Historical documents

"Neither we nor our officials will seize any land or rent in payment of a debt, so long as the debtor has movable goods sufficient to discharge the debt."

"No man shall be forced to perform more service for a knight's 'fee', or other free holding of land, than is due from it."

"For a trivial offence, a free man shall be fined only in proportion to the degree of his offence, and for a serious offence correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood."

"No constable or other royal official shall take corn or other movable goods from any man without immediate payment, unless the seller voluntarily offers postponement of this."

"No sheriff, royal official, or other person shall take horses or carts for transport from any free man, without his consent."

"In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it."

"No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him, except by the legal judgement of his peers or by the law of the land."

"To none will we sell, to none deny or delay, right or justice."

"All merchants may enter or leave England unharmed and without fear, and may stay or travel within it, by land or water, for purposes of trade, free from all illegal exactions, in accordance with ancient and lawful customs. This, however, does not apply in time of war to merchants from a country that is at war with us. Any such merchants found in our country at the outbreak of war shall be detained without injury to their persons or property, until we or our chief justice have discovered how our own merchants are being treated in the country at war with us. If our own merchants are safe they shall be safe too."

"To any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, without the lawful judgement of his equals, we will at once restore these."

"It is accordingly our wish and command that the English Church shall be free, and that men in our kingdom shall have and keep all these liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably in their fulness and entirety for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all things and all places for ever."

"[T]he Charter was demanded by those who complained of the irregular and arbitrary violence of King John, and the restrictions it imposed upon the Crown's action became the corner stone of English freedom. Its provisions, never repealed, though varied and to some extent amplified in subsequent instruments similarly extorted from subsequent monarchs, were solemnly reasserted in the famous declaration by Parliament in 1628 which we call the Petition of Right, and were finally re-enacted in the Bill of Rights of 1689. Thus the Charter of 1215 was the starting-point of the constitutional history of the English race, the first link in a long chain of constitutional instruments which have moulded men's minds and held together free governments not only in England but wherever the English race has gone and the English tongue is spoken."

"Magna Charta is such a fellow, that he will have no sovereign."

"The Great Charter dealt with grievances of the time in a practical way. It gave legal redress for the wrongs of a feudal age. But it was expressed in language which has had its impact on future generations. It put into words the spirit of individual liberty which has influenced our people ever since."

"When the colonists crossed the seas from England to countries the world over, they took with them the principles set down in the Great Charter. Those who went to Virginia took its very words. When they renounced their allegiance in 1776, they stated in the Declaration of Rights that "no man be deprived of his liberty, except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers". Thence the provisions of the Charter found their place in the Constitution of the United States. There it is revered as much as here."

"The Great Charter was a concession, not a gift, as John proved when he cancelled it (with papal help), but it was restored early in Henry III's reign and remained as a foundational charter of liberties and rights available to an ever-increasing part of the nation as growing wealth and growing law swept in layers of society well below the ranks that had first promoted it. The real significance of that famous confrontation at Runnymede where John surrendered to the pressures of barons and prelates could not be long evaded: it put an end to the despotic potential within Anglo-Norman kingship, anchored the principle of co-operation, and instituted a relationship between king and baronage marked by a mutual and watchful supiciousness which endured for the rest of the Middle Ages."

"At Runnymede, at Runnymede, Oh hear the reeds at Runnymede:— You mustn't sell, delay, deny, A freeman's right or liberty, It wakes the stubborn Englishry, We saw 'em roused at Runnymede!"

"And still when mob or monarch lays Too rude a hand on English ways, The whisper wakes, the shudder plays, Across the reeds at Runnymede. And Thames, that knows the moods of kings, And crowds and priests and suchlike things, Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings Their warning down from Runnymede!"

"No Statute whatever (eodem modo constituitur) is ordained by so great Authority as that which Magna Charta has at length acquired, by the express confirmation, from time to time, of so many different Kings and Parliaments: The wisdom of ages has made it venerable, and stamped it with an authority equal to the Constitution itself, of which it is, in reality, a most essential and fundamental part; so that any attempt to repeal it would be treason to the state!"

"A great deal has been written about the Charter and the last word has not yet been said. No single state document has had more influence on the course of history and its influence is even now not spent. It is the forerunner of the great constructive statutes of the thirteenth century, the first detailed review of necessary reforms. It points the way to the new age, to a kingship controlled not by fear of revolt but by acceptance of the restraint of law. To John it seemed that in making such promises he made himself a slave, and indeed the Charter marks the first long step towards the constitutional kingship of a far later day. No medieval king was ever allowed to forget that his predecessor had granted the Charter to his subjects. Every king in turn confirmed it until the days when the middle ages ended in confusion and an autocrat was needed to re-order the land."

"The Great Charter is the first great public act of the nation, after it has realised its own identity: the consummation of the work for which unconsciously kings, prelates, and lawyers have been labouring for a century. There is not a word in it that recalls the distinctions of race and blood, or that maintains the differences of English and Norman law. It is in one view the summing up of a period of national life, in another the starting-point of a new, not less eventful, period than that which it closes."

"[T]he whole of the constitutional history of England is little more than a commentary on Magna Carta."

"Several clauses in Magna Carta give expression to the spirit of individual liberty, as it has ever since been understood in England. And the constant repetition of these brave words in centuries to come, by persons who were ignorant of the technical meaning they bore to the men who first wrote them down, helped powerfully to form the national character."

"The Charter was regarded as important because it assigned definite and practical remedies to temporary evils. There was very little that was abstract in its terms, less even than later generations supposed. Yet it was the abstract and general character of the event at Runnymede that made it a great influence in history. A King had been brought to order, not by a posse of reactionary feudalists, but by the community of the land under baronial leadership; a tyrant had been subjected to the laws which hitherto it had been his private privilege to administer and to modify at will. A process had begun which was to end in putting the power of the Crown into the hands of the community at large."

"[W]hen, under James I, Prince and people again began to take up opposing ground, Magna Carta came quickly back into more than its old splendour. The antiquarians and lawyers who asserted our Parliamentary liberties in the age of Coke and Selden, saw looming through the mists of time the gigantic figure of Magna Carta as the goddess of English freedom. Their misinterpretations of the clauses were as useful to liberty then as they are amazing to mediævalists now. Under the banner of Runnymede the battle of Parliament and the Common Law was fought and won against the Stuarts."

"America revolted in its name and seeks spiritual fellowship with us in its memory."

"The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran advances the cultural, social, political, and economic institutions of Iranian society based on Islamic principles and norms, which represent an honest aspiration of the Islamic Ummah. This aspiration was exemplified by the nature of the great Islamic Revolution of Iran, and by the course of the Muslim people's struggle, from its beginning until victory, as reflected in the decisive and forceful calls raised by all segments of the populations. Now, at the threshold of this great victory, our nation, with all its beings, seeks its fulfillment."

"The form of government of Iran is that of an Islamic Republic, endorsed by the people of Iran on the basis of their long-standing belief in the sovereignty of truth and Qur'anic justice, in the referendum of...(March 29 and 30, 1979], through the affirmative vote of a majority of 98.2% of eligible voters, held after the victorious Islamic Revolution led by the eminent marji' al-taqlid, Ayatullah al-Uzma Imam Khomeyni."

"Since the language of the Qur'an and Islamic texts and teachings is Arabic, and since Persian literature is thoroughly permeated by this language, it must be taught after elementary level, in all classes of secondary school and in all areas of study."

"The Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran must be an Islamic Army, i.e., committed to Islamic ideology and the people, and must recruit into its service individuals who have faith in the objectives of the Islamic Revolution and are devoted to the cause of realizing its goals."

"The overriding theme of the constitution was the concept that ultimate sovereignty over the political system belonged to God. Any other basis for sovereignty, whether the people, a ruling dynasty, or conformity to some alternate ideology, was un-Islamic and unacceptable. In the Islamic Republic, God’s will is expressed through the “rule of the just Islamic jurist,” the vilayat-e faqih. He is to advise the parliament and the president and has the power, at the rare times he may deem it necessary, to overrule the government or any part of the government. The first faqih of the Islamic Republic was Ayatollah Khomeini. His successors were to be selected by the Assembly of Experts. If no single individual was perceived qualified for the position, a committee of three or five could be selected to fill the role (Bakhash 1984; Hussain 1985). The Constitution of the Islamic Republic with the inclusion of the crucial vilayat-e faqih principle embodied the victory of the Shia fundamentalists over the other groups in the revolutionary alliance. The fundamentalists’ triumph was due to a number of factors. Of primary importance was Ayatollah Khomeini’s role as the dominant personality of the revolution. Because Khomeini and the fundamentalists enjoyed a much wider base of popular support than any of the other anti-shah groups, the fundamentalists controlled most of the revolutionary organizations (the komitehs and the revolutionary courts) and possessed by far the biggest militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, to enforce their will."

"The people of Iran are very talented people. They're heirs to one of the world's great civilizations. But in 1979, they were hijacked by religious zealots; religious zealots who imposed on them immediately a dark and brutal dictatorship. That year, the zealots drafted a constitution, a new one for Iran. It directed the revolutionary guards not only to protect Iran's borders, but also to fulfill the ideological mission of jihad. The regime's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, exhorted his followers to "export the revolution throughout the world." I'm standing here in Washington, D.C. and the difference is so stark. America's founding document promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Iran's founding document pledges death, tyranny, and the pursuit of jihad. And as states are collapsing across the Middle East, Iran is charging into the void to do just that."

