Kemals Koran

Smaller than the New Testament is the Koran, holiest of books to the 209,000,000 Mohammedans who live in Asia, Africa, Europe, and to the 20,000 who live in the U. S. and Canada. Here Allah speaks in the first person from the breathless vastness where He reigns. Here are tales of Noah, Moses, Joseph, of the great Horned Alexander; here is denounced the idolatry of those who worship Christ as the Son of God. The Koran was dictated by, or remembered from the sayings of, the great Prophet to whom Angel Gabriel brought messages. In heaven is Allah's "well-guarded tablet" and on earth, in the mosques of Allah, the Koran is for all to see on hanging tablets. They bear the Holy Words written in dainty, writhing Arabic script. Barefooted Mohammedans glance at them often, mumble reverently.

Lately, brusque, kinetic Mustafha Kemal, President of the Republic of Turkey, glanced, too, at the tablets. Elsewhere in Turkey, by Presidential decree (TIME, Sept. 17), the Arabic script had been supplanted suddenly by the Latin alphabet, and President Kemal ordered that the Holy Inscriptions, like any others, must be spelled out in Latin characters.

But just when Kemal gave this order, the other great Eastern Europeanizer, Afghanistan's King Amanullah, was forced from his throne (TIME, Jan. 28). Reflecting that perhaps such a moment was not propitious for making religious alterations in Turkey, Kemal rescinded his order.

Last week the entire faculty of the Stamboul Divinity School was summoned to conference with President Kemal. Secret though the meetings were, two important Kemal-changes loomed. One prospect was a renewal of the order to Latinize the Koran. The other, even more radical, was a slight Christianizing of Mohammedan ritual. Correspondents reported that this would include the wearing of shoes and slippers in the mosques instead of leaving them at the door as good Mohammedans have done since the prophet's day. Moreover, instead of kneeling on prayer rugs, the Kemalized Mohammedans may be seated in pews.