Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ states as follows in his book Qisâs-i-Enbiyâ:
“The crusading army invaded Jerusalem in 492 [1099 C.E.]. They put all its inhabitants to the sword. They slaughtered more than seventy thousand Muslims who had sheltered in the Masjîd-i-aqsâ. A considerable number of those Muslims were imâms (religious leaders), scholars, zâhids (extremely pious Muslims), and people too old to use a gun. The Christian barbars plundered the innumerable gold and silver candle-sticks and invaluable historical items in the treasury near the valuable stone called Sahratullah. Most of the Syrian cities came into the possession of the crusaders, and consequently a Kingdom of Jerusalem came into being. For many long years hundreds of battles were fought between that kingdom and the Muslims. Eventually, Salâhaddîn-i-Eyyûbî ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ [d. 589 (1193 C.E.)], won a victory, called Hattin, after various battles, and entered Jerusalem on a Friday which coincided with the twentieth day of the blessed month of Rajab, in 583 [1186 C.E.]. Within the following few years he purged many cities from the crusaders and rescued hundreds of thousands of Muslims from captivity. The patriarch of Jerusalem, the bishops and priests put on their mourning garments and made tours in Europe to propagate vengeance. The pope died of grief when he received the news of defeat. A new pan-European army of crusaders was established. The German emperor Friedrich, the king of France Philip, and the king of England Richard, wearing crosses up to their chests, came with their armies. Yet their efforts to recapture Jerusalem ended in failure. In 690 [1290 C.E.], the Egyptian Sultan Melik Eshref ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ conquered Akkâ, which was the center of the crusaders, as well as the other cities, thus putting an end to the crusades.”
Remaining in the possession of Christians for eighty-eight years, i.e. from 1099 to 1187, Jerusalem was eventually rescued by Salâhaddîn-i-Eyyûbî, in the latter date mentioned. That blessed commander captured Richard the Lion-heart. However, instead of treating him as a prisoner of war, he showed him the same extremely kind and mild hospitality as he would have shown to the king of a neighbouring country paying him a courtesy visit. That was a prime example to show the difference between the ‘wild Islam’ and the ‘affectionate Christianity’!
It is true that Muslims converted some churches into mosques. Yet no churches were destroyed. On the contrary, many of them were reconstructed. When Sultân Muhammad Khân ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ conquered Istanbul, he converted Saint Sophia, which was a church, into a mosque. It was one of the conditions stipulated during the negotiations for peace. It was not only a religious event but also a monument representing the Turks’ greatest victory. Our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam’ had foretold the conquest of Istanbul and had said, “How lucky for them ...,” about the would-be conqueror and his army. Fâtih Sultân Muhammad Khân, who ushered a new era by conquering Istanbul, had to announce the event to the entire world by converting Saint Sophia, which had been a symbol of Christianity, into a mosque, a symbol of Islam. Fâtih Sultân Muhammad Khân never destroyed Saint Sophia. On the contrary, he had it repaired. The Qur’ân al-kerîm does not contain a commandment concerning the demolition of churches. As we shall see later ahead, Muslim governments have always protected churches and other temples against transgression.
Now we shall tell you about the conversion of a mosque into a church accomplished by Christians, who consider themselves as affectionate, innocent, and compassionate. The following passage is a paraphrased translation from Spaneien=Spain, prepared in cooperation by Prince Salvatore, Prof. Graus, theologian Kirchberger, Baron von Bibra, and Ms. Threlfall, and published in the Würzburg city of Germany in 1312 [1894 C.E.]:
“Cordoba (Qurtuba in the Arabic literature) is one of the most important cities of Spain. It was the capital of the Arab Andalusian state in Spain. When Muslims under the command of Târiq bin Ziyâd ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ (crossed the Gibraltar and) landed in Spain in 95 [711 C.E.], they made the city their capital. The Arabs brought civilization to the city and developed it from a semi-wild habitation into the cultural hub of Spain. They built a grand palace [Al-Qasr], in addition to hospitals and madrasas (Islamic universities). Besides these, they established a Jâmi’a [grand university], which was at the same time the first university established in Europe. Up until that time the Europeans had been far behind civilization in knowledge, in science, in medicine, in agriculture, and in the humanities. Muslims brought them knowledge, science, and culture, and tutored them.