"Þa het Ælfred cyng timbran langscipu ongen ða æscas; þa wæron fulneah tu swa lang swa þa oðru. Sume hæfdon .lx. ara. sume ma. Þa wæron ægðer ge swiftran ge unwealtran, ge eac hieran þonne þa oðru."

"Her Æþelstan cyning, eorla dryhten, beorna beahgifa, ⁊ his broþor eac, Eadmund æþeling, ealdorlangne tir geslogon æt sæcce sweorda ecgum ymbe Brunanburh. Bordweal clufan, heowan heaþolinde hamora lafan, afaran Eadweardes, swa him geæþele wæs from cneomægum, þæt hi æt campe oft wiþ laþra gehwæne land ealgodon, hord ⁊ hamas."

"Sende þa ofer eall Englaland into ælcere scire his men. ⁊ lett agan ut hu fela hundred hyda wæron innon þære scire. oððe hwet se cyng him sylf hæfde landes. ⁊ orfes innan þam lande. oððe hwilce gerihtæ he ahte to habbanne to xii monþum of ðære scire. Eac he lett gewritan hu mycel landes his arcebiscops hæfdon. ⁊ his leodbiscops. ⁊ his abbods. ⁊ his eorlas. ⁊ þeah ic hit lengre telle. hwæt oððe hu mycel ælc mann hæfde þe landsittende wæs innan Englalande. on lande. oððe on orfe. ⁊ hu mycel feos hit wære wurð. Swa swyðe nearwelice he hit lett utaspyrian. þæt næs an ælpig hide. ne an gyrde landes. ne furðon, hit is sceame to tellanne. ac hit ne þuhte him nan sceame to donne. an oxe. ne an cu. ne an swin. næs belyfon. þæt næs gesæt on his gewrite."

"He forbead þa heortas swylce eac þa baras, swa swiðe he lufode þa headeor swilce he wære heora fæder."

"Þa the suikes undergæton ðæt he milde man was ⁊ softe ⁊ god. ⁊ na iustise ne dide. þa diden hi alle wunder…For æuric riceman his castles makede ⁊ agænes him heolden. ⁊ fylden þe land ful of castles. Hi suencten suyðe þe uurecce men of þe land mid castelweorces þa þe castles uuaren maked þa fylden hi mid deoules ⁊ yuele men. Þa namen hi þa men þe hi wenden ðæt ani god hefden. bathe be nihtes ⁊ be dæies. carlmen ⁊ wimmen. ⁊ diden heom in prisun efter gold ⁊ syluer. ⁊ pined heom. untellendlice pining."

"⁊ hi sæden openlice ðæt Crist slep. ⁊ his halechen."

"The state protects Islam; it implements its Shari'ah; it orders people to do right and shun evil; it fulfills the duty regarding God's call."

"There is confusion among some people, who think a constitution takes the place of the Koran and the Sunna, which is not true. As you know, any Saudi who is familiar with the situation in Saudi Arabia cannot establish a constitution, a regulation, or a law that runs counter to the Islamic Shari'a."

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

"We must, therefore,…hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved."

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

"We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent , that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it"

"he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers; is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."

"in every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered by repeated injury."

"Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the corner stone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity, and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies, announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets six hundred years before?"

"Flights of oratory... especially that concerning Negro slavery, which, though I knew his Southern brethren would never suffer to pass in Congress, I certainly would never oppose."

"I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not."

"Here, in the first paragraph of the Declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can "the consent of the governed" be given, if the right to vote be denied?"

"The Declaration of Independence asserted the natural right of revolution as a principle of American nationality. This was a moral and political right, to be exercised prudentially, that justified resistance to oppressive government. It was not a claim of legal immunity imposing duty and obligation on others not to interfere."

"In this preamble however it is, that they attempt to establish a theory of Government; a theory, as absurd and visionary, as the system of conduct in defence of which it is established, is nefarious."

"245 years ago we declared our independence from a distant king. Today we’re closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus. That’s not to say the battle against COVID-19 is over, we’ve got a lot more work to do. But just as our declaration in 1776 was a call to action, not a reason for complacency, or a claim of victory, it was a call to action. The same is true today. Back then we had the power of an idea on our side, today we have the power of science. Thanks to our heroic vaccine effort, we’ve gained the upper hand against this virus. We can live our lives, our kids can go back to school, our economy is roaring back. Don’t get me wrong. COVID-19 has not been vanquished. We all know powerful variants have emerged like the Delta variant. But the best defense against these variants is to get vaccinated. My fellow Americans it is the most patriotic thing you can do. So please, if you have not gotten vaccinated, do it, do it now. For yourself. For your loved ones. For your community. For your country. You know, that is how we’re going to stay ahead of these variants and protect the hardwon progress we’ve made."

"The Declaration of Independence should have read thus:"

":"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, and the right to make that of another miserable by thrusting upon him an incalculable quantity of acquaintances; liberty, particularly the liberty to introduce persons to one another without first ascertaining if they are not already acquainted as enemies; and the pursuit of another's happiness with a running pack of strangers.""

"The American Revolution began with certain latent hopes that it might turn into a genuine break with the State ideal. The Declaration of Independence announced doctrines that were utterly incompatible not only with the century-old conception of the Divine Right of Kings, but also with the Divine Right of the State. … If revolution is justifiable a State may even be criminal sometimes in resisting its own extinction."

"In 1776, the Americans laid before Europe that noble Declaration, which ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, and blazoned on the porch of every royal palace."

"I am grateful to Almighty God for the blessings which, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, He had conferred on my beloved country in her emancipation and on myself in permitting me, under circumstances of mercy, to live to the age of 89 years, and to survive the fiftieth year of independence, adopted by Congress on the 4th of July 1776, which I originally subscribed on the 2d day of August of the same year and of which I am now the last surviving signer."

"Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence."

"We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence."

"July 4, 1776 was the historic day on which the representatives of three millions of people vocalized Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, which gave notice to the world that they proposed to establish an independent nation on the theory that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The wonder and glory of the American people is not the ringing Declaration of that day, but the action then already begun, and in the process of being carried out, in spite of every obstacle that war could interpose, making the theory of freedom and equality a reality... The doctrine of the Declaration of Independence predicated upon the glory of man and the corresponding duty to society that the rights of citizens ought to be protected with every power and resource of the state, and a government that does any less is false to the teachings of that great document — false to the name American."

"Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed. If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed. While these principles were not altogether new in political action, and were very far from new in political speculation, they had never been assembled before and declared in such a combination... In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man — these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause... If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final."

"We live in an age of science and abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create the Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all of our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage bequeathed to us, we must be like minded as the Founders who created. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had and for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshipped."

"About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776 — that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance of the people of that day and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But, that reasoning cannot be applied to the great charter... No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward a time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more "modern," but more ancient than those of our Revolutionary ancestors."

"The Declaration of Independence was the passionate manifesto of a revolutionary war, and its doctrine of equal human rights a glittering generality... It would have been perfectly easy to say, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all white men of the European race upon this continent are created equal — to their brethren across the water; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; but that yellow, blacky brown, and red men have no such rights. It would have been very easy to say this. Our fathers did not say it, because they did not mean it. They were men who meant what they said, and who said what they meant, and meaning all men, they said all men. They were patriots asserting a principle and ready to die for it, not politicians pettifogging for the presidency."

"The declaration was a nice document. Notice the part about all men being equal? Ending slavery was part of fulfilling that document. Therefore the south was blocking the fulfillment of the promises made in the declaration. It is ironic that secessionists want to claim the declaration, yet reject the issue of equality it contains. As we have been finding out, equality is one of the main principles of the American Revolution. We are still striving to fully realize that promise. The people that advocate secession whether it was in 1860 or today only claim the Declaration in an attempt to deny the principles of the American Revolution. It is a big paradox and one the big reasons why secession today will not occur again."

"The libertarian vision is all in…your Declaration of Independence: We are all created equal; no one ought to have any special rights and privileges in social relations with other men. We have, inherently, certain rights—to our life, to our freedom, to do what we please in order to find happiness. Government has one purpose: to help us protect those rights. And if it doesn't do that, then it has to go, by any means necessary."

"English barrister John Lind pointed out, with some justice, that the American Declaration of Independence was a formula for anarchy, since every government violated the inalienable rights it listed in some manner."

"The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history — the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost."

"But could I be heard by this great nation, I would call to mind the sublime and glorious truths with which, at its birth, it saluted a listening world. Its voice then, was as the trump of an archangel, summoning hoary forms of oppression and time honored tyranny, to judgement. Crowned heads heard it and shrieked. Toiling millions heard it and clapped their hands for joy. It announced the advent of a nation, based upon human brotherhood and the self-evident truths of liberty and equality. Its mission was the redemption of the world from the bondage of ages. Apply these sublime and glorious truths to the situation now before you."

"The history of the United States is that of a struggle for the right of self-determination and human dignity. Our story begins with a ringing declaration which has inspired millions of free people everywhere, that "all men . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." But this same declaration also states that, along with this self-determination, we must show "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." In world affairs this nation has striven to confirm and give meaning to these noble words. Through the years we have helped new countries achieve political and economic strength. And the way we dealt with the Suez crisis and its after-effects in the UN was also an action demonstrating our conviction that international harmony begins with "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.""

