EGYPT: Wanted: a Calif

The potent representatives of Islam who assembled at Cairo (TIME, May 24) to select a new Calif, disbanded last week after irreconcilable rivalries had kept the Califate Congress in an uproar almost from its inception.

The Conference's most notable act was to adopt a resolution stressing the fact that when a new Calif should be appointed he must be a free sovereign capable of defending Islam. Since the two other traditional qualifications for a Calif—descent from Mohammed and possession of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina—were not mentioned, it was inferred that these latter qualifications may be explicitly waived at a later date.

A further resolution significantly recorded the opinion that "a Calif can attain that office by conquest, providing always that he be a Moslem." More succinctly, Islam will rally to any Moslem who arises, smites the faithful and their enemies into submission, and proclaims himself Calif—the temporal and spiritual overlord of Islam.

The so-called "last true Calif," the deposed Sultan of Turkey, Mohammed VI, died recently in Italy (TIME, May 24).