Wealth
During his reign, the Sultan was known as one of the richest men in the world. He also had a reputation as a wild international playboy. His exploits ranged from changing the colour of his racing horse to present it as an unknown – with better odds of course – to less savoury behaviour in the red-light area of Vienna. To be fair, he spread his wealth around, giving a magnificent pair of Malayan tigers to Edinburgh Zoo on the one hand and, on the other, sending a huge cash present to King George V on his Jubilee.
The Sultan was an Anglophile and spent much of his life away from Johor, preferring the more liberal delights of Europe. He sent his sons, by his Malay wives, to be educated in Britain.
The Sultan was reported to have given Sultanah Helen Ibrahim a spectacular jewel collection, reputedly giving her an emerald on her birthday and a diamond on their wedding anniversary, even after the divorce. It is little wonder that her jewellery collection was held to be the finest in the world.
Read more about this topic: Ibrahim Of Johor
Famous quotes containing the word wealth:
“The wealth and prosperity of the country are only the comeliness of the body, the fullness of the flesh and fat; but the spirit is independent of them; it requires only muscle, bone and nerve for the true exercise of its functions. We cannot lose our liberty, because we cannot cease to think.”
—Humphry, Sir Davy (1778–1829)
“Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity—
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“It must not be thought that the cowardly feeling of caution and uneasy self-preservation is innate in the English character. It is the consequence of a corpulence derived from wealth and of the training of all thoughts and passions for acquisitiveness.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)