"The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and in fact denied the authority of any and all gods. Through the ages of slavery — through the weary centuries of the lash and chain, God was the acknowledged ruler of the world. To enthrone man, was to dethrone God."

"One hundred years ago, our fathers retired the gods from politics.The Declaration of Independence is the grandest, the bravest, and the profoundest political document that was ever signed by the representatives of a people. It is the embodiment of physical and moral courage and of political wisdom."

"While the Declaration was directed against an excess of authority, the Constitution was directed against anarchy."

"[W]ith respect to our rights, and the acts of the British government contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the water. All American whigs thought alike on these subjects. When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right."

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government."

"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. Born April 2 1743 Died July 4 1826."

"If our nation had done nothing more in its whole history than to create just two documents, its contribution to civilization would be imperishable. The first of these documents is the Declaration of Independence and the other is that which we are here to honor tonight, the Emancipation Proclamation. All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive their legions, how vast their power and how malignant their evil... The Declaration of Independence proclaimed to a world, organized politically and spiritually around the concept of the inequality of man, that the dignity of human personality was inherent in man as a living being. The Emancipation Proclamation was the offspring of the Declaration of Independence. It was a constructive use of the force of law to uproot a social order which sought to separate liberty from a segment of humanity."

"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."

"The United States was founded on the principle that all human beings, by virtue of their shared human nature, possess equal natural rights. According to the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents, rights come from a creator, not government. Government's purpose is limited to protecting natural rights, which is the standard we use to judge governments. People may exercise their natural right 'to alter or to abolish' a government that violates, rather than protects, these rights. The political logic of the American Founding requires that a government of limited purpose should be a government of limited power. The U.S. Constitution and all state constitutions limit the power of government so that it better achieves its purpose, protecting rights, rather than threatening them."

"The bill of grievances contained in the immortal Declaration of Independence could be extended by our own citizens in modern times, had they the stomach for it. … So important is the right and duty of the people to dispense with despotism, this great Declaration contains the sentence not once, but twice. In its final utterance, the choice of words does not call for the formation of a government. Rather, it calls for "new guards" which may or may not entail such a unit as an artificial agency."

"Nearly eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a "sacred right of self-government." These principles cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon; and whoever holds to the one must despise the other. ... Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. ... Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. ... If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union: but we shall have saved it, as to make, and keep it, forever worthy of the saving."

"Chief Justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes, as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now than it was in the days of the Revolution. This assumption is a mistake... In those days, as I understand, masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their slaves; but since then, such legal restraints have been made upon emancipation, as to amount almost to prohibition. In those days, Legislatures held the unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their respective States; but now it is becoming quite fashionable for State Constitutions to withhold that power from the Legislatures. In those days, by common consent, the spread of the black man's bondage to new countries was prohibited; but now, Congress decides that it will not continue the prohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it could not if it would. In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it... The Declaration of Independence includes ALL men, black as well as white, and forth... I appeal to all, to Democrats as well as others, are you really willing that the Declaration shall be thus frittered away? Thus left no more at most, than an interesting memorial of the dead past? Thus shorn of its vitality, and practical value; and left without the germ or even the suggestion of the individual rights of man in it?"

"Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, sometimes about the fourth of July, for some reason or other. These fourth of July gatherings I suppose have their uses. … We are now a mighty nation; we are thirty, or about thirty, millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years, and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country, with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men; we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men; they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity which we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time, of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves, we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live, for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these, men descended by blood from our ancestors — among us, perhaps half our people, who are not descendants at all of these men; they are men who have come from Europe — German, Irish, French and Scandinavian — men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence, they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration; and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world."

"Now, my countrymen if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution. Think nothing of me, take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever; but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man's success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of Humanity; the Declaration of American Independence."

"The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration; and that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument, to suppose that negroes were meant therein; and he asks you: Is it possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could have supposed himself applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I only have to remark upon this part of the Judge's speech, and that, too, very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that point for any great length of time, that I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic Party, in regard to slavery, had to invent that affirmation."

"Now, I have upon all occasions declared as strongly as Judge Douglas against the disposition to interfere with the existing institution of slavery. You hear me read it from the same speech from which he takes garbled extracts for the purpose of proving upon me a disposition to interfere with the institution of slavery, and establish a perfect social and political equality between negroes and white people. Allow me while upon this subject briefly to present one other extract from a speech of mine, more than a year ago, at Springfield, in discussing this very same question, soon after Judge Douglas took his ground that negroes were not included in the Declaration of Independence: I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal — equal in "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all, constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere."

"I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and adopted that Declaration of Independence---I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army, who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence."

"It is claimed by the Democrats of today, that Jefferson has uttered an untruth in the declaration of principles which underlie our government. I still abide by the democracy of Jefferson, and avow my belief that all men are created equal. Equal how? Not in physical strength, not in symmetry of form and proportion, not in graceful of motion, or loveliness of feature, not in mental endowment, moral susceptibility, and emotional power. Not socially equal, not of necessity politically equal. Not this, but every human being equally entitled to his life, his liberty, and the fruit of his toil. The Democratic Party deny this fundamental doctrine of our government, and say that there is a certain class of human beings which have no rights. If you maliciously kill them, it is no murder. If you take away their liberty, it is no crime. If you deprive them of their earnings, it is no theft. No rights which another is bound to regard. Was there ever so much diabolism compressed into one sentence?"

"We thank thee for the wisdom of the fathers in the formation of this government, and for the assistance thou didst render them in arriving at the great principles relating to the equality of man. We thank thee for the glorious declaration."

""All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness".This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the Earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and to be free.The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: "All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights."Those are undeniable truths."

"The very men who signed the Declaration of Independence, many of them educated under English aristocratic institutions, did not seem to know how far those principles would carry them. Some of them at that time were very much opposed to educating the working-classes, for fear it would raise them above their proper level. And more recently, many who professed so great a reverence for these republican principles, were strongly opposed to a universal popular education, in place of the charity schools that disgraced the age."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are not only created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights among which are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, but that when this equality and these rights are deliberately and consistently refused, withheld or abnegated, men are bound by self-respect and honor to rise up in righteous indignation to secure them. Whenever any Form of Government, or any variety of established traditions and systems of the Majority becomes destructive of Freedom and of legitimate Human Rights, it is the Right of the Minorities to use every necessary and accessible means to protest and to disrupt the machinery of Oppression, and so to bring such general distress and discomfort upon the oppressor as to the offended Minorities shall seem most appropriate and most likely to effect a proper adjustment of the society."

"Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." That is the true genius of America — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles."

"Today, on this day of possibility, we stand in the shadow of a lanky, raw-boned man with little formal education who once took the stage at Old Main and told the nation that if anyone did not believe the American principles of freedom and equality, that those principles were timeless and all-inclusive, they should go rip that page out of the Declaration of Independence."

"My own nation’s story began with simple words: All men are created equal, and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Realizing that ideal has never been easy, even within our own borders, even among our own citizens. But staying true to that story is worth the effort. It is an ideal to be strived for; an ideal that extends across continents, and across oceans. The irreducible worth of every person, the insistence that every life is precious; the radical and necessary notion that we are part of a single human family -– that is the story that we all must tell."

"At the time of America's Declaration of Independence, when preparing to separate from England, a remarkable incident took place. During the proceedings at this historic convention there came a moment of hesitation and uncertainty. Suddenly, a tall stranger stepped out from amid the Assembly and delivered a fiery speech, which he ended with the words "Let America be free!" The enthusiasm of the Assembly was kindled, and the Declaration of Independence was signed. But when the delegates sought to greet the person who had helped them to make the great decision, the stranger had disappeared. Thus, through the whole of history is seen the Helping Hand of the Great Community of Light."

"The virtually official reply to the Declaration was written by the barrister John Lind, who largely devoted himself to refuting the "calumnies" against the king. As for the philosophy of the Declaration, Lind thought it sufficient to make the penetrating observation that these doctrines "put the axe to the root of all government," since every existing or conceivable government alienates some of these supposedly inalienable rights—in short, that the logical conclusion of the natural rights philosophy was anarchism."

"When the decision was finally made to accept blacks as full citizens, the founders' principles provided the theoretical foundation. Lincoln's revival of the declaration in the 1850s had prepared the way. In principle, people of all races can become citizens of a nation based on the idea that 'all men are created equal'."

"The growing openness to members of all the world's races was always possible under the terms of the Declaration of Independence, which, as Lincoln noted, made a transracial principle, the equal natural rights of all men, the basis of citizenship. For that reason, America from the beginning was always a multinational and multiracial society. As early as 1776, as we saw in the first chapter, some blacks were citizens, as were many non-British Europeans."

"The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever."

"The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them."

"Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Congress, and the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests or imprisonments, during the time of their going to and from, and attendence on Congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace."

"Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States."

