t) issued, at the request of the Ministry of Justice, by the Grand
Mufti of Egypt. This, soon after its pronouncement, was published in the
Egyptian press and contributed to fortify further the independent status
of the Faith. It followed upon the riots which broke out with exceptional
fury in Isma'iliyyih, when angry crowds surrounded the funeral cortege of
Muhammad Sulayman, a prominent Baha'i resident of that town, creating such
an uproar that the police had to intervene, and having rescued the body
and brought it back to the home of the deceased, they were forced to carry
it without escort, at night, to the edge of the desert and inter it in the
wilderness.

This judgment was passed as a result of the inquiry addressed in writing,
on January 24, 1939, by the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior to the
Ministry of Justice, enclosing a copy of the compilation of Baha'i laws
related to matters of personal status published by the Egyptian Baha'i
National Spiritual Assembly, and asking for a pronouncement by the Mufti
regarding the petition addressed by that Assembly to the Egyptian
Government for the allocation of four plots to serve as cemeteries for the
Baha'i communities of Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Isma'iliyyih. "We
are," wrote the Mufti in his reply of March 11, 1939, to the communication
addressed to him by the Ministry of Justice, "in receipt of your letter
... dated February 21, 1939, with its enclosures ... inquiring whether or
not it would be lawful to bury the Baha'i dead in Muslim cemeteries. We
hereby declare that this Community is not to be regarded as Muslim, as
shown by the beliefs which it professes. The perusal of what they term
'The Baha'i Laws affecting Matters of Personal Status,' accompanying the
papers, is deemed sufficient evidence. Whoever among its members had
formerly been a Muslim has, by virtue of his belief in the pretensions of
this community, renounced Islam, and is regarded as beyond its pale, and
is subject to the laws governing apostasy as established in the right
Faith of Islam. This community not being Muslim, it would be unlawful to
bury its dead in Muslim cemeteries, be they originally Muslims or
otherwise..."

It was in consequence of this final, this clearly-worded and authoritative
sentence by the highest exponent of Islamic Law in Egypt, and after
prolonged negotiations, resulting at first in the allocation to the Cairo
Baha'i community of a cemetery plot forming a part of