“Abd-ur-Rahmân bin Muâwiya bin Hishâm bin Abd-ul-Melik I ‘rahima-humullâhu ta’âlâ’ [d. 172 (788 C.E.)], the founder of the Islamic state of Andalusia, intended to have a grand mosque built in Qurtuba (Cordoba). He wanted the mosque to be larger, lovelier and more gorgeous than the mosques in Baghdâd. He found a plot that he thought would be most suitable for the mosque. The plot belonged to a Christian. The money he demanded for his plot was very high. Being an extremely just ruler, Abd-ur-Rahmân I did not have recourse to compulsion for the expropriation of the plot, which he could have done quite easily. He paid the owner of the plot the money he demanded. The Christians used the money to build a small church for themselves. The Muslims began to build the mosque in 169 [785 C.E.]. During the construction, Abd-ur-Rahmân worked for a few hours with the other workers every day. Materials necessary for the construction were brought from diverse places of the orient. The lumber necessary for the wooden parts was transported from Lebanon, famous for its valuable trees, huge lumps of coloured marble were brought from various parts of the east, and precious stones, pearls, emeralds and ivory were imported from Iraq and Syria, and all these materials formed large heaps on the plot. Everything was extremely beautiful and plentiful. Gradually, the walls of the mosque began to reach the heights to offer the first glimpses of a magnificent building. Abd-ur-Rahmân I did not live long enough to see the completion of the mosque. He passed away in 172 [788 C.E.]. Owing to the great efforts of Hishâm, his son, and Hakem I, his grandson, “rahima-humallâhu ta’âlâ’ who succeeded him, respectively, the mosque was completed in ten years. However, with the annexes added in the course of years, it was not before 380 [990 C.E.], which means two hundred and five years later, that the mosque attained its consummate perfection. In 366 [976 C.E.] Hakem II[96] had a minber built of gold for the mosque. It cost all those long years of hard work to bring the mosque to the perfection of a stupendous, resplendent and extremely pulchritudinous masterpiece. The mosque was in a rectangular shape, with dimensions 120x135 metres. Two parallel arms, each 135 metres, extended from the main body to make up an open yard adjacent to the mosque. There were one thousand, four hundred and nineteen (1419) pillars, each ten metres tall, in the mosque. These pillars were made from the world’s best quality marble. The arches on the pillars were made from pieces of marble cut from variegated marble. When you entered the mosque your eyes were lost in the exquisite scenery offered by that forest of pillars.
“The marble captions of the pillars commanded so strong admiration from the spectators that as soon as a visitor entered the mosque he would be infatuated with their beauty. It was such beauty as the world had not seen until that time.
“There were twenty entrances into the mosque. Before each entrance was a special orange-garden, whereby the mosque was surrounded with a verdant strip. Around the mosque were other sorts of gardens, ponds with water jets, and fountains. A number of shadirwâns (reservoirs with faucets at the sides) were built so that Muslims could make ablution. The floor of the mosque was of the most valuable marble ornamented with rare wood. The valuable Lebanese wood used for the construction of the ceiling provided the mosque with exceptional beauty and grandeur. There were carvings, engravings, reliefs, and beautiful writings on the walls and on the ceiling. If you entered the mosque and took a look around, you would feel as if there were not an end of that sumptuous jungle of pillars. At night the interior of the mosque became a dreamland with coloured lights gushing from the thousands of candles.
“It is written in a book entitled Naf-ut-tîb min-ghasnî Andulus-ir-ratîb, by the renowned historian Ahmad al-Maqqarî [d. 1041 (1632 C.E.), in Egypt], that the number of the lamps and candles illuminating the mosque was seven thousand four hundred and twenty-five (7425), that half of that number was used to illuminate the nights of the average days of the year, that all of them were lit in the nights of Ramadân and ’Iyd as well as during the other sacred nights, that twenty-four thousand (24000) oqqas (67200 lb.) of olive oil was used to light the lamps and candles, and that 120 oqqas (236 lb.) of ambergris and aloewood was burned to perfume the mosque.
“The minarets were crowned with captions in the shape of a pomegranate. The captions were ornamented with precious jewels, pearls and emeralds, and the spaces between the stones were covered with pieces of gold. Munjid, a lexicon written by Christian priests in Lebanon, contains two exquisite pictures of the mosque of Qurtuba.
