FIVE THOUSAND FEET UP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21153, 9 April 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

FIVE THOUSAND FEET UP.

REMARKABLE CEREMONY.?: WOMAN CHANGES RELIGION. RITES IN AM AEROPLANE. Five thousand feei in the air, between England and France, flying a t a speed of 100 miles per hour, an English Princess, the Dayang Muda of Sarawak, on February 18 renounced Christianity and was received into the Moslem faith. The preliminary announcement of this remarkable ceremony had created considerable interest, especially in p ar j s where large crowds waited to greet the flying convert to Islam. The Princess, whose husband is heirpresumptive to Kaj&h Brooke, joined the air-liner at Croydon. She arrived with Dr. Khalid Sheldrake, president of the Western Islamic Association, who wug to receive her into the new faith. He ha.nded tho Princess a large copy of the Koran. They entered the reserved fore compartmenu A Silver Wings, which was to fc 6 the mid-air mosque. The compartment was shut off from that containing the ordinary cross-Channel passengers. Before the initiation ceremony a, re . presentative of the Daily Express had a chat with the Princess. She handed him a cigarette, but he reminded her that while one could change his beliefs, he could not smoke in the air. . The Princes, who has been a Christian Scientist, and was last a PiOinan Catholic, spoke of her latest change in the most matter-of-fact way, and confessed that she had not even read the Koran. She wore a black fur coat over a black frock. The red fez of Dr. Sheldrake was the only Eastern touch in our compartment.

" Why go up in the air to change my faith?" the Princess echoed the journalist's question. " Why, because Burely we are nearer Allah up in the sky.". At this moment Silver Wings cleared the white cliff-tops of the English coast. Below, the sea lay in gentle ripples tipped with gold from the warming spring sunshine. The sky was pale blue. "In the Name ot Allah." As the aeroplane neared mid-Channel Dr. Sheldrake put on a red fez and bid the Koran on a table. Meanwhilo the passengers ii; the other compartment were quite unaware of these strange proceedings. They included a noted racing motorist, a business woman, a young man making his first air trip and looking rather sick, and one or two people eating lunch. To return to the flying mosque. The pilot had turned the machine toward the east. Dr. Sheldrake recited above the whirr of the propeller a prayer, beginning : In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of tlio World, the Beneficent, the Mercifil. ~ Then followed the Tahiyah prayer. The doctor placed his hands over the palm of the Princess' right hand while the Princess, her face lighting into a iimile, repeated the words from the Koran: I bear witness that nothing deaervi* ta be worshipped but Allah. Allah. And I bear witness that iluhamed 3s tis apcstle of Allah, Allah. Then Dr. Sheldrake announced: " I jriv» thee the name of Khair-ul-Nissa, fairest of women." . At which the Princess again smiled. End of the Ceremony. That ended the ceremony. The doctor closes' the Koran, put his hands in his pockets, and he and the Princess sat down to lunch as they passed over the French lowlands by Boulogne. Tho action of the Princess in being received into the Moslem faith in the manner described does not meet with the entire approval of Mohammedans in Britain. Lord Headley, who is the Moslem head in England, expressed disapproval of the action of the Princess. " Such action," he said, " might easily be construed into a bid for notoriety. What strikes me about it is that this ceremony in an aeroplane is quite unsuitable to the occasion. This may be said to call down ridicule on what is a sacred matter. To me, rny acceptance of Mohammedanism was a very sacred thing."