"In the name of the most merciful God, Abdallah Athik Ibn Abi Quhafa, to the rest of the true believers; health and happiness, and the mercy and blessing of God be upon you. I praise the most high God, and I pray for his prophet Mohammed. This is to acquaint you that I intend to send the true believers into Syria, to take it out of the hands of the infidels, And I would have you know, that the fighting for religion is an act of obedience to God."

"Whoever amongst you worshipped Muhammad, then Muhammad is dead, but whoever worshipped Allah, Allah is alive and will never die. Allah said: 'Muhammad is not but a messenger. [Other] messengers have passed on before him. So if he was to die or be killed, would you turn back on your heels [to unbelief]? And he who turns back on his heels will never harm Allah at all; but Allah will reward the grateful.' " (Quran 3.144)"

"In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. This is the (final) command of Abu Bakr ibn Abu Quhafah, which he writes as he is exiting this world of the Hereafter... a time during which a disbeliever comes to believe, a wicked-doer comes to have faith, and a liar tells the truth: Verily, I appoint over you Umar ibn al-Khattab as my successor, so listen to him and obey him... If he acts justly, then that is what I think of him and that is what I know about him. But if he changes for the worse (i.e., he begins to act unjustly), then for each person is that which he has earned. Goodness is what I wanted, and I do not know anything of the Unseen world. "And whose who do wrong will come to know by what overturning they will be overturned." Quran, Chapter 26, verse 227"

"It is a matter of great shame that the birds wake up in the morning before you."

"I have been given the authority over you, and I am not the best of you. If I do well, help me; and if I do wrong, set me right. Sincere regard for truth is loyalty and disregard for truth is treachery. The weak amongst you shall be strong with me until I have secured his rights, if God wills; and the strong amongst you shall be weak with me until I have wrested from him the rights of others, if God wills. Obey me so long as I obey God and His Messenger. But if I disobey God and His Messenger, you owe me no obedience. Arise for your prayer, God have mercy upon you."

"Abu Bakr al-Siddiq said to Khalid ibn al-Walid: 'Strive for death, then you will be given life.'"واحرص على الموت توهب لك الحياة" Al-ʿIqd al-Farīd author Ibn Abd Rabbih (1/92 )"

"We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.... We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home."

"Iraq is a kingdom ruled by a Sunni Arab government founded on the wreckage of Ottoman rule. This government rules over a Kurdish segment, the majority of which is ignorant, that includes persons with personal ambitions who lead it to abandon it [the government] under the pretext that it does not belong to their ethnicity. [The government also rules over] an ignorant Shiite majority that belongs to the same ethnicity of the government, but the persecutions that had befallen them as a result of Turkish rule, which did not enable them to take part in governance and exercise it, drove a deep wedge between the Arab people divided into these two sects. Unfortunately, all of this made this majority, or the persons who harbor special aspirations, the religious among them, the seekers of posts without qualification, and those who did not benefit materially from the new rule, to pretend that they are still being persecuted because they are Shiites."

"In 2002, as the American and British governments prepared their plans for the swift invasion and what they confidently assumed would be a short occupation of Iraq, they would have been wise to look at that earlier occupation. The British had assumed then that it would be easy, that the locals would welcome them or at least remain quiescent, and that they would find an obliging Arab ruler to act as their proxy. Moreover, Iraq would pay for itself by exporting wheat and, possibly, the oil that was yet to be exploited. Those illusions barely lasted a year. In the summer of 1920, British forces were stretched to the limit as they tried to contain widespread revolts across the country. Although the British thought they had found their ruler in Feisal, whom they made king the following year, he never proved to be the compliant ruler they wanted. Iraq remained an uneasy and troublesome part of the British sphere of influence right up to the 1950s."