Islam v. Cinema

Prowling far into the northern Punjab, prowling further into the remote North-West Frontier Province of India, irrepressible impresarios of moviedom purchased last week at Rawalpindi, a building which they deemed suitable for a cinema theatre.

The building stood adjacent to a mosque. Local Moslems took council. Were shadowy Christian pie-throwers to shuffle oversize feet, thumb noses, within nine paces of the shrine of Allah? Were milk-faced movie harlots to pervert the yearnings of Mohammedans for the swart-skinned houris of Paradise? . . .

Within a few hours 8 of the Faithful were dead and 14 injured as the result of inter-Moslem riots to decide these questions. The rioters, catholic in their wrath, destroyed the local grain market, looted extensively, eventually were dispersed by military pickets.

Fashionable Simla, mountain resort of Sahibs, got this news, got also news of riots at Amritsar, scene of hideous British butcherings in 1919. Something more serious than anti-moviedom seemed to portend