Translation of the letter:

Behold, O people! Beware; because you have practiced religion without guidance from God, taken unknown paths, changed in the continuous vicissitudes of the time, and been broken amid the fitnahs of the world, and now you have become the followers of those whom God has not wanted you to follow, so your guardians have brought you out of light into darkness and legislated for you as religion what God has not permitted; as He has said: ﴿أَمْ لَهُمْ شُرَكَاءُ شَرَعُوا لَهُمْ مِنَ الدِّينِ مَا لَمْ يَأْذَنْ بِهِ اللَّهُ ۚ وَلَوْلَا كَلِمَةُ الْفَصْلِ لَقُضِيَ بَيْنَهُمْ ۗ وَإِنَّ الظَّالِمِينَ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ﴾[1]; “Or do they have partners who legislate for them as religion what God has not permitted?! While were it not for the Word of Division, judgment would have been made between them, and indeed, the oppressors shall have a painful punishment.”

Indeed, the warner warned, the truth came to light, and falsehood was dishonored; but most people do not know the truth and hate it. Yes, if the truth were compatible with their desires and did not endanger their world, they would all know and accept it, and not even two of them would disagree about it, but it appears contrary to people’s old desires, demolishes their beliefs, which are as weak as a spider’s house, and endangers their worldly possessions, and this is where the knowers of the truth decrease and its acceptors diminish.

When the truth appears, the wealthy worry about their wealth, the powerful fear for their power, the famous grieve for their fame, subordinates go to their masters, and imitators ask for the fatwa of their maraji‘ al-taqlid. Therefore, it is always the weak, the poor, the unknown, freemen, and researchers who respond to the truth and follow it; because they have no wealth that worries them, nor power that makes them fearful, nor fame that makes them sad, nor masters that call them to account, nor maraji‘ that impose their belief on them under the name of a fatwa. When Islam appeared in Mecca, its poor responded to it and its wealthy denied it, its weak supported it and its powerful stood against it, its unknown joined it and its famous turned away from it, its freemen followed it and its subordinates followed the chiefs of their tribes, its researchers examined it and its imitators imitated their fathers.

Indeed, Islam started with loneliness, and now it has returned to its first loneliness; except that its last loneliness is greater than its first loneliness; because in its first loneliness people worshiped idols made of stone and wood, and in the last loneliness people worship idols made of blood and flesh!