EGYPT: Caliph Candidate

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The religious advisers of popular young King Farouk, not yet 19, have long nursed an ambition to have their monarch designated Caliph of all Islam, spiritual head of all Moslems. That job has been vacant since 1924 when the last Caliph, Turkey's Abdul Medjid II, was booted out by Turkey's late Dictator Kamal Ataturk. Carefully schooled, sporty King Farouk has frequently taken time off from golf and duck shooting (see cut) to attend" Cairo's mosques in an effort to convince the Moslem world of his fitness for the Caliphate.

Last week the young King, attended 500 of his army officers, not only attend the service in Cairo's Quoson Mosque but donned the robes of an imam, the prayer leader, and read the prayers to the congregation. When he finished, the congregation and his officers broke into a thunderous cheer: "The Caliph of all Islam!"

Since the Moslem hierarchy of Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Transjordan, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Yemen, India and Egypt must first decide on the choice of a Caliph, to cheers were premature but it was significant that among those cheering were Farouk's guests, the Emir of Yemen, Self-al-Islam Hussein, and Emir Feisal, the son of Saudi Arabia's King, Ibn Saud.