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Show uTiirvug'iT oW ' 6A ! 1 he Salt Lake Inbuilt, suiuiay, is laid Aia -- A i 'if - m- - - 300 Years Later: And Islam Makes Its Pressure Felt By DerSpiegi'l Magazine Three hundred years after its last great assault on the western world, Islam is again making its pressure felt through the hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers m the big cities of Europe, i and through revivan unparalleled through al of Islam from Dakar to Jakarta to blacks in America mass-tounsn- book today is so widely read and quoted as the Koran Twice a day when the Muezzin, AHil Kezezi, climbs to the top of his miniature mmaret in Allendorf, Hessen, an alien sound punctures the idyll of this small town in Germany La ilaha ilia 'llah Muham-madurasulu 'llah " (There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet ) On the tall, Turkish hearing adherents of the Faith workers m the iron foundry of Fritz Winter go to the Mosque in the grounds of the factory and get down on their knees and pray. 1 hey turn their faces to the Southeast, to the holy city of Mecca like millions of their s between Jakarta and Dakar, between Mongolia and Madagascar and all simultaneously echo the same creed in the same language La ilaha ilia llah." fellow-believer- The davout strangers in the town of Allendorf are Turks belonging to the Umma, the approximately strong congregation of Moslems spread throughout the world. The large majority of these inhabit a region extending from Indonesia through Pakistan, Persia, the Near East and Africa to the Atlantic. But Islam has spread further west It is found in the ghettos of New York and Chicago, in French suburbs, in Present Age In the present age of decolonization, Christianity is looked upon as the religion of the whites and the imperialists. The Christian church is on the defensive and has failed to stop the onward march of materialism, the Moslems argue. Communistic atheism has become official state doctrine in the lands of eastern Europe, they point out, but Communism has failed to gam a foothold in one single Islamic state century. But Islam, dismissed for centuries by the West as barbarism. Is moving next door to the European and even the American. They are finding it is a religion with an honored intellectual and cultural tradition. Here Is a report from Der Spiegel, the German magazine. the English provinces and among West Germanys immigrant workers Take Houses First they took our houses, now they take our church," complain the citizens of the English town of Dewsbury about the Moslem immigrants who have settled among them. St. Marys church in Dewsbury is being converted into a Britain, Mosque. like West Germany, houses about one million Moslems France has twice as many!1 The contact between West and East is not only Mass tourism has opened up the Moslem countries to an increasing number of Europeone-wa- ans. In 1972 from West Ger- Among the peoples between the Persian Gulf and the Atlantic the Christian minority is shrinking Whereas m the colonial era it was a help in a mans career to be a Christian, today it is a handicap. In Africa, particularly West Africa, Islam is gaming more and more supporters. The Yoruba people, for instance, in Nigeria and Dahomey, who 101) were Christian years ago, appear to have opened the gates to Islam, the World Christian Digest complained as long ago as 19fil. In Ibadan, a city of 1 fnillion. people in Nigeria, more than 600 Mosques and places of prayer have been erected Arab-speakin- g There are many indications that the number of Moslems will increase still further. Islam formerly proselytizing by professional missionaries, millions are being spent today to propagate the faith by King and Feisal of Libyas President Muammad Gaddafi, who believes he has a mission, is about concerned especially Moslem minorioppressed ties He sends money to the Philippines as well as Chica-gWhereas Moslem generation, this religion of the future is already here. That Guineas Sekou Toure has driven the French, Gaddafi the Italians and Americans, and Sadat the Russians from Islamic soils is to them the beacon of a new epoch They see the time coming when the technically supenor but soulless and decadent West will finally succumb to the morally supenor East For these Moslems, Communism like Chnstiamty is rooted m the hostile Western culture. Nearly themselves on the Atlantic beaches of Morocco, they became attuned to the call to prayer which five times a day echoes through Agadir amplified by loudspea- kers. In the shadow of the Mosque at Kairuan tourists haggle with Tunisian carpet peddlers In herds they are shepherded by travel bureau guides to see Indias Taj Mahal, one of the all independent have banned party. Accordformer minis- Kama! Hussein, Arabs, Africans and desire Asians neither the atheistic Communism of the East nor the immoral existentialism on the West. Their new society will rest on the foundations of their own culture which has been formed to a large extent by Islam Presents Mosaic The Islamic n world today presents a mosaic of various attempts to overcome the greatest Islamic architectural inglorious colonial past and monuments. the miseries of the present. For centuries the West disThe leaders taking over m missed the Moslems as barbarous