Nation established by Islamic/Arab settlers; technologically second only to the Civil Government. The Colonists were the first to arrive on planet Bellevue during the Last Jihad, bearing a fragment of the Kaaba from, as the books describe, "burning Mecca." The Colonist capital of Al Kebir is the oldest city in the planet. The Colony ruler is The Settler, and, as in the Civil Government, the right to the throne is settled either by hereditary inheritance or civil war, the latter usually a result of a dispute among multiple heirs to the throne. Those who are not whole in body (i.e. missing a limb or other body part) are ineligible to claim the throne, which is why Tewfik ibn'Jamal cannot become Settler: he lost an eye in the Zanj campaigns. Residents of the Colony speak Arabic. This state is modeled on the Sassanid Empire of Belisarius's time.