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major events of this year include the withdrawal of all British troops from Egypt, a military alliance between Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, the nationalization of Suez Canal Company, President Sukarno's visit to the United States, and the establishment of Pakistan as an "Islamic Republic."

THE ISLAMIC ERA

Reviewing the entire period since H.G. Wells made his prediction quoted above, we find that it has most certainly been an Islamic Era. The fact that during the last forty years more than two hundred million followers of Islam - in Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, India, Indonesia, etc. - have thrown off the yoke of foreign colonialism alone should prove this point beyond doubt.

Today, the world of Islam, stretching from Moroccan shores of the Atlantic to Indonesia in the Far East, claims more strategic importance than any other region of the globe.

The Moslems have the oil. They control the world's major waterways or trade routes. Their combines military strength may not match that of the West or of the Soviet bloc, but their numerical strength alone is formidable: there are over five hundred million Moslems in the world!

Speaking of the role Islam might (or, to say it with optimism: is bound to) play in world affairs in the years to come, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt says in his famous book "The Philosophy of the Revolution": "... There remains a third zone - a zone which stretches across continents and oceans and which is the domain of our brothers in faith who all, wherever under the sun they may be, turn as we do in the direction of Mecca and whose devout lips speak the same prayers...

"... When I consider the 80 million Moslems in Indonesia, and the 50 million in China, and the millions in Malaya, Siam, and Burma, and the close to 100 million in the Middle East, and the 40 million inside the Soviet Union, and the other mllions [[sic]] in far-flung parts of the world - when I consider these hundreds of millions united by a single creed, I emerge with a sense of tremendous possibilities which we may realize through the cooperation of all these Moslems, a cooperation not going beyond the bounds of their natural loyalty to their own countries, but which will enable them and their brothers in faith to wield a power without limit."

No doubt, President Nasser's views and hopes in regard to the future of the Moslem world are shared by many a leader of Islam today.

The problems of Algeria, where a War of Independence has been in progress for nearly two years, and Palestine, where the "peace" situation remains as uneasy as ever, are just about the only outstanding elements of uncertainty in the present picture of Islamdom. Everywhere else, in Egypt, Iraq, the Sudan, Eritrea, Bahrein [[sic]], Kuwait, etc., the followers of Islam are busy "reconstructing" their lives, trying to improve their educational and economic standards, and planning for the great future that awaits them.

Come what may, we might say, a fully-revived, completely rejuvenated and most vigorous Islam is as inevitable as 1999.

- Abdul Basit Naeem


12   MOSLEM WORLD & THE U.S.A.

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Population of The Moslem World

What is the population of the Moslem world? This is a question often asked of the Moslems, who do not always know the correct answer.

What do the Western scholars have to say in this regard? Our research shows the following:

No two authorities give identical figures, which vary from three hundred million to six hundred fifty-one million!

Dr. Florence Mary Fitch states in her book [[italics]] "Allah, the God of Islam," [[/italics]] (published by Lothrop, Lee, Shepard & Co., New York,) that the population of the world of Islam is three hundred million. However, H.A.R. Gibb, the well-known British orientalist, believes it to be "some 350,000,000." (See his book [[italics]] "Mohammedanism," [[/italics]] published by the Oxford University Press and by The American Library of World Literature).

Another scholar of World Religions, Gerald L. Berry, gives "317,170,000" as the number of Moslems in the world. This is contradicted by Harry W. Hazard. author of [[italics]] "Atlas of Islamic History" [[/italics]] (published by the Princeton University Press), and by James A. Michener, the well-known American writer and author of [[italics]] "The Voice of Asia," [[/italics]] who estimate their strength to be 390,000,000 and 651,000,000 respectively!

One thing is certain: The figure 300,000,000 given in many reference books must be at least a hundred years old, for today the Moslem population of Asia [[italics]] alone [[/italics]] exceeds that number.

We believe that there are at least 500,000,000 Moslems in the world today, which is not an over-estimate at all. The fact is that Moslems do multiply much quicker that the Western nations, and each year their strength is further increased by the millions of "new Moslems" (converts) - a fact which biased Western reporters seldom seem to take into account.

Below we give a break-down of the Moslem World population by Continents and by countries:

AFRICA

Egypt  21,000,000
The Sudan  8,000,000
Libya  1,200,000
Tunisia  4,000,000
Algeria  9,000,000
Morocco  10,000,000
Tangier  70,000
Senegal  1,800,000
Upper Volta  900,000
French Guiana  2,250,000
Ivory Coast  1,100,000
Dahomy  800,000
Togoland  700,000
Niger Colony  1,500,000
Dakar & Dependencies  100,000
Mauritania  550,000
The Great Sahara, Socoto, Barno, Adamoua, Ouadi  2,000,000
Gambia  350,000
Sierre Leone  2,000,000
Gold Coast (Ghana)  250,000
Nigeria  11,500,000

OCT.-NOV.-DEC. 1956    13