"Every little school boy is trained to recite the weaknesses and inefficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. It is taken as axiomatic that under them the new nation was falling into anarchy and was only saved by the wisdom and energy of the Convention. … The nation had to be strong to repel invasion, strong to pay to the last loved copper penny the debts of the propertied and the provident ones, strong to keep the unpropertied and improvident from ever using the government to secure their own prosperity at the expense of moneyed capital. … No one suggests that the anxiety of the leaders of the heretofore unquestioned ruling classes desired the revision of the Articles and labored so weightily over a new instrument not because the nation was failing under the Articles, but because it was succeeding only too well. Without intervention from the leaders, reconstruction threatened in time to turn the new nation into an agrarian and proletarian democracy. … All we know is that at a time when the current of political progress was in the direction of agrarian and proletarian democracy, a force hostile to it gripped the nation and imposed upon it a powerful form against which it was never to succeed in doing more than blindly struggle. The liberating virus of the Revolution was definitely expunged, and henceforth if it worked at all it had to work against the State, in opposition to the armed and respectable power of the nation."

"During the war of the Revolution, and in 1788, the date of the adoption of our national Constitution, there was but one State among the thirteen whose constitution refused the right of suffrage to the negro. That State was South Carolina. Some, it is true, established a property qualification; all made freedom a prerequisite; but none save South Carolina made color a condition of suffrage. The Federal Constitution makes no such distinction, nor did the Articles of Confederation. In the Congress of the Confederation, on the 25th of June, 1778, the fourth article was under discussion. It provided that 'the free inhabitants of each of these States — paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted — shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.' The delegates from South Carolina moved to insert between the words 'free inhabitants' the word 'white', thus denying the privileges and immunities of citizenship to the colored man. According to the rules of the convention, each State had but one vote. Eleven States voted on the question. One was divided; two voted aye; and eight voted no. It was thus early, and almost unanimously, decided that freedom, not color, should be the test of citizenship. No federal legislation prior to 1812 placed any restriction on the right of suffrage in consequence of the color of the citizen. From 1789 to 1812 Congress passed ten separate laws establishing new Territories. In all these, freedom, and not color, was the basis of suffrage."

"The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was to form a more perfect Union."

"When the Constitution says 'We the People' that's not just a rhetorical flourish. That's a description of the nature of the Union. See Akhil Reed Amar's excellent book The American Constitution: A Biography for this interpretation in full. Why did they do this? Because the founders did not want the national government to be a creature of the states. They had had one of those in the Articles of Confederation, and it didn’t work for them. That’s why the Constitution is very clear in Article VI that it supersedes the states; that's why all federal and state officials MUST swear or affirm their allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, look it up. The nature of the American Union, then, is based on popular sovereignty, the idea that the people have the right to rule. The American people spoke during ratification and created a new federal government in which they vested their sovereignty. The federal government is not merely an agent of the states, as John C. Calhoun asserted; it was not and is not a compact between states. The founders specifically avoided that. So, if a state wants to leave the Union, the only possible way is for 'We the People' to agree to let it go. But there is no specific mechanism for secession in the constitution as it stands. And really, there is no way to read a right of secession into its text. It isn't there, and that's because the Founders never intended for states to break away. Therefore, secession, which would effectively destroy the Constitution, was and is illegal. And Lincoln was simply carrying out his oath of office to 'preserve, protect, and defend' it."

"By [the Articles of Confederation], the Union was solemnly declared to 'be perpetual.' And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union.' It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?"

"The citizenship status of blacks was never quite clear. Obviously, they were not quite resident aliens, for they had no country but the United States. The federal government generally avoided taking a stand on black citizenship when the subject arose. A few blacks got federal passports implying that they were citizens... The Articles of Confederation stated that 'the free inhabitants of these states... shall be entitled to all privileges of immunities of free citizens in the several states', and Congress voted down South Carolina's proposal to insert the word 'white' into this clause. Chief Justice Taney, in the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, asserted that blacks had never been, and could never be, citizens of the United States. He was wrong."

"If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that Government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end."

"Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow-subjects in any part of the Empire, we assure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored. Necessity has not yet driven us into that desperate measure, or induced us to excite any other nation to war against them. We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent states. We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offence. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet proffer no milder conditions than servitude or death."

"The translations are in many different hands. Some few are in Sir H. Elliot's own handwriting, others were made by different English officers, but the majority of them seem to have been the work of munshís. With the exception of those made by Sir H. Elliot himself, which will be noted whenever they occur, I have compared the whole of them with the original texts and the errors which I have had to correct have been innumerable and extensive. But with all my care it is to be feared that some misreadings may have escaped detection, for it is very difficult for a reviser to divest himself entirely of the colour given to a text by the original translator."

"Where power had, for a short time, enabled the Moslims to usurp the mastery, the usual bigotry and cruelty were displayed. At Debal, the temples were demolished, and mosques founded; a general massacre endured for three whole days; prisoners wore taken captive; plunder was amassed.... At Nairun, the idols were broken, and mosques founded, notwithstanding its voluntary surrender ... the temples were treated like ‘churches of the Christians, or synagogues of the Jews...’"

"If the artificial definition of Dionysius be correct, that "History is Philosophy teaching by examples," then there is no Native Indian Historian; and few have even approached to so high standard. Of examples, and very bad ones, we have ample store, though even in them the radical truth is obscured by the hereditary, official, and sectarian prepossessions of the narrator; but of philosophy, which deduces conclusions calculated to benefit us by the lessons and experience of the past, which adverts on the springs and consequences of political transactions, and offers sage counsel for the future, we search in vain for any sign or symptom. Of domestic history also we have in our Indian Annalists absolutely nothing, and the same may be remarked of nearly all Muhammadan historians, except Ibn Khaldún. By them society is never contemplated, either in its conventional usages or recognized privileges; its constituent elements or mutual relations; in its established classes or popular institutions; in its private recesses or habitual intercourses. In notices of commerce, agriculture, internal police, and local judicature, they are equally deficient. A fact, an anecdote, a speech, a remark, which would illustrate the condition of the common people, or of any rank subordinate to the highest, is considered too insignificant to be suffered to intrude upon a relation which concerns only grandees and ministers, "thrones and imperial powers"... In Indian Histories there is little which enables us to penetrate below the glittering surface, and observe the practical operation of a despotic Government and rigorous and sanguinary laws, and the effect upon the great body of the nation of these injurious influences and agencies."

"If, however, we turn our eyes to the present Muhammadan kingdoms of India, and examine the character of the princes, and the condition of the people subject to their sway, we may fairly draw a parallel between ancient and modern times, under circumstances and relations nearly similar. We behold kings, even of our own creation, sunk in sloth and debauchery... Under such rulers, we cannot wonder that the fountains of justice are corrupted; that the state revenues are never collected without violence and outrage; that villages are burnt, and their inhabitants mutilated or sold into slavery; that the officials, so far from affording protection, are themselves the chief robbers and usurpers; that parasites and eunuchs revel in the spoil of plundered provinces; and that the poor find no redress against the oppressor's wrong and proud man's contumely. When we witness these scenes under our own eyes, where the supremacy of the British Government, the benefit of its example, and the dread of its interference, might be expected to operate as a check upon the progress of misrule, can we be surprised that former princes, when free from such restraints, should have studied even less to preserve the people committed to their charge, in wealth, peace, and prosperity?"

"The few glimpses we have, even among the short Extracts in this single volume, of Hindús slain for disputing with Muhammadans, of general prohibitions against processions, worship, and ablutions, and of other intolerant measures, of idols mutilated, of temples razed, of forcible conversions and marriages, of proscriptions and confiscations, of murders and massacres, and of the sensuality and drunkenness of the tyrants who enjoined them, show us that this picture is not overcharged, and it is much to be regretted that we are left to draw it for ourselves from out the mass of ordinary occurrences, recorded by writers who seem to sympathize with no virtues, and to abhor no vices. Other nations exhibit the same atrocities, but they are at least spoken of, by some, with indignation and disgust."

"These deficiencies are more to be lamented, where, as sometimes happens, a Hindú is the author. From one of that nation we might have expected to have learnt what were the feelings, hopes, faiths, fears, and yearnings, of his subject race ; but, unfortunately, he rarely writes unless according to order or dictation, and every phrase is studiously and servilely turned to flatter the vanity of an imperious Muhammadan patron. There is nothing to betray his religion or his nation, except, perhaps, a certain stifihess and affectation of style, which show how ill the foreign garb befits him. With him, a Hindú is "an infidel," and a Muhammadan "one of the true faith," and of the holy saints of the calendar, he writes with the fervour of a bigot. With him, when Hindús are killed, "their souls are despatched to hell," and when a Muhammadan suffers the same fate, "he drinks the cup of martyrdom." He is so far wedded to the set phrases and inflated language of his conquerors, that he speaks of "the light of Islám shedding its refulgence on the world," of "the blessed Muharram," and of "the illustrious Book." He usually opens with a "Bismillah," and the ordinary profession of faith in the unity of the Godhead, followed by laudations of the holy prophet, his disciples and descendants, and indulges in all the most devout and orthodox attestations of Muhammadans."

"They will make our native subjects more sensible of the immense advantages accruing to them under the mildness and and equity of our rule... We should no longer hear bombastic Bábús, enjoying under our Government the highest degree of personal liberty, and many more political privileges than were ever conceded to a conquered nation, rant about patriotism, and the degradation of their present position. If they would dive into any of the volumes mentioned herein, it would take these young Brutuses and Phocions a very short time to learn, that in the days of the dark period for whose return they sigh, even the bare utterance of their ridiculous fantasies would have been attended, not with silence and contempt, but with the severer discipline of molten lead or empalement."

