TURNED TO ISLAM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19147, 15 April 1924, Page 12

TURNED TO ISLAM.

SUSSEX BARONET TAKES EASTERN NAME. APPEAL OF MOHAMMEDANISM.” Sir Archibald Hamilton, the well-known Sussex baronet, has followed Lord Headley's example by professing the Mohammedan faith. He attributes his conversion largely to bis friendship with Lord Headley, who has just returned from his pilgrimage to Mecca. "Although 1 have only recently embraced. Islam,” said Sir Archibald in an interview, ‘T have been considering and studying the matter a long time. Islam appears to mo to bo the only religion which appeals to men of every race. It docs not exclude the great founders of other religions. “It recognises the great prophets of mankind who have revealed eternal truth to men. It acknowledges Christ as one of the great prophets, thought it does not acknowledge Him ns the Son of God in the special sense maintained by Christians, "I only quarrel with Christians—if I may put it so—because they seem to me to fake their religion out of one day in the seven and forget all about it for the rest of tne week.” Having embraced the faith of Islam, it is now incumbent upon Sir Archibald to assume n Moslem name. Lord Headley is known in Moslem circles as Saifnnahman Shark iwihmahillah Farcoq—merely that. Lord Headley, however, made Ida pilgrimage to Mecca under his own name as an Englishman. Those who undertake this pilgrimage do so in pilgrim's dress, consisting of two linen sheets, one worn around the loins and the other cast over the shoulders. There is precedent for Sir Archibald’s conversion to Islam, not only in the case of Lord Headley, but also in that of the eccentric Lady Hester Stanhope, who, during her long residence with the Arabs, conformed to their religious tenets. The most remarkable conversion of the kind, however, probably was that of —e Church of England clergyman, a graduate of St. John’s College, Oxford, who publicly renounced Christianity and was received into the Islamic faith in Broughton Terrace Mosque, Liverpool, in September, IS9I.