New Britain herald., 1922-12-16
NEAR EAST POLITICS ARE BOUND CP WITH MOHAlMNZEDAN RELIGION

preacher.
 "rhe very word 'cilIinh' has an a- lurement which dates back to child hood days when you lived among theae fantastic Arabian nights at the court of Caliph Harun al Rashid Rashid was bona fide ealiph, and In your later years reading of tho historical facts about the caliphate furnish no fewer thrills than the im- mortal tales,
 The Early "Succcsssors"
 When Mohammed died his coun- sclor, Abu l'ekr. the companion of his flight, pr Hcgira, became caliph, meaning, literally, successor Abu Dckr means father of the virgin He was Mohammed's father-in-law. The second ealiph. or successor. was Omar, another father-in-law of the Prophet. who started organizing armies and began spreading Inlam over the map in very literal sense. Omar was the first to hear of tho title Emr al Moumcnin. Prince of the raithful.'
 Prom the first Ali, husband of Mohammed's daughter Fatime, con 'sdered himself the logical successor to the caliphate. Not nnti Abu Rokr and Omar had ruled, and an- other caliph, Othman.Sh his day and had been murdered as was Omar before him. did Ali become caliph.
 Certainly Mohammedanism can be termed cmphatically mans re- ligion. Yect. at this carly date. two women were the moving spirits in splitting it into the sunnite and shite divisions which have prevailed ever since. Ayesha, favorite wife of the Prophet. always had been jealous of his daughter, Fatima, and the success sion of Fatima's husband directed all her efforts upon an anti-Ali party. Meantime the group which, all along, had regarded Ali as the legitimate successor, gained strength during his rule but were kept busy fighting to hold the sway Omar has established.
 When Ais son and succe ssor. Has san, was murdered, probably by the hand of his wife at the behest of Moawivah, this Moawiyah assumed the caliphate, removed it's seat to Da- rlascus. and began the series of rulerS known as Ommiades. Henceforth the
 
 nites, or Orthodox Mohammedans, be- cause of their reverence for Ali and HaGsap. and their belief that the first of the Ommiades and his successors were usurpers and pretenders. Ara ben and Persian Mohemmadens in- clined toward the Shite faction
 An Earlier Rebellion of Irai.
 Away back in the days of the suc- cessor of Moawiyah the inhabitants Of Irak rebelled--the same Irak which only last yeear launched out again on it's national course after eecting Emir Feisal as king. I'eisal is the third son of the Grand Sheriff of Mecca.
 Tt was during another series of caliphates, that of the Abbasid mon- archs, that Harun al Rashid ruled. And it was after his reign that the division of the caliphate among his three sons madc the ca'iphate into a sort of commission form of govern ment One son was to hold sway over Arabia and Syria; another in Persia and Turkestan; and third in Asia Minor and the Black Sea region
 "At another time, toward the end of the tenth century, Bagdad, Cairo and Cordova, Spain, all were the seats of separate ruling .caliphs; though this was no amiable division. Each ca- liph declared the other heretic and held himself the lone head of all Islam.
 How Abul Abbas, first of the Ab- basid monarchs had every living male of the Ommiades thrown into prison, killed them all, and then gave ban duet on a great cloth thrown over their bones is but one example Of the fantastic cruelty of the centuries-long struggle to be caliph.
 "The story of the caliphate would fill-has filled volumes The as of the title by the Sultans of Turkey is a modern and perhaps minor chapter in the struggle to )be The Successor and thus to hold sway over this mighty force of Islam. Points of special interest are that force often has played major part in assumption of the role, that there have been several caliphs both by mutual agreement and also by rivalry, and that acquiring the title of cal1ph by no means guarantees its recognl- ton by the Moslem world.'