A British observer, a Mr. C. C. Lewis, tells us two stories from Arabia in the early 1930s, a few years after Ibn Saud conquered the Holy Cities Mecca and Medina. The two stories are supposed to be examples of "punishments ferocious to European eyes":
"Not long ago a wretched Hadhrami stole a piece of the black stone from the Ka'ba in Mecca, because he thought that it would be lucky, but he discovered that any luck coming his way would have to be in Paradise, as his head was chopped off."
"A Hejâzi who murdered his father and mother and then appealed to the King [Ibn Saud] for clemency on the ground that he was an orphan, was executed at the same time."
[Source: "Ibn Sa'ûd and the Future of Arabia", an article by C. C. Lewis, July 1933]