heathens. Dante cons- these countries are not only schools and barracks, igned the prophet to roast in building hell. Luther insulted them, factories and hospitals Above and even such an enlightened all they are trying to give their spirit as Voltaire in a letter to and uneducated Friedrich the Great of Prussa sense of pride and subjects of these mock ia, made under-nourishe- camel-dealer- s Front for Fear Actually the vilification was badly-clothe- d national consciousness, discipline and creative dnve. To do this they resort to the inspiration of Islam. The world is seized by an Islamic revival Cntil Karl Marx and the the rise of Communism, prophet posed the only serious threat to western civiliza'ion, writes Canadian Orientalist, Wilfred Cantwell-Smit- the religion of the march again is on the prophet and now only in the direction of the West True, nearly of tne world population belong to the Christian faith, but m some African countries, out of every ten one-thir- d converts givmg up their traditional beliefs, Islam is winning seven. Only three are joining Christian churches No other spastics and had all the J when in Algeria's Houan Bourne-dienn- e is another w ho believes in the power of the religion of the prophet Tne personally Mo- Arab-Islami- c art and science flowered the Islamic world and the West $110 g trembled before the East. Whether Islam is suited to the needs of a modern world and whether it can hold the masses together when the picture of an imperialist enemy fades from the scene is not a question to which the enthusiastic apostles of the faith pay much attention. Their optimum springs from the origins of Islam. Over 1,300 years ago Mecca was the starling point of a social transformation similar to that which is taking place in the third world today. The primitive economy of Arab herdsmen and nomads was giving place to a mercantJe self-mad- e In the midst of this social upheaval the prophet Mohammed appeared with a new gospel directed against acquisitiveness and greed. He scared the new rich with a power that was stronger than they were, the power cf an .Almighty God who would call all men to account and threatened gnm punishment to the g The prophet called his new the conscious religion Islam subjection to the will of God The 114 chapters (Suren) and 6,236 verses of the Koran, the Moslem bible, provided the believer with moral and social rules, replating marriage and divorce, laying down punishments for enme, forbidding profiteering, games of chance, the eating of pork and obliging the believer to distribute alms to the needy Houan Boumedienne to grasp as tne or Trinity, redemption. A God in three persons is a contradiction in Moslem terms, a God with a son a sin. The creator has no relationship to any creature Down to this day the tellers of tales in the markets of and Timbuctoo, Marrakesh the men around the hubble-bubbl- e of pipes m the cafes and Basra talk Damascus about the prophet as if they had known him personally. The revelations of this man spread like a bush fire. A few so difficult n Simple Teaching Mohammeds teaching is simpler and more concrete than the older religior or Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and Christians It contains nothing his faith The Islamic culture cannot imagine a world without God. will probably The Orient never again be a military challenge to the West and a new Caliphate uniting the nations from Morocco to Indonesia under one leader wi,i remain an idealist's dream But because capitalism and communism, according to do nut Moslem intellectuals, cater to the spiritual and moral interests of the thira world, they see a chance fu their religion once again In a penod of history when tie rich industrial states and the poor developing counf .es confront each other with hostiliu and in which the political relationships m the world art increasingly dominated by the North-Soutpolarity, they believe that Islam can become the religion of the Thud orld. h V Banner of Prophet Beneath Soil Islamic reformers believ e their religion, if freed from the fetters of senile orthodoxy, is still valid in modern world. The opposition to the imperialist powers was organized under the banner of the prophet and the rebellions and wars which finally liberated Under Arabia's deserts and beneath the soil of Persia, In ionesia and Nigeria he of the worlds reserves of oil. Many Arabs see this , a gift of Allah showing that despite 300 years of impotence they are not forgotten two-thir- (copyright, 1973, Der Spiegel) synthesis between Islam and socialism. They justified state ow nership by reference to the commandment of the Prophet Mohammed that men should share water, grazing and fire. Political leaders found some reforms could only be made acceptable by presenting them in terms of Islam. The government of Senegal, which is 80 percent Moslem, only succeeded with its agricultural policy by making the local Islamic leaders chairmen of the farming cooperatives. Everywhere in the Moslem world the politicians who are most popular with the masses are those who are strong believers whether as many m the Moslems suspected case of Nasser, as a matter of political tactics, or whether, like Gaddafi, they leally have strong religious feelings. The Shah of Persia travels every year to the Holy Shrine m the towrn of Meschhed in north- eastern Iran. In many parts the faith is being used to develop national consciousness. Very often the only things that hold diverse tribes and groups of people together in young countries is Islam. Rebgion is the only common denominator between the inhabitants of the 3,000 islands of Indonesia, or between the Pathans, Baluchis and Punjabis of Pakistan, the tribal groups in Somalia, the brown northerns and the black southerners in Mauretania It is therefore understand-aoleven when parties like the one in Mauretania open their meetings with e left-win- g FOWLER GAS DELUXE Glass-Line- d WATER HEATERS f.1 a AMD! MANUFACTURERS luOo iVa" UNCONDITIONAL evt WARRANT) o e Compare Pr,:e C oog" d oi"' t,e3on. rvlon tyv Short, v'nS e- tenure Y- ..