Synopsis: Practice of Islam in Cairo, Egypt. Show's Bedouin life, Moslem Mosques, Jewish synagogues, a Christian girls' school, funeral processions, Moslem women praying in cemetery and pilgrimage to Mecca, Mohammed's birthplace... (read more)
Footage of a Bedouin camp, much the same as in the early life of Mohammed who lived the life of a Bedouin or nomadic Arab desert-dweller. Shows a Bedouin and several of his wives. Shows a desert oasis, children playing in the water of the oasis. Scenes of inside a Jewish synagogue. Muslim men enter a Moslem Mosque through one door and Muslim women another. Men sit on one side of the Mosque, women on the other side.
Shows geometrical and floral designs on several Mosques. In Mosques rugs take the place of pews. A niche marks the direction of Mecca toward which moslems bow when they pray. Shows a muezzin ready to recite the adhan or azan, the Islamic call to prayer . “God is great.There is no deity, but God. Mohammed is his prophet. Come to prayer. The Faithful heed, wherever they may be”. CU of muezzin reciting the Islamic call to prayer (no audio).
Muslims kneel and bow in prayer. Shows sail boat on the Red Sea. Boatmen on the Nile River shout Allah-Allah-Allah while they work or rest. Cairo with its schools and famous Azhar University is the intellectual center of Islam. Islam's missionaries for all over the world are trained at Azhar University where they must learn Arabic to read the Koran. Shows Professor at blackboard Azhar University teaching Arabic. One of Christianity's chief criticisms of Islam regards treatment of women. Polygamy is common and women have few rights. Many women are still veiled. Shows a nurse who works with her face covered. Women are married at an early age. Shows two Muslim brides, young girls only fourteen years of age.
Modern education is emancipating the younger Muslim women. Scenes at a girl's school and at graduation. Muslim women working a professional mourners one of the few jobs they are allowed to do. Shows a Muslim funeral procession. Mosques are for men only. On Fridays women go to the cemetery and mourn the dead. The women bring lunch and spend the day. Shows Muslims celebrating a saint's day in Cairo. Shows Dervishes, the traveling Priests of the Moslems. A Pilgrimage to Mecca, Mohammed's birthplace, is the climax to many Moslems life ambitions. Pilgrimage to Mecca.
