The Minnesota fiery cross. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1924-19??, 1924-03-21
Mohammedan Expansion

In view of the address made in Des
Moines recently by DR.. G. c. Minor,
of the national lecture bureau of the
knights of the Ku Klux Khan. in
which the rise of the colored races of
the world was discussed in a most
scholarly fashion, the following edi-
torial from recent issue of The
New York Times lis of unusual inter
est.
The editorial, dealing in particular
with the Mohammedan question, is
as follows:
Mustapha kemal's fms to the Cali
phate was presumably dictated by
the logic of domestic Turkish poll
tics. Such prestige as the Angora
government derived from it's connec-
tion with the spiritual head of the
great body of Mohammedans was pre-
sumably counterbalanced by the dan
ger. of a rival power in the state,
about which conceivably a counter
revolution might center. Possibly
his former soviet friends that reli-
gion is the opiate of the people. But
we need not be surprised if the An
CORA nationalists discover that per-
haps there is a practical side to re-
ligion, if religious institutions can
be captured and utilized for ones
particular set of ideas. Parallel to
the creation in Soviet Russia of a
new church, largely as political in
strument, the new Turkey may yet
witness the revival of a transformed
Caliphate with purely unitarian
purpose.
Merely as a matter of statistics,
there is a certain propriety in the
disappearance of the Turkish Cali
phate. Before the war Turkey, with
a population of about fifteen mil
lions, embraced perhaps per cent of
the Mohammedan population of the
world. There were nearly four and
half times as many followers of
Islam in British India as in the larg-
est of the independent Moslem coun-
tries. Today Turkey with a poula-
ton of twelve millions is not even
the leading independent nation in
Islam, though in military sense she
is still obviously the first. Egypt has
million and half more inhabit-
ants. Persia is very close second
to Turkey with ten million inhabit-
ants, though not of the orthodox
Sunnite faith. Afghanistan with an
extremely warlike population of more
than six millions is now, in an inter
national sense, the second state in
Islam. Strategically situated on the
flank of India, Afghanistan will con-
tinue to play an important part as
a buffer state in peace and menace
in troubled times. That role will
continue to be of increasing import
ance until soviet Russia's intentions
with regard to the populations of the
middle east, which means India, have
been clarified
Whether the Pan-Islamic problem
to which European statesmen gave
much thought before the war, will
now have to be reckoned with, once
the spiritual union of the Moslem
world has been broken is doubt
full. The bonds of race cannot
be expected to take the place OF
the bonds of religious communion
because there is no overwhelming
community of race in Islam. Ethnolo-
| gically it is the most diversified Of
| the great world religions. 1t ranges
all the way from the white tribes
men of the Caucasus to the people
of Central Africa. 1t includes more
than ten million Chinese and thirty
five million Malays and Negroids il
the East Indies and 0ceanica. In Cen
trail Africa it has been the testimon.
of Christian observers that NOLAN
mechanism has been first in winning
| tho natives away from pooapiapo AN,
tribute has been paid in other res
poets to the civilizing influence o
the spread of the Islamic teaching
The rise of great missionary or cru
sading orders like the Senussi an
outbreaks like Mahdism have beel
taken as evidence of an abundan
vitality in the Mohammedan faith
What the future must show is whe
Their this faith will demand the re
storation in Turkey or elsewhere, o