History Main / ArabOilSheikh

[[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror In the present climate]], they might be involved in financing terrorism. Sometimes TheCon will involve someone using this trope and posing as a rich Arab to help explain a source of abundant but eccentric money for the mark, in which case the "Arab sheikh" plays a similar role to the "Nigerian prince" in a FourOneNineScam.

* Fat Freddy of ''ComicBook/TheFabulousFurryFreakBrothers'' dresses up as one to get his friends out of jail. He doesn't look Middle Eastern at all, nor does he speak any Arabic, but he lets money do the talking.
* In a bizarre comic book example, a sheik apparently named [[StevenUlyssesPerhero Fasaud]] was transformed into an [[ProjectedMan electromagnetic energy being]] and promptly began trying to take over the world. The ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' stopped him.
* In ''Recap/TintinLandOfBlackGold'', Sheik Bab El Ehr is trying to depose Emir Ben Kalish Ezab so that Skoil Petroleum can take over Arabex's oil concessions.

%%* Parodied in one episode of ''Series/GetSmart''. In one scene one such sheik lists to another all the cities they are going to attack with a super-weapon:
%%-->'''Sheik #1:'''New York, London, Jerusalem.\\
%%'''Sheik #2:''' Not Jerusalem.\\
%%'''Sheik #1:''' Why not Jerusalem.\\
%%''Sheik #2 whispers into Sheik #1 ear.''\\
%%'''Sheik #1''': Really? You don't look it.

They also turn up a lot in {{romance novel}}s, where they are dark, brooding, passionate and rule everything they survey in their desert kingdom with the same tenacity they show towards the heroine. Sheikh romance actually gave us the term "bodice ripper" due to the common kidnap-rape-love plots that featured where the Arab can get away with being beyond normal constraints in how he treats the heroine due to his exoticism. He'll still have [[MajoredInWesternHypocrisy the education of Lord Byron]] though and the manners of a prince which is kind of the point: these books want someone who lives in the closest thing to a modern lavish royal court and acts like the Black Death hasn't gone out of fashion. He will also turn up as a villain trying to buy or kidnap the female lead for his harem.

* A very unusual example is featured in the Pakistani film ''Film/InternationalGuerillas'' where a pair of Arab businessmen are in league with the BigBad who is conspiring to destroy Islam. The character in question was inspired on the writer Creator/SalmanRushdie who wrote an [[Literature/TheSatanicVerses very controversial novel]] that outraged Muslims worldwide, including Arabs from the Gulf states which makes them side with Rushdie really odd. But then again, they are something of an {{acceptable target|s}} even among Muslims themselves due to being perceived as "Western puppets".

** In the {{alternate ending}}, the sheik of the flashbacks makes an appearance himself (obviously VERY old) at [[spoiler: Hub and Garth's joint funeral in the cornfield]].

-->--'''Music/TheClash''', ''Rock the Casbah''

* One ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies'' episode features a gaudily dressed Arab sheikh who calls Jed "brother" because of how both of them make so much of their money from oil that it’s practically in their blood. He also tries to buy Jed's daughter to be one of his wives.

* The 2009 Busta Rhymes song “Arab Money” describes living an opulent lifestyle similar to that of an Arab oil tycoon.