"تاريخ أئمة وأسياد عُمان بقلم سليل ابن رزيق، من ٦٦١-١٨٥٦ م، مترجم من الأصل العربي، ومُحرّر بملاحظات وملاحق ومقدمة تواصل التاريخ حتى سنة ١٨٧٠، بقلم جورج بيرسي بادجر، عضو في الجمعية الجغرافية الملكية والقس الراحل في رئاسة بومباي." [‎٢‎٤‎٨] (٦١٢/٤٠٩)

248
THE IMAMS OP 'OMAN.
their having flattered and deceived him by sanctioning his
tyranny and approving of his charging those of the people
of the Kiblah with Tashrik who might call in question any
thing which he had written in his book, entitled the Solu
tion of Difficulties. It is a small book, consisting mostly
of sophisms and conjectures. It legalizes the murder of all
Muslims who dissent from them, the appropriation of their
property, the enslavement of their offspring, the marriage
of their wives without being first divorced from their hus
bands, and without observing the 'Iddah. The actuating
principle in all this was their thirst for gain, through
fraud and stratagem. They listened to what tyrants taught
them, but they forgot the dictum of the Almighty: ' Do
not think that God is heedless of the actions of the evil
doers/ 1 They reduced most of the inhabitants of el-llasa
from plenty to poverty, their clothes to rags, their power
to weakness, and they murdered a number of the Fakihs
who opposed their doctrines, as 1 have just stated them.'
The sheikh continued; "One striking peculiarity about
them is their mode of replying to those who differ from
them. Should one of the latter say: 'I confess that there
is no god but God, and that He has no companion, and
that Muhammad is his servant and apostle/ they ask,
'What proof have you of that? , They try to distort his
orthodox creed by asking him to prove that God who cre
ated and sustains him is what He is, that there is none
other equal to Him, and that He is the only One, the
eternal, the existing, the self-existent. If they knew what
argument was, they would know that there is no argument
against one who confesses that God is one and eternal, with-
unconnected with the Wahhabis, to designate free soldiers, or volun
teers, who followed their chiefs willingly and gratuitously. According
to Mr. Palgrave, the Wahhaby Mutdwa'ah "thrive on the involuntary
contributions of a people that detests them." Cent' and hast. Arabia,
vol. i. pp. 79, 317.
1 Kuran, SiXrat-Ihralum, (xiv.) 43.