Writing in the same edition of Asharq al-Awsat, a suspicious Husayn Shabakshi asked, "How is it possible for the current Iraqi government to persuade its partisans among the sectarian militias which serve under it that it is a government for all Iraqis while it is bent on specifically provoking the sentiments of Sunnis in a clear and intentional manner?

Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, al-Mizan fi-Tafsir al-Qur'an (Beirut: al-Mu'assasa al-'Alami, 1383/1964) II, 395.

Menas was what Voile calls "a complete figure"; he had been soldier, hermit, and martyr, was internationally recognized, was venerated by both Christians and Muslims, and was in fact a national figure referred to by the Egyptian nationalist leader Ahmad Husayn in 1929 as a national hero who had resisted oppressors.