Page:Martyred Armenia - El-Ghusein.djvu/55

Rh Young Turks against Islam in Syria and Mesopotamia. In Syria they have hanged the leading men of enlightenment, without fault on their part, such as Shukri Bey El-Asli, Abdul-Wahhâb Bey El-Inglîzi, Selîm Bey El-Jezairi, Emir Omar El-Husseini, Abdul-Ghani El-Arîsi, Shefîk Bey El-Moweyyad, Rushdi Bey El-Shamaa, Abdul-Hamîd El-Zahrâwi, Abdul-Kerîm El-Khalîl, Emir Aarif El-Shehâbi, Sheikh Ahmed Hasan Tabâra, and more than thirty leading men of this class.

I have published this pamphlet in order to refute beforehand inventions and slanders against the faith of Islam and against Moslems generally, and I affirm that what the Armenians have suffered is to be attributed to the Committee of Union and Progress, who deal with the empire as they please; it has been due to their nationalist fanaticism and their jealousy of the Armenians, and to these alone; the Faith of Islam is guiltless of their deeds.

From the foregoing we know that the Armenians have committed no acts justifying the Turks in inflicting on them this horrible retribution, unprecedented even in the dark ages. What, then, was the reason which impelled the Turkish Government to kill off a whole people, of whom they used to say that they were their brothers in patriotism, the principal factor in bringing about the downfall of the despotic rule of Abdul-Hamîd and the introduction of the Constitution, loyal to the Empire, and fighting side by side with the Turks in the Balkan war? The Turks sanctioned and approved the institution of Armenian political societies, which they did not do in the case of other nationalities.