as he would have somehow anticipated my question and starts recounting the story of the Bin Laden family. He even mentions being once a schoolmate of Usama’s eldest brother and of conceifing of Usama as a tall, shy kid. He the goes on to describe the rise of the Bin Laden family’s enterprise, which was intimately connected to the personal relationship between Usama’ father Muhammad and King Abdulaziz. The late King famously suffered from leg and spine weakness and it was Muhammad bin Laden who equipped the King’s palaces and mosques with ramps. According to our host, Abdulaziz remembered the man from Hadhramaut when he planned to completely redesign the holy sites at Mecca and Medina and entrusted him with these reconstruction programmes which formed the basis of the family’ emerging business empire." (thanks Christoph)