April 15, 1854 Karl Marx

April 15, 1854 India, Muslims, and Oil

Karl Marx (The Author of Das Kapital)- The Outbreak of the Crimean War with Russia

“War has at length been declared. The Royal Message was read yesterday in both Houses of Parliament-by Lord Aberdeen in the Lords, and by Lord J.Russell in the Commons. It describes the measures about to be taken as “ac­tive steps to oppose the encroachment of Russia upon Turkey.” Tomorrow The London Gazette will publish the official notification of war, and on Friday the address in reply to the message will become the subject of the Par­liamentary debate.

The Koran and the Mussulman (Muslims) legislation emanating from it reduce the geography and ethnography of the various peoples to the simple and con­venient distinction of two nations and of two countries; those of the Faith­ful and of the Infidels. The Infidel is “harby,” i.e., the enemy. Islamism proscribes the nation of the Infidels, constituting a state of permanent hos­tility between the Mussulman and the unbeliever. In that sense the cor­sair ships of the Berber States were the holy fleet of Islam. How, then, is the existence of Christian subjects of the Porte to be reconciled with the Koran?”

Source: Lewis, Bernard. A Middle East Mosaic Fragments of Life, Letters and History, Random House 2000, p. 294-299