Arslan soon took Numan under his wing. Arslan's interest in the Yemen went back to his attempted mediation of the Saudi-Yemen war of 1934. At the time he was shocked by the backwardness of Yemen, and persuaded the Imam to employ advisers (from the same Lebanese Druze community that he came from. For similar reasons he hired Numan as his secretary in 1939.Douglas, p. 48.
