Militant Moslems

"In heaven there is Allah," goes a popular saying in Moslem Egypt, "and on earth Nasser." The God of Islam and Egypt's dictator make a prosperous team. Today the faith of Mohammed is spreading rapidly across Africa, and with it spreads the dream of a Pan-Islamic political empire under Gamal Abdel Nasser. Both dreams are being propagated by one of the world's most energetic missionary forces: the Supreme Islamic Council, a smooth-running religious organization controlled by the Egyptian government.

With 430 million adherents, Islam remains a poor second in size to Christianity among the world's great religions. But not since the 8th century, when Arab warriors spread Islam across three continents at the point of the scimitar, has there been anything to compare with the current Moslem growth in Africa. There are more than 100 million Moslems on the Dark Continent, and the simple doctrines and disciplines taught by Mohammed are gaining perhaps 9,000,000 converts a year from tribal cults--nine times the conversion rate to Christianity. "The Afro-Asian nations have come out of bondage and are free to choose," crows Mohammed Twefik Eweida, 30, secretary-general of the council. "Religious awakening came together with political liberation."

Pep Pill. Nasser's council, founded four years ago, is the pep pill responsible for much of the awakening. Its high-powered radio station, the Voice of Islam, broadcasts the message of the Koran twelve hours a day in eight languages. The council has its own coed training camps. It also provides 1,300 scholarships annually at Egyptian universities to young Moslem men and women from around the world. It sends gold-plated Korans to Afro-Asian VIPs--Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta got one recently with a friendly inscription by Nasser. It has supplied 3,000-volume libraries to 125 Islamic centers on five continents. Its tireless printing presses flood Africa with cheap copies of the Koran and pamphlets that shrewdly blend the word of Allah with the word of Nasser.

One of the council's most impressive productions is a complete recording of the Koran on 44 disks, by the dean of Islam's Koran readers, Sheik Mahmoud el Hosaris. To make the Koran's 7th century message apply to modern problems, the council's 180 technical advisers are now turning out fresh commentaries on obscure phrases of the Prophet. They operate a fulltime answering service to resolve such religious scruples of the devout as whether a Moslem can accept a blood transfusion from a non-Moslem, and when abortion is lawful.*

Propagate the Faith. Operating boss of the council is an Egyptian army major more familiar with infantry tactics than theology. Says rifle-spined Mohammed Eweida: "I consider myself a soldier carrying out orders." Son of a Nile delta landowner, Eweida was a pious child who fasted twice a week throughout the year, always carried a copy of the Koran in his pocket at prep school. Despite his religious leanings, Eweida entered Egypt's military academy rather than Cairo's ulama-run al-Azhar University, graduated at the top of his class and rose from subaltern to major in four years. Nasser chose Eweida to organize Egypt's 2,000,000-strong Youth Corps; he did so well that Nasser four years ago gave him the larger chore of setting up an organization to propagate Islam.

Eweida insists that "the council's mission is purely religious--it has nothing to do with politics." Nonetheless, the council is violently opposed to Islamic organizations associated with other Moslem leaders, such as the mission-minded Ahmadiyya Movement of Pakistan or the puritanical Wahhabi sect of Saudi Arabia. To Eweida, it is kismet that Islam should grow, and that Egypt should become the center of Islamic culture. Nasser thinks so too.

*Answers: 1) Yes, if necessary to life. 2) Only within 120 days of conception; after that, the fetus has a soul.

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