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Commenting on the recent presence in Cairo of the Egyptian Minister to the Holy See, The Times has twice alluded to the probability of some joint action by the Vatican and Islam with regard to the formation of a common front against the dangers of Communism. That some form of general rapprochement is under consideration can indeed hardly be doubted, since only last November the possibility of this was mentioned by the Holy See itself in an announcement made by the Congregation de Propaganda Fidei. This announcement was not, however, any new or sudden departure, but can be best understood if it is regarded merely as a further step in a process that plainly appears as steadily developing during recent years.
Since the Catholic and Islamic Faiths jointly account for a large proportion of the world’s inhabitants, the growth of friendly understanding between the leaders of both is of profound importance, and the details of such growth are of much significance. Islam itself has been described as a sounding-box on which an event occurring in one place immediately affects the whole. This is particularly true of Cairo, capital of Egypt, since political happenings there have speedy repercussions among the various Muslim states of the Arab League, whilst also influencing Islamic opinion as a whole, because Muslim students from all over the free world are numbered among those attending at the great University of Al Azhar, one of the main centres of Mohammedan religious thought and teaching today as it has been for ages past.
