Mar. 7.
Tx our day no event has 0¢- ved so calculated to distri gion in the world as the deposition of the Caliph. How far-reaching its consequences will he we-cannot foretell, but to sy] the least the hundreds of 2 lions of followers of the Prophet must to-day be in a state of perturbution if not demoralization. Under the leadership of. Mus. tapha Kemal the Turks have played a bold part since the war, but the assembly at Angora, the new cubital of Turkey, has done nothing s0 bold or rash as this. There is no question as to what! the assembly means, for in the most spectacular mauner it has deposed the Caliph from his throne in a physical no less than tv spiritual sense, and the Caliph has betoken himself to Switzerland. Surely a strange place to! find Hie spiritual head of Islam, and little wonder that one of the leading Indian Mohammedans should describe it as a disaster. From time immemorial Mohammedans have looked on Constantinople with probably even more Yeneration than followers of the Roman Catholic religion have looked on Rome, and their iliph has been more sacred than the Pope. Whiy_ this should be so will be seen from a glance at the history of Islam, it will also be seen that the millions to whom we have refer-yed looked up to the reigning! sovereign in Constantinople. not because he was Saltan of Tyrkey but that he was the Caliph, the spiritual head of the Mos-ems, the successor of Mohammed.
Tu the Arabic the dignitary' we: know as the Caliph, or casionally the Caliphah, is!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.