The Young Sheikh

After the death of the old sheikh of Abd-al-Mamat's tribe, the old sheikh's son was left to rule in his place. Due to his youth, Abd-al-Mamat took the role of his teacher.

The young sheikh bore his father's impulse problems and his desire for decadence. He combined those traits with a hideously cruel mean streak. Abd-al-Mamat's efforts to educate him largely failed due to the boy's pride. Whenever it seemed he would lose an argument, he would remind Abd-al-Mamat of their difference in birth, asserting his authority.

After the boy seemingly raped and murdered a young girl, abd-al-Mamat sentenced him to a long, very slow and torturous death. The implication is that Abd-al-Mamat used his control of arcane lore to frame the young sheikh for the murder, allowing him to kill the boy and take over. Certainly, the young sheikh's insistence that he was innocent and attempting to once again assert his authority seems a clumsy way for a true murderer to assert an alibi.