The Moslem countries which use the lunar Mohammedan calendar include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Asia Minor group, The North African states and considerable segments of India, Palestine, Russia and the Far East.** Throughout this area the problem of international calendar reform has suddenly sprung up to life during the past year. Most of the proponents of The World Calendar for adoption as a civil calendar in the above states do not visualize immediate replacement of the Moslem calendar for religious purposes--although the eventual possibility of such a replacement is openly discussed and frankly urged by many Moslem scholars.

During the early part of1954, Dr. Hashim Amir Ali Dean of Agriculture, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India), a leading Moslem authority on calendar matters, will visit many of the Arab countries and confer with statesmen and leaders, seeking their support in the calendar reform program at the United Nations. His principal stops will be: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt.

Dr. Ali has been an active advocate of calendar reform for about ten years. He is a native of Hyderabad, capital of what was until recently the premier princely state in the center of India. He was educated in the United States, mainly at Cornell University, and returned to America in 1953 under a fellowship from the Fulbright and Ford Foundations. Eight years ago, as a practical calendar reformer, he initiated in Hyderabad a movement to synchronize the dates of the Fasli months with the Gregorian calendar, and finally succeeded, in 1946, in persuading the Nizam to authorize the proposed reform. His success in this far-reaching revision emboldened him, as a liberal Moslem, to analyze the problem of introducing effectively The World Calendar in the realm of the Crescent.

An enthusiastic endorsement of his efforts came this ear form the Minister of Education of India, Abul Kalam Azad: "No religious question arises against its adoption."