Like other secondary characters, such as Thomson and Thompson or Jolyon Wagg, he immediately makes the scenes in which he takes part entertaining, particularly through the comic pairing he forms with the Captain, who is alternately amused or annoyed by the young boy's behavior.

[5][6][7] Studios Hergé colorist Guy Dessicy [fr] claims to have suggested the execrable character of young Abdullah to the cartoonist after reading the novel Martin Burney by O. Henry, in which a kidnapped child is so unbearable that his captors are prepared to pay the parents to give him back.

[8] It is also likely that Hergé drew inspiration from other child heroes he had discovered in illustrated magazines, such as the character of Buster Brown, a prankster from American high society created at the beginning of the 20th century by Richard Felton Outcault.

[9] But Hergé's own work is one of the main sources of Abdullah's many tricks: some of his gags are taken from the exploits of Quick and Flupke, another of the cartoonist's series featuring the daily lives of two Brussels children from the Marollen district.

[Note 1][4][11] The first thing the reader sees is a painted portrait of the young prince: Abdullah has just been kidnapped, and Tintin asks the Emir to show him a picture of his son so he can set off in search of him.

Tintin and Haddock learn of this by surprise when they return from the cinema: not only has the young prince been playing practical jokes to the detriment of his guests, but he has also brought his entourage, who have set up their Bedouin camp in the castle's grand salon.

[19] Comics historian Thierry Groensteen describes the character of Abdullah as "possessed by the demon of practical jokes"[10] and sees him as a symbol of anarchy,[20] in a kind of " essence of disrespect and childish irresponsibility.

[21] As Renaud Nattiez [fr] points out, while there are many child characters in the series, Abdullah is "the only one [...] to arouse impatience and even relative violence on the part of Tintin", who ends up spanking him when the boy refuses to follow him to escape from Doctor Müller's lair.

In this sense, he joins the character of Jolyon Wagg in the category of "unwelcome guests",[1] which is particularly evident at the start of The Red Sea Sharks, where "his bad manners, his insolence and his numerous entourage are a veritable tribe of invaders installed in the grand salon of Marlinspike.

"[22] According to Cristina Álvares, professor of literature at the University of Minho, "the intrusion into Marlinspike of intractable characters like Abdullah, Jolyon and the Castafiore [all] shatter the domestic sphere and make it uninhabitable.

Through Abdullah's character and his father's powerlessness, Hergé conveys a vision of the Middle East that was widespread in Europe in the mid-20th century, presenting the region as a politically unstable zone, marked by coups d'état and assassinations, where the weakness of power gives way to trafficking of all kinds.

I remember telling myself, in front of the images of fire and dust, that it was a trick of his own, that with age he'd swapped the water pistol and the itching powder for airplanes, that Captain Haddock hadn't stuck him with enough solid ones.

"[27] In his Petit dictionnaire énervé de Tintin, Albert Algoud, who describes Abdullah as "the archetypal capricious brat, the insufferable kid who pushes adults to their limits", ironically likens him to a terrorist friend of Osama bin Laden.

[32] With each appearance of the young boy, the cartoonist multiplies the gags, most often inspired by burlesque classics, such as the bucket of water placed at the top of a half-open door, which the captain receives on the head as he enters the castle in The Red Sea Sharks.

In addition to Abdullah, kidnapped in Land of Black Gold, this is the case of the son of the Maharajah of Gaipajama in Cigars of the Pharaoh, of Tchang in The Blue Lotus, of Zorrino in Prisoners of the Sun and of Miarka in The Castafiore Emerald.

In December 2007, on the occasion of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's visit to Paris, Le Monde journalist Dominique Dhombres [fr] referred to him in his article Le petit Abdullah campe à Moulinsart (Little Abdullah camps at Marlinspike Hall), drawing a parallel between the installation of a Bedouin tent on the lawn of the Hôtel de Marigny at the request of the Libyan head of state, and that of the Bedouins in the grand salon of the Marlinspike Hall in The Red Sea Sharks.