In her comprehensive program of reform, Egypt has decided to abolish the sharia and communal courts — a step we hope all the Arab lands will follow, if Egypt succeeds, where Lebanon failed, in amending the personal status law so that it becomes a modern law drawing its inspiration from the spirit of modern civilization and the needs of an evolving society...

Years ago, before the Palestine catastrophe took place, a Zionist girl said to me: 'There are peoples who were not created to live free, because they are incapable of producing leaders and cannot govern themselves.' By these 'peoples' she meant the inhabitants of the Arab lands.

Then came the defeat in Palestine. And there came the wave of pessimism that flooded the souls of the Arabs, shook their faith in themselves, and gladdened the hearts of their enemies and of those who sided with the enemies — propagandists and partisans alike.

And when leaders arose in Egypt who join word to deed and build their country's renaissance upon a firm foundation of economic recovery and social reform, hope returned to stir the breasts of the sincere. But the partisans of reaction clung to their pessimism, though their tune softened somewhat before the facts that strike the eye.

Egypt stood firm in the face of the foreign pacts. Her steadfastness astonished them, and they predicted for her weakness and retreat. And when she neither weakened nor retreated, they charged her with leftist leanings — the accusation that has today become a common fashion, to which opponents resort when accusations fail them.

And when Egypt turned to arming herself by way of Russia, the preachers of goodness renewed their campaign of accusation.

It dismayed them that political awareness should be joined by intellectual awareness, and they were

thunderstruck when Egypt decided to abolish the sharia and communal courts, having seen that this reform is an essential pillar among the pillars of her renaissance.

It is enough that Israel should look upon this bold step Egypt is taking with a look of aversion and disdain. It is enough that the Israeli radio station should proclaim its mockery of this measure, for the Egyptians to be certain that they are following the right road.

For Israel was never a friend of the Arabs, and nothing is sweeter to her than to see them surrendered to stagnation, feebleness, and defeatism.

A few years ago the lawyers of Lebanon went on strike, demanding that suits of personal status be transferred from the religious courts to the civil. Their attempt failed. And that failure delighted those whose concern it is to keep the old as old as it is, because that better secures their interests.

But the free-spirited whom that failure pained see in Egypt's leap today something to revive their souls, and in her success where others failed something to awaken their hopes. For in this leap they sense the opening of an era of reform embracing all the lands of the Arabs, and a proof of that comprehensive awareness which grasps the danger of growth in one direction without the others.

It is a step we hope all the Arab lands will follow, if Egypt succeeds in amending the personal status law so that it becomes a modern law drawing inspiration from the spirit of modern civilization and the needs of an evolving society, fit to be applied to the various elements and communities, and winning the consent of the progressive groups.

Thus will Egypt prove that she is the leader of thought in this part of the world, and make ready her march in the procession of the awakened nations.