“When Christians annihilated the Andalusian state and invaded Qurtuba in 897 [1492 C.E.], the first thing they did was to attack the mosque. They rode their horses into the extremely beautiful and magnificent mosque, and ruthlessly slaughtered the Muslims who had sheltered in the mosque, so much so that blood flowed out through the doors of the mosque. Then they broke the gold minber and shared the pieces among themselves. Also, they shared the ivory rahlas (low desks used for reading). There was a splendid copy of the Qur’ân al-kerîm hidden in a secret drawer on the minber. Embroidered with pearls and emeralds, it was an exact copy of the Qur’ân al-kerîm handwritten by ’Uthmân ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’. They found that beautiful book and trampled it under their feet. Thus the two peerless and exquisite masterpieces, the minber and the copy of the Qur’ân al-kerîm, were destroyed completely. The ferocious Spaniards Christianized all the Muslims and the Jews by force of the sword. Those Jews who managed to escape their talons took refuge with the Ottoman Empire. The Jews living in Turkey today are the grandchildren of those people. On the other hand, Muslims, the earlier conquerors of the country, had never disturbed the Christians or Jews living there, nor had they prevented them from practicing their religious acts of worship.
“After annihilating the Muslims and Jews with unprecedented acts of barbarism, the Christian Spaniards began to demolish the masterpiece, the mosque. First they got down the pomegranate-shaped, gold-and-emerald-ornamented captions on the minarets and looted them. They substituted them with ugly captions made from ordinary stones, which so to speak, represented angels. They tore down the wooden ornaments on the ceilings, and broke the marble floors to pieces, putting ordinary stones in their places. They scraped down the ornaments on the walls. They tried to pull down the pillars, in which they were partly successful. They whitewashed the pillars that survived the destruction. Hundreds of the pillars were pulled down and made a huge heap of marble on the ground. Most of the twenty entrances were closed with walls built with stones. As a final act of barbarism, they decided to convert the mosque into a church, in 929 [1523 C.E.]. They applied to the time’s emperor of Spain and Germany, Carlos V [Charles Quint (906-966 [1500-1558])], for permission to do so. Charles Quint first refused to give the permission. Yet the bigoted cardinals importuned him persistently, defending that it was a religious precept that had to be carried out. Ahead of them all was the cardinal Alonso Maurique, who had much clout, and who had already coaxed an approval from the Pope. Seeing that the Pope also was for the conversion of the mosque into a church, Charles Quint succumbed to the ecclesiastical cabal. It was decided that conversion into a church necessitated the demolition of many other pillars. So the number of the pillars that remained in the mosque was reduced to eight hundred and twelve, which means that at least six hundred of those valuable marble pillars were demolished. The church that was built impersonated an unsightly shape of the cross, with dimentions 52 to 12, in the middle of the mosque. When Charles Quint went to Cordova and saw the church, he felt so grieved that he castigated the cardinals, saying, ‘This primitive sight fills me with remorse over having given you the permission to do the conversion. Had I known that you would devastate that beautiful work of art which did not have an equal on the earth, I would not have given you my approval, and I would have punished you all. This ugly church that you have constructed is no more than a run-of-the-mill building that you can see anywhere. But it is impossible to build another mosque as magnificent as the one you have demolished.’ Today, visitors to that gorgeous building feel deep admiration for the beauty and greatness of that grand work of the Islamic architecture across all the vandalisms, sneer piteously at the dwarf-like church in the middle, and vent their grievances on the vulgarity that truncated such a magnificent masterpiece into that pitiable shack.” This is the end of our paraphrase from Spaneien.
The passage you have read above was written by a group of Christians among whom there were priests. It is the plain truth. Here you are: See who forced others to change their religion, who burned and plundered religious temples, and who perpetrated cruelty. The name of the mosque in Cordoba is the ‘La Mezquita Church’. This word, ‘mezquita’, is a borrowing from the (Arabic) word ‘mesjîd’, (which means a place where Muslims prostrate themselves during the performance of [the prayer called] namâz, or salât. Hence, mosque. That means to say that the building still carries the name of mesjîd, and the visitors who come to see it look on it not as a church, but as a great and majestic masterpiece of the Islamic civilization.
