Koran Used for Wrapping Paper
On Friday a number of Egyptian students of Alexandria visited our offices in the afternoon and left a letter to the editor with some sheets of the Koran obviously detached from an edition of the Holy Book. The letter explained the grievance. The students in question went on that day to the Majestic Bakery, in Boulevard Ramleh to purchase some bread, and their attention was soon attracted by a heap of printed paper which they found to be parts of the Koran. The European baker was using the Koran sheets for wrapping up loaves for his clients. "On seeing this,*' remarked the students in their letter, "our blood boiled with anger and sadness, and had we not been traveling on the same day we would have managed to remove the disgrace." When we got the letter, we sent out a delegate to see if the report was true, and our representative found that it was. But he found that the Koran sheets had already been seized by the authorities and taken to the Attarin Kism. In the evening our representative heard at the Alexandria Ulema Board that four teachers of native schools under the control of the Ministry of Education had already reported the same question to the authorities and brought the police to the bakery to seize the paper. The President of the Ulema Board also intervened and he telephoned to the kism suggesting that the Koran sheets should be kept untouched until a delegate from the institution went in the morning to examine the matter. The edition of the Koran sold to the baker as paper stuff bears the name of the publisher Mohamed el Genahi, in the neighbourhood of the Azhar, in Cairo. The quantity of this sort of paper discovered in the shop is estimated at about 400 or 500 okes. We shall see what the theological authorities will do to efface this disgrace.