"These considerations, and many more which will offer themselves to any diligent and careful peruser of the volumes here noticed, will serve to dissipate the gorgeous illusions which are commonly entertained regarding the dynasties which have passed, and show him that, notwithstanding a civil policy and an ungenial climate, which forbid our making this country a permanent home, and deriving personal gratification or profit from its advancement, notwithstanding the many defects necessarily inherent in a system of foreign administration, in which language, colour, religion, customs, and laws preclude all natural sympathy between sovereign and subject, we have already, within the half-century of our dominion, done more for the substantial benefit of the people, than our predecessors, in the country of their own adoption, were able to accomplish in more than ten times that period; and, drawing auguries from the past, he will derive hope for the future, that, inspired by the success which has hitherto attended our endeavours, we shall follow them up by continuous efforts to fulfil our high destiny as the rulers of India."

"Hindu writers have been entirely excluded from holding public offices, and all the worshipping places of the infidels and great temples of these infamous people have been thrown down and destroyed in a manner which excites astonishment at the successful completion of so difficult a task. His Majesty personally teaches the sacred kalima to many infidels with success. All the mosques in the empire are repaired at public expense. Imama, criers to the daily prayers, and readers of the khutba, have been appointed to each of them, so that a large sum of money has been and is still laid out in these disbursements."

"In the city of Agra there was a large temple, in which there were numerous idols, adorned and embellished with precious jewels and valuable pearls. It was the custom of the infidels to resort to this temple from far and near several times in each year to worship the idols, and a certain fee to the Government was fixed upon each man, for which he obtained admittance. As there was a large congress of pilgrims, a very considerable amount was realized from them, and paid into the royal treasury. This practice had been observed to the end of the reign of the Emperor Shah Jahan, and in the commencement of Aurangzeb's government; but when the latter was informed of it, he was exceedingly angry and abolished the custom. The greatest nobles of his court represented to him that a large sum was realized and paid into the public treasury, and that if it was abolished, a great reduction in the income of the state would take place. The Emperor observed, 'What you say is right, but I have considered well on the subject, and have reflected on it deeply; but if you wish to augment the revenue, there is a better plan for attaining the object by exacting the jizya. By this means idolatry will be suppressed, the Muhammadan religion and the true faith will be honoured, our proper duty will be performed, the finances of the state will be increased, and the infidels will be disgraced.' 'This was highly approved by all the nobles; and the Emperor ordered all the golden and silver idols to be broken, and the temple destroyed."

"Much of the contemporary evidence on temple desecration cited by Hindu nationalists is found in Persian materials translated and published during the British occupation of India. Especially influential has been the eight-volume History of India as Told by its Own Historians, first published in 1849 and edited by Sir Henry M. Elliot, who oversaw the bulk of the translations, with the help of John Dowson. But Elliot, keen to contrast what he understood as the justice and efficiency of British rule with the cruelty and despotism of the Muslim rulers who had preceded that rule, was anything but sympathetic to the “Muhammadan” period of Indian history."

"The superficiality and jejuneness of Elliot's remarks compels us to conclude that he could not, or would not, study with care the Persian historians he held in contempt."

"The Hindu feels it his duty to dislike those whom he has been taught to consider the enemy of his religion and his ancestors; the Mussalman, lured into the false belief that he was once a member of a ruling race, feels insufferably wronged by being relegated to the status of a minority community. Fools both! Even if the Muslims eight centuries ago were as bad as they were painted, would there be any sense in holding the present generation responsible for their deeds. It is but an imaginative tie that joins the modern Hindu with Harshavardhana or Asoka, or the modern Mussalman with Shihabuddin or Mahmud."

"To realize Medieval India there is no better way than to dive into the eight volumes of the priceless History of India as Told by its Own Historians which Sir H. M. Elliot conceived and beganot, and which Professor Dowson edited and completed with infinite labour and learning. It is a revelation of Indian life as seen through the eyes of the Persian court annalists. It is, however, a mine to be worked, not a consecutive history, and its wide leaps in chronology, its repetitions, recurrences, and omissions, render it no easy guide for general readers."

"Elliot and Dowson's great work, in spite of a chorus of disparagement by some modern Indian historians, still holds the field even now for more than a hundred years, against any translations in Urdu or Hindi. Scholars are still learning from and working on Elliot's meritorious volumes..."

"The study of medieval Indian history in modem times may be said to have begun about a century ago when, in the eighteen-sixties, and under the patronage of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, the Indo-Persian chronicles of the medieval period began to be printed in the Bibliotheca Indica Series, and in 1867-77 appeared Elliot and Dowson’s History of India as Told by its Own Historians. Elliot’s work contained in eight fairly bulky volumes translations of extracts from most of the then known Persian chronicles, and soon became indispensable for the researcher on medieval history. The original Persian works were so eulogistic of the cruelties of Muslim conquerors and rulers that the great painstaking scholar Elliot and his followers were perforce constrained to be critical of medieval Indian rulers, and this school held the ground for quite some time."

"Elliot and Dowson state that religious bigotry was characteristic of the Indian past. They do confess that in presenting the translations from Persian and Arabic sources, their intention is to highlight the oppressive rule of Muslim kings. They state that the intolerance of the Mohammedans led to idols being mutilated, temples destroyed, forced conversions, confiscations, murders and massacres, not to mention the sensuality and drunkenness of tyrants. Such descriptions were intended to convince the Hindu subjects that British rule was far superior and to their advantage. This was not an isolated attitude and is reflected in many British writings on Indian history. Religious bigotry was frequently read into the texts translated in the nineteenth century, which coloured the reading of the Turko-Persian texts. For example, where Utbi says, ‘He (Mahmud) made it obligatory on himself to undertake every year an expedition to Hind,’ the translation of this passage in Elliot and Dowson’s work reads, ‘the Sultan vowed to undertake a holy war to Hind every year’."

"Its water is dark; its fruit is bitter and poisonous; its land is stony, and its earth is saltish. A small army will soon be annihilated there..."

"Qasim's instructions were to "bring destruction on the unbelievers . . . [and] to invite and induce the infidels to accept the true creed, and belief in the unity of God . . . and whoever does not submit to Islam, treat him harshly and cause injury to him till he submits.""

"My dear cousin, I have received your life-augmenting letter. On its receipt my gladness and joy knew no bounds. It increased my pride and glory to the highest degree. It appears from your letter that all the rules made by you for the comfort and convenience of your men are strictly in accordance with religious law. But the way of granting pardon prescribed by the law is different from the one adopted by you, for you go on giving pardon to everybody, high or low, without any discretion between a friend and a foe. The great God says in the Koran [47.4]: "O True believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads." The above command of the Great God is a great command and must be respected and followed. You should not be so fond of showing mercy, as to nullify the virtue of the act. Henceforth grant pardon to no one of the enemy and spare none of them, or else all 'will consider you a weakminded man. Concluded with compliments. Written by Nafia in the year ninety-three... My distinct orders are that all those who are fighting men should be assassinated, and their sons and daughters imprisoned and retained as hostages.""

"Wherever there is an ancient place or famous town or city, mosques and pulpits should be erected there ; and the khutba should be read, and the coin struck in the name of this gOYernment. And as you have accomplished so much with this army by your good fortune, and by seizing fitting opportunities, so be asf.ured that to whatever place* of the infidels you proceed it shall be conquered."

"Historians have related that Dahir was slain at the fort of Rawar at sunset, on Thursday, the 10th of Ramazan, in the year 93 (June, 712 A.D.). Abu-l Hasan relates upon the authority Abu-l Lais Hindi, who heard it from his father, that when the army of Islam made the attack, and most of the infidels were slain, a noise arose upon the left, and Dahir thought it came from his own forces. He cried out, “Come hither; I am here.” The women then raised their voices, and said, “O king, we are your women, who have fallen into the hands of the Arabs, and are captives.” Dahir said, “I live as yet, who cap-tured you?” So saying, he urged his elephant against the Musulman army. Muhammad Kasim told the naphtha throwers that the opportunity was theirs, and a powerful man, in obedience to this direction, shot his naphtha arrow into Dahir’s howda, and set it on fire. Dahir ordered his elephant driver to turn back, for the elephant was thirsty, and the howda was on fire. The elephant heeded not his driver, but dashed into the water, and in spite of all the efforts of the man, refused to turn back. Dahir and the driver were carried into the rolling waves. Some of the infidels went into the water with them, and some stood upon the banks; but when the Arab horsemen came up, they fled. After the elephant had drunk water, he wanted to return to the fort. The Muhammadan archers plied their weapons, and a rain of arrows fell around. A skilful bowman aimed an arrow, which struck Dahir in the breast (bar dil), and he fell down in the howda upon his face. The elephant then came out of the water and charged. Some of the infidels who remained were trampled under foot, and the others were dispersed. Dahir got off his elephant, and confronted an Arab; but this brave fellow struck him with a sword in the very centre of his head, and cleft it to his neck. The Muhammadans and infidels closed and maintained a deadly fight, until they reached the fort of Rawar. When the Brahmans who had gone into the water found the place of Dahir fall deserted, they came out and hid the body of Dahir under the bank. The white elephant turned towards the army of the infidels, and no trace was left."

