CALIPH OF ISLAM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 47, 24 January 1939, Page 6

CALIPH OF ISLAM.

A colourful chapter in the long and unique history of Egypt js brought to mind with the incident, at Cairo by which the boy King Earouk replaced the priest conducting a service at, the Quosoun Mosque to lie hailed by the congregation as the “Caliph of Islam,” signifying l his willingness to assume the world leadership of Islam. Of political importance was the indication given by the occasion that the King would receive substantial support as the leader of the United Arab Front, unifying and controlling a vast movement of the greatest importance to the welfare of the East. History records that from 639 to 968 Egypt was a province of the Eastern Caliphate and was ruled by governors sent from the cities which at different, times ranked as capitals. lake other provinces of the later Abbasid Caliphate, its rulers were able during this period to establish quasi-independent dynasties, but the end of the phase came with the conquest by Jauhar for the Fatimite Caliph Mo’izz, who transferred his capital from Malidia in the Maghrib to Cairo. This dynasty lasted till 1171, when Egypt was again embodied in t.he Abbasid Empire by Saladin. In 1517 Egypt, became part of the Ottoman Empire. A record of wars and conquests, the interlude is rich in incident. The ease with which the valuable province was wrested from . the Roman Empire appears to have been due to the treachery of Cyrus, Governor of Egypt, and the incompetence of the Roman generals. The former had for ten years before the amval of Amr, who had marched from Syria, maintained a fierce persecution of the sect to which the bulk of the Copts belonged. During the siege of Babylon he had been recalled and exiled, but. after the death of Heraclius had been reinstated as patriarch and was welcomed back to Alexandria in 641. Since Alexandria could neither have been stormed nor ' starved out by the Arabs his motives for surrendering it, and with it the whole of Egypt, have been variously interpreted, some supposing him to have been secretly a convert to Islamism. Arab history records these and other similar deeds, and finds its stimulus for the future in such triumphs. With a young and popular king at its head Islam may prove an even more potent force than has been apparent in recent times.