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Rallying Together

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Signs Publishing Co. · Melbourne, Victoria · May 31, 1920

FromAustraliasian Signs of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 22.

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Rallying Together

By F.

THE following item which appeared in the daily papers on April 13 should be of exceptional interest to all Bible students:—
The Sheikh-ul-Islam has issued a proclamation urging the faithful to rally round the Sultan’s standard. He denounces the Nationalists as Turkey’s worst enemies, and states they will probably cause an outbreak of civil war.
The proclamation indicts the Nationalists for raising rebel levies, and oppressing, robbing and murdering the Sultan’s subjects, thereby causing the cutting off of Constantinople from the Ottoman Empire. It calls upon all Moslems to rally to the Sultan’s standard. It places Nationalists under an interdict of faith.
Another proclamation, banning Bolshevism, is expected in a few days.
Damad Ferid Pasha, the Grand Vizier, has issued a communique, in which he bluntly asserts that the people’s worst enemies are those who, under the mask of Nationalism, sacrifice their country to their personal ambitions.
This call to rally round the Sultan is of particular importance in these days when the position of the Sultan, both religiously and politically, is at stake. The new Arab nation has set itself up as the true heart of Islam, with its king as “Commander of the Faithful,” a title which he has taken to himself not merely because he is the possessor of Mohammedanism’s “holy” cities—Mecca and Medina,—but also because he is a direct descendant of the great false prophet, Mohammed.
On the response, then, to this rallying call depends a great deal. As the quotation says, it might mean civil war in Turkey, but the probable result will be a true rallying together of all Moslems. With such a result the Bible is in full accord, for it prophesies a time in the not far distant future when the “Christian” nations of civilisation will be fighting for their very existence against the hordes of heathenism which come from the East. F.