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BACK NEXT Summer 2008 Issue 45 Letter from the Editor Grand Lodge News News and Views On The Level International News Beyond the Craft Perambulating the Lodge Masonic Dining and Celebration Interview: The Grand Chancellor The Orator Walking the Way of Saint James Abd el-Kader: Algerian Nationalist and Freemason Province of Cambridgeshire Library & Museum Brother Lightfoote's Journal Review: Committed to the Flames Review: The Mythology of Secret Societies Review: The Dawn of Astrology Letters to the Editor Internet Library & Museum of Freemasonry Grand Lodge Quarterly Communication Convocation of Supreme Grand Chapter RMBI Masonic Samaritan Fund Grand Charity RMTGB Canon Richard Tydeman: Looking unto the Rock Copyright 1997-2008 Grand Lodge Publications Ltd Designed and Maintained by: Cyberpoint Limited

FREEMASONRY TODAY Africa and The Middle East Abd El-Kader: Algerian Nationalist and Freemason Freemasonry can count many extraordinary members in its history, but surely one of the greatest must be Abd El-Kader – an Algerian nationalist, a Sufi Saint, and a towering figure of nineteenth-century Islam. Abd El-Kader was born at Guetna near Mascara in Algeria on 6 September 1808. He was a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed and by the age of fourteen he was a recognised Hafiz – someone who had memorised the entire Koran ... Brothers in Arms in Iraq During the past year English and Scottish Freemasons have found themselves serving together in Iraq. Vern Littley, of Dormer Lodge, No. 7294, in Worcestershire, a Staff Sergeant with the Royal Artillery, based in Basra, has teamed up with Stuart (‘Connie’) Taggart and John McGlen, Scottish Freemasons, both of the Royal Artillery and Terry Wing, a Captain of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment and a Master Mason of Lyndhurst Lodge, No. 8012, in Hampshire. Vern Littley is in charge of a 12-man detachment responsible for talking to the local population about their concerns and warn them about the dangers of unexploded ordnance and the importance of reporting ... Unity and Diversity The District of East Africa covers a vast area, comprising Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Seychelles Islands, and the membership covers probably more ethnic, religious and cultural groups than any other masonic district in the world. Sir Jayantilal Keshavji Chande KBE, former District Grand Master for the District of East Africa, last year celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his initiation. Affectionately known as Sir Andy Chande ... Seeking That Which Has Been Lost Our cruise-ship slowly pirouetted on Lake Nasser before the two temples at Abu Simbel; that of Ramses II, distinctive with its four huge seated figures at the entrance, and that more modest one of his daughter, Nefertari. As the ship swung slowly about, selections from the operas Aida and Nabucco soared into the light breeze ... Freemasonry Serving Egypt Today it is a tragic irony that Freemasonry is falsely derided in much of the Muslim world as a stooge of Zionism, when some of the great names of the Islam have in fact been keen Freemasons. And foremost among these were two towering figures of nineteenth-century Islamic modernism - Jamal al-Din al Afghani and Sheikh Mohammed Abduh - both actually members of the same Egyptian lodge ... Guests of Egypt It takes about forty minutes to walk through the desert at Dahshur from the Red Pyramid to the Bent Pyramid. Few attempt it, but it is a journey charged with a strong sense of the immediate presence of the past. The wind blows. Ahead stretches desert and, in the distance, a pyramid with its distinctive change of angle half-way up its sides. Behind you stands another. Both loom out of the dunes. And as you walk, you are passing over ... Seeking the Heart of Egypt On our first morning in Egypt we stood in the shadow of the Sphinx, next to its great paws, listening to the city of Cairo gradually awakening as the sun rose. We felt we were uniquely privileged: tourists are just not permitted into the Sphinx enclosure but can only gaze down on it. For our trip to begin in this way was indeed a good omen. The day before, awaiting us on our arrival at Cairo airport, was Mohamed Nazmy, owner ... An Egyptian Mystery There are three chambers within the Great Pyramid of the Pharaoh Khufu: the upper, placed in the centre of the pyramid, is called the King’s Chamber, and is entered by a passage-way leading off the end of the huge interior ‘Grand Gallery’. This Chamber is around 34 feet long, east to west, a little over 17 feet wide and 19 feet high. It is lined with well finished granite brought down river from Aswan, 500 miles to the south. Within the chamber stands ... Egyptomania Decorative motifs, artefacts, and designs derived from ancient Egyptian precedents have been known in Western Europe for a very long time: the Mediterranean Sea was a great highway in Antiquity and there were many cultural influences that flowed from Egypt. This tendency became more potent when Alexander the Great ... Facing up to the Challenges This is an account of English Freemasonry in what is now the Masonic District Grand Lodge of Nigeria, operating under the United Grand Lodge of England. The District today, like most English Provinces, has grown somewhat since its inception in 1913, when the District of Nigeria was established in the then capital of Lagos. The capital is now Abuja. Before that, the first Lodge in Nigeria was established as Lagos Lodge No. 1171in 1861. I must acknowledge a former DGM of Nigeria, RWB Sir Lionel Brett, who in 1963 wrote the forward to a document to mark the 50th ... Freemasonry in Israel Masonic legendary history traces the Craft back to King Solomon’s period, if not earlier. However, there seems to be no real historical evidence for the existence of masonic lodges in those times. The English surveyor, Sir Charles Warren, while conducting the first archaeological explorations in the Holy Land, then part of the Ottoman empire, found an underground room adjacent to the Western Wall, site of Jerusalem’s Temple. Within the room stood ... Ancient Egypt and Freemasonry The explanation continues: “Their philosophers…couched their systems of learning…under signs and hieroglyphical figures, which were communicated to their chief priests or Magi alone, who were bound by solemn oath to conceal them.” (William Preston. Illustrations of Masonry. 1804. Reprint: Wellingborough, 1986. p.42) This does not reveal the full story. There are residues from ancient Egypt in Freemasonry, carried through the millennia by the mystical philosophy attributed to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus ...   Africa and The Middle East © Grand Lodge Publications Ltd 1997-2008