For a token of this, remember how in A.H. 1322 I with my Arabs helped them against the Arabs, to save Ebhah from those who were besieging it, and to preserve the name of the Government in honour; and remember how again in the next year I helped them with my armies, which I entrusted to one of my sons; for in truth we were one with the Government until the Committee of Union and Progress rose up, and strengthened itself, and laid its hands on power. Consider how since then ruin has overtaken the State, and its possessions have been torn from it, and its place in the world has been lost, until now it has been drawn into this last and most fatal war. All this they have done, being led away by shameful appetites, which are not for me to set forth, but which are public and a cause for sorrow to the Moslems of the whole world, who have seen this greatest and most noble Moslem Power broken in pieces and led down to ruin and utter destruction. Our lament is also for so many of its subjects, Moslems and others alike, whose lives have been sacrificed without any fault of their own. Some have been treacherously put to death, others cruelly driven from their homes, as though the calamities of war were not enough. 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, 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.