Page:Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.djvu/206

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164
AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU'S STORY

with the enemies of our religion, now become the target for oppression and violence. Thus wherever you look you see that the enemies of the true religion, particularly the English, the Russian, and the French, have oppressed Islam and invaded its rights in every possible way. We cannot enumerate the insults we have received at the hands of these nations who desire totally to destroy Islam and drive all Mohammedans off the face of the earth. This tyranny has passed all endurable limits; the cup of our oppression is full to over-flowing. . . . In brief, the Moslems work and the infidels eat; the Moslems are hungry and suffer and the infidels gorge themselves and live in luxury. The world of Islam sinks down and goes backward, and the Christian world goes forward and is more and more exalted. The Moslems are enslaved and the infidels are the great rulers. This is all because the Moslems have abandoned the plan set forth in the Koran and ignored the Holy War which it commands. . . . But the time has now come for the Holy War, and by this the land of Islam shall be forever freed from the power of the infidels who oppress it. This holy war has now become a sacred duty. Know ye that the blood of infidels in the Islamic lands may be shed with impunity — except those to whom the Moslem power has promised security and who are allied with it. [Herein we find that Germans and Austrians are excepted from massacre.] The killing of infidels who rule over Islam has become a sacred duty, whether you do it secretly or openly, as the Koran has decreed: 'Take them and kill them whenever you find them. Behold we have delivered them unto your hands and given you supreme power over them.' He who kills even one