The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-15
Worlds greatest MOhammedona University and its 9ooO Students

Copyright, 1907, by Frank G. Carpenter.)
 Cairo. \ HAVE just returned from visit 10
 thte biggest university of the Mo A hammedan world. It has more stu dents than any of our colleges, and twice ss many as either Harvard. Yale or Cor nell. It has, all told, over 9OO0. and it's professors number 240 Its students come from every country where Mohamme- dans flourish. There are hundreds from India and some from Malaysia and Java. There Is a large number from Morocco and also from Algeria, Tunisia and hi poll. There are Nubans as black as your hat, Syrians and Turks as yellow as rich Jersey cream, and boys from southeast ern Europe with faces as fair as our own. There are long-gowned, turbanned Persians, f1erce-eyed Afghanistans and brown-skinned men from the Sudan and from about Kuka, Bornu and Timbuktu. The students are of all ages from l5 to ID years, and some have spent their lives in the college.
 This university has been in existence for almost a thousand years. It was founded A. D. 98S and from that time to this it has been educating the followers of the Prophet It Is today pernaps the strongest force among these people in Egypt. 'Ninety-two per cent of the in- habitants of the Nile valley are Moham- medans and the most of the native off cials have been educated here. There are at least B O0O men in the public service among it's graduates, and the judges of the villages, the teachers in the mosque schools and the Imans priests who serve throughout Egypt are connected with it. They hold the university in the highest regard, and order from it's professors would be as much, if not more. respected than one from the khe- divial government.
 The education in this university is al- most altogether Mohammedan It's cur riculum is about the same as it was a thousand years ago, and the chief studies are the Koran and Koranc law, together with the sacred traditions of the religion and perhaps q little grammar prosody and rhetoric Within the past few years there have been attempts to extend lts sphere, and it now has thirteen govern ment professors. but their teaching IS done outside the university itself. A mum Der of the professors are also teaching In the government schools connected with the mosques of the Egyptian villages. but even there the Koran takes up half the time and religion is far more important than science.
 How Egyptians Study Their Bible.
 Indeed it is wonderful how much time these Egyptians spend on their bible. The Koran is their primer, their first and second reader and also their college text book. As soon as a baby is born, the call to prayer is shouted in it's ear, and when 1t begins to speak it's father teaches It to say the creed. which runs some what as follows:
 "rhere Is no God but God; Mohammed Is the Apostle of God" and also Where fore exalted be God. the King. the Truth, There is no God but He, The Lord of the glorious Throne
 When the boy reaches or years of age he starts to the mosque school, and there squats down, cross-legged, and sways to and fro as he yells aloud the texts of the Koran He studies the alpha bet by writing with a black brush texts on slat of wood or tin, and he pounds away from year to year committing the Koran to memory. There are now more than two hundred thousand pupils in the Egyptians schools. of whom a majority are under 13 years of age By a recent census it was food rnat over fifty thou- sand of these boys could recite a good part of the Mohammedan bible, and that forty-fve hundred had memorized the whole from beginning to end. Another forty-five hundred were able to recite one-half of it from memory, while thirty eight hundred could correctly give three fonrts of it. When it is remembered that the Koran contains one hpndred and four teen divisions and in tliG neighborhood of eighty thousand words. it will be seen what this means I venture that there are rot four thousand children in the United States who can reel off the New Testa- ment without looking at the book, and that with our vast population we have not fifty thouSand boys who can reclte