Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Revolt in Arabia (1917).djvu/63

 46 Medina, and Damascus to break their fast for new and foolish reasons, taking no account of the ordinance of God saying, "Those of you who are sick or on a journey. …" Yea, they went further. They made weak the person of the Sultan, and robbed him of his honour, forbidding him to choose for himself the chief of his personal Cabinet. Other like things did they to sap the foundation of the Khalifate.

For this it had been clearly our part and our necessary duty to separate ourselves from them and renounce them and their obedience. Yet we would not believe their wickedness, and tried to think that they were the imaginings of evil-doers to make a division between us and the Government. We bore with them until it was apparent to all men that the rulers of Turkey were Enver Pasha, Jemal Pasha, and Tallaat Bey, who were doing whatsoever they pleased. They made their guilt manifest when they wrote to the Judge of the Sacred Court in Mecca traducing the verses in the Surah of the Cow, and laying upon him to reject the evidence of believers outside the Court and to consider only the deeds and contracts engrossed