"When the news of the death of Dahir arrived, and that the white elephant was hamstrung, Jaisiya, son of Dahir said that he would go to oppose the enemy, and strike a blow to save his honour and name, for it would be no loss if he were to be slain. Sisakar, the minister, observed that the resolve of the prince was not good, the king had been killed, the army defeated and dispersed, and their hearts were averse to battle through fear of the enemy’s sword. How could he go to fight with the Arabs? His dominions still existed, and the strongest forts were garrisoned with brave warriors and subjects. It was, therefore, advisable that they should go to the fort of Brahmanabad, which was the inheritance of his father and ancestors. It was the chief residence of Dahir. The treasuries and stores were full, and the inhabitants of the place were friends and well wishers of the family of Chach, and would all assist in fighting against the enemy. Then the Allafi was also asked what he considered proper. He replied that he concurred in this opinion. So Jaisiya assented, and with all their dependants and trusty servants, they went to Brahmanabad. Bai (Main), the wife of Dahir, together with some of the generals, prepared for battle. She reviewed the army in the fort, and fifteen thousand warriors were counted. They had all resolved to die. Next morning, when it was learnt that Dahir had been killed between the Mihran and the stream called Wadhawah, all the chiefs (Rawats) and officers who were attached to the Rani entered the fort. Muhammad Kasim, on receiving the intelligence, marched in that direction, and encamped under the walls. The garrison began to beat drums and sound clarions, and threw down from the ramparts and bastions stones from mangonels and balistas as well as arrows and javelins."

"[The fort is taken and Bai (Main), the sister of Dahir, burns herself] Muhammad Kasim disposed his army, and ordered the miners to dig and undermine the walls. He divided his army into two divisions; one was to fight during the day with mangonels, arrows, and javelins, and the other to throw naphtha, fardaj (?), and stones during the night. Thus the bastions were thrown down. Bai (Main), sister of Dahir, assembled all her women, and said, “Jaisiya is separated from us, and Muhammad Kasim is come. God forbid that we should owe liberty to these outcast cow-eaters! Our honour would be lost! Our respite is an end,2 and there is nowhere any hope of escape; let [p. 75] us collect wood, cotton, and oil, for I think that we should burn ourselves and go to meet our husbands. If any wish to save herself she may.” So they went into a house, set it on fire, and burnt themselves. Muhammad took the fort, and stayed there for two or three days. He put six thousand fighting men, who were in the fort, to the sword, and shot some with arrows. The other dependants and servants were taken prisoners, with their wives and children."

"[Detail of the slaves, cash, and stuffs, which were taken] It is said that when the fort was captured, all the treasures, property, and arms, except those which were taken away by Jaisiya, fell into the hands of the victors, and they were all brought before Muhammad Kasim. When the number of the prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons, amongst whom thirty were the daughters of chiefs, and one of them was Rai Dahir’s sister’s daughter, whose name was Jaisiya.3 They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of the prisoners were forwarded in charge of K’ab, son of Maharak. When the head of Dahir, the women, and the property all reached Hajjaj, he prostrated himself before God, offered thanksgivings and praises, for, he said, he had in reality obtained all the wealth and treasures and dominions of the world."

"It is said, on the authority of the old men of Brahmanabad, that when the fort of Brahmanabad was taken, Ladi, the wife of Dahir Rai, who since Dahir’s death had staid in the fort with his son, rose up and said, “How can I leave this strong fort and my family. It is necessary that we should stop here, overcome the enemy, and preserve our homes and dwelling. If the army of the Arabs should be successful, I must pursue some other course. She then brought out all her wealth and treasures, and distributing them among the warriors of the army, she thus encouraged her brave soldiers while the fight was carried on at one of the gates. She had determined that if the fort should be lost, she would burn herself alive with all her relations and children. Suddenly the fort was taken, and the nobles came to the gate of Dahir’s palace and brought out his dependants. Ladi was taken prisoner."

"When the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Kasim, and enquiries were made about every captive, it was found that Ladi, the wife of Dahir, was in the fort with two daughters of his by his other wives. Veils were put on their faces, and they were delivered to a servant to keep them apart. One-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number, and the rest were given to the soldiers."

"Protection was given to the artificers, the merchants, and the common people, and those who had been seized from those classes were all liberated. But he (Kasim) sat on the seat of cruelty, and put all those who had fought to the sword. It is said that about six thousand fighting men were slain, but, according to some, sixteen thousand were killed, and the rest were pardoned."

"It is related that when none of the relations of Dahir were found among the prisoners, the inhabitants of the city were questioned respecting them, but no one gave any information or hint about them. But the next day nearly one thousand Brahmans, with shaven heads and beards, were brought before Kasim."

"When Muhammad Kasim saw them, he asked to what army they belonged, and why they had come in that manner. They replied, “O faithful noble! our king was a Brahman. You have killed him, and have taken his country; but some of us have faithfully adhered to his cause, and have laid down our lives for him; and the rest, mourning for him, have dressed themselves in yellow clothes, and have shaved their heads and beards. As now the Almighty God has given this country into your possession, we have come submissively to you, just Lord, to know what may be your orders for us.” Muhammad Kasim began to think, and said, “By my soul and head, they are good, faithful people. I give them protection, but on this condition, that they bring hither the dependents of Dahir, wherever they may be.” Thereupon they brought out Ladi. Muhammad Kasim fixed a tax upon all the subjects, according to the laws of the Prophet. Those who embraced the Muhammadan faith were exempted from slavery, the tribute, and the poll-tax; and from those who did not change their creed a tax was exacted according to three grades. The first grade was of great men, and each of these was to pay silver, equal to forty-eight dirams in weight, the second grade twenty-four dirams, and the lowest grade twelve dirams. It was ordered that all who should become Musulmans at once should be exempted from the payment, but those who were desirous of adhering to their old persuasion must pay the tribute and poll-tax. Some showed an inclination to abide by their creed, and some having resolved upon paying tribute, held by the faith of the forefathers, but their lands and property were not taken from them."

"…when Rai Dahir was killed, his two virgin daughters were seized in his palace, and Muhammad Kasim had sent them to Baghdad under the care of his negro slaves. The Khalifa of the time sent them into his harem to be taken care of for a few days till they were fit to be presented to him. After some time, the remembrance of them recurred to the noble mind of the Khalifa, and he ordered them both to be brought before him at night. Walid ‘Abdul Malik told the interpreter to inquire from them which of them was the eldest, that he might retain her by him, and call the other sister at another time. The interpreter first asked their names. The eldest said, “My name is Suryadeo,” and the youngest replied, “my name is Parmaldeo.” He called the eldest to him, and the youngest he sent back to be taken care of. When he had made the former sit down, and she uncovered her face, the Khalifa of the time looked at her, and was enamoured of her surpassing beauty and charms. Her powerful glances robbed his heart of patience. He laid his hand upon Suryadeo and drew her towards him. But Suryadeo stood up, and said, “Long live the king! I am not worthy the king’s bed, because the just Commander Imadu-d-Din Muhammad Kasim kept us three days near himself before he sent us to the royal residence. Perhaps it is a custom among you; but such ignominy should not be suffered by kings.” The Khalifa was overwhelmed with love, and the reins of patience had fallen from his hand. Through indignation he could not stop to scrutinize the matter. He asked for ink and paper, and commenced to write a letter with his own hand, commanding that at whatever place Mu-hammad Kasim had arrived, he should suffer himself to be sewed up in a hide and sent to the capital."

"When Muhammad Kasim received the letter at Udhafar, he gave the order to his people and they sewed him up in a hide, put him in a chest, and sent him back. Muhammad Kasim thus delivered his soul to God. The officers who were appointed to the different places remained at their stations, while he was taken in the chest to the Khalifa of the time. The private chamberlain reported to Walid ’Abdul-Malik, son of Marwan, that Muhammad Kasim Sakifi had been brought to the capital. The Khalifa asked whether he was alive or dead. It was replied, “May the Khalifa’s life, prosperity, and honour be prolonged to eternity. When the royal mandates were received in the city of Udhapur, Muhammad Kasim immediately, according to the orders, had himself sewed up in a raw hide, and after two days delivered his soul to God and went to the eternal world. The authorities whom he had placed at different stations maintain the country in their possession, the Khutba continues to be read in the name of the Khalifa, and they use their best endeavours to establish their supremacy.”"

"The Khalifa then opened the chest and called the girls into his presence. He had a green bunch of myrtle in his hand, and pointing with it towards the face of the corpse, said, “See, my daughters, how my commands which are sent to my agents are observed and obeyed by all. When these my orders reached Kanauj, he sacrificed his precious life at my command.”"

"Then the virtuous Janki [different from the name she first gave the Khalifa] put off the veil from her face, placed her head on the ground, and said, “May the king live long, may his prosperity and glory increase for many years; and may he be adorned with perfect wisdom. It is proper that a king should test with the touchstone of reason and weigh in his mind whatever he hears from friend or foe, and when it is found to be true and indubitable, then orders compatible with justice should be given. By so doing he will not fall under the wrath of God, nor be contemned by the tongue of man. Your orders have been obeyed, but your gracious mind is wanting in reason and judgement. Muhammad Kasim respected our honour, and behaved like a brother or son to us, and he never touched us, your slaves, with a licentious hand. But he had killed the king of Hind and Sind, he had destroyed the dominion of our forefathers, and he had degraded us from the dignity of royalty to a state of slavery, therefore, to retaliate and to revenge these injuries, we uttered a falsehood before the Khalifa, and our object has been fulfilled. Through this fabrication and deceit have we taken our revenge. Had the Khalifa not passed such peremptory orders; had he not lost his reason through the violence of his passion, and had he considered it proper to investigate the matter, he would not have subjected himself to this repentance and reproach; and had Muhammad Kasim, assisted by his wisdom, come to within one day’s journey from this place, and then have put himself into a hide, he would have been liberated after inquiry, and not have died.” The Khalifa was very sorry at this explanation, and from excess of regret he bit the back of his hand."

