ثورة فلسطين - أسبابها ونتائجها
The Palestine Revolt: Its Causes and Consequencesby Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā

Page 390

Normalized
transcript

Printed page 390

دسائسهم فيها ما بيناه من قبل من خدمة الدولة البريطانية وحملها مع حلفائها على مكافأتهم على ذلك بالتأييد الرسمي لمقصدها ففعلت، وهذه ترجمة الوثيقة الرسمية بذلك المعروفة (بوعد بلفور) مثير الفتن، وموقد نار الثورة، وموقظ الأمة العربية والشعوب الإسلامية من رقادها، كما بلّغه لزعيم اليهود المالي الأكبر:

عهد بلفور الجائر

نظارة الخارجية في 2 تشرين الثاني 1917

عزيزي اللورد روتشيلد:

إني بملء المسرة أنقل إليكم بالنيابة عن حكومة جلالة الملك التصريح التالي المفعم بالشعور مع مطامح اليهود الصهيونية، والذي طُرح على هيئة الوزارة وصدق عليه

أن حكومة جلالة الملك تنظر بعين الرضا إلى تأسيس وطن قومي للشعب اليهودي في فلسطين، وهي ستبذل الجهد لتسهيل السبل الموصلة إلى تلك الغاية على شرط أن لا يحدث ثم شيء يؤدي إلى الإجحاف بحقوق بقية السكان غير اليهود دينيًّا ومدنيًّا، أو يعبث بالحقوق والسنن السياسية التي يتمتع بها اليهود في أية بلاد أخرى

وأكون في غاية الامتنان إذا تفضلتم بإطلاع الاتحاد الصهيوني على هذا التصريح.

. .. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... لكم بإخلاص

. .. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... أرثور جيمس بلفور

اليهود والهيكل في حكم النصارى فالإسلام

(9) كانت الحكومات المسيحية قد طردت اليهود من مدينة المسيح الحق، واضطهدتهم أشد الاضطهاد، وجعلت مكان الهيكل الذي دمره طيطس أخيرًا مزبلة حتى غمرت الصخرة المقدسة في أعلاه بالأقذار، فلما جاء الإسلام المكمل لدين الله الذي شرعه على ألسنة أنبيائه وآخرهم موسى وداود وسليمان والمسيح برسالة محمد خاتم النبيين عليهم الصلاة والسلام - أعاد المسلمون تشريف ذلك المكان الذي سماه الله تعالى في كتابه بالمسجد الأقصى، وأسرى بعبده ورسوله إليه في

English
translation

their intrigues during it was what we have described before: serving the British state and inducing it and its allies to reward them with official support for their aim, which it did. Here is a translation of the official document known as the Balfour Declaration, which stirred strife, kindled the revolt, and awakened the Arab nation and Muslim peoples from sleep, as it was conveyed to the foremost Jewish financial leader:

The unjust Balfour pledge

Foreign Office, 2 November 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild:

I have great pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with the aspirations of Zionist Jews, which was presented to the Cabinet and approved:

His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine and will make every effort to ease the path to that goal, on condition that nothing take place there that prejudices the religious and civil rights of the remaining non-Jewish inhabitants or interferes with the rights and political customs enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

I would be most grateful if you would bring this declaration to the attention of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,

Arthur James Balfour

The Jews and the Temple under Christian and then Islamic rule

(9) Christian governments had expelled the Jews from the city of the true Messiah and persecuted them severely. They had made the place of the Temple, which Titus finally destroyed, into a rubbish heap, so that the sacred rock at its summit was covered in filth. Then Islam came, completing God's religion as ordained through His prophets, most recently Moses, David, Solomon, and the Messiah, with the mission of Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, peace be upon them all. Muslims restored honor to that place, which God Most High named al-Masjid al-Aqsa in His Book, and to which He carried His servant and messenger by night in

Analysis

Riḍā alleges that Zionists gained British support through wartime intrigue, then prints an Arabic rendering of the Balfour Declaration. This page establishes the wording he gave his Arabic readers. A high-resolution facsimile identified as the British Library original confirms that his Arabic differs in the rights clause, including "remaining inhabitants" for "existing communities" and "political customs" for "political status". It also replaces "it being clearly understood" with a condition formula. The British Library catalogs the original as Add MS 41178 A, folio 3, but its current catalog does not serve a digitized folio. Riḍā's rendering cannot replace the English document or prove the alleged intrigue. Riḍā next places the Temple site within an Islamic account of sacred history that continues on p. 391. Source details and URLs are in this page's apparatus.

Riḍā's statement that Titus destroyed the Temple has a firm historical core. Scholarship on Jewish responses to the event dates Titus's destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple to 70 CE. That confirms the ruler, event and date behind his short reference. It does not support the later theological claims Riḍā builds around the site.

His account of Christian rule combines two claims that require separate treatment. A modern Cambridge study describes Byzantine Jerusalem as an exclusively Christian city from which Jews were explicitly barred. That supports the broad exclusion claim for the Byzantine period, though not every Christian government or every phase of Roman and Byzantine rule. Another Cambridge study says the Temple Mount was turned into a garbage dump under the Byzantine Empire. This supports the broad condition Riḍā describes, but does not establish his added detail that filth covered the sacred rock or prove a single continuous government policy.

The Balfour policy process supports organized Zionist advocacy and direct British responsibility, but not Riḍā's reward claim. The surviving record traces proposed language from Zionist representatives through revision and War Cabinet approval before Balfour sent the declaration. British wartime strategy formed part of the setting, but these records do not establish that Jews collectively earned the declaration through unspecified service to Britain and its allies.