Abd-ur-Reshîd Ibrâhîm Efendi [d. 1944, in Japan] states as follows in the chapter about ‘The British Enmity Against Islam’ in the second volume of his book ’Âlam-i-Islâm, which was printed in Istanbul in 1328 [1910 C.E.]: “The primary aim of the British is the abrogation of the Khilâfat-i-Islâmiyya (Islamic Caliphate). The Crimean War, which was a result of their insidiously provocative policy and during which they purposely supported the Turks, was one of the stages in their plans for annihilating the institution of caliphate. The Treaty of Paris is a blatant disclosure of their stratagem. [Also, the propositions they made during the peace negotiations in Lausanne reveal their hostility.] All the disasters that befell on the Turks throughout history are of British origin, regardless of the cloak used to disguise the real purpose. British policy is based on the annihilation of Islam. This policy proceeds from their fears from Islam. In order to mislead Muslims, they exploit dishonest mercenaries. They represent them as Islamic scholars, as heroes. The gist of our words is this: the most formidable enemies of Islam lurk under British identity.” Brian William Jennings, an American jurist and politician, is famous for his books, conferences, and membership of the House of Representatives in the American Congress between 1891 and 1895. Between 1913 and 1915 he was the Foreign Secretary of U.S.A. He died in 1925. He enlarges on the British enmity towards Islam, their barbarities and cruelties in his book The British Domination in India.
The wildest and the most monstrous examples of the Christian cruelties and persecutions towards Muslims were perpetrated by the British in India. It is stated as follows in the book As-sawrat-ul-Hindiyya, which means ‘The Indian Revolution’, by Allâma Fadl-i-Haqq Khayr-âbâdî, a great Islamic scholar in India, and also in its commentary entitled Al-yawâqît-ul-mihriyya, written by Mawlânâ Ghulâm Mihr ’Alî and printed in India in 1384 [1964 C.E.]: “As the first stage, in 1008 [1600 C.E.], the British received Ekber Shâh’s approval to open trade centers in the Calcutta city of India. During the reign of Shâh-i-Âlam, they bought land areas in Calcutta, and brought troops for the protection of those areas. Later the permission was developed into a privilege that they could enjoy throughout India as a reward for their successful medical treatment of Sultân Ferruh Sîr Shâh. Infiltrating Delhi during the time of Shâh-i-Âlam II, they seized the executive power and began to perpetrate cruelty. In the meantime, the Wahhâbîs living in India stigmatized the Sunnî, Hanafî and Sôfî Sultân Bahadir Shâh II as a heretic, a vilification which gradually developed into calling him an unbeliever. Supported by those slanderers, by the unbelievers called Hindus, and especially by the perfidious vizier Ahsanullah Khân, the British troops entered Delhi. They raided houses and shops, plundering goods and money. They put many people to the sword, women and children alike. It was impossible to find water to drink. They arrested the very old Shâh and his household, who had sheltered in the mausoleum of Humâyûn Shâh, and drove them towards the fortress with their hands tied behind them. On the way, Patriarch Hudson had the Shâh’s three sons stripped of their clothes, leaving only their underwears on them, and martyred them by shooting bullets into their chests. He drank from their blood and had the corpses hanged on the entrance of the fortress. The following day he took their heads to the British commander Henry Bernard. Then, boiling the heads in water, he took the soup to the Shâh and his wife. The hungry pair spooned the soup into their mouths at once. Yet they could not chew or swallow it, although they did not know what kind of meat it was. They took the contents out of their mouths and put them on the ground. Hudson, the villainous priest, mocked them, saying, ‘Why don’t you eat it? It is delicious soup. I had it cooked from your sons’ flesh.’ Then they exiled the Sultân, his wife and other close relatives to the city of Rangoon[97] and imprisoned them there.” The Sultân passed away in the dungeon, in 1279. In Delhi they martyred thirty thousand Muslims, three thousand of them by shooting and twenty-seven thousand by slaughtering. The only survivors were those who escaped at night. In the other towns and villages as well, innumerable Muslims were slain by Christians, who burned historical works of art, loaded peerless and invaluable pieces of jewelry on ships, and sailed them to London.
Allâma Fadl-i-Haqq was martyred in a dungeon on the Endomen island in 1278 [1861 C.E.].
It is stated as follows on the back of the sheet dated 28 Dec. 1994 of the calendar issued by the Turkish daily newspaper Türkiye: “During the British reign of India, seventy Muslims were shot to death in the city of Amir on the pretext that a British girl riding a bicycle had been jeered at. When the (British) governor was asked what the reason for that heavy punishment was, he answered, ‘A British girl is more valuable than their gods.’ ” A picture that appeared on the 31 Dec. 1994 issue of the Turkish daily newspaper Türkiye illustrated a Bosnian girl lying in blood on the street and a Serbian soldier standing in a gale of laughter by her side. The subtitle said, “The seven-year-old Nermin, slain by the Christian barbarians in Sarajevo in Nov. 1994.”
