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[Sayyid Qutb] I cry out to the people and to their fedayeen youth to be on guard and never cease performing their sacred duty under any pressure.

If the ministry chooses to heed the warning, leave the people to their struggle, and stop encircling the fedayeen, it will have our thanks and our excuse. None of us asks the ministry to do more than it can bear.

None of us tells the ministry to declare war today before the preparations are complete (1). But we appeal to it: beware of trimming the people's claws; beware of encircling the movement of popular struggle. The nation stands ready, and the fedayeen are here.

I say this knowing what I say: the fedayeen movement today is stronger than the government. It will not surrender itself quietly and submissively.

It will fight the English, kill the English, and cut off supplies from the English. If the ministry chooses to clear its path, so much the better. Otherwise, the fedayeen movement will want to remove the obstacles and clear the road.

I say this knowing what I say. I say it while I recoil in pity and fear at the thought of the grave consequences if the government confronts the fedayeen and tries to enforce the law on carrying weapons, as it has threatened. These consequences are frightening, and they will not pass easily. The fedayeen movement is determined to act. Woe to anyone who stands in its way.

The government can seize the visible battalions, the battalions of drums, pipes, and parades in the streets and squares. Those battalions have no value, and the nation will lose nothing if they join the government.

As for the real fedayeen, the fedayeen who make no announcements about themselves or about

[Later compiler's note 2] (1) “Completing the preparations!” That was the royalists' excuse for retreating from jihad, and it is likewise the excuse of their contemporaries.