82
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"He was here; he knows the Arab subject very well," the
Arab said.
I was ruminating on what a small world this was after all,
when I was asked if I knew "Sheikh Lutz." The name was
strangely familiar.
"I once met an American in California who became a
Moslem," I said. "Could it be . . ."
"The very same. His name was Lutz. We gave him a Moslem name—Sheikh Abdur Rahman Lutz. He is a Moslem
Brother."3
I had met Edward Abdur Rahman Lutz in San Francisco.
He was a burly man with an innocent face, a former Sundayschool teacher in a Congregational church. He had become
impressed with "the compassion, the charity of the true Moslem," while working with an oil company in Saudi Arabia,
and became a convert to Mohammedanism. He hoped to
found a mosque in Sacramento. In the name of "God, the
Merciful, the Compassionate," he was also out to collect ten
million dollars to establish an Islamic university; he told me
he also made suggestions to various Arab embassies to improve
their public relations.
By the time I was ready to leave the students I had made
such progress that it was agreed that I should have the privilege of meeting the Moorshid himself the next day. Gamal
meanwhile explained that the Ikhwan had 350,000 members
and 1,500 branches in Egypt alone. He estimated there were
an additional 150,000 members outside Egypt.
"We believe only in the teachings and the ways of the
Koran," Gamal explained. "All truth is in the Koran. We believe the Arab nations have failed to win their independence
because they have fallen from the teachings of the Koran. All
that is modern goes against the Koran and is therefore dangerous to Egypt."
The next day, although I showed up at the appointed time,
3
It must not be assumed that Lutz necessarily shared the political views
or condoned the terrorist practices of the Ikhwan.