Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Revolt in Arabia (1917).djvu/62

Rh Of these calamities the heaviest share has fallen upon the Holy Land. The poor, and even families of substance, have been made to sell their doors and windows, yea, even the wooden frames of their houses, for bread, after they had lost their furniture and all their goods. Not even so was the lust of the Union and Progress fulfilled. They laid bare all the measure of their wicked design, and broke the only bond that endured between them and the true followers of Islam. They departed from their obedience to the precepts of the Book.

With the connivance of the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, the Sheikh-el-Islam, the Ulema, the Ministers, and the Notables, one of their papers called the Ijtihad published in Constantinople unworthy things about the Prophet (The Prayer and Peace of God be upon him!) and spoke evil of him (God forbid!). Then the Union and Progress rejected God's word, "A man shall have twice a woman's share," and made them equal. They went further and removed one of the five corner-stones of the Faith, even the Fast in Ramadan, by causing the soldiers in garrison in Mecca,