Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-09-29
SULTAN OF TURKEY
Hohammed Declares ISlam'S Unity
-. no Menace TO America.
EOsLEM REVIVAL is sCRIPTURAL
Ruler Saws American People Have
Nrons impression OF His Country
men-Denies They Are Religious

wrong impression VI no
men-Denies They Are Religious
Fanatics.
ave arc witnessing today revival
Of spirit throughout the Moslem
world. But it is a spiritual revival
rather than a temporal. Europe and
4 America have nothing to fear from
it. 1t does not menace Western civil
isation"
1t was the Caliph of the Moslem
world. the Turkish Sultan, who made
that statement to me in an audience
a few mornings ago, writes Charles
Merz in the New York World.
The new Sultan is a recluse. T."
arrange an audience has become a
difficult undertaking. The Sultan lives
in a palace known as Dolma Bagtche,
on hill above the Bosporus. He
seldom leaves it's grounds. His own
officials find 1t difficult to see him.
And as for foreigners. since the pub
lication of the treaty that cut Turkey
into FIVE parts and left her only one
of them the Sultan has withdrawn
stili further into his seclusion.
Receives Writer in Mosque.
Nevertheless ne consented to re-
ceive me, and to receive me in the
holiest of all Moslem places and at the
holiest of all Moslem hours-prayer-
hour in a mosque. / am told that for
a foreigner this is the first time the
present Sultan has appointed such a
rendezvous. He does not read The
World. But. he is interested in the
American public. "And 1 welcome the
fact that I am receiving you In q
mosque" he told me, because it will
throw light upon the charge that the
Turks are fanatics in all that con-
Germs their religion" .e
1t happened to be a mosque because
the day was Friday. Ever since the
days of Bagdad,s glory the Caliph of
the Moslem world has gone publicly
to prayer once a week, on Friday.
This is known ais the "Selamlik."
There was time when the Sultans
chose a new mosque for the ceremony
every week The choice is wide.
There are 500 mosques in CONSTANT
nople.
But Abdul Hamid, whose stormy
rule came to an end in 1908, and who
feared assassination varied the formu-
In so as to permit his going every
week to the same mosque-and that
inside his own imperial gardens. His
successors have followed this, example.
TO mosque just below the Dolma
Bagtche palace. sheltered by the same
protecting wall, went Sultan Moham-
med VI, at high noon today for prayer.
Troops Lined Road.
1t was not the impressive ceremony
it used to be. in the old days when
Turkeys Sultan had dozen barracks
full of soldiers at his disposal. But it
was a spectacular occasion, for all
that. Six or seven hundred troops
lined the gravel r1ad that curved
down through the gardens from the
palace gate and ended at the tall
white mosque. Some of them were
field troops, in uniforms of dirty gray;
others were imperial guards, well
mounted, will. uniforms of polished
gold and scarlet, and pennants flying
from their lance tips. Through the
lane they formed for him the Sultan
drove to worship.
- There would come q blare from
n battery of brass trumpets; then a
short staccato cheer. Another blare
and an answer from the waiting
troops. At the mosque his short drive
ended. "You are great, o Sire!" call
ed the guardian of the temple from his
platform high above the gate. 'But
there is, one still greater. And Allah
is his name"
Into the mosque, with the Sultan
leading, fled those of us who had
come as spectators of this Mosler,
ceremony. Not up the Sultan's steps
or into the main body of the mosque
but through an entrance at the side
that brought us to a gallery. From
window barred with a heavy screer
we had a birds-eye picture of the
mosque itself; a square room, car
i. pets on the floor crowd that mum.
.bered ragged paupers as well as great
gentlemen and soldiers, sitting or
their heels and swaying to the rhyth'
mic chant of the Koran.
Stayed in Special Prayer Room.
The Sultan was not with these peo.
pie. Another heavy screen, cut in the
wall opposite, marked the window o.
his own prayer room. 1t was to tha
chamber, half way through the hour!
prayer, that l went to see the SultaI
when he sent for me.
Neither from any picture 1 haC
seen of him in the windows Of th
city's shops, nor from any precon
ceived notion of what q Sultan ough
to look like, had formed an accu
rate idea of the man I was to see.
He is q bent man, much older thai
his pictures suggest. his face j
sallow-lined with threadlike crease