And this judgment contravenes Allah’s law—upon which the Muslims are agreed—in more than twenty respects.

Moreover, the Christians are held in a comfortable prison, where they associate partners with Allah and establish churches. Would that our confinement were like that of the Christians! Would that we had been treated on an equal footing with the polytheists and idol worshippers! Instead, they are honored while we are humiliated.

Can anyone who believes in Allah and the Last Day say that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, commanded this? And for what offense under the religion of Islam did he imprison my brothers? His grounds were nothing but lies and slander. Whoever says, “That was done in accordance with religious law,” has committed disbelief, by the consensus of the Muslims.

I also said to him in the course of our conversation, “If a man brought a claim against you for ten dirhams while you were present in the town and were not refusing to attend the judge’s court, the judge would have no right to rule against you in your absence. This is so in matters concerning rights; how much more so in matters involving punishments, where doing this is forbidden by the consensus of the Muslims!

“Furthermore, this man has been exposed as a liar more than once. That day, he lied about me in most of what he said. The document he ordered to be written consists mostly of lies, and the sultan’s decree written at his command contravenes the Sharia in some ten respects. It also contains grave falsehoods about the session that was held, which are known to the elite and the common people alike. So if the document