Off to Mecca
AMONG the thousands of Moslems making the pilgrimage to Mecca this spring will be one student from an American college - Ahmed S. Osman, a Dartmouth senior.
Osman, a native of Khartoum, Sudan, is the only student in the United States among 20 Moslem students who have been chosen to make the pilgrimage as guests of the Muslim League. The others are all studying at European universities.
In addition to fulfilling their religious obligations, the students will participate in conferences on the socio-political and economic problems facing their countries, meet with leaders of the Moslem countries making the pilgrimage, and visit the holy places in Jordan.
This is the second year the Muslim League, composed of representatives of the Moslem countries, has sponsored such a program. The participants are chosen by the Islamic Centre in Geneva, Switzerland.
A pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city of Islam, located in Saudi Arabia, is the fifth principle of the Moslem religion. "All Moslems are obligated to make the pilgrimage if they have the health and wealth to do so," Osman explained. "I have the health, and now I have the wealth." The Muslim League is paying for his trip to Mecca and back to the United States.
Osman has been a student at Dartmouth for three years on a scholarship awarded him by the Dartmouth Class of 1956. He has not been home during that time. Since the pilgrimage to Mecca will take most of the month of April, he is taking a leave from college during the spring term and will visit his parents in Khartoum before returning to Dartmouth for the summer term. He will graduate at the end of the summer.
The son of the registrar of the Teachers Training Higher Institute, Osman hopes to go on to graduate school in the United States to study economics, with an emphasis on development. He in- tends to teach at the University of Khartoum.
As a student at Dartmouth, he has been an active member of the soccer team and the Cosmopolitan Club. He attended Khartoum University for a year before coming to-Dartmouth.
Two views of the remodeled Periodical Room of Baker Library, which now has two levels, with study carrels upstairs, a readinglounge, and greatly expanded means for displaying the hundreds of periodicals used regularly by students and faculty members.
Two views of the remodeled Periodical Room of Baker Library, which now has two levels, with study carrels upstairs, a readinglounge, and greatly expanded means for displaying the hundreds of periodicals used regularly by students and faculty members.