"Janki again opened her lips and looked at the Khalifa. She perceived that his anger was much excited, and she said, “The king has committed a very grievous mistake, for he ought not, on account of two slave girls, to have destroyed a person who had taken captive a hundred thousand modest women like us, who had brought down seventy chiefs who ruled over Hind and Sind from their thrones to their coffins; and who instead of temples had erected mosques, pulpits, and minarets. If Muhammad Kasim had been guilty of any little neglect or impropriety, he ought not to have been destroyed on the mere word of a designing person.” The Khalifa ordered both the sisters to be enclosed between walls. From that time to this day the flags of Islam have been more and more exalted every day, and are still advancing."

"[Hajjaj sends the head of Dahir, and some of his standards, to the Capital] Hajjaj then forwarded the head, the umbrellas, and wealth, and the prisoners to Walid the Khalifa. When the Khalifa of the time had read the letter, he praised Almighty God. He sold some of those daughters of the chiefs, and some he granted as rewards. When he saw the daughter of Rai Dahir’s sister, he was much struck with her beauty and charms, and began to bite his finger with astonishment. ‘Abdu-llah bin’ Abbas desired to take her, but the Khalifa said, “O my nephew! I exceedingly admire this girl, and am so enamoured of her, that I wish to keep her for myself. Nevertheless, it is better that you should [p. 76] take her to be the mother of your children.” By his permission, therefore, ‘Abdu-llah took her. She lived a long time with him, but no child was born from her. Afterwards, another letter was received about the capture of the fort of Rawar. It is said that after the conquest was effected, and the affairs of the country were settled and, the report of the conquest had reached Hajjaj, he sent a reply to the following effect. “O my cousin; I received your life inspiring letter. I was much pleased and overjoyed when it reached me. The events were recounted in an excellent and beautiful style, and I learnt that the ways and rules you follow are conformable to the Law. Except that you give protection to all, great and small alike, and make no difference between enemy and friend. God says, ‘Give no quarter to Infidels, but cut their throats.” “Then know that this is the command of the great God. You should not be too ready to grant protection, because it will prolong your work. After this, give no quarter to any enemy except to those who are of rank. This is a worthy resolve, and want of dignity will not be imputed to you. Peace be with you!” -Written at Nafa’, A.H. 73."

"[Jaisiya sends letters from Brahmanabad to Alor, 4 Batiya, and other places ] Some historians from amongst the religious Brahmans have narrated respecting the death of Dahir and adventures of Muhammad Kasim, that when the accursed Rai Dahir went to hell, Jaisiya took refuge in the fort of Brahmanabad, and Rawar was taken, Jaisiya made preparations for war and sent letters in all directions; viz.: One to his brother Fufi,5 son of Dahir, who was in the fort of the capital of Aror; the other to his nephew Chach, son of Dharsiya, in the fort of Batiya; and the third to his cousin, Dhawal, son of Chandar, who was in the direction of Budhiya and Kaikanan. He informed them of Dahir’s [p. 77] death and consoled them. He himself was in Brahmanabad with his warriors ready to fight."

"[Battle of Bahrur and Dhalila] Muhammad Kasim now determined to march to Brahmanabad. Between Dawar and that city there were two fortresses called Bahrur and Dhalila which contained about sixteen thousand fighting men. When Muhammad Kasim reached Bahrur he besieged it for two months. After the war had been protracted so long, Muhammad Kasim ordered that part of his army should fight by day and part by night. They threw naphtha and plied their mangonels so that all the warriors of the adverse party were slain, and the walls of the fort thrown down. Many slaves and great plunder were taken. They put the fifth part of it into the public treasury. When the news of the capture of Rawar and Bahrur reached Dhalila, the inhabitants knew that Muhammad Kasim possessed great perseverance, and that they should be on their guard against him. The merchants fled to Hind, and the men of war prepared to defend their country. At last, Muhammad Kasim came to Dhalila, and encamped there for two months, more or less. When the besieged were much distressed, and they knew that from no quarter could they receive reinforcements, they put on the garments of death, and anointed themselves with perfumes. They sent out their families into the fort which faces the bridge, and they crossed over the stream of the Naljak,6 without the Musulmans being aware of it."

"[The flight of the chief of Dhalila] When the day dawned through the veil of darkness Muhammad Kasim learnt that they had fled, so he sent some men of his army after them, who overtook part of them as they were passing over the river and put them to the edge of the sword. Those who had crossed previously fled to Hindustan through the country of Ramal and the sandy desert to the country (bilad) of Sir, the chief of which country was named Deoraj. He was the son of the uncle of Dahir Rai."

"[Conquest of Sikka Multan by Muhammad Kasim] When he had settled affairs with Kaksa, he left the fort, crossed the Bias, and reached the stronghold of Askalanda, the people of which, being informed of the arrival of the Arab army, came out to fight. Rawa, son of ‘Amiratu-t Tafi, and Kaksa headed the advanced army and commenced battle. Very obstinate engagements ensued, so that on both sides streams of blood flowed. The Arabs at the time of their prayers repeated “Glorious God” with a loud voice, and renewed the attack. The idolaters were defeated, and threw themselves into the fort. They began to shoot arrows and fling stones from the mangonels on the walls. The battle continued for seven days, and the nephew of the chief of Multan, who was in the fort of that city, made [p. 107] such attacks that the army began to be distressed for provisions; but at last the chief of Askalanda9 came out in the night time, and threw himself into the fort of Sikka, which is a large fort on the south bank of the Ravi. When their chief had gone away, all the people, the artizans, and merchants sent a message to say that they were subjects and now that their chief had fled, they solicited protection from Muhammad Kasim. He granted this request of the merchants, artizans, and agriculturists; but he went into the fort, killed four thousand fighting men with his blood sword, and sent their families into slavery. He appointed as governor of the fort ‘Atba, son of Salma Tamimi, and himself with the army proceeded towards Sikka Multan It was a fort on the south bank of the Ravi, and Bajhra Taki, grandson of Bajhra (daughter’s son), was in it. When he received the intelligence he commenced operations. Every day, when the army of the Arabs advanced towards the fort, the enemy came out and fought, and for seventeen days they maintained a fierce conflict. From among the most distinguished officers (of Muhammad Kasim) twenty-five were killed, and two hundred and fifteen other warriors of Islam were slain. Bajhra passed over the Ravi and went into Multan. In consequence of the death of his friends, Muhammad Kasim had sworn to destroy the fort, so he ordered his men to pillage the whole city He then crossed over towards Multan, at the ferry below the city, and Bajhra came out to take the field."

"[Muhammad Kasim fights with the ferry-men] That day the battle raged from morning till sun-set and when the world, like a day labourer, covered itself with the blanket of darkness, and the king of the heavenly host covered himself with the veil of concealment, all retired to their tents. The next day, when the morning dawned from the horizon, and the earth was illumined, fighting again commenced, and many men were slain on both sides but the victory remained still undecided. For a space of [p. 108] two months mangonels and ghazraks10 were used and stones and arrows were thrown from the walls of the fort. At last provisions became exceedingly scarce in the camp, and the price even of an ass’s head was raised to five hundred dirams. When the chief Gursiya, son of Chandar, nephew of Dahir, saw that the Arabs were noway disheartened, but on the contrary were confident, and that he had no prospect of relief, he went to wait on the king of Kashmir. The next day, when the Arabs reached the fort, and the fight commenced, no place was found suitable for digging a mine until a person came out of the fort and sued for mercy. Muhammad Kasim gave him protection, and he pointed out a place towards the north on the banks of, a river. A mine was dug, and in two or three days the walls fell down, and the fort was taken. Six thousand warriors were put to death, and all their relations and dependants were taken as slaves. Protection was given to the merchants, artizans, and the agriculturists. Muhammad Kasim said the booty ought to be sent to the treasury of the Khalifa; but as the soldiers have taken so much pains, have suffered so many hardships, have hazarded their lives, and have been so long a time employed in digging the mine and carrying on the war, and as the fort is now take, it is proper that the booty should be divided, and their dues given to the soldiers."

"[Division of Plunder] Then all the great and principal inhabitants of the city assembled together, and silver to the weight of sixty thousand dirams was distributed, and every horseman got a share of four hundred dirams weight. After this, Muhammad Kasim said that some plan should be devised for realizing the money to be sent to the Khalifa. He was pondering upon this, and was discoursing on the subject, when suddenly a Brahman came and said, “Heathenism is now at an end, the temples are thrown down, the world has received the light of Islam, and mosques are built [p. 109] instead of idol temples. I have heard from the elders of Multan that in ancient times there was a chief in this city whose name was Jibawin,11 and who was a descendant of the Rai of Kashmir. He was a Brahman and a monk, he strictly followed his religion, and always occupied his time in worshipping idols. When his treasure exceeded all limit and computation, he made a reservoir on the eastern side of Multan, which was a hundred yards square. In the middle of it he built a temple fifty yards square, and he made there a chamber in which he concealed forty copper jars each of which was filled with African gold dust. A treasure of three hundred and thirty mans of gold was buried there. Over it there is a temple in which there is an idol made of red gold, and trees are planted round the reservoir.” It is related by historians, on the authority of ‘Ali bin Muhammad who had heard it from Abu Muhammad Hindui that Muhammad Kasim arose and with his counsellors, guards and attendants, went to the temple. He saw there an idol made of gold, and its two eyes were bright red rubies."

