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1874.] J. O’Kinealy— History and Doctrines of the Wahhabis. 
worship idols, and those who worship holy persons. They are both in¬ 
fidels.” Moreover, we fought with them, until they all turned towards 
God. 
The fourth reason is : The people the prophet speaks of, when in dis¬ 
tress, took refuge with God and, forgetting their past conduct, abandoned 
shirk ; while the people of our times, when in difficulties, seek refuge in sup¬ 
plicating their Pirs. The Lord has said, “ when they mount their ships, they 
supplicate God, taking refuge with Him..... .besides God.” Now, if you 
understood this, you will perceive that the Mushriks in the time of the 
prophet (may he be &c.!) were not guilty of such heinous shirk as the wiser 
Mushriks of our times. The former sought refuge with God in their dis¬ 
tress ; the latter call upon their Pirs. The Lord is omniscient. 
And among the persons who presented themselves* before us with 
the people of Makkah and witnessed our victory in discussion, was Husain 
ul-Airat'i ul-Hazrami, afterwards al-Hayani. He continued to visit us and 
sit with Sa’ud and others of the force who were well learned in the scrip¬ 
tures, and he asked us of those matters other than the intercession of 
Saints, for which our swords were unsheathed. This he did fearlessly, 
and without any dread, as he was guiltless of any thing wrong in our 
eyes. So we informed him of our belief which is as follows : We believe, 
our sect holds the real true religion, is the sect of the Ahl-us-Sunnat 
and al-Jama’at, and that our way to salvation is that of the pious an¬ 
cient departed, most easy and excellent, and opposed to the doctrines of 
those who hold that the modern way is the best. We construe the 
Qoran and Hadises according to the meaning apparent on the face of them, 
and leave the interpretation of them to God, for He is the Ruler. And for this 
reason that the divines who have passed away, so acted in answering the ques¬ 
tion as to whether the highest heaven is level or not, which arose out of the 
words of the merciful God, “ The ’ Arsh is level;” they held that “ level’’was well 
known, and as it was predicated of ’ Arsh, it was lawful to believe in it, and 
heretical to question it. We believe that good and evil proceed from God, the 
exalted ; that nothing happens in His kingdom, but what He commands ; that 
created, beings do not possess free will, and are not accountable for their own 
acts; but on the contrary they obtain rank and spiritual reward, merely 
as an act of grace, and suffer punishment justly, for God is not bound to do 
anything for His slaves. We believe that the faithful will see Him in the end, 
but we do not know under what form, as it was beyond our comprehension. 
And in the same way we follow Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal in matters 
of detail; but we do not reject anj T one who follows any of the four 
Imams, as wg do the Shi’ahs, the Zaidiyyahs, and the Imamiyyahs, &c., 
who belong to no regular churches. Nor do we admit them in any way to 
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