A third claimant is about to arise in Egypt. The great Moslem University of El Azhar in Cairo contains some of the most learned and subtle of Moslem divines. For many years they have been waiting for the fall of the Ottoman Khalifate. In the reign of the Sultan Abdul Hamid ("Abdul the Damned") it was believed that the jurists of Al Azhar only awaited the death of that Old Man of the Mountains to bring the Khalifate back to Egypt or Arabia, They too declare that they will have their congress, which meatts that it is their inten: tion to declare King Fuad of Egypt to be the lawful Khalif.
There may be a fourth and even a fifth claimant There have, in times past, been princes in Morocco who declared themselves Khalifs of all the Moslems, and it is significant that the Paris newspapers declare that the proclamation of Hussein was a British trick designed to secure the election of a Khalif who would be under British influence. If the French think it worth while to have a pretender to the Khalifate under their own guidance and control, they can easily secure the proclamation of the Sultan of Moroces, though he would never be accepted
Africa. gutakde the north-western part of "Afghanistan's Claims.
The Amir of Afghanistan is the fifth and last of the probable claimants to the title of the Khalif. If he comes forward, it will be at the instigation of his mother—a devout snd fanatical Moslem who, just before the last Afghan attack on India, wrote a letter summoning the world of Islam to a united endeavour against the infidel. The Afghan Amir looks northward to the Moslem tribes of Central Asia and to the many millions of the faith in India. He is a powerful prince already, he stands much nearer to the imaginations of the tribesmen of the Indian and Afghan borderlands than the distant Hussein and the shadowy Fuad, and in his own mind and that of his advisers he may be 'a better Protector of the Faith, and therefore make a stronger appeal to the faithful than the Moslem Princes of the near and middle East who are always subject to European view, Hussein, with' his sons, something of @ puppet and Fuad Egypt was but lately a slave and is, not yet quite free, while he, the Amir, made war a few years back on Enigland and by his own hand recovered his fall independence. So hhe'may reason and think himself better entitled than any. man to succeed the Prophet.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.