"[Reflection of Muhammad Kasim] Muhammad Kasim thought it might perhaps be a man, so he drew his sword to strike it; but the Brahman said, “O just commander, this is the image which was made by Jibawin,12 king of Multan, who concealed the treasure here and departed. Muhammad Kasim ordered the idol to be taken up. Two hundred and thirty mans of gold were obtained, and forty jars filled with gold dust. They were weighed and the sum of thirteen thousand and two hundred mans weight of gold was taken out. This gold and the image were brought to the treasury together with the gems and pearls and treasure, which were obtained from the plunder of the city of Multan. It is said by Abu-l Hasan Hamadani, who had heard it from Kharim son of ‘Umar, that the same day on which the temple was dug up and the treasure taken out, a letter came from Hajjaj Yusuf to this effect: – “My nephew, I had agreed and pledged myself, at the time you marched with [p. 110] the army, to repay the whole expense incurred by the public treasury in fitting out the expedition, to the Khalifa Walid bin ‘Abdu-l Malik bin Marwan, and it is incumbent on me to do so. Now the accounts of the money due have been examined and checked, and it is found that sixty thousand dirams in pure silver have been expended for Muhammad Kasim, and up to this date there has been received in cash, goods, and stuffs, altogether one hundred and twenty thousand dirams weight. Wherever there is an ancient place or famous town or city, mosques and pulpits should be erected there; and the khutba should be read, and the coin struck in the name of this government. And as you have accomplished so much with this army by your good fortune, and by seizing fitting opportunities, so be assured that to whatever place of the infidels you proceed it shall be conquered.”"

"As a result, the Chachnama records, “some [Hindus] resolved to live in their native land, but others took flight in order to maintain the faith of their ancestors, and their horses, domestics, and other property.”"

"The Chachnama is in many ways like The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Spanish soldier who in his old age wrote of his campaigns in Mexico with Cortés in 1519 and after. The theme of both works is the same: the destruction, by an imperialist power with a strong sense of mission and a wide knowledge of the world, of a remote culture that knows only itself and doesn’t begin to understand what it is fighting. The world conquerors, the establishers of long-lived systems, have a wider view; men are bound together by a larger idea. The people to be conquered see less, know less; their stratified or fragmented societies are ready to be taken over. And, interestingly, both in Mexico in 1519 and in Sind in 710 people were weakened by prophecies of conquest."

"The Chachnama shows the Arabs of the seventh century as a people stimulated and enlightened and disciplined by Islam, developing fast, picking up learning and new ways and new weapons (catapults, Greek fire) from the people they conquer, intelligently curious about the people they intend to conquer."

"There is this difference between The Conquest of New Spain and the Chachnama. Bernal Díaz, the Spaniard, was writing of events he had taken part in. The Chachnama is Arab or Muslim genre writing, a “pleasant story of conquest,” and it was written five hundred years after the conquest of Sind. The author was Persian; his source was an Arabic manuscript preserved by the family of the conqueror, Bin Qasim. The intervening five centuries have added no extra moral or historical sense to the Persian narrative, no new wonder or compassion, no idea of what is cruel and what is not cruel, such as even Bernal Díaz, the Spanish soldier, possesses. To the Persian, writing in 1216, the Arab conquests—“the conquests of Khurasan, Ajam [Persia], Iraq, Sham [Syria], Rum [Byzantium] and Hind”—are glorious; they are the story of the spread of true civilization. Conquest is pleasant to read about because conquest is “based on spiritual rectitude and temporal excellence ... of which learned philosophers and generous kings would be proud, because all men attain advancement to perfection by acknowledging as true the belief of the people of Arabia.” There is an irony in this praise of conquest: not many years after those words were written, the invading Mongols were to arrive in Persia and Iraq, and the Arab civilization which the Chachnama celebrated was to be shattered, stupefied for centuries."

""The Chachnama is Arab or Muslim genre writing, a `pleasant story of conquest,' the conquest of Sindh. But it is a bloody story, and the parts that get into the school books are fairy tales."

"Verily your blood, your property are as sacred and inviolable as the sacredness of this day of yours, in this month of yours, in this town of yours. Behold! Everything pertaining to the Days of Ignorance is under my feet completely abolished. Abolished are also the blood-revenges of the Days of Ignorance. The first claim of ours on blood-revenge which I abolish is that of the son of Rabi'a b. al-Harith, who was nursed among the tribe of Sa'd and killed by Hudhail. And the usury of the pre-Islamic period is abolished, and the first of our usury I abolish is that of 'Abbas b. 'Abd al-Muttalib, for it is all abolished. Fear Allah concerning women! Verily you have taken them on the security of Allah, and intercourse with them has been made lawful unto you by words of Allah. You too have right over them, and that they should not allow anyone to sit on your bed whom you do not like. But if they do that, you can chastise them but not severely. Their rights upon you are that you should provide them with food and clothing in a fitting manner. I have left among you the Book of Allah, and if you hold fast to it, you would never go astray. And you would be asked about me (on the Day of Resurrection), (now tell me) what would you say? They (the audience) said: We will bear witness that you have conveyed (the message), discharged (the ministry of Prophethood) and given wise (sincere) counsel. He (the narrator) said: He (the Holy Prophet) then raised his forefinger towards the sky and pointing it at the people (said): "O Allah, be witness. O Allah, be witness," saying it thrice."

"“And indeed I order you to be good to the women, for they are but captives with you over whom you have no power than that, except if they come with manifest Fahishah (evil behavior). If they do that, then abandon their beds and beat them with a beating that is not harmful. And if they obey you then you have no cause against them. Indeed you have rights over your women, and your women have rights over you. As for your rights over your women, then they must not allow anyone whom you dislike to treat on your bedding (furniture), nor to admit anyone in your home that you dislike. And their rights over you are that you treat them well in clothing them and feeding them."

"I enjoin good treatment of women, for they are prisoners[9] with you, and you have no right to treat them otherwise, unless they commit clear indecency. If they do that, then forsake them in their beds and hit them, but without causing injury or leaving a mark. If they obey you, then do not seek means of annoyance against them. You have rights over your women and your women have rights over you. Your rights over your women are that they are not to allow anyone whom you dislike on treat on your bedding (furniture), not allow anyone whom you dislike to enter your houses. And their right over you are that should treat them kindly with regard to their clothing and food."

"O people, listen to my words. I do not know whether I shall ever meet you again in this place after this year. O people, your blood and your property are sacrosanct until you meet your Lord, just as this day and this month of yours are sacred. Surely you will meet your Lord and He will question you about your deeds. I have [already] made this known. Let he who has a pledge return it to the one who entrusted him with it; all usury is abolished, but your capital belongs to you. Wrong not and you shall not be wronged. God has decreed that there will be no usury, and the usury of ‘Abbās b. ‘Abd al-Muṭṭalib is abolished, all of it. All blood shed in the pre-Islamic days is to be left unavenged. The first such claim I revoke is that of Ibn Rabī‘ah b. al-Ḥārith b. ‘Abd al-Muṭṭalib, who was nursed among the Banū Layth and was slain by the Banū Hudhayl. His is the first blood shed in the pre-Islamic days with which I shall set an example. O people, indeed Satan despairs of ever being worshipped in this land of yours. He will be pleased, however, if he is obeyed in a thing other than that, in matters you minimize. So beware of him in your religion, O people, intercalating a month is an increase in unbelief whereby the unbelievers go astray; one year they make it profane, and hallow it another, [in order] to agree with the number that God has hallowed, and so profane what God has hallowed, and hallow what God has made profane. Time has completed its cycle [and is] as it was on the day that God created the heavens and the earth. The number of the months with God is twelve: [they were] in the Book of God on the day He created the heavens and the earth. Four of them are sacred, the three consecutive [months] and the Rajab [which is called the month of] Muḍar, which is between Jumādā [II] and Sha‘bān." "Now then, O people, you have a right over your wives and they have a right over you. You have [the right] that they should not cause anyone of whom you dislike to tread on your beds; and that they should not commit any open indecency (fāḥishah). If they do, then God permits you to forsake them in bed and to beat them, but not severely. If they abstain from [evil], they have the right to their food and clothing in accordance with custom (bi’l-ma‘rūf). Treat women well, for they are [like] captives ('awan) with you and do not possess anything for themselves. You have taken them only as a trust from God, and you have made the enjoyment of their persons lawful by the word of God, so understand and listen to my words, O people. I have conveyed the Message, and have left you with something which, if you hold fast to it, you will never go astray: that is, the Book of God and the sunnah of His Prophet. Listen to my words, O people, for I have conveyed the Message and understand [it]. Know for certain that every Muslim is a brother of another Muslim, and that all Muslims are brethren. It is not lawful for a person [to take] from his brother except that which he has given him willingly, so do not wrong yourselves. O God, have I not conveyed the message?" It was reported [to me] that the people said, "O God, yes," and the Messenger of God said, "O God, bear witness."