EL BAKA^y'S letter OF RECOMMENDATION. 647 
outrun you. Nay, the great Sultan, our lord 'Abd e' liahman, 
the son of your lord, Hisliam, and the Khakan of the two lands 
and seas, the Sultan 'Abd el Mejid, the son of the Sultan Mah- 
mud, the son of the Sultan 'Abd el Hamid, would have anti- 
cipated you. As for your postulate *, that you have inherited 
the duty of doing battle with the infidels, and of hating them, 
from the time of our fathers and grandfathers, v^e are more 
nearly related to them than you ; for you have no ancestry 
in it, since you have only adopted your present opinions about 
thirty years ago ; and a man only inherits from his father and 
grandfather. Whose guest is this Christian ? And again, in 
whose alliance and safe-conduct is this Christian? He is the 
guest and protege of the Sultan of the Faithful, 'Abd el Mejid, 
and of the Imam of the Moslims, our lord 'Abd e' Kahman. 
Lo, he inherited the duty of warring with the infidels from 
his fathers and grandfathers ; and he possesses his religion 
from the earliest of the fathers, from the time of the pro- 
phets. But as for the people of Nukkumaf, they have neither 
religion, nor learning, nor understanding, nor humanity. 
What then gives them any superiority or pre-eminence over 
those eminent persons, seeing that they are the tail of man- 
kind, living in the tail of the world, and that, up to this 
date, the invitation of the Sunna and of indispensible duties J 
has not reached them? But there is no need to dilate on 
what they say in their perversity, nor on what is said to 
them in disputation. The main thing is, that you should 
know, oh ! you body of believers ! that God has sent us pro- 
phets with His book and His ordinances, and has elucidated 
them, and made them plain ; and that whoever wishes to 
add to them in what He has enjoined, is accursed and cast 
* That is, mai7i principle on which you base your wish to hurt 
a Christian ; or it means pretence. 
f That is, the Fulbe of Hasina. About Nukkuma, or Nukuma, 
see the note, Vol. V., p. 517* 
T T 4 
