 When Farouk caught Hassanein reading passages from the Koran to his mother in her bedroom, he pulled out a handgun and threatened to shoot them, saying "you are disgracing the memory of my father, and if I end it by killing one of you, then God will forgive me, for it is according to our holy law as you both know".Distracting Farouk from thoughts of matricide was a meeting on 17 June 1940 with Lampson who demanded that Farouk dismiss Maher as prime minister and General al-Misri as chief of staff of the Egyptian Army, saying both were pro-Axis.Lampson wrote to London