The original letter sent by ex-Sultan Abdulhamid II, after he was removed from power in Istanbul and exiled to Salonica in Greece, to his mentor in Damascus, Sheikh Mahmud Abu al-Shamat. The letter was translated into Arabic in January 1919 one year after Abdulhamid death in February 1918. In his letter, the ex-Sultan “kisses the hands” of Abu al-Shamat and explains why he had been removed from power by the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), a group of young Ottoman officers, in 1909. The CUP had asked him to grant a home to the Jews in Palestine for a staggering sum of 150 million gold British Pounds. He says that he “curtly refused” and told them, “if you paid me the world’s worth and not 150 million gold British Pounds, I will refuse your request.” He added, “I served Islam for more than 30 years and will not blacken the Muslim pages of my fathers and grandfathers, the Sultans and Caliphates” by agreeing to sell Palestine. He added that this would “blacken the Ottoman Empire and the Muslim World and bring eternal disgrace.”