World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles
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der house arrest in villas far removed from Cairo. With the
same broom Prime Minister Ali Maher and his Minister of
Defense, Saleh Harb Pasha, were swept into internment. The
Chief of Staff, Aziz Ali Masri Pasha, was already in custody,
forced down by the RAF at Almaza Airport with his two aides
as they were about to flee in an Egyptian military plane. A New
York Times dispatch reported: "It was believed he might try
to slip across into Libya, there perhaps to give the Germans the
benefit of his knowledge of desert warfare. . . . General Masri
Pasha is known to and admired by the Germans."
To be fair, it must be mentioned that a few Egyptian statesmen consistently urged a declaration of war against the Axis.
One of these had been Ahmed Maher Pasha, a distinguished
member of the Egyptian parliament. Three months before
V-E Day, Egypt finally declared war against the Axis, in order
to assure herself a seat at the United Nations. Syria and Lebanon followed. Ahmed Maher Pasha was on his way to make
the announcement in the senate when he was shot dead. The
assassin was a former member of the Green Shirts who, like
his king, believed that Hitler could win the war.
THE NON-EGYPTIAN KING OF EGYPT
KING FAROUK, the pleasure-loving monarch who has made
more headlines than any Egyptian ruler since Cleopatra, lives
and reigns like a Turkish sultan. An alien by blood—the
founder of the dynasty was Mohammed Ali, a tobacco merchant of mixed ancestry from Albania—Farouk has as much
feeling for his people as had the Turkish sultans when they
reigned over Egypt.
Farouk rules by paternal terror and heavy bribes. He can
dismiss a government at will. Though he is cordially hated by
many Egyptians, he is fawned upon in public. Foreign correspondents, to say nothing of local journalists, are prohibited