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One thing is certain: the reforming spirit, in its various manifestations, has already produced profound changes throughout Islam. The Moslem world of to-day is vastly different from the Moslem world of a century ago. The Wahabi leaven has destroyed abuses and has rekindled a purer religious faith. Even its fanatical zeal has not been without moral compensations.
This was obviously an adaptation of Western nationalism to the traditional Arab ideal of a theocratic democracy already realized in the Meccan caliphate and the Wahabi government of the Nejd. This second stirring of Arab nationalism was likewise of short duration. Turkey was now ruled by Sultan Abdul Hamid, and Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic policy looked toward good relations with his Arab subjects.
So rapid has been Ikhwanism's progress that it to-day absolutely dominates the entire Nejd, and it is headed by desert Arabia's most powerful chieftain, Bin Saud, a descendant of the Saud who headed the Wahabi movement a hundred years ago. The fanaticism of the Ikhwans is said to be extraordinary, while their programme is the old Wahabi dream of a puritan conversion of the whole Islamic world.
He ascended the throne in 1804, and reigned for fifty-two years. He found his country in dire distress at the time of his accession, owing to the attacks of the fanatical Wahabi from Central Arabia, who had carried their victorious arms right down to Maskat, and had imposed their bigoted rules and religious regulations on the otherwise liberal-minded Mohammedans of Eastern Arabia.
In the dim distance, to our left, arose the mountains of Arabia; beyond, the flat coast-line of El Hasa, encircling that wild, mysterious land of Nejd, where the Wahabi dwell a land forbidden to the infidel globe-trotter.
Soon the Wahabi leaven began to produce profound disturbances in the most distant quarters. For example, in northern India a Wahabi fanatic, Seyid Ahmed, so roused the Punjabi Mohammedans that he actually built up a theocratic state, and only his chance death prevented a possible Wahabi conquest of northern India.
With Turkish aid on the one hand, and British support on the other, Sultan Sayid succeeded in relieving his country from these terrible scourges, and drove them back into the central province of Nejd, from which they had carried their bloodthirsty and fanatical wars over nearly the whole of the peninsula, and, when all fear from the Wahabi was over, Sultan Sayid extended his conquests in all directions.
He early displayed a strong bent for learning and piety, studying theology at the Moorish University of Fez and afterwards travelling widely over North Africa preaching a reform of the prevailing religious abuses. He then made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and there his reformist zeal was still further quickened by the Wahabi teachers.
At present let us examine the other aspects of the Mohammedan Revival, with special reference to its religious and cultural phases. The Wahabi movement was a strictly puritan reformation. Its aim was the reform of abuses, the abolition of superstitious practices, and a return to primitive Islam.
'Who is it? 'A consistent man, said Wali Dad. 'He fought you in '46, when he was a warrior-youth; refought you in '57, and he tried to fight you in '71, but you had learned the trick of blowing men from guns too well. Now he is old; but he would still fight if he could. 'Is he a Wahabi, then? Why should he answer to a Mahratta laonee if he be Wahabi or Sikh? said I.
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