When the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1400 [1979 C.E.] and began to play havoc with the country, destroying the Islamic works of art and martyring the Muslims, they first martyred the great scholar and Walî Ibrâhîm Mujaddidî, his wife and daughters, and his hundred and twenty-one disciples by shooting them. The British, again, were the cause of that barbarous massacre. For, when Hitler, the chancellor of Nazi Germany, defeated the Russian armies and was about to enter Moscow in 1945, he announced to the British and American authorities on the radio his wish to annihilate the Russians, saying, “I admit the defeat. I shall surrender to you. But let me go on with my war. Let me rout the Russian army and save the entire world from the nuisance called communism.” Churchill, the British premier, refused his request. The American and British forces continued to support the Russians and did not enter Berlin before the Russians arrived. It was their policy whereby the Russians continued to be a nuisance for the world.
We do not intend to make a list of the various barbarisms perpetrated by Christians or to enlarge on them. History teems with innumerable acts of cruelty. The tribunals termed Inquisition, the carnage called Saint Bartholomew and many other massacres perpetrated in the name of religion are the blatant examples of the inconceivable cruelties which Christians displayed against Christians of other sects and against people of other religions. None of the Muslim rulers or commanders or statesmen ever had recourse to the cruelties approximating to those perpetrated by Christians or deigned to cloak such cruelties under religious causes or provoked the Muslim world against Christians. Islam never approves of cruelty towards any creature. All Muslim religious authorities dissuaded Muslims from cruelty. Here is a small example for you:
It is stated as follows in the eighth edition of Fazlaka-i-Târih-i-’Uthmânî (A Summary of the Ottoman History), and also in the third edition, in 1325 [1907 C.E.], of Târih-i-Dawlat-i-’Uthmâniyya (A History of the Ottoman State), by Abd-ur-Rahmân Şeref Bey, director of the Maktab-i-Sultânî (The Sultan’s School): “Sünbül Agha, a retired Agha of Dâr-us-sa’âda, was sailing to Egypt, when his ship was attacked by the Maltese pirates, who martyred the Agha during the attack. The troops landing on Morea (Peloponnesus) from Venetian ships slaughtered thousands of Muslims, children and women alike. The eighteenth Ottoman Pâdishâh, Sultân Ibrâhîm, was an extremely compassionate person. He grieved deeply over the barbarity perpetrated by Christians. In 1056 [1646 C.E.] he issued a firman commanding retaliation against the Christian guests living under the Ottoman administration, [which meant slaughtering them,] for the Muslims massacred. Abu-s-Sa’îd Efendi ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’, the time’s Shaikh-ul-Islâm (The Chief of Religious Affairs), taking along the Bostancıbaşı (Commander of the Imperial Guards) with him, entered the presence of the Pâdishâh (Ottoman Empire). He said that the decree meant unjust homicide, which in turn was incompatible with the Islamic religion. Being strongly adherent to the Holy Book of Allâhu ta’âlâ, which was a common quality of all the Ottoman Sultâns, Sultân Ibrâhîm ‘rahima-hullâhu ta’âlâ’ took the advice and rescinded his decree.”
Shems-ud-dîn Sâmî Bey [d. 1322 (1904 C.E.)] states as follows in Qâmûs ul-a’lâm: “Sultân Ibrâhîm had well-proportioned stature and figure, and a beautiful face with lovely eyes. He was well-known for his tender and generous personality.” Such was the Islamic religion. While the Muslim men of religion were saving Christians from death, Christian popes, patriarchs and priests were calling the entire world to kill Muslims. Despite this obvious fact, these shameless people have the face to allege that Islam is a religion of barbarity, and by quoting Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ as having said, ‘And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; ...” (Luke: 6-29), a piece of advice that they flouted throughout history, they do not spare the blushes of their co-religionists.