-- H SHAG coi"3"5 $95 hs.aiiations S ' weiiPw :d,o;oY;,eo toction We had " P un UHGTH 1VJEEDS 5 VEAR in Gaddafi built homes for the poor and hired American aircraft to make ram by chemically seeding clouds Yet he has banned films and fashions from the West and. for a time, even the Latin alphabet. in rocco learn of the Great Age before the white man came, chil- inoculated Libya but thieves against poho are punished again as m alden days by having their hand chopped off Bans Films dren Schoolchildren Egypt, Guinea, Mali and to He built homes for cnppled moi e. The glonous of history Islam is recounted to give the colored peoples a new build a modern plant near Constantine. At the same time only a few kilometres away he ordered the most expensive Mosque in the world to be built He had remote areas of the country electrified. Then electronic amplifiers and tape recorders were installed for the Muezzin. He organized neighborhood committees" throughout the country so that daily life could be patterned on principles. Boumedienne himself was educated at Cairos A1 Azhar University which has specialized in expertise on religious for 1,000 years. questions President Nasser opened the doors of this center of Islamic thought to women for the first time Thousands of scholarships were awarded to students from Africa and Asia. In 1964 black Africans were 3,500 studying at Azhar. Its function was changed from being a stronghold of orthodoxy to a forge of progressive Islam. Arab-Afnca- n a front for fear and ignorance. For generations Westerners forgot that Christians and Moslems formerly lived of Chief State Libyas together in harmony for hun- Gaddafi on April proclaimed dreds of years and that the 15, regarded as the 1,403rd andaughters of two Byzantine Christian emperors had mar- niversary of Mohammeds birthday, "a cultural revoluried Turkish sultans tion inspired by the teachings remembered of Islam. In western What they eyes his were the mounted Moslem like a cunous look imJihad" plans warriors and the of social reforms and a bue (holy war) Millions trembled reversion to medievalism. at the recollection of the ene- Gaddafi introduced minimum mies of Christendom who in work wages and a 732 galloped as far as Tours week But at the same time and Poitiers, in 1453 conquered he institutionalized the Sakat Constantinople, the Rome of the commandment m the less the East, and in 16s3 Koran enjoining the faithful to than 300 years ago swept up donate alms to the gates of ienna once Today million Islam History them from their colonial maters were seen as wars of the death the Arabs, umted under the black banner of the prophet, had overrun the Middle East. The Arab conquerors were quick to learn whatever they could who from the unbelievers became their subjects And wdh a few exceptions they showed a remarkable tolerance towards their subject Christians and Jews When Europe was still bogged in the early Middle Ages the Caliph Mamoun erected a House of Wisdom in Baghdad where the writings of Aristotle, Euclid and were collected, Hippocrates translated and studied While the Christian world was stifled with dogma, Moslems were free to pursue all kinds of research But later, under the swords of the world the Islamic Turks, slumbered history through until the 19th Century when it woke up to find itself carved up and colonized by Europe after years Create Synthesis Professors and students at Azhar have tried to create a the eyes of the young Moslem states many alone, half a million the Communist of lands the visited tourists ing to Egypts Allah. ter of culture, Sunning u o In ascetic officer spent over years ' '9? society. Trade offered both the capable and the unscrupulous the chance to become rich quickly. The new man however no longer felt himself responsible to the tribe. The class was taking the place of the clan highly-esteeme- d spread without Saudi-Arab- a prayer to Allah and when even pragmatic governments, like that in Indonesia, subsidize pilgrimages to Mecca or when a socialist state like Syna builds more mosques m the last four years than have been built In the preceding 30 the religion of westerner The Araby: thinks of towering mosques and a holy war which decimated the Moslem and Christian faiths in the 15lh Islam, once-Chnsti- c r vsorsted beauty cn VI 'eai HCl 0Ob " looking beuer .mo.t tovbion Created 10 u,ecl"b lon9 aOV ccno-- - 3 it And SA.P 8:30 A.M. 'Til 6 P.M. 9-- 4 CONVENIENT otter you First Quality Carpet jt low est possible prices. 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