Allah—Allah is indeed severe in punishment.”

“Whatever palm trees you cut down or left standing on their roots was by Allah’s permission, so that He might disgrace the defiantly disobedient.”

Moreover, this has dealt the people of innovation and hypocrisy in Syria, Egypt, the Hijaz, Yemen and Iraq a blow through which Allah will raise the Sultan’s rank and strengthen the believers.

Section

The completion of this victory and its blessings lie in the issuance of the Sultan’s decrees to cut off what sustains those who spread corruption and to establish the Sharia throughout the lands. These people have shaykhs and brethren in many villages whom they follow and whose cause they champion. They harbour deep resentment and intense, concealed hostility, such that they cannot be trusted to refrain from whatever harm lies within their power, even if it amounts only to covert collaboration with the enemy. If their leaders who misguide them—such as the Banū al-‘Ūd—are apprehended, this will eliminate an extent of evil known only to Allah.

Orders should be sent to their villages, which are scattered throughout the districts of Damascus, Safad, Tripoli, Hama, Homs and Aleppo, that the observances of Islam be established among them: Friday prayers, congregational prayers and recitation of the Quran. They should have preachers and muezzins