A Present to His Royal Highness - The Prince of Wales — Page 49
49 yourselves; and to feed yourselves you cut the throats of others; and you disgrace the name of the Lord and seek honour for yourselves. “Think ye that the word of God stands in need of robbery and murder to be justified and honoured? Does not even the word of man extort deserved praise from the mouths of men? Why then must ye kill and plunder to compel men to praise the word of God? Ye hard of heart, what ye call a holy war and crusade is no more than robbery and rapine, and by it ye have not served the Faith, but have estranged every gentle and good man from the true faith, and now ye are answerable for the sin of every man whom ye have thus caused to turn away from Islam. “Ye scribes and priests, was it not enough for you to seek the will and pleasure of God? Nay, was this not the only thing worth seeking? But ye have set yourselves to please mankind and ye look towards their faces and listen to their words, but the will of God ye have forsaken and ye listen not to His voice. Ye have gained what ye had set yourselves to acquire, but ye have lost the pleasure of the Lord, and He shall require it of you. “Ye men, ye cannot find happiness in goods and money; but he that looks after the poor and the needy will find happiness, and he that succours the helpless will be helped by the Lord; and he that protects the weak will be guarded in heaven, so that when he sleeps God will keep awake for him, and when he is unguarded God will watch over him; and when he is not aware of his enemy God will fight for him, for out of his limited means he helped God’s poor creatures and saved them from destruction. Shall the Lord, then, be miserly with him and shall He shut him out