The
Moslem countries which use the lunar Mohammedan calendar
include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey,
the Asia Minor group, The North African states and
considerable segments of India, Palestine, Russia
and the Far East.**
Throughout this area the problem of international
calendar reform has suddenly sprung up to life during
the past year. Most of the proponents of The World
Calendar for adoption as a civil calendar
in the above states do not visualize immediate replacement
of the Moslem
calendar for religious purposes--although the eventual
possibility of such a replacement is openly discussed
and frankly urged by many Moslem scholars.
During
the early part of1954, Dr. Hashim Amir Ali Dean of
Agriculture, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India),
a leading Moslem authority on calendar matters, will
visit many of the Arab countries and confer with statesmen
and leaders, seeking their support in the calendar
reform program at the United Nations. His principal
stops will be: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria,
Iraq, Turkey and Egypt.
Dr.
Ali has been an active advocate of calendar reform
for about ten years. He is a native of Hyderabad,
capital of what was until recently the premier princely
state in the center of India. He was educated in the
United States, mainly at Cornell University, and returned
to America in 1953 under a fellowship from the Fulbright
and Ford Foundations. Eight years ago, as a practical
calendar reformer, he initiated in Hyderabad a movement
to synchronize the dates of the Fasli months with
the Gregorian calendar, and finally succeeded, in
1946, in persuading the Nizam to authorize the proposed
reform. His success in this far-reaching revision
emboldened him, as a liberal Moslem, to analyze the
problem of introducing effectively The World Calendar
in the realm of the Crescent.
An
enthusiastic endorsement of his efforts came this
ear form the Minister of Education of India, Abul
Kalam Azad: "No religious question arises against
its adoption."