[Misguiding Muslims’ children with lies and slanders and with promises pertaining to money and position, the British and their Jewish collaborators demolished the Muslim Ottoman state. They popularized irreligiousness and spread it as a fashion among younger generations. They rationalized women’s going out without properly covering themselves in a manner prescribed by Islam, indecencies, alcohol parties, immoralities, and irreligiosness by calling them modern life styles. They annihilated Islamic scholars and Islamic knowledge. British spies and masonic agents disguised themselves as men of religion and ruined Islam’s beautiful ethical entity and its original system of religious practices. Islam was gone in essence, although it survived in name. In the time of the Party of Union, even the legislators, beys and pashas became enemies of Islam. They passed laws destructive of Islam. Adherence to one’s religion and belief was represented as a misdemeanour. Numbers of Muslims were hanged and butchered. Pious acts such as promulgating Islam’s commandments and avoiding Islam’s prohibitions were stigmatized as separatism. Those who performed emr-i-ma’rûf, i.e. who taught the true essence of Islam, were called enemies of the regime. Al-hamd-u-lillah (may praise and gratitude be to Allah)! The Christian aggressions have come to an end. The Islamic sun is shining again in our blessed country, (Turkey). The enemy’s lies and treacheries have come to light. True religious teachings are being written freely. Today every Muslim has to show gratitude for this freedom and do his best to learn the true essence of our sacred religion for whose sake our ancestors sacrificed their lives. If we do not teach our religion to our children and discipline them to adapt themselves to the Sharî’at (way of life prescribed by Islam), the enemies lying in wait and the idiots bought by them will resume their aggressions and begin to deceive our children. All the peoples of Europe and America believe in rising after death, in the existence of Paradise and Hell. Every week they fill their churches and synagogues. Their school curricula contains compulsory religious lessons. If a person says that Europeans and Americans are wise, modern and civilized and boastingly imitates them in lying, drinking, indecency and fornication, on the one hand, and does not believe as they do, on the other, is not he a liar? We Muslims say that Christians are ignorant, idiotic, and regressive. For they divinize Îsâ ‘alaihis-salâm’ and his blessed mother. They idolize him, worship him, and thus become polytheists. Among them there are people who work compatibly with the Sharî’at of Muhammad ‘alaihis-salâm’ in their worldly affairs. These people attain the blessings of Allâhu ta’âlâ, living in comfort and peace. However, because they do not believe in that exalted Prophet and in his Sharî’at, they shall suffer the eternal fire of Hell.]
Now, in order to show you how a true Muslim should behave, we shall translate a letter of our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’:
The letter which our master the Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ had written (by his secretary) addresses to all Muslims and reads as follows: [The original copy of the letter exists on the thirtieth page of the first volume of Majmû’a-i-Munshaa-tus-salâtîn, by Feridun Bey.]
“This letter has been written to inform of the promise that Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’, the son of Abdullah, has made to all Christians. Janâb-i-Haqq has given the good news that He has sent him as His compassion, and has assigned to him the task of safekeeping the deposit entrusted to mankind. This Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ has had this letter recorded for the purpose of documenting the promise he has given to all non-Muslims.
“If anyone acts contrary to this promise, whether he be a sultan or else, he will have revolted against Janâb-i-Haqq and derided His religion, and will therefore deserve His condemnation. If a Christian priest or tourist is fasting with the intention of worship in a mountain, in a valley, in a desert, in a verdure, in a low place or in the sand, I, on behalf of myself, my friends and acquaintances and all my nation, have revoked all sorts of obligation from them. They are under my protection. I have forgiven them all sorts of taxes that they have had to pay as a requirement of the agreements that we made with other Christians. They may not pay jizya or kharâj, or they may give as much as they wish. Do not force or oppress them. Do not depose their religious leaders. Do not evict them from their temples. Do not prevent them from travelling. Do not demolish any part of their monasteries or churches. Do not confiscate things from their churches or use them in Muslims’ mosques. Whoever does not obey this will have disobeyed the command of Allah and His Messenger and will therefore be sinful. Do not impose such taxes as jizya or gharâmat on those people who do not trade but are always busy over worshipping, no matter where they are. I will preserve their debts on sea or land, in the east or in the west. They are under my protection. I have granted them immunity. Do not impose (the taxes called) kharâj and ’ushr [tithe] for the crops of those who live in mountains and are busy with worship. Do not allot a share for the Bayt-ul-mâl [the State Treasury] out of their crops. For, their agriculture is intended only for subsistence, not for making profit. When you need men for Jihâd (Holy War), do not resort to them. If it is necessary to impose jizya [income tax] (on them), do not take more than twelve dirhams yearly, however rich they may be and however much property they may have. They are not to be taxed with troubles or burdens. If there should be an argument with them, they shall be treated only with pity, kindness and compassion. Always protect them under your wings of mercy and compassion. Whereever they are, do not maltreat Christian women married to Muslim men. Do not prevent them from going to their church and doing the worships prescribed by their religion. Whoever disobeys or acts contrary to this commandment of Allâhu ta’âlâ will have revolted against the commandments of Allâhu ta